The Eloquence of Art: Essays in Honour of Henry Maguire 0815394594, 9780815394594

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The Eloquence of Art

For those within the fields of art history and Byzantine studies, Professor Henry Maguire needs no introduction. His publications transformed the way art histor­ ians approach medieval art through his insightful integration of rhetoric, poetry and non-canonical objects into the study of Byzantine art. His ground-breaking studies of Byzantine art that consider the natural world, magic and imperial imagery, among other themes, have redefined the ways medieval art is inter­ preted. From notable monuments to small-scale and privately used objects, Maguire’s work has guided a generation of scholars to new conclusions about the place of art and its function in Byzantium. In this volume, 23 of Henry Maguire’s colleagues and friends have contributed papers in his honour, result­ ing in studies that reflect the broad range of his scholarly interests. Andrea Olsen Lam teaches art history for Pepperdine University’s campus in Washington, DC. Her current project on the Visitation demonstrates the hereto­ fore overlooked significance of the Virgin Mary’s pregnancy in Byzantine art and ritual. Her other research interests include early medieval art that reflects Jewish–Christian–Muslim interactions and the history of iconoclasms. Rossitza Schroeder is Associate Professor of art history at St Vladimir’s Ortho­ dox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, NY. Her primary field of research is Byzantine art. Her current project sheds light on the interactions between Byzantine monastic practice and visual representations. She is also writing on Byzantine–Ottoman–Venetian relations as manifested in Gentile Bellini’s 1480 portrait of Sultan Mehmed II.

Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies

General Editors Leslie Brubaker Rhoads Murphey John Haldon Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies is devoted to the history, culture and archaeology of the Byzantine and Ottoman worlds of the East Mediterra­ nean region from the fifth to the twentieth century. It provides a forum for the publication of research completed by scholars from the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham, and those with similar research interests. A Tenth-Century Byzantine Military Manual: The Sylloge Tacticorum Translated by Georgios Chatzelis and Jonathan Harris Writing about Byzantium The History of Niketas Choniates Theresa Urbainczyk The Cult of St Anna in Byzantium Eirini Panou Eastern Trade and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages Pegolotti’s Ayas-Tabriz Itinerary and its Commercial Context Thomas Sinclair The Eloquence of Art Essays in Honour of Henry Maguire Edited by Andrea Olsen Lam and Rossitza Schroeder For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/series/BBOS

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies

University of Birmingham

Professor Henry Maguire

The Eloquence of Art Essays in Honour of Henry Maguire Edited by Andrea Olsen Lam and Rossitza Schroeder

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Andrea Olsen Lam and Rossitza Schroeder; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Maguire, Henry, 1943- honouree. | Olsen Lam, Andrea, editor. |

Schroeder, Rossitza, editor.

Title: The eloquence of art : essays in honour of Henry Maguire / edited by

Andrea Olsen Lam and Rossitza Schroeder.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. |

Series: Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman studies |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019055854 (print) | LCCN 2019055855 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780815394594 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351185592 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Art, Byzantine. | Art and society–Byzantine Empire.

Classification: LCC N6250 .E46 2020 (print) | LCC N6250 (ebook) |

DDC 709.02/14–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055854

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055855

ISBN: 978-0-815-39459-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-18559-2 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies Volume 26

Contents

List of figures Preface Henry Maguire’s publications List of abbreviations Notes on contributors Introduction 1 Picturing Thessaloniki

x

xx

xxi

xxx

xxxii

1

4

CHARALAMBOS BAKIRTZIS

2 An icon of John the Baptist

18

SARAH BASSETT

3 Internationalizing Russia’s Byzantine heritage: medieval

enamels and chromolithographic geopolitics

29

ELENA N. BOECK

4 Gender and gesture in Byzantine images

47

LESLIE BRUBAKER

5 Portrait of a lady

71

ANNEMARIE WEYL CARR

6 The perils of Polyeuktos: on the manifestations of a martyr in

Byzantine art, cult and literature ANTHONY CUTLER

91

viii

Contents

7 Hanging by a thread: the death of Judas in early Christian art

115

FELICITY HARLEY

8 Claiming the Cross: reconsidering the Stavelot Triptych

131

LYNN JONES

9 The making of an icon: ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’

146

ANDREA OLSEN LAM

10 Firm flowers in the artifice of transience

162

EUNICE DAUTERMAN MAGUIRE

11 Art and efficacy in an icon of St George

188

LISA MAHONEY

12 Contexts for the Christos Paschon

204

MARGARET MULLETT

13 The calendar of saints in Hodegon lectionaries

218

ROBERT S. NELSON

14 Multiple phase churches in Cappadocia

251

ROBERT OUSTERHOUT

15 Visions of the Passion imagined through the agency of voice and icon

267

BISSERA PENTCHEVA

16 The season of salvation: images and texts at Li Monaci in Apulia

283

LINDA SAFRAN

17 King David narratives, messianic politics and the Dura-Europos Synagogue

300

KÄRA L. SCHENK

18 From a conqueror to a legitimate heir: the Byzantine princely family, Gentile Bellini and Mehmed II Fatih ROSSITZA SCHROEDER

318

Contents

19 The giraffe that came to Constantinople

ix

336

NANCY ŠEVČENKO

20 The many-eyed archangels in early Byzantine art

350

BROOKE SHILLING

21 Absence of nomina sacra in post-iconoclastic images of Christ and the Virgin: mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople

366

NATALIA TETERIATNIKOV

22 Integrated yet segregated: eastern Islamic art in twelfth-century Byzantium

387

ALICIA WALKER

23 The Mother of God in the earthly paradise

407

WARREN T. WOODFIN

Index

425

Figures

All illustrations appear with the kind permission of the individuals and institutions that own them with the exception of those that are in the public domain. 1.1 Corfu, Monastery of Virgin Platytera, icon. Allegory of

Jerusalem on High 1.2 Thessaloniki, Rotunda (Mausoleum of Constantine), dome, north

panel, wall mosaic. Basiliscos, Priscos and the Constantinian

military signum 1.3 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, south pier of the

sanctuary, wall mosaic. St Demetrios with the builders of the

basilica 1.4 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, north pier of the

sanctuary, wall mosaic. The Virgin and St Theodore 1.5 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, south pier of the

sanctuary, wall mosaic. St Demetrios and the deacon 1.6 Corfu, Antivouniotissa Museum, icon (inv. no. A.M.157).

St Demetrios and Thessaloniki 1.7 Moschopolis, National Museum of Medieval Art in Korytsa,

icon. St Demetrios and Thessaloniki 2.1 Kiev, Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum, icon

(inv. no. MX–113). John the Baptist 3.1 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins

(Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). Front cover of the book 3.2 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins

(Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). The title page with a portrait

of the collector 3.3 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins

(Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). The dedication page

(dedicated to Tsar Alexander III) featuring a specially prepared,

large, filigreed sheet of aluminium

5

7

9

10

11

13

15

19

30

32

33

Figures 3.4 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins

(Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). The face and hands of the

Mother of God from the Khakhouli triptych (colour plate 15 in the

book; the place of origin is not mentioned by name in the book) 3.5 V. V. Stasov, Istoriia knigi Vizantiiskiia emali A.B. Zvenigorods­ kago [Histoire du livre Les émaux byzantins, [collection de]

A.W. Zwenigorodskoi] (St. Petersburg: [s.n.], 1898). Front cover

of the book 4.1 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, main church, apse mosaic.

Transfiguration 4.2 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Archangel Michael at

Chonai 4.3 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Mary and Christ and

saints and angels 4.4 Ravenna, San Vitale, apse. View showing the side panels with

Justinian and Theodora 4.5 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, southwest gallery, mosaic.

Constantine XI Monomachos, Christ and Zoe 4.6 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, southwest gallery, mosaic. John II

Komnenos, Virgin Mary and Eirene 4.7 Ravenna, San Vitale, sanctuary, mosaic. Justinian panel 4.8 Ravenna, San Vitale, sanctuary, mosaic. Theodora panel 4.9 Nicosia, Archaeological Museum, silver plate. Marriage of

David and Michal. 4.10 Trier, Cathedral treasury, ivory plaque. Constantine VI and

Eirene dedicating the church of St Euphemia (?) 4.11 Rome, Palazzo Venezia, ivory box, lid. Basil, Christ and Eudokia

with gifting couple 4.12 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 78r. Gregory preaching after a hailstorm 4.13 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 43v. Family of Gregory of Nazianzos; funeral of Gregory’s

brother; death of Gregory’s sister 4.14 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 87v. Conversion of Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew

with Christ and Zachias; Christ and the rich youth and the

conversion of Nathanael; conversion, baptism and ordination of

Gregory’s father 4.15 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 104r. Life of St Basil of Caesarea 4.16 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 332v. Life of St Cyprian 4.17 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 440r. Constantine’s dream; Constantine’s victory at the

Milvian Bridge; Helena discovering the True Cross

xi

37

40

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

55

56

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61

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xii

Figures

4.18 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 452v. Life of St Gregory of Nazianzos 4.19 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos),

fol. 264v (detail). Crossing the Red Sea with the Dance of

Miriam 5.1 Athens, Byzantine and Christian Museum, icon (inv. no. BM

1108), obverse. St George with female donor 5.2 Athens, Byzantine and Christian Museum, icon (inv. no. BM

1108), reverse. Two female saints 5.3 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Moses receiving

the Law with the donor, archbishop Neilos (?) of Sinai and

Raithou 5.4 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Moses and Aaron

receiving the Law with the donor, Theodosios tou Saloustiou 5.5 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. St John Chrysostom

and St George with a donor monk 5.6 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Archangel

Michael with a donor monk 5.7 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. St George with

King David II Bagratuni, the Builder 6.1 BAV MS 1613 (Menologion of Basil II), fol. 302. Martyrdom of

St Polyeuktos 6.2 Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, Cod. 521 (Imperial

Menologion), fol. 58v. Martyrdom of St Polyeuktos 6.3 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, Cod. gr. 512 (Menologion), fol. 2v. Saints of the first half of January 6.4 BAV MS 1156 (lectionary), fol. 294r. St Polyeuktos, St Markianos,

St John of Saba and St Theodosios the Koinobiarch 6.5 Venice, Basilica of San Marco, Treasury. Reverse of icon of

Archangel Michael 6.6 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, Chapel of St Euthymios,

fresco, west wall. Prayer of St Euthymios’ parents, angel of the

annunciation and presentation of the child Euthymios 6.7 Staro Nagoričino, Church of St George, fresco, north pier.

St Polyeuktos 6.8 Dečani, Church of the Saviour, nave, fresco, arch of southwest

bay. St Polyeuktos 6.9 Dečani, Church of the Saviour, nave, north choir, pier.

St Polyeuktos 7.1 Brescia, Museo Civico dell’Eta Cristiana, Brescia Casket, 380s

(inv. avorio 1). Back panel. 7.2 Brescia, Museo Civico dell’Eta Cristiana, Brescia Casket, 380

(inv. avorio 1) Line drawing of detail of back panel: Peter with

Ananias and Sapphira, Suicide of Judas

65

66

72

73

77

78

79

81

82

94

95

98 99

100

103

105

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107

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120

Figures 7.3 Rossano, Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra, The Rossano Gospels

(Codex Purpureus Rossanensis), fol. 8r. 7.4 London, British Museum, Maskell Casket (inv. no. MME

1856.06–23.5). The Hanging of Judas and the Crucifixion 7.5 Arles, Musée de l’Arles et de la Provence antiques, Servanne

Sarcophagus (inv. no. FAN.92.00.2503) including the drawn

reconstruction of missing components proposed by Wilpert 7.6 Arles, Musée de l’Arles et de la Provence antiques. Line drawing

of Servanne Sarcophagus (inv. no. FAN.92.00.2503) by Pierre de

Beaumesnil c. 1783 8.1 New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, Stavelot

Triptych. Full view, wings and doors open 8.2 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol.

440r. Constantine’s dream; Constantine’s victory at the Milvian

Bridge; Helena discovering the True Cross 9.1 Thessaloniki, Church of Hosios David. Apse mosaic 9.2 Bachkovo, Bachkovo Monastery, ossuary, narthex, fresco. Christ

with prophets 9.3 Sofia, Crypt of the cathedral of Alexander Nevski, the Poganovo

icon. Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou 10.1 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Textile fragment

(inv. no. 90.5.240). A rose basket/two-zone capital as a soft/hard

cipher of luxury and strength, wool and linen tapestry weave,

probably from a curtain 10.2 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, gold earring (inv. no. BZ

1953.12.97). A rose in hardened outlines with diagonal leaf-

shaped sepals, softened with a pearl’s reflections in each petal 10.3 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Textile fragment

(inv. no. 90.5.808). A rose-rich panel of earth and ocean medal­ lions enclosed by a rose-vine under a heavenly cross, on a frag­ mentary wool and linen hanging, missing much of the linen

plain-weave background 10.4a London, Victoria and Albert Museum, silk fragments from the field and border of the Marwan tiraz, weft-faced compound twill (inv. no. 1314–1888). Rose medallions and spandrel roses 10.4b London, Victoria and Albert Museum, silk fragments from the

field and border of the Marwan tiraz, weft-faced compound twill.

Detail of rose garland border of buds or petals between bands of

pearls and jewels 10.5 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hanging fragment

(inv. no. 90.5.905). A rose-grid and prosperity-themed frieze,

xiii

121

122

124

124

132

135

147

153

154

163

165

166

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167

xiv Figures

10.6

10.7

10.8

10.9

10.10

10.11

10.12

10.13

10.14

10.15

10.16 11.1 11.2 11.3

part of a probable curtain pair joined across the top, linen and wool plain weave and tapestry-weave New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Synagogue, ceramic ceiling tile (inv. no. 33.276). A four-petal rose with diagonal sepals London, University College, The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College, carved and pierced shell exca­ vated at Qau. Roses with diagonal sepals New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos, textile fragment (inv. no. 1933.48). Roses of four concentric colour­ zones, with green ground between the petals suggesting diagonal calyces, woven in wool tapestry Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, ‘Green Carpet Mosaic’ from Antioch (inv. no. BZ.1938.75). Detail with four-petal circular roses divided diagonally and colour-zoned in a mosaic pavement, for a garland-like lattice of rosebuds or petals London, Victoria and Albert Museum. A rose medallion, concen­ trically colour-zoned with curved diagonal sepals and a cruci­ form centre (inv. no. 773–1886) New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Gerasa mosaic floor (inv. no. 1932.1736). Rosebuds or petals connected by open roses in a garland-like lattice playing with light and shading, with an inscription confirming the pattern’s connotations of well­ being Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Woolen tapestry with a boar hunt (inv. no. BZ.1937.14). Detail of a four-petal rose securing the corner of a garlanded frame Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, Antioch ‘Striding Lion Mosaic.’ Detail of a rose curling cupped, tapered petals toward concentric colour zones and a cruciform centre New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fragmentary wool rug (inv. no. 31.2.1). Detail of a rose framing a chromatically effaced cross, its arms disguised by discontinuous colours to hide its cruciform identity Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Seal of Leo, imperial proto­ spatharios and strategos of Aigaion Pelagos (inv. no. BZS.1958.106.3284). A rose outlined around the cross, enclosing diagonal inward-pointing palmettes in the petals Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, MS 5 (Gospel book), f. 14. A rose/cross with radiant sepals heading a title medallion London, British Museum, icon. St George and the boy of Mytilene Freiburg im Breisgau, Augustinermuseum, G 23/IC, fol. 1c recto. St George and St Theodore Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity, column painting. St George

168

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180 181 190 197 198

Figures 14.1 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery. General view looking south 14.2 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery. Ground plan, showing phases 14.3 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, nave. Looking northeast, into the apse and through the arch into the north aisle 14.4 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, north aisle. Looking east, with loculus in the east wall and the remains of a cell above 14.5 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, east bay of the north aisle, fresco. Ascension 14.6 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, northern chapels. Looking northeast 14.7 Sarıca (or Kepez) Valley, looking east. Church 1 in the cone to the right and Church 2 in the outcropping to the left 14.8 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2. Ground plan 14.9 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2. Looking east, with the entrance to the narthex to the left and features of the hermitage on the upper right 14.10 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, nave. Looking north 14.11 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, narthex. Looking north into the dome 14.12 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, hermitage chapel. Dome 14.13 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, hermitage burial chamber. Looking east 14.14 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, view from the hermitage chapel entrance. Looking down and to the west 15.1 Sticheron on Leo VI ἐπὶ ξύλῳ βλέπουσα κρεμάμενον, Χριστέ, transcribed by Alexander Lingas from Vienna, National Library, Theol. MS Gr. 181, fol. 238, laid out with stemless notes by Laura Steenberge 15.2a Hannover, Kestner Museum, ivory leaf from a diptych (inv. no. WM XXIa 044b). Crucifixion and Deposition (obverse) 15.2b Hannover, Kestner Museum, ivory leaf from a diptych (inv. no. WM XXIa 044b). Cross (reverse) 15.3 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia. Interior view of the nave 15.4 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia. View of the sanctuary 15.5 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia. Apse mosaic 15.6 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, apse mosaic. Close-up of the Virgin and Child 16.1 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, 1314/15. Ground Plan 16.2 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, view to east wall 16.3 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, west end of north wall. St Onouphrios 16.4 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, left apse seen from north aisle. John, Jonah, Annunciation

xv 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260

261 262 263 263 264 265

268 269 270 271 276 277 278 284 285 286 287

xvi Figures 16.5 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, left apse, detail. Prophet Jonah over John the Evangelist 16.6 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, detail of main apse (1997). Crucifixion and dedicatory inscription 16.7 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, detail of central apse (2006). Crucifixion 16.8 Ugento, Cripta del Crocefisso, detail of ceiling 16.9 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, detail of ceiling. Embracing couple 16.10 Amiens Cathedral, west facade. Lust 16.11 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Kärntner Landesarchiv, GV-Hs. 6/35 (Millstatt Sacramentary), fol. 86v. Gemini as embracing couple 17.1 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue. Torah shrine and ‘temple panel’ 17.2 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, wall above Torah shrine, lower panel. Blessings of Jacob and David/Orpheus (drawing) 17.3 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, wall above Torah shrine, upper panel. Solomon (?) as king over Israel 17.4 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue. Fragmentary procession with the Ark of the Covenant 17.5 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fragmentary procession with the Ark of the Coven­ ant. Drawings by Carl Kraeling showing detail of lulav bundle 17.6 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fragmentary procession with the Ark of the Coven­ ant. Drawings by Carl Kraeling showing detail of the separation of the willow branch 17.7 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. Loss of the Ark at Ebenezer 17.8 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. The Ark destroys the Philistine idol and is sent away on a cart pulled by oxen 17.9 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. The Jerusalem Temple 17.10 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. Samuel anoints David king 17.11 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. David and Saul in the wilderness 18.1 London, National Gallery, Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Mehmed II 18.2 Pisanello, Medal of John VIII Palaiologos (obverse)

288 289 290 292 293 294 295 301

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307 308

309 310 311 312 319 320

Figures 18.3 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, southwest vestibule, mosaic.

Constantine and Justinian offering Constantinople and Hagia

Sophia to an enthroned Virgin and Child 18.4 Prizren, Church of Bogorodica Leviška, fresco. Portrait of the

Serbian king Stefan Milutin 18.5 Athens, Byzantine Museum, Chrysobull to the Metropolitan

Nikolaos of Monemvasia. Portrait of emperor Andronikos II

and Christ 18.6 Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Gr. Z. 516 (=904)

(collection of scientific treatises), fol. 3. Portrait of an unknown

sultan with a later identification ‘Ptolemy’ 18.7 Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Codex Hist.

2°601, fol. 2r. Portrait of emperor Andronikos III 19.1 Chicago, Art Institute. Mosaic of man leading giraffe 19.2 Lod, floor mosaic 19.3 Beaune, Musée des Beaux-arts de Beaune, Jacques-Raymond

Brascassat, Le Passage de la giraffe à Arnay-le-Duc

(oil on canvas, 1827) 19.4 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Plut. 5.38

(Octateuch), fol. 6r. Genesis 19.5 BAV, MS gr. 747 (Octateuch), fol. 133v. The unclean animals 20.1 Kiti, Church of the Panagia Angeloktistos. Apse mosaic 20.2 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, apse mosaic. Triumphal

arch, north spandrel 20.3 Stobi, baptistery. Floor mosaic 20.4 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Plut. 1.56

(Rabbula Gospels), folio 1v. 20.5 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Liturgical fan from the Riha

treasure 20.6 Istanbul, Istanbul Archaeological Museum, Liturgical fan from

the Stuma treasure 20.7 Thessaloniki, Church of Hosios David. Apse mosaic 20.8 S. Apollinare in Classe, apse mosaic, triumphal arch, north side.

Archangel Michael (pre-restoration photograph with painted

plaster) 20.9 Nicaea, Church of the Dormition, apse mosaic, bema, north side.

Angels 21.1 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, apse mosaic. Virgin and Child

enthroned 21.2 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, nave. Diagram of the north

tympanum 21.3 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, narthex, mosaic over imperial

door. Emperor before Christ 21.4 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, room above the southwest

vestibule, north wall, lunette mosaic. Fragmentary Deesis

xvii

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Figures

21.5 Moscow, State Historical Museum, Gr. 129 (Khludov Psalter), fol. 1v 21.6 Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, mosaic over the entrance. Christ as the Good Shepherd 21.7 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, church, apse mosaic. Transfiguration 21.8 Ravenna, S. Apollinare Nuovo, North wall, mosaic. Virgin and Child enthroned 21.9 Nicaea, Koimesis Church, apse mosaic. Virgin and Child 21.10 Cambridge, Harvard Art Museum. Coin of emperor John Tzimiskes 21.11 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, narthex, mosaic over imperial door. Emperor before Christ, detail of Christ 21.12a Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Coin of emperor Leo VI, obverse. Virgin Mary 21.12b Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Coin of emperor Leo VI, reverse. Emperor Leo VI 22.1 Palermo, Cappella Palatina. Detail of ceiling 22.2 London, British Library, Ms. Add. 15268, (Histoire universelle [Histoire ancienne jusqu'à Cesar]) fol. 1v. Frontispiece showing scenes of merrymaking 22.3 London, British Library, Ms. Add. 15268, (Histoire universelle [Histoire ancienne jusqu'à Cesar]) fol. 1v. Detail of frontispiece showing scenes of merrymaking 22.4 Innsbruck, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. Plate of Rukn al-Dawla Dawud (inv. no. K 1036) 22.5 Venice, Treasury of San Marco. Censer in the shape of a pavilion 22.6 Washington, DC, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Censer 22.7 Washington, DC, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Tabouret 22.8 St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Beryozovo cup (inv. no W-3) 22.9 St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Detail of Beryozovo cup (inv. no W-3) 22.10 St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Detail of Interior of Beryozovo cup (inv. no W-3) showing an image of St George 22.11 Copenhagen, The David Collection. Candlestick (inv. no. 27/1971) 22.12 Copenhagen, The David Collection. Detail of candlestick (inv. no. 27/1971) with lobes depicting plants and animals 22.13 Stuttgart, Linden-Museum. Candlestick 23.1 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, Cod. gr. 1186 (Christian Topography), fol. 66v. Map of Earth

371 372 373 374 375 380 381 382 382 389

390

391 395 395 396 397 398 398 399 399 400 400 408

Figures 23.2 Paphos, Hermitage of St Neophytos, fresco. St Andrew the Fool with flowers of Paradise 23.3 Paris, BnF MS gr. 74 (Gospel book), fol. 51v. The Last Judgment 23.4 Paris, BnF MS gr. 74 (Gospel book), fol. 93v. The Last Judgment with Stoudite monks 23.5 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Italo-Byzantine ivory. The Last Judgment 23.6 Torcello, Santa Maria Assunta, west wall, mosaic. The Last Judgment 23.7 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, icon. The Last Judgment 23.8 BAV, MS gr. 1162 (Homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos), fol. 48v. Anastasis, Christ leading Adam and Eve into Paradise, and the Virgin adored by angels in Paradise 23.9 BAV, MS gr. 1162 (Homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos), fol. 50v. The Virgin and Child adored by angels and prophets in Paradise 23.10 Collection of the author: Nineteenth-century Russian icon with the Anastasis and related scenes

xix 410 411 412 412 413 414

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Preface

This volume is a humble expression of our gratitude for Henry Maguire’s friendship, mentoring and excellent scholarship, which continue unabated during his active ‘retirement.’ The editors would like to thank the contributing authors, the board at the Birmingham Studies Series, especially Leslie Brubaker and Routledge editor, Michael Greenwood, for their support of this project from its inception. We are especially grateful to the Koç University Stavros Niarchos Foundation and its Centre for Late Antique and Byzantine Studies (GABAM) and to the History of Art Department at the Johns Hopkins University, whose financial support made possible the colour plates and the index. The core of the volume was formed around a celebration of Henry Maguire’s career sponsored by the History of Art Department and Prof. Michael Fried in Spring 2009 at the Johns Hopkins University, organized by Andrea Olsen Lam, and a session at the 40th Byzantine Studies Conference in the Fall of 2014, organized by Ros­ sitza Schroeder. We thank Robert Ousterhout for suggesting the volume’s title and Warren Woodfin for the photo of Henry Maguire, which he took in Poreč in 1999. The 23 chapters assembled here are arranged alphabetically according to the authors’ last names. Their topics reflect the breadth of Henry Maguire’s vast scholarly publications, encompassing subjects as diverse as aesthetics, imperial imagery, icons, liturgy and the reception of Byzantine saints and artistic styles. These papers collectively aim to honour Henry Maguire’s work, whether through their methodology, subject or scope in this volume affectionately entitled, The Eloquence of Art: Essays in Honour of Henry Maguire. –Andrea Olsen Lam and Rossitza Schroeder, Editors

Henry Maguire’s publications

Authored and co-authored books The Paintings of the Panagia tou Arakos. Art, Intercession and Theology. Nicosia: The Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation, 2019. Nature in the Byzantine Art of Cyprus: 24th Annual Lecture in Memory of Constantinos Leventis, 17 November 2015. Nicosia: The Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation and Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia, 2016. Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Image and Imagination in Byzantine Art. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Variorum, 2007. Dynamic Splendor: The Wall Mosaics in the Cathedral of Eufrasius at Poreč. 2 Vols. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. With A. Terry. Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. With E. Dauterman Maguire. Rhetoric, Nature and Magic in Byzantine Art. Aldershot and Brookfield: Ashgate, 1998. Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Image and Imagination: The Byzantine Epigram as Evidence for Viewer Response. Toronto: Canadian Institute for Balkan Studies, 1996. Earth and Ocean: The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987. Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989. With E. Dauterman Maguire and M. J. Duncan-Flowers. Art and Eloquence in Byzantium. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Edited and co-edited volumes Ernst Kitzinger and the Making of Medieval Art History. Edited with F. HarleyMcGowan. London: Warburg Institute, 2017. Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Edited with I. Garipzanov and C. Goodson. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.

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San Marco, Byzantium, and Myths of Venice. Edited with R. Nelson. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2010. Byzantine Garden Culture. Edited with A. Littlewood and J. Wolschke-Bulmahn. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002. Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1997. Materials Analysis of Byzantine Pottery. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1997. Byzantine Magic. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995. Byzantium: A World Civilization. Edited with A. Laiou. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992. Ceramic Art from Byzantine Serres. Edited with D. Papanikola-Bakirtzis and E. Maguire. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Contributions in edited volumes and articles in journals “The Gods, Christ, and the Emperor in the Late Antique Art of Cyprus’, in: From Roman to Early Christian Cyprus. Studies in Religion and Archaeology. Ed. L. Nasrallah, A. Luijendijk, and Ch. Bakirtzis: 75-91. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming. ‘Why did Hades become beautiful in Byzantine art?’ In: Round Trip to Hades in the Eastern Mediterranean Tradition: Visits to the Underworld from Antiquity to Byzantium. Ed. G. Ekroth and I. Nilsson: 304–21. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018. ‘The asymmetry of text and image in Byzantium’. Perspectives Médiévales: Revue d’épistémologie des langues et littératures du Moyen Âge 38 (2017). ‘Earthly and spiritual authority of the imperial image’. In: L’icône dans la pensée et dans l’art: constitutions, contestations, réinventions de la notion d’image divine en contexte chrétien. Ed. K. Mitalaïté and A. Vasiliou: 177–217. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. ‘Encounters: reflections on the wall mosaics in the Eufrasiana’. Gesta 56 (2017): 129–32. ‘Ernst Kitzinger and style’. In: Ernst Kitzinger and the Making of Medieval Art History. Ed. F. Harley-McGowan and H. Maguire: 105–12. London: Warburg Institute, 2017. ‘How did early Byzantine ornament work?’ In: Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Ed. I. Garipzanov, C. Goodson and H. Maguire: 223–54. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. ‘Rhetoric and artistry in early Byzantium’. In: Handbuch Rhetorik der bildenden Künste. Ed. W. Brassat: 185–206. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017. ‘Heaven on earth: Neoplatonism in the churches of Greece’. In: Viewing Greece: Cultural and Political Agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean. Ed. S. E. J. Gerstel: 53–65. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016.

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‘Imperial and saintly bodies in Byzantine portraiture’. In: Heads and Tails, Tales and Bodies: Engraving the Human Figure from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Ed. V. Penna: 341–9. Ghent: MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2016. ‘Where did the waters of Paradise go after iconoclasm?’ In: Fountains and Water Culture in Byzantium. Ed. B. Shilling and P. Stephenson: 229–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. ‘Nectar et illusion: art, nature et perception de la rhétorique à Byzance’. In: La rhétorique au miroir de la philosophie: définitions philosophiques et definitions rhétoriques de la rhétorique. Ed. B. Cassin: 261–80. Paris: Vrin, 2015. ‘What is an intercessory image of the Virgin? The evidence from the West’. In: Presbeia Theotokou: The Intercessory Role of Mary across Times and Places in Byzantium (4th–9th Century). Ed. L. M. Peltomaa, A. Külzer and P. Allen: 219–32. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015. ‘Magic and sorcery in ninth-century manuscript illumination’. In: Les savoirs magiques et leur transmission de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance. Ed. V. Dasen and J.-M. Spieser: 397–408. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. ‘The political content of the atrium mosaics’. In: The Atrium of San Marco in Venice: The Genesis and Medieval Reality of the Genesis Mosaics. Ed. M. Büchsel, H. L. Kessler and R. Müller: 271–9. Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2014. ‘“They worshiped the creature rather than the Creator.” Animals in 8th century art and polemic’. In: L’aniconisme dans l’art religieux byzantin: actes du colloque de Genève (1–3 octobre 2009). Ed. M. Campagnolo et al.: 141–8. Geneva: La Pomme d’or; Musées d’art et d’histoire de Genève, 2014. ‘Art, ceremony, and spiritual authority at the Byzantine court’. In: The Byzantine Court: Source of Power and Culture: Papers from the Second International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium, Istanbul 21–23 June 2010. Ed. A. Ödekan, N. Necipoğlu and E. Akyürek: 111–22. Istanbul: Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, 2013. ‘Mediterranean perspectives: pilgrimage through pictures in medieval Byzantine churches’. In: Architecture and Pilgrimage, 1000–1500: Southern Europe and Beyond. Ed. P. Davies, D. Howard and W. Pullan: 21–38. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2013. ‘Parodies of imperial ceremonial and their reflections in Byzantine art’. In: Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean: Comparative Perspectives. Ed. A. Beihammer, S. Constantinou and M. Parani: 417–31. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013. ‘Pleasures of life’. In: Heaven and Earth. 2 Vols. Ed. A. Drandaki et al.: 1:202–10. With E. Maguire. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports; Benaki Museum, 2013. ‘The heavenly city in ekphrasis and art’. In: Villes de toute beauté: l’ekphrasis des cités dans les littératures byzantine et byzantino-slaves: actes du colloque international, Prague, 25–26 novembre 2011. Ed. P. Odorico: 37–48.

xxiv Henry Maguire’s publications Paris: Centre d’études byzantines, néo-helléniques et sud-est européennes, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2012. ‘“Pangs of labor without pain”: observations on the iconography of the Nativity in Byzantium’. In: Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot. Ed. D. F. Sullivan, E. A. Fisher and E. N. Papaioannou: 205–16. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. ‘Women mourners in Byzantine art, literature, and society’. In: Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History. Ed. E. Gertsman: 3–15. New York, London: Routledge, 2012. ‘Body, clothing, metaphor: the Virgin Mary in early Byzantine art’. In: The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and Images. Ed. L. Brubaker and M. Cunningham: 39–52. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2011. ‘Conclusion’. In: Objects in Motion: The Circulation of Religion and Sacred Objects in the Late Antique and Byzantine World. Ed. H. G. Meredith: 111–5. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2011. ‘Personal adornment: glory, vainglory, and insecurity’. In: Transition to Christianity: Art of Late Antiquity, 3rd–7th Century AD. Ed. A. Lazaridou: 43–7. New York: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2011. ‘The Philopation as a setting for imperial ceremonial and display’. In: Byzantine Thrace: Evidence and Remains: Komotini, 18–22 April 2007. Ed. Ch. Bakirtzis, N. Zekos and X. Moniaros: 71–82. Amsterdam: Verlag Adolf M. Hakkert, 2011. ‘The realities of ekphrasis’. Byzantinoslavica 69 (2011): 7–19. ‘La rhétorique et l’esthétique de l’art byzantine’. In: La rhétorique des arts: actes du colloque tenu au collège de France. Ed. L. Pernot: 45–72. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2011. ‘Rhetoric and reality in the art of the Kariye Camii’. In: Kariye Camii yeniden=The Karye Camii Reconsidered. Ed. H. Klein, R. Ousterhout and B. Pitarakis: 57–69. Istanbul: Araştımaları Enstitüsü, 2011. ‘“Signs and symbols of your always victorious reign”: the political ideology and meaning of falconry in Byzantium’. In: Images of the Byzantine World: Visions, Messages and Meanings: Studies Presented to Leslie Brubaker. Ed. A. Lymberopoulou: 135–45. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2011. ‘Alexander and the lambs: imitation Byzantine spolia at San Marco, Venice’. In: On ikinci ve on üçüncü yüzyıllarda Bizans dünyasında değişim: bildiriler = Change in the Byzantine World in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Proceedings. Ed. A. Ödekan, E. Akyürek, N. Necipoğlu: 123–9. Istanbul: Vehbi Koç Vakfı, 2010. ‘The Aniketos icon and the display of relics in the decoration of San Marco’. In: San Marco, Byzantium, and Myths of Venice. Ed. H. Maguire and R. Nelson: 91–111. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2010. ‘Introduction’. In: San Marco, Byzantium, and Myths of Venice. Ed. H. Maguire and R. Nelson: 1–6. With R. Nelson. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2010.

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‘Metaphors of the Virgin in Byzantine literature and art’. In: Imitatio, aemulatio, variatio: Akten des internationalen wissenschaftlichen Symposions zur byzantinischen Sprache und Literatur (Wien, 22.–25. Oktober 2008). Ed. A. Rhoby and E. Schiffer: 189–94. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010. ‘Unofficial art and the resistance to orthodoxy’. In: The Byzantine World. Ed. P. Stephenson: 320–33. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. ‘Validation and disruption: the binding and severing of text and image in Byzantium’. In: Bild und Text im Mittelalte. Ed. K. Krause and B. Schellewald: 267–81. Cologne: Böhlau, 2010. ‘Ivories as pilgrimage art: a new frame for the “frame group”’. DOP 63 (2009): 117–46. ‘The disembodied hand, the “prokypsis”, and the “templon” screen’. In: Anathemata eortika: Studies in Honor of Thomas F. Mathews. Ed. J. D. Alchermes, H. C. Evans and T. Thomas: 230–5. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2009. ‘Moslems, Christians, and iconoclasm: erasures from church floor mosaics during the early Islamic property’. In: Byzantine Art: Recent Studies: Essays in Honor Lois Drewer. Ed. C. P. Hourihane: 111–20. Turnhout: Brepols, 2009. ‘From Constantine to iconoclasm’. In: Byzantium: 330–1453. Ed. R. Cormack and M. Vassilaki. London and New York: Royal Academy of Arts, 2008. ‘The symbolic world: art and text’. In: Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Ed. E. M. Jeffreys, J. Haldon and R. Cormack: 721–30. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. ‘Eufrasius and friends: on the names and their absence in Byzantine art’. In: Art and Text in Byzantine Culture. Ed. L. James: 139–60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ‘“Un perfetto monumento bisantino”: protecting the treasury of San Marco in Venice’. In: Η Προστασία του παρελθόντος: πρακτικά του συμποσίου: Αθήνα, 12 και 13 Φεβρουαρίου 1999= The Protection of the Past: Athens, 12 and 13 February 1999: Proceedings of the Symposium. Ed. D. Komini: 54–61. Athens: Gennadeios Vivliothēkē, Amerikanikē Scholē Klasikōn Spoudōn, 2006. ‘The Virgin and the empress on display in sixth-century art’. In: Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies: London 21–26 August, 2006. 3 Vols. Ed. E. Jeffreys: 1: 379–95. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2006. ‘Rhetoric and reality in Byzantine art’. Rhetorik. Ein internationales Jahrbuch 24 (2005): 14–26. ‘The wall mosaics in the cathedral at Poreč: issues of restoration’. In: 8ο Συνέδριο διεθνούς επιτροπής για τη συντήρηση των ψηφιδωτών (ICCM): Εντοίχια και επιδαπέδια ψηφιδωτά: συντήρηση, διατήρηση, παρουσίαση, Θεσσαλονίκη 29 Οκτωβρίου–3 Νοεμβρίου 2002= VIIIth Conference of the International Committee for the Conservation of Mosaics (ICCM): wall and floor mosaics: conservation, maintenance, presentation: Thessaloniki,

xxvi Henry Maguire’s publications 29 October–3 November 2002: proceedings: 101–9. Thessaloniki: Eurōpaiko Kentro Vyzantinōn kai Metavyzantinōn Mnēmeiōn, 2005. ‘“A fruit store and an aviary”: images of food in house, palace, and church’. In: Βυζαντινών διατροφή και μαγειρείαι, πρακτικά ημερίδας περί διατροφής στο Βυζάντιο; Θεσσαλονίκη Μουσείο Βυζαντινού Πολιτισμού 4 Νοεμβρίου 2001=Food and Cooking in Byzantium. Proceedings of the Symposium “On Food in Byzantium,” Thessaloniki, Museum of Byzantine Culture 4 November 2001. Ed. D. Papanikola-Bakirtzis: 133–46. Athens: Tameio Archaiologikōn Porōn kai Apallotriōseōn, Dieuthynsē Dēmosieumatōn, 2005. ‘Byzantine domestic art as evidence for the early cult of the Virgin’. In: Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium. Ed. M. Vassilaki: 183–94. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2004. ‘Mosaics’. In: Bir Ftuha: A Pilgrimage Church Complex at Carthage. Ed. S. Stevens, A. Kalinowski and H. vanderLeest: 303–34. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2004. ‘Other icons: the classical nude in Byzantine bone and ivory carvings’. The Journal of the Walters Art Museum 62 (2004): 9–20. ‘Venetian art as a mirror of Venetian attitudes to Byzantium in decline’. In: İstanbul Üniversitesi 550. yıl, Uluslararası Bizans ve Osmanlı Sempozyumu (XV. yüzyıl): 30–31 Mayıs 2003 = 550th anniversary of the Istanbul University, International Byzantine and Ottoman Symposium (XVth century): 30–31 May 2003. Ed. S. Atasoy: 281–9. Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi, 2004. ‘Byzantine rhetoric, Latin drama, and the portrayal of the New Testament’. In: Rhetoric in Byzantium: Papers from the Thirty-Fifth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Exeter College, University of Oxford, March 2001. Ed. E. Jeffreys: 215–33. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2003. ‘The feasting cycle and the meanings of hybrids in Byzantine ceramics’. In: VIIe Congrès International sur la Céramique médiévale en Méditerranée, Thessaloniki, 11–16 Octobre 1999: actes. Ed. Ch. Bakirtzis: 205–10. Athens: Caisse des Recettes Archéologiques, 2003. ‘A description of the jousts of Manuel I Komnenos’. BMGS 26 (2002): 104–48. With L. Jones. ‘Observations on the icons of the West façade of San Marco in Venice’. In: Byzantine Icons: Art, Technique and Technology: An International Symposium, Gennadius Library, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 20–21 February 1998. Ed. M. Vassilaki: 303–12. Heraklion: Panepistēmiakes Ekdoseis Krētēs, 2002. ‘Paradise withdrawn’. In: Byzantine Garden Culture. Ed. A. Littlewood, H. Maguire and J. Wolschke-Bulmahn: 23–35. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002. ‘Medieval art in southern Italy: Latin drama and the Greek literary imagination’. In: Ellenismo italiota dal VII al XII secolo: alla memoria di Nikos Panagiotakis. Ed. N. Oikonomides: 219–39. Athens: Ethniko Hidryma Ereunōn, Institouto Vyzantinōn Ereunōn, 2001.

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‘The medieval floors of the Great Palace’. In: Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life. Ed. N. Necipoğlu: 153–74. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2001. ‘The wall mosaics of the cathedral of Eufrasius in Poreč: third preliminary report’. Hortus artium medievalium 7 (2001): 131–66. With A. Terry. ‘The cult of the Mother of God in private’. In: Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art. Ed. M. Vassilaki: 279–89. Milan: Skira, 2000. ‘Gardens and parks in Constantinople’. DOP 54 (2000): 251–64. ‘Introduction: Constantinople: the fabric of the city’. DOP 54 (2000): 157–9. With R. Ousterhout. ‘The significance of animal violence in Byzantine art’. Res 38 (2000): 18–33. ‘The wall mosaics of the cathedral of Eufrasius in Poreč: second preliminary report’. Hortus artium medievaliumi 6 (2000): 159–81. With A. Terry. ‘Abaton and oikonomia: St. Neophytos and the iconography of the presentation of the Virgin’. In: Medieval Cyprus: Studies in Art, Architecture, and History in Memory of Doula Mouriki. Ed. N. Ševčenko and C. Moss: 95–116. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. ‘The good life’. In: Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World. Ed. G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown and O. Grabar: 238–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ‘The Nile and the rivers of Paradise’. In: The Madaba Map Centenary 1897–1997: Traveling through the Byzantine Umayyad Period. Ed. M. Piccirillo and E. Alliata: 179–84. Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, 1999. ‘The profane aesthetic in Byzantine art and literature’. DOP 53 (1999): 189–205. ‘The cycle of images in the church’. In: Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium. Ed. L. Safran: 121–51. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. ‘The wall mosaics of the cathedral of Eufrasius in Poreč: a preliminary report’. Hortus artium medievaliumi 4 (1998): 199–221. With A. Terry. ‘Davidic virtue: the crown of Constantine Monomachos and its images’. In: The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. A. Cohen-Mushlin and B. Kühnel: 117–23. Jerusalem: Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997. ‘“Feathers signifying power”: the iconography of Byzantine ceramics from Serres’. In: Διεθνές Συνέδριο Οι Σέρρες και η περιοχή τους από την αρχαία στη μεταβυζαντινή κοινωνία, Σέρρες 29 Σεπτεμβρίου–3 Οκτωβρίου 1993: πρακτικά. 2 Vols.: 2: 383–98. Thessaloniki: Dēmos Sērron, 1997. ‘The heavenly court’. In: Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204. Ed. H. Maguire: 247–58. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1997.

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‘Images of the court’. In: The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261. Ed. H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom: 182–91. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997. ‘Magic and money in the early Middle Ages’. Speculum 72 (1997): 1037–54. ‘A murderer among the angels: the frontispiece miniatures of Paris gr. 510 and the iconography of archangels in Byzantine art’. In: The Sacred Image East and West. Ed. R. Ousterhout and L. Brubaker: 63–71. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995. ‘Introduction’. In: Byzantine Magic. Ed. H. Maguire: 1–7. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995. ‘Magic and the Christian image’. In: Byzantine Magic. Ed. H. Maguire: 51–72. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995. ‘Originality in Byzantine art criticism’. In: Originality in Byzantine Literature, Art, and Music. Ed. A. R. Littlewood: 101–14. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1995. ‘Two modes of narration in Byzantine art’. In: Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann. Ed. D. Mouriki, C. Moss and K. Kiefer: 385–95. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. ‘The cage of crosses: ancient and medieval sculptures on the “Little Metropolis” in Athens’. In: Θυμίαμα στη μνήμη της Λασκαρίνας Μπούρα. 2 Vols.: 1: 169–72. Athens: Benaki Museum, 1994. ‘Epigrams, art, and the “Macedonian Renaissance”’. DOP 48 (1994): 105–15. ‘From the evil eye to the eye of justice: the saints, art, and justice in Byzantium’. In: Law and Society in Byzantium, Ninth-Twelfth Centuries. Proceedings on the Symposium on Law and Society in Byzantium, 9th–12th Centuries, May 1–3, 1992. Ed. A. Laiou-Thomadakis and D. Simon: 217–39. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1994. ‘Imperial gardens and the rhetoric of renewal’. In: New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th–13th Centuries. Ed. P. Magdalino: 181–98. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1994. ‘Magic and geometry in early Christian floor mosaics and textiles’. JÖB 44 (1994): 265–74. ‘The beauty of castles: a tenth-century description of a tower in Constantinople’. Δελτ.Χριστ.Ἀρχ.Ἑτ. 17 (1993–94): 21–4. ‘Christians, pagans, and the representation of nature’. In: Begegnung von Heidentum und Christentum im spätantiken Ägypten: 131–60. Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 1993. ‘Disembodiment and corporeality in Byzantine images of the saints’. In: Iconography at the Crossroads. Ed. B. Cassidy: 75–83. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. ‘X-ray vision: the recovery of early medieval iron work’. In: Ancient Technology and Archaeological Materials. Ed. S. W. Wisseman and W. S. Williams: 187–97. London: Routledge, 1993. With B. Oehlschlaeger, W. Williams and R. Keen.

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‘Byzantine art history in the second half of the twentieth century’. In: Byzantium: A World Civilization. Ed. H. Maguire and A. Laiou: 119–55. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992. ‘The mosaics of Nea Moni: an imperial reading’. DOP 46 (1992): 205–14. ‘An early Christian marble relief at Kavala’. Δελτ.Χριστ.Ἀρχ.Ἑτ. 16 (1991): 283–95. ‘Antico/area bizantina’. In: Encinclopedia dell’arte medieval. 12 Vols.: 2: 108–11. Rome: Istituto della encyclopedia italiana, 1991. ‘Byzantine hagiographical texts as sources on art’. DOP 45 (1991): 1–22. With A. Kazhdan. ‘A description of the Aretai palace and its garden’. Journal of Garden History 10 (1990): 209–13. ‘Garments pleasing to God: the significance of domestic textile design in the early Byzantine period’. DOP 44 (1990): 215–24. ‘Style and ideology in Byzantine imperial art’. Gesta 28 (1989): 217–31. ‘Study of two medieval enameled objects by x-ray fluorescence’. Archaeological Chemistry 4 (1989): 233–47. With P. Horke, W. S. Williams and D. Farris. ‘The art of comparing in Byzantium’. ArtB 70 (1988): 88–103. ‘Adam and the animals: allegory and the literal sense in early Christian art’. DOP 41 (1987): 363–73. ‘The mantle of earth’. Illinois Classical Studies 12 (1987): 221–28. ‘The self-conscious angel: character study in Byzantine paintings of the Annunciation’. In: Okeanos: Essays Presented to Ihor Ševčenko on His Sixtieth Birthday by His Colleagues and Students. Ed. C. Mango, O Pritsak and U. M. Pasicznyk: 377–92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. ‘The classical tradition in the Byzantine ekphrasis’. In: Byzantium and the Classical Tradition. University of Birmingham Thirteenth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies 1979. Ed. M. Mullett and R. D. Scott: 94–102. Birmingham: Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, 1981. ‘The iconography of Symeon with the Christ Child in Byzantine art’. DOP 34–35 (1980): 261–9. ‘“Half-cone” vault of St Stephen at Gaza’. DOP 32 (1978): 319–25. ‘The depiction of sorrow in Middle Byzantine art’. DOP 31 (1977): 123–74. ‘Truth and convention in Byzantine descriptions of works of art’. DOP 28 (1974): 113–40. ‘A twelfth-century workshop in Northampton’. Gesta 9 (1970): 11–25.

Abbreviations

AASS AB ABME ActaNorv AH AnthGr AnzWien Ἀρχ.Δελτ. ArtB BASOR BHG BIABulg BMMA BMGS BNJ BSA BSCAbstr BSFN ByzSt BZ CahArch ChHist CorsiRav CQ Δελτ.Χριστ.Ἀρχ.Ἑτ. DOP EO GBA

Acta Sanctorum Analecta Bollandiana Ἀρχεĩον τῶν Βυζαντινῶν Μνημείων τῆς Ἑλλάδος Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam pertinen­ tia, Institum Romanum Norvegiae Art History Anthologia graeca, ed. H. Beckby (4 vols., Munich, 1965) Anzeiger der [Österreichischen] Akademie der Wis­ senschaften, Wien, Philosophisch-historische Klasse Ἀρχαιολογικὸν δελτίον The Art Bulletin Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca, ed. F. Halkin, (3 vols., Brussels, 1957) Bulletin de l’Institut archéologique bulgare, Académie bulgare des sciences Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Byzantinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbücher The Annual of the British School at Athens Byzantine Studies Conference, Abstracts of Papers Bulletin de la Société française de numismatique Byzantine Studies/Études byzantines Byzantinische Zeitschrift Cahiers archéologiques Church History Corsi di cultura sull’arte ravennate e bizantina Classical Quarterly Δελτίον τῆς Χριστιανικῆς ἀρχαιολογικῆς ἑταιρείας Dumbarton Oaks Papers Echos d’Orient Gazette des beaux-arts

Abbreviations GRBS HUkSt JBL JbAC JEChrSt JHS JJS JMedHist JÖB JRS JThSt JWarb JWalt MEFRM MonPiot MünchJB NέοςἙλλ. OC OrChrP PBW PLP PLRE

RACr RBK REB RHR RSBN RSBS SicGymn StItalFCl Synaxarium CP

VizVrem WSt ZRVI

xxxi

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies Harvard Ukrainian Studies Journal of Biblical Literature Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Hellenic Studies Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Medieval History Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik Journal of Roman Studies Journal of Theological Studies Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Journal of the Walters Art Gallery Mélanges de l’École française de Rome:Moyen âge– Temps modernes Monuments et mémoires, Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, Fondation Eugène Piot Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst Nέος Ἑλληνομνήμων Oriens christianus Orientalia christiana periodica M. Jeffreys et al., Prosopography of the Byzantine World (2011–) http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/jsp/index.jsp Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. E. Trapp et al. (Vienna, 1976–) The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 1, ed. A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale, and J. Morris (Cambridge, 1971); vols. 2–3, ed. J. R. Martindale (1980–92) Rivista di archeologia cristiana Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst Revue de l’histoire des religions Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici Rivista di studi bizantini e slavi Siculorum gymnasium Studi italiani di filologia classica Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae: Propy­ laeum ad Acta sanctorum Novembris, ed. H. Delehaye (Brussels, 1902) Vizantiiskii vremennik Wiener Studien Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta, Srpska akade­ mija nauka

Notes on contributors

Charalambos Bakirtzis (PhD, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki) is a pioneer in Greek archaeology whose work as Ephor of Byzantine Antiquities for Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (1976–1997) and Thessaloniki and Central Macedonia (1997–2008) helped preserve the material culture of the regions. He was Professor of Byzantine Archaeology at the University of Thessalo­ niki (1988–1998), a member of the Hellenic Central Archaeological Com­ mittee (1999–2008) and Founding Director of the Centre of Contemporary Archaeology. He currently serves as Director of the Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation in Nicosia, Cyprus. Sarah Bassett (PhD, Bryn Mawr College) is Associate Professor in the Depart­ ment of Art History at Indiana University. She is the author of The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (2004), a study of the organization and display of ancient monuments in the public spaces of fourth- and fifthand sixth-century Constantinople. She also studies the historiography of late antique art and the implications of modern concepts of ancient and late ancient period styles for the understanding of late antique visual style. Elena Boeck (PhD, Yale University), is Professor of History of Art and Archi­ tecture at DePaul University. Her publications, including Imagining the Byzantine Past (2015), explore intellectual exchange in the Mediterranean and unconventional, fascinating forms of engagement with Byzantium’s legacy. Leslie Brubaker (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) is Professor of Byzantine Art History and Director of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham. She has published exten­ sively on Byzantine culture, with an emphasis on artisanal production, gender and iconoclasm and is currently completing a book with Mary Cun­ ningham on the cult of the Virgin in Byzantium. Annemarie Weyl Carr (PhD, University of Michigan) is Professor Emerita of Art History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and Vice President of the Board of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute in Nicosia. She has published on Byzantine and post-Byzantine painting; on

Notes on contributors

xxxiii

art and issues of cultural interchange in the eastern Mediterranean Levant, above all on Cyprus; and on women artists in the Middle Ages. She received the College Art Association’s 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching. Anthony Cutler (PhD, Emory University) is Evan Pugh Professor of Art His­ tory at Pennsylvania State University. In addition to holding a Guggenheim fellowship and winning the Humboldt Research Prize, in 2012 he was Slade Professor of Art at Oxford University. He has written or edited 17 books and authored more than 150 articles, many of them on Late Antique, Byzantine and early Islamic ivories. He is currently at work on The Empire of Things: Gifts and Gift Exchange Across Byzantium, Islam and Beyond. Felicity Harley (PhD, University of Adelaide) is a Lecturer in Art History at Yale Divinity School whose research centres on the origins and develop­ ment of Christian iconography within the visual culture of Roman late antiquity. With Henry Maguire she co-edited Ernst Kitzinger and the Making of Medieval Art (2017), and her current book project examines the history of crucifixion iconography in late antiquity. Lynn Jones (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Associate Professor in the Department of Art History at Florida State University. Her work focuses on issues of medieval identity and the visual expression of medieval power and piety. She has published over 20 articles; books include Between Islam and Byzantium: Aghtamar and the Visual Construc­ tion of Medieval Armenian Rulership and Byzantine Images and their After­ life: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr. She is currently at work on a third book, The Cult of the Emperor in Middle Byzantine Art. Andrea Olsen Lam (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) is a medieval art histor­ ian specializing in Byzantine art, architecture and liturgy. She is part-time faculty at Pepperdine University’s Washington, DC campus. Her research engages the relationship among sacred narrative, mimesis, icons and relics. She is currently at work on a book about the centrality of Mary’s preg­ nancy in Byzantine theology, art and ritual. Eunice Dauterman Maguire (PhD, Harvard University), has enjoyed an aca­ demic career in which teaching graduate as well as undergraduate students has always been channelled through museum collections. Academic appointments and curatorial positions at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and at Johns Hopkins University has provided oppor­ tunities to investigate material objects, from architectural sculpture to ceramics, textiles and other objects of daily life, and to apply that approach to late antique and Byzantine art-historical research. Lisa Mahoney (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) is an Associate Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at DePaul University. Her articles on the twelfth- and thirteenth-century artistic production of the

xxxiv

Notes on contributors

Latin Kingdom have appeared in journals that include Gesta and collections such as The Crusades and Visual Culture. Together with Daniel H. Weiss, she has edited a volume on Frankish culture during and in the aftermath of the Crusades, called France and the Holy Land. Margaret Mullett (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast) is Professor Emerita of Byzantine Studies at Queen’s University Belfast and Director Emerita of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. She has recently been Visiting Pro­ fessor of Byzantine Social History at Vienna and Visiting Professor of Byzantine Greek at Uppsala. She is working on tents, laments and the Christos Paschon. Robert S. Nelson (PhD, New York University Institute of Fine Arts) teaches Byzantine and Western Medieval Art at Yale University. In recent years, he has been studying Greek lectionaries, as well as modern revivals of Byzan­ tine art and architecture. His most recent article in the latter category appeared in Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture 11 (2018). Robert Ousterhout (PhD, University of Illinois) is Professor Emeritus in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. A recognized specialist in Byzantine architecture, his research focuses on the documentation and inter­ pretation of the vanishing architectural heritage of the eastern Mediterranean. Bissera Pentcheva (PhD, Harvard University) is Professor of Art History at Stanford University. She has published three books: Icons and Power, 2006 (recipient of the Nicholas Brown Prize of the Medieval Academy of Amer­ ica, 2010), The Sensual Icon, 2010 and Hagia Sophia, 2017 (recipient of the 2018 American Academy of Religion prize in historical studies). She has also edited the volume Aural Architecture in Byzantium (2017). Linda Safran (PhD, Yale University) is an associate fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. Her most recent monograph is The Medieval Salento: Art and Identity in Southern Italy (2014). She is completing articles on Byzantine diagrams and Byzantine contacts with China, and with two colleagues she is writing a textbook on medieval art and architecture from Santiago to Samarkand. She recently completed six years as editor of Gesta. Kära L. Schenk (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) is an adjunct faculty member at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, NC and has taught previously at Reed College, Maryland Institute College of Art and St. Edward’s University. She has published articles on pictorial narrative in the Dura-Europos Synagogue. Her research interests also include Jewish and Christian art in Late Antiquity, Crusader Art and Jewish Art of the Middle Ages.

Notes on contributors

xxxv

Rossitza Schroeder (PhD, University of Maryland) is an associate professor of art history at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, NY. Her primary field of research is Byzantine art. Her current project sheds light on the interactions between Byzantine monastic practice and visual representations. She is also writing on Byzantine-Ottoman-Venetian rela­ tions as manifested in Gentile Bellini’s 1480 portrait of sultan Mehmed II. Nancy Patterson Ševčenko (PhD, Columbia University) is a Byzantine art his­ torian whose publications have included studies of the lives of the saints in Byzantine fresco and manuscript painting (especially the life of St. Nicholas), and the relation of Byzantine art and liturgy. She is currently finishing a catalogue of the illuminated manuscripts in the monastery of St. John on the island of Patmos. She has published a couple of articles along the way on the Byzantine understanding of the animal world. Brooke Shilling (PhD, Johns Hopkins University) is an art historian specializ­ ing in late antique and Byzantine art and architecture. She is co-editor of the volume, Fountains and Water Culture in Byzantium (2016). She is inter­ ested in the materials and techniques of artistic production, especially ancient and medieval mosaics, the destruction of art in historical and con­ temporary contexts, the relationship between art and text, the reception of art, and hagiography. Natalia Teteriatnikov (PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) worked as Curator of Photographs and Fieldwork Archives at Dumbarton Oaks, currently retired. She has published widely on subjects including liturgical planning in Cappadocian churches and the mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul. Her current research addresses the changes in the decora­ tive programme of Hagia Sophia before and after iconoclasm. Alicia Walker (PhD, Harvard) is Associate Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture at Bryn Mawr College. Her primary fields of research include cross-cultural artistic interaction in the medieval world from the ninth to thirteenth centuries and gender issues in the art and material culture of Byzantium. Her first monograph, The Emperor and the World: Exotic Elem­ ents and the Imaging of Byzantine Imperial Power, was published in 2012. Warren T. Woodfin (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) holds a joint appointment as Kallinikeion Associate Professor in the Art Depart­ ment and the History Department at Queens College, City University of New York. He has published widely, particularly on Byzantine textiles, and he was curator of the 2018 exhibition From the Desert to the City: The Journey of Late Ancient Textiles at Queens College’s Godwin-Ternbach Museum.

Introduction

This brief introduction offers a survey of Henry Maguire’s ongoing accomplishments and contributions to the field of Byzantine studies which have earned the admiration and appreciation of friends and colleagues around the world. Born in the idyllic village of Combe Hay, outside Bath, England, in 1943, Henry Pownall Maguire became interested in Byzantine art through an ideal combination of travel to historical sites in Europe and the Mediterranean, and teachers and family members, who planted seeds of interest in the arts that flourished throughout his academic career. In childhood, both at home and abroad, he was surrounded by family members actively interested in art and literature, particularly his mother Elizabeth and stepfather Geoffrey McDermott, a British diplomat. As a teenager, Henry Maguire gave a presentation on the mosaics of Ravenna that so inspired his teacher that he included Ravenna on the class trip to Italy the following year. In high school, English to Greek translation assignments required him to use ‘proper’ Greek of the fifth and fourth centuries BC, but it was the lure of the forbidden, the ‘decadent’ use of Greek in late antiquity, that first led him to explore Byzantine writings. The resultant philological breadth enabled him to move freely between Classical Greece and Byzantium in his academic work. Henry Maguire’s first formal archaeological experience was as an 18-year­ old, when he participated in a dig at the Roman Theatre of Salamis, Cyprus during the autumn of 1961 under the direction of Vassos Karagheorgis, later the Director of Antiquities of the Republic of Cyprus (1963–89). His archaeological exploration was soon followed by an adventurous road trip from the U.K. to Afghanistan (the intended journey to India was cut short for budgetary reasons). While sleeping overnight alongside the road somewhere between Anatolia and Iran, he and his friends encountered at different times wild dogs and knifewielding bandits; they narrowly escaped attack by the former and adeptly bribed the latter with cigarettes. In the autumn of 1962, Henry matriculated at King’s College, Cambridge, where he read Archaeology and Anthropology under Edmund Leach for one year before changing his focus to Art History. While there, he was voted one of ‘The Eleven’, a writing club of 11 students allowed to meet in the faculty rooms. His intellect and academic rigor might have led him to success in several fields, but the only other profession in which

2

Introduction

he sustained a serious interest is writing fiction, a dream he now fulfils by writing and illustrating short books for his grandchildren. After Henry completed his studies at Cambridge, he and Eunice Dauterman married and they both began doctoral studies at Harvard University. They first met as teenagers when participating in the Summer School programme of the Courtauld Institute of Art, run by his uncle and aunt, Charles and Barbara Robertson. Since then, Henry and Eunice have been intellectual conversation partners, collaborating throughout decades of academic writing, teaching, mentoring and museum work. They have continuously sharpened and encouraged one another over the years; Eunice’s attentive eye and inquisitive mind have contributed an essential dimension to Henry’s scholarly work, particularly in the fields of textiles and design. As a graduate student at Harvard, Henry studied with Ernst Kitzinger and also Ihor Ševčenko, whose respective areas of expertise in Art History and Byzantine Greek enabled them to guide his pioneering studies that combined texts and images. His association with Dumbarton Oaks began when he earned a two-year Bliss Scholarship, followed by a Junior Fellowship there in 1971–72. He taught briefly at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, then returned to Harvard to teach for three years. At that time, he taught ‘Art 13’, which the undergraduates called ‘Darkness at Noon’, because the auditorium’s lights were off due to the absence of a dimmer switch. Students eagerly enrolled for the young British professor’s lectures: there were 350 students the first year, then enrolment rose to 475, filling the basement of the Fogg Museum of Art! The students so loved him that at the end of his three-year appointment, they begged Oleg Grabar to persuade Harvard to extend his teaching contract. In the end, Harvard’s loss was a boon for Byzantine studies, because it was then that Henry and Eunice moved to Dumbarton Oaks with their young son, Gavin, where Henry directed Byzantine publications and pursued his own research. Serving in various roles at Dumbarton Oaks, Henry worked alongside several well-known Byzantine specialists such as Irina Andreescu-Treadgold, John Duffy, Alexander Kazhdan, Angeliki Laiou, Ihor Ševčenko and Alice-Mary Talbot. Henry Maguire taught at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign for several years (1979–91) then returned to Dumbarton Oaks to serve as Director of Byzantine Studies (1991–96). At that time, he revived Dumbarton Oaks’s fieldwork projects, partly motivated by the fact that he had himself visited many of the places on his travels to Cyprus and elsewhere as a young man. Henry recalls having felt somewhat presumptuous providing feedback to senior scholars during this period, but he ably shepherded several important projects to completion and led the wonderfully interdisciplinary colloquium on Byzantine Garden Culture (1996). After returning to the University of Illinois for a short stint, the Maguires moved to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where they both taught courses while Eunice also revived the neglected archaeological collection. While at Johns Hopkins, his students delighted in his pedagogical methodologies and his facility to integrate evidence from poetry, pottery, literature, archaeology and architecture. His graduate courses gathered

Introduction

3

interested medievalists from the University of Maryland and the Walters Art Museum, resulting in rich discussions of Byzantine art. In contrast to his polite and unassuming manner, Henry Maguire’s scholarly career is marked by what some have called ‘academic daring’, but others now simply recognize as ‘brilliantly insightful.’ Before submitting his thesis, his exploration of sorrow in Byzantine art shocked the status quo, which had labelled Byzantine imagery as flat, expressionless and devoid of emotion. His first book, Art and eloquence in Byzantium (1981, rpr. 1994), elaborated on the intricate relationship between Byzantine art, literature and poetry. While at the University of Illinois, he and Eunice collaborated with Maggie Duncan-Flowers to explore domestic arts before iconoclasm, creating the exhibit and accompanying catalogue, Art and holy powers in the early Christian house (1989), a project related to his later studies on textiles and the edited volume, Byzantine magic (1995). His icon-centred book, The icons of their bodies: saints and their images in Byzantium (1996), broke new ground by discerning several of the patterns and rules governing Byzantine icons. In a field that many had perceived as replete with solely religious art, Henry Maguire’s work on the natural world and secular art expanded the terrain to encompass Byzantium’s plentiful non-religious imagery: Earth and ocean: the terrestrial world in early Byzantine art (1987); Nectar and illusion: nature in Byzantine art and literature, co-authored with Eunice Dauterman Maguire (2012); and Other icons: art and power in Byzantine secular culture (2007). In each instance, he overturned long-held assumptions regarding the character of Byzantine art and society. Henry Maguire’s post-retirement publications continue to demonstrate his incredible depth and breadth within the field of medieval studies. His seminal studies of mosaics, Byzantine court culture, ceramics, gardens, textiles and numerous other topics can be found in his complete bibliography included in this volume.

1

Picturing Thessaloniki Charalambos Bakirtzis

First of all, I would like to congratulate Andrea Olsen Lam and Rossitza Schroeder for compiling and editing this volume in honour of their teacher Henry Maguire, and I thank them for inviting me to contribute with a chapter on the Byzantine city. Many outstanding scholars have dealt with the Byzantine city and many important books have been published about it.1 In this essay I would like to continue the dynamic discussion Henry and I began on Byzantine Thessaloniki at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s ‘Byzantine Colloquia’ during the academic year, 1984–85.

Depictions of cities In an icon from Corfu dated around 1500, known as the ‘Allegory of Jerusalem on High’, two cities are depicted, one in the foothills and the other at the edge of a rocky mountain (Figure 1.1).2 The former is a great city of unknown shape and size, densely built with tall buildings displaying impressive architectural orders known to Byzantium and Renaissance Italy. The building frenzy is intense, with buildings next to one another, without strict urban planning rules. Within the city, no open spaces, squares or gardens can be made out among the buildings, and the city’s layout cannot be understood. There are no theatres, stadiums or other public buildings for the common good. A rotunda in the middle of the city might be understood as a cathedral church, if a cross marked its presence. In the background, a column with a large capital can be made out. Perhaps it once hosted a stylite ascetic; now, however, it has been incorporated into a building to support its epistyle. Covered balconies beneath domes and flat rooftops everywhere prevail. However, buildings’ interiors are dark, despite the competition among them as to which will shine taller in the sunlight. Nikephoros Choumnos, scholar and prime minister at the beginning of the fourteenth century, describes Thessaloniki similarly: ‘Enormous houses that rise up into the air, their facades almost fighting in an effort to surpass each other, with one atop the other.’3 The buildings on the outskirts of the city are simpler in form, with one or at most, two storeys with pitched roofs for those occupied in serving the city. The

Picturing Thessaloniki

5

Figure 1.1 Corfu, Monastery of Virgin Platytera, icon. Allegory of Jerusalem on High. [Source: Ephorate of Antiquities of Corfu]

city wall is high, radiating outward with sparsely set battlements and slender towers, as if external dangers have vanished from the life of this city. The materials from which the city wall was built remain unknown, since it is coated in a gaudy white. The corner tower has a balcony where a hermit’s cell has

6

Charalambos Bakirtzis

been replaced by a tower-shaped pavilion with an ornate termination. From here we have a panoramic view of this impressive city, though it is suffused with a sense of disorder and insecurity. The second city in the Corfu icon is of a specific square form, set like a rhombus in a charming manner at a mountain’s edge. The wall, slim and strong like the fortresses described in Byzantine love poems, is built of colourful courses consisting of hard stones of unique perfection in their cutting and fitting; thus, there is no reason for the presence of corner towers. Three towers on each of the wall’s sides project both outward and inward, through the foresight of their builder, who knew that the city was threatened not only by danger from without, but also from within. The interior of the city is a garden with shade trees and rivers which flow from a spring in the central square. The buildings are single-storeyed, simple and with pitched roofs. Attached to the inner side of the wall, they were indifferent to enemy catapults since the city gates were guarded from within by winged angel-soldiers who stand sentinel on the interior of the towers. An inscription names the first city, ‘Great Babylon’ (‘ἐκ τῆς μεγάλης Βαβυλῶνος’), despite the many pleasures it offers, it is being emptied of its residents, and only the goblins remain here to rejoice without reason. The residents are exiting from the central gate and making their way dancing towards Death. The inscriptions name them: Enmity (Ἔχθρα), Spite (Μνησικακία), Injustice (Ἀδικία), Hatred (Μῖσος), Envy (Ζηλοτυπία) and a host of other vices. The few inhabitants exiting from the narrow sally-port, bearing the cross of life, are heading along a steep and rugged, pathless ascent. It is they who enter the city on high and inhabit it with order, calm and piety. In the lengthy inscription composed by the person who commissioned the icon, we read the following description about the upper city, which is of interest from a town planning and architectural standpoint: The City of God, Holy Zion and Jerusalem on High, founded on sacred mountains. Its enclosure wall was built of emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and other precious stones, fitted with gold, its battlements of jasper, and its gates of costly pearls. Its squares are strewn with solid gold, and it has beautiful monasteries of transparent crystal, pearls, and polished gold. In the city there are rivers of the clearest water of immortal life, and beautiful trees to comfort and delight the blessed.4 I have no doubt that this description conveys metaphorically the ideal principles governing the founding, configuring and functioning of a Byzantine city.5

The imperial Christian city In addition to the icon from Corfu, the mosaics of Thessaloniki’s Rotunda also depict the Heavenly Jerusalem according to one view, which I do not accept.6 Slobodan Ćurčić maintained that the Rotunda was built by Constantine the

Picturing Thessaloniki

7

Great as his mausoleum, and we have shown that Constantine not only founded, but also decorated, the Rotunda with mosaics as his mausoleum in 316–24.7 In the lower zone of the Rotunda mosaics, buildings are depicted with men at prayer standing before them (Figure 1.2).8 The buildings are arranged in two zones, one above another: some have two storeys, while in other cases it is understood that the buildings above are actually behind the buildings below. They are built of spolia according to Constantine’s standard practice of reviving past values in a new context.9 They have luxurious decoration, including pear-shaped crystals, and tomb furnishings such as candles and censers. Many of the decorative motifs relate to the repertoire of imperial iconography. In the central space of the buildings stand the cross-shaped military signum of Constantine, the Book of the Law, the bema or locus sanctus and the imperial crown, which were in the process of being established as the Christian labarum, Gospel and Holy Bema, respectively.10

Figure 1.2 Thessaloniki, Rotunda (Mausoleum of Constantine), dome, north panel, wall mosaic. Basiliscos, Priscos and the Constantinian military signum. [Source: Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Archaeo­ logical Receipts Fund and Expropriations]

8

Charalambos Bakirtzis

Coming from inside the city, there are men emerging who, as Gene Kleinbauer has shown, are neither saints nor martyrs, but persons living during this era.11 I believe, as Ferris suggested, that they are members of the new elite, military men, clergy, physicians and artists, appointed by Constantine in the administration of cities in the Eastern part of the empire. They are the men who surrounded his authority in amity and prudence, principles to which Constantine invited his audience in his Oration to the Assembly of Saints.12 The scene of the lower zone of the Rotunda mosaics depicts not the Heavenly Jerusalem but the core of a city, just as on the Arch of Constantine appear chief monuments of Rome.13 In the mosaics of Constantine’s mausoleum in Thessaloniki, the city is not shown with walls, but with splendid public buildings, declaring the emperor’s authority as the sole ruler and guarantor of the unity of the state and the well­ being of cities, which was replaced by the authority of Christ. Centuries later, Thomas Magister, scholar and grammarian at the beginning of the fourteenth century, noted about Thessaloniki that splendid public buildings or its harbours, stoas and theatres do not make a city; rather, it is its wise men, who through their prudent lifestyle, conserve the cultural works in a city.14

The appearance of the walled city At the end of antiquity (around the turn of the seventh century), invasions, population displacement and installations gradually changed the character of the countryside, and the phenomenon known as ‘from polis to kastron’ made its gradual appearance.15 The chief feature of the ‘kastron’ (fortified city) was that, with its walls, it provided security for its inhabitants from outside threats. In the founders’ mosaic in the Basilica of St Demetrios, three male figures were depicted as simultaneously present in the seventh century: Thessaloniki’s patron saint, Demetrios; the eparch Leontios, who founded the basilica in the fifth century and the archbishop of Thessaloniki who restored the church two centuries later (Figure 1.3).16 The three men are standing, as in a kind of spiritual battle formation beside one another in front and outside of the city walls. As a kind of spiritual moat they are protecting the city from danger from without through their present authority. In another mosaic in the Basilica of St Demetrios, the Virgin and the military St Theodore are also represented in front of the city walls (Figure 1.4).17 Between the two figures, a tall and very narrow gate is shown, and to the left of the Virgin there is a four-sided tower in the wall.18 Thus, the Virgin and Theodore function as the propyleoi deities of antiquity, outside the city and occupying the road, in order to avert a siege. One comes to the same conclusion by looking at the church’s other mosaics where the fortified walls of the city are depicted. All the events shown in these mosaics are taking place outside the city’s walls (chora) where there were churches, monasteries, arable land, estates and battlefields connected with the

Picturing Thessaloniki

9

Figure 1.3 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, south pier of the sanctuary, wall mosaic. St Demetrios with the builders of the basilica. [Source: Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Archaeological Receipts Fund and Expropriations]

city’s survival. Consequently, the city’s chora, or ‘countryside’, not only protected it; it was also protected by it. The mosaic that forms a continuation of the founder’s mosaic speaks not of the external but the internal state of the city. This mosaic depicts St Demetrios with an elderly deacon (Figure 1.5).19 This is the man who continually saw the saint in a vision, and whom the saint called ‘brother’ (adelphos). This is the man who, according to the saint’s wishes, oversaw the restoration of the church after its destruction by fire in the early seventh century. For this reason his torso is depicted as a marble column resembling a herm stele. I consider him to be the author of the first three chapters of the Second Book of the Miracles of Saint Demetrios, which he is represented holding. He was also the likely author of the inscription that accompanies the mosaic: ‘Most happy martyr of Christ, you who love the city, take care of both citizens and strangers.’20 This prayer, which the Church of Thessaloniki addressed to

10 Charalambos Bakirtzis

Figure 1.4 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, north pier of the sanctuary, wall mosaic. The Virgin and St Theodore. [Source: Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Archaeological Receipts Fund and Expropriations]

their patron saint in the early seventh century, concerns a serious demographic problem of the era, which had resulted from the settlement of immigrants in the Thessaloniki area in the wake of unsuccessful attempts by Avars and Slavs to occupy it. The stance taken by the Church of Thessaloniki, as is apparent in the text of the inscription, was not that of selective ghettoization of immigrants implemented by the city authorities at the orders of central government, but rather their inclusion in the city itself.

A description of the city/kastron John Kaminiates lived through the capture of Thessaloniki by the Arabs in the summer of 904. Shortly after this, as a prisoner of war in Tarsus (Syria), he composed the chronicle of these events. He opens the narrative with a lengthy description or encomium of Thessaloniki that has occupied researchers by virtue of

Picturing Thessaloniki

11

Figure 1.5 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, south pier of the sanctuary, wall mosaic. St Demetrios and the deacon. [Source: Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Archaeo­ logical Receipts Fund and Expropriations]

the structures and details it includes.21 The question is which ‘Thessaloniki’ Kaminiates was describing: The city is large and broad, fortified with walls and densely-set towers, and insofar as this depends upon their [i.e. the walls’ and towers’] construction, offers its inhabitants security. To its south, there extends a sea gulf which facilitates travel for the ships arriving from all parts. There opens up a marvellous port that affords mariners a safe and tranquil entrance. The northern part of the city is very steep and rugged, for a mountain overhangs it. On two sides of the mountain, plains stretch forth. The plain south of the mountain and east of the city is adorned by leafy trees, every sort of orchard and garden, and abundant water from springs and rivers. Vineyards

12 Charalambos Bakirtzis planted one after another crown the location, and fill eyes which rejoice in beauty with gladness. The plain to the left of the mountain also extends over a great area, and ends in other mountains. Two broad lakes are formed in the centre of this plain. They nourish significant numbers of fish both small and large, filling rich dinner tables in both neighbouring villages and the city itself. Deer leave the mountains and enjoy the waters of the lakes, grazing in herds with the farmers’ oxen. West of the city there is another plain. The part of it adjacent to the city has abundant water, vineyards, and leafy trees, and orchards, and is adorned with buildings and many venerable churches. From this point on, bushy vegetation extends over a large area, and the land allows all forms of agricultural cultivation. Wide rivers divide the plain into sections. They provide the city with a host of goods and fish, as ships sail up from the sea.22 This panoramic glance over and around the city, the start of the description from the south – as Thessaloniki is portrayed in modern paintings and photographs – suits the visual description of the city. In addition, the topographic and geographic presentation of the surrounding areas recalls a ‘map tour.’ Kaminiates starts from a general presentation from a distance of the place, and then passes to details, for example, as the deer which enjoy the lakes’ waters. The same approach can be observed in Byzantine paintings, where the natural landscape is suggested by general means, and the animals and fishes within it are depicted as disproportionately large.23 I am not maintaining that Kaminiates had in front of him a painting depicting a general view of Thessaloniki and its environs in the prison of Tarsus. However, I see that the means of approaching the place from the general to the specific, as well as the selection and rendering of details to indicate that the way Kaminiates described the city is often paralleled in images. Moreover, he himself confirms this immediately after the description. Hastening to proceed to the narrative of events surrounding the fall of Thessaloniki, he wonders (7.4): ‘Until when will we portray the original in the external varieties of its colours?’ (Μέχρι γὰρ τίνος … ταῖς ἔξωθεν τῶν χρωμάτων ποικιλίαις ἀπεικονίζειν πειρώμεθα τὸ ἀρχέτυπον;).24 Kaminiates does not stop with a nostalgic (7.9: ὁ περὶ τὴν πατρίδα πόθος) and naturalistic description of the city and its environs, but rather, he advances to the ethical implications of things concluding that the city has an obligation to provide its residents with a sense of security (8.2: μηδεμίαν ἀνάγκη φόβου τοῖς οἰκήτορσι παρεχόμενον) and good living conditions (9.3: οὐδεμία ἦν εὐζωΐας ἀφορμὴ ἧς οὐκ εἰς κόρον ἡμεῖς ἀπελαύομεν). From this standpoint, Kaminiates’s description of Thessaloniki is a description of a city, or ‘kastron.’

The late Byzantine city A. There is a depiction from the final Byzantine period of the city in an icon from Corfu representative of the ‘high art’ of the sixteenth century

Picturing Thessaloniki

13

Figure 1.6 Corfu, Antivouniotissa Museum, icon (inv. no. A.M.157). St Demetrios and Thessaloniki. [Source: Ephorate of Antiquities of Corfu]

(Figure 1.6).25 St Demetrios is shown astride a horse, galloping lightly in a field with low vegetation amid mountain passes. In the background, Thessaloniki is depicted from above with its high walls, four-sided towers, and the main western gate shut and locked. In other words, it is under siege or awaiting a siege. The city is densely built up, with two- and three-storey buildings with various orientations and pitched roofs. In the centre, two isolated towers with balconies reflect western influences on Byzantine military architecture, particularly the balcony to the right with its machicolations. The domes of Byzantine churches can be made out among the city’s buildings. A larger, lead-roofed dome in the centre of the city could be interpreted as the Rotunda

14 Charalambos Bakirtzis or Hagia Sophia, and in the foreground, the large building with the bell tower could be understood as the Basilica of Acheiropoietos. Finally, at the right there appears a prominent basilica with an elevated roof over its central aisle, which is the church of the city’s patron, St Demetrios. Despite the formulaic nature of the depictions, which one could attribute to the abstract and imaginary rendering of reality, the details of the landscape and the view of the city from above create the sense of a specific place within which the noble saint acts. A fitting comment on this depiction of late Byzantine Thessaloniki is offered by the following passage from the chartophylax John Staurakios, who writes between the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. As Nikephoros Choumnos and Demetrios Kydones had done, he recalls the admiration called forth by the large late Byzantine cities in connection with the abandoned countryside. Staurakios writes: The leader of the army ‘of the myriads’, the Bulgarian king Kalojan rushed impetuously towards the city of the Thessalonians. He arrived on the heights with their passes north of the city, whence the entire city was conspicuously in view. From on high, he reconnoitred the entire city and perused it. He saw the size and beauty of its houses and its venerable churches, and inquired about it. And when he asked about the divine house of Great Demetrios, which he saw, and they told him that this was the church of the martyr Demetrios, he imme­ diately got off his horse, knelt down, and said (in Bulgarian): ‘O, Saint Deme­ trios!’ (‘σφετί, Δημήτριε!’).26 B. The depiction of Thessaloniki in an icon dated to 1725 from Moschopolis, Albania (Figure 1.7), more closely reflects the urban development data of the late Byzantine city.27 Once again the subject is St Demetrios at the moment he is slaying the reviled Kalojan. In the foreground is the gulf of Thessaloniki enthusiastically described by Kaminiates, with ships sailing into it loaded down with cargo. Next come the verdant mountains which surround the city and the monasteries and estates outside its walls. The fortified city itself, now protected by gunpowder cannons, is divided into the lower and upper city. After the gradual shrinkage Thessaloniki’s core suffered during the middle Byzantine period, the lower city appears as densely built, with domed Byzantine churches dominating the landscape. The outskirts of the city and the upper city, now emptied of inhabitants, were occupied during the late Byzantine times by monasteries, gardens and open spaces where criminals were active. In the icon, the large Vlatades Monastery is depicted at some distance from the city proper.28 Higher up is the acropolis of Thessaloniki, the Heptapyrgion, as it was configured into an independent urban entity after the ninth century. As in many late Byzantine and early Ottoman cities, it served as the administrative centre and residence of the city’s ruler:

Picturing Thessaloniki

15

Figure 1.7 Moschopolis, National Museum of Medieval Art in Korytsa, icon. St Demetrios and Thessaloniki. [Source: after E. Hadjitryphonos and S. Ćurčić, eds., Ἡ Ἀρχιτεκτονικὴ ὡς Εἰ κόνα. Πρόσληψη καì

ἀναπαράσταση τῆς Ἀρχιτεκτονικῆς στὴ Βυζαντινὴ τέχνη (Thessaloniki, 2009), 252]

Delight in the Lord, city of Thessaloniki, rejoice and dance, being bril­ liantly arrayed with faith; Possessing Demetrios, the all-glorious combatant and martyr of truth, as a treasure in [your] bosom.29

Notes 1 See bibliography in T. Kiosopoulou, ed., Ο βυζαντινὲς πόλεις (8ος – 15ος αἰ ώνας). Προοπτικὲς τῆς ἔρευνας καì νέες ἑρμηνευτικὲς προσεγγίσεις (Rethymno, 2012); D. Monioudi-Gavala, Ἡ ἑλληνικὴ πόλη ἀπὸ τὸν Ἱππόδαμο στὸν Κλεάνθη (Athens, 2015).

16 Charalambos Bakirtzis 2 P. Vocotopoulos, Εἰ κόνες τῆς Κερκύρας (Athens, 1990), 19–22; E. Hadjitryphonos and S. Ćurčić, eds., Ἡ Ἀρχιτεκτονικὴ ὡς Εἰ κόνα. Πρόσληψη καì ἀναπαράσταση τῆς Ἀρχιτεκτονικῆς στὴ Βυζαντινὴ τέχνη (Thessaloniki, 2009), 354–9. For a functional description of the icon, see P. Mastora, ‘Περὶ τῆς Ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήμ’, Εἰ κονοστάσιον 3 (2012), 46–60. 3 Nikephoros Choumnos, ‘Θεσσαλονικεῦσι συμβουλευτικός, περὶ δικαιοσύνης’, in J. F. Boissonade, ed., Anecdota Graeca (5 vols., Paris, 1829–33), vol. 2, 89: Οἰκίαι παμμεγέθεις ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἄνω τείνουσαι τοῦ ἀέρος, μικροῦ δεῖν καὶ πρὸς αὐτὰς τὰς ὄψεις φιλονεικοῦσαι κάτωθεν ταύτας ἑαυτῶν τιθέναι, ἄλλη τις ἐπ’ ἄλλην εἰς ὕψος ἐγειρομένη, καὶ διπλῆν ἀνθ’ ἁπλῆς ποιοῦσαι τὴν πόλιν, ὡς καὶ δοκεῖν τὴν μὲν ἐναέρ­ ιον εἶναι, τὴν δ’ ἐπὶ γῆς ἱδρυμένην. 4 Πόλις Θεοῦ ἡ Ἁγία Σιὼν καὶ ἡ Ἄνω Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἧς τὰ θεμέλια ἐν ὄρεσι τοῖς ἁγίοις ὁ δὲ περίβολος αὐτῆς ὠκοδόμηται σμαράγδοις καὶ σαπφίροις καὶ ἄνθραξι καὶ ἀδά­ μασι καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς ἐκλεκτοῖς λίθοις, συγκεκολλημένοις χρυσίῳ αἱ δὲ ἐπάλξεις ἰάσ­ πιδι καὶ οἱ πυλῶνες πολυτίμοις μαργαρίταις αἱ δὲ πλατεῖαι χρυσίῳ καθαρῷ εἰσὶ ἐστρωμέναι μονὰς ἔχουσαι περικαλλεῖς ἐκ διαφανοῦς κρυστάλλου μαργαριτῶν τε καὶ χρυσοῦ στίλβοντος ἐν ᾗ ποταμοὶ διαυγεστάτου ὕδατος ἀθανάτου ζωῆς καὶ ὡραῖα δένδρα εἰς ἄνεσιν καὶ θυμηδίαν τοῦ μακαρίου λαοῦ. See Mastora, ‘Περὶ τῆς Ἄνω Ἱερουσαλήμ’, 55–6. 5 V. Tourptsoglou-Stephanidou, Περίγραμμα βυζαντινῶν οἰ κοδομικῶν περιορισμῶν. Ἀπὸ τὸν Ἰουστινιανὸ στὸν Ἀρμενόπουλο καì ἡ προβολή τους στὴ νομοθεσία τοῦ νεοελ­ ληνικοῦ κράτους (Thessaloniki, 1998). 6 H. Torp, ‘Dogmatic themes in the mosaics of the rotunda at Thessaloniki’, Arte Med­ ievale 1.1 (2001), 11–34; M. Carile, The Vision of the Palace of the Byzantine Emperors as a Heavenly Jerusalem (Spoleto, 2012), 79–92. 7 S. Ćurčić, Some Observations and Questions Regarding Early Christian Architecture in Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki, 2000); Ch. Bakirtzis and P. Mastora, ‘Are the mosaics in the rotunda in Thessaloniki linked to its conversion into a Christian church?’, Niš i Vizantija 9 (2011), 33–45; Ch. Bakirtzis and P. Mastora, ‘Σχετίζονται τὰ ψηφιδωτὰ τῆς Ροτόντας Θεσσαλονίκης μὲ τὴ μετατροπή της σὲ χριστιανικὸ ναό’, Προθήκη-Δελτίον Βελτιώσεως της Κοβενταρείου Βιβλιοθήκης Κοζάνης 1 (2016), 26–34; P. Mastora, ‘Το μαυσωλείο του Κωνσταντίνου στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Ο των αγίων σύλλογος: στρατιωτικοί, εκκλησιαστικοί και αυλικοί στα ψηφιδωτά της Ροτόντας’, Διακλαδική Επιθεώρηση, Περιοδικό Ανωτάτης Διακλαδικής Σχολής Πολέμου 36 (2016), 71–95; Ch. Bakirtzis and P. Mastora, What is Wrong with the Rotunda? (Athens, 2019). 8 Ch. Bakirtzis, E. Kourkoutidou-Nicolaidou and Ch. Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, Mosaics of Thessaloniki 4th–14th century (Athens, 2012), 49–112. 9 I. Ferris, The Arch of Constantine Inspired by the Divine (Stroud, 2013). 10 Ibid; see also n. 7; Ch. Bakirtzis, ‘Review of B. Kiilerich and H. Torp, The Rotunda of Thessaloniki and Its Mosaics’, Ἑλληνικά 67 (2017), 205, 208. 11 E. Kleinbauer, ‘The Orants in the mosaic decoration of the rotunda at Thessaloniki: Martyr saints or donors?’, CahArch 30 (1982), 25–45. 12 Eusebius of Caesarea, ‘Κωνσταντῖνος Σεβαστός, Τῷ τῶν ἁγίων Συλλόγῳ’, in idem, Ἅπαντα τά ἔργα (4 vols., Thessaloniki, 1977–82), vol. 4, 528–625. 13 For the Constantinian frieze with oratio scene, see Ferris, The Arch of Constantine, 81. 14 B. Laourdas, ‘Θωμᾶ Μαγίστρου, Τοῖ ς Θεσσαλονικεῦσι περì ὁμονοίας’, Επιστημονική Επετηρίς Νομικών και Οικονομικών Επιστημών 12 (1969) 751–75; 764.14–20: ‘Ἔπειτα ἐνθυμεῖσθαι χρὴ ὡς οὐ λίθοι και ξύλα τὰ τῶν πόλεων πράγματα, οὐδὲ γυμ­ νάσια καὶ λιμένες καὶ θέατρα καὶ στοαὶ καὶ μέγεθος οἰκοδομημάτων καὶ κάλλος, ἀλλ’ ἄνδρες ταὐτὰ διὰ πάντων φρονοῦντες καὶ σώζοντες τὰ γιγνόμενα, οἳ καὶ συνέχουσι ταῦτα δι’ ὁμονοίας καὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅπως ἔσται καλῶς ἔγνωσαν.’ See S. Triandari-Mara, Ἡ πολιτικὴ σκέψη στὴ Θεσσαλονίκη τὸν 14ο αἰ ώνα. Θωμᾶ Μαγίσ­ τρου, Τοῖ ς Θεσσαλονικεῦσι περì ὁμονοίας (Thessaloniki, 2002), 102.

Picturing Thessaloniki

17

15 A. Dunn, ‘The transition from polis to kastron in the Balkans (III–VII cc). General and regional perspectives’, BMGS 18 (1994), 60–81. 16 Bakirtzis, Kourkoutidou-Nicolaidou and Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, Mosaics of Thessalo­ niki, 166–70, fig. 47. See the analysis by N. Bakirtzis, ‘The practice, perception and experience of Byzantine fortification’, in P. Stephenson, ed., The Byzantine World (London and New York, 2010), 358–60. 17 Bakirtzis, Kourkoutidou-Nicolaidou and Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, Mosaics of Thessalo­ niki, 162–3, fig. 42. 18 According to Henry Maguire (Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Lit­ erature [New York, 2012], 141) the tall and very narrow door, which contains a scrolling plant, is suggestive of paradise, and the composition portrays the Virgin as the door of paradise. 19 Bakirtzis, Kourkoutidou-Nicolaidou and Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, Mosaics of Thessalo­ niki, 170–3, fig. 49. See also Ch. Bakirtzis and A. Sideri, Ἁγίου Δημητρίου Θαύματα. Ο Συλλογὲς ἀρχιεπισκόπου Ἰωάννου καì Ἀνωνύμου. Ὁ βίος, τὰ θαύματα καì ἡ Θεσσαλονίκη τοῦ Ἁγίου Δημητρίου (Athens, 1997), 414–15. 20 Πανόλβιε Χριστοῦ μάρτυς φιλόπολις/φροντίδα τίθη καὶ πολιτῶν καὶ ξένων. 21 G. Böhlig, ed., Ioannis Caminiatae de expugnatione Thessalonicae (Berlin, 1973), 5–8. See analysis by A. Constantakopoulou, Βυζαντινὴ Θεσσαλονίκη. Χῶρος καì ἰ δεολογία (Ioannina, 1996), 44–94; H. Kaltsoyianni, S. Kotzabasi and E. Paraskevopoulou, Ἡ Θεσσαλονίκη στὴ Βυζαντινὴ λογοτεχνία. Ρητορικὰ καì ἁγιολο­ γικά κείμενα (Thessaloniki, 2002), 9–19. 22 See n. 14. 23 See the late eleventh-century manuscript with the liturgical homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos (Mount Athos, St Panteleimon Monastery, Cod. 6), fols. 37r and 37v in G. Galavaris, Ζωγραφική Βυζαντινών Χειρογράφων (Athens, 1995), 236, figs.113–4. 24 The twelfth-century description of Timarion, which is looking down from the hilltop on the festival of the Demetria and noting the temporary installations of vendors in the Thessaloniki plain, is more pragmatic; see P. Vlachakos, Τιμαρίων (Thessaloniki, 2001), 52–6. 25 Hadjitryphonos and Ćurčić, eds., Ἡ Ἀρχιτεκτονικὴ ὡς Εἰ κόνα, 250–1. 26 I. Iverites, ‘Ἰωάννου Σταυρακίου Λόγος εἰς τὰ θαύματα τοῦ Ἁγίου Δημητρίου’, Μακεδονικά 1 (1940), 370. 25–32: Ὡς γοῦν ὁ τῆς μυρίας ταύτης στρατιᾶς Ἄναξ ἐκεῖνος φθάσοι ὁ δυσμενὴς ἐκ τῶν ἐκεῖσε βορειοτέρων ὑψηλοτέρων τεμπῶν, ἀφ’ ὧν ἡ πᾶσα πόλις ἐστὶν ἅμα καταφανὴς, ὡς ἐξ ἀπόπτου περιεσκόπει ταύτην καὶ εἰς ἅπαν περιειργάζετο. Καὶ οἴκων μὲν ἑώρα μεγέθη καὶ καλλονὴν καὶ ναοὺς σεπτούς, ἠρώτα καὶ ἐδιδάσκετο, ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ τὸν Μεγάλου Δημητρίου θεῖον οἶκον καὶ ἔδοι καὶ ἐρωτή­ σοι καὶ μάθοι, ὡς ναὸς οὗτος ἐστὶ Δημητρίου τοῦ μάρτυρος, παραυτίκα τοῦ ἵππου καταβῆναι καὶ προσκυνῆσαι καὶ οὕτως εἰπεῖν: ‘σφετὶ Δημήτριε!᾿; S. Paschalides, Η Γραμματεία των Δημητρίων Β΄: Μαρτύρια, Συλλογές Θαυμάτων και Εγκώμια στον άγιο Δημήτριο. Πρωτοβυζαντινή-Μεσοβυζαντινή περίοδο (Thessaloniki, 2005), 183. 27 Hadjitryphonos and Ćurčić, eds., Ἡ Ἀρχιτεκτονικὴ ὡς Εἰ κόνα, 252–3. 28 Ch. Bakirtzis, ‘The urban continuity and size of late Byzantine Thessaloniki’, DOP 57 (2003), 62. 29 Εὐφραίνου ἐν Κυρίῳ πόλις Θεσσαλονίκη, ἀγάλλου καὶ χόρευε πίστει λαμ­ προφοροῦσα, Δημήτριον τὸν πανένδοξον, ἀθλητὴν καὶ μάρτυρα τῆς ἀληθείας, ἐν κόλποις κατέχουσα, θησαυρόν. See Μηναία του όλου ενιαυτού (6 vols., Rome, 1888–1901), vol. 1, 520–1.

2

An icon of John the Baptist Sarah Bassett

An encaustic icon of John the Baptist from the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai and now in the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum in Kiev (Figure 2.1) is one of the more intriguing images to survive from the pre-iconoclastic period. In its choice of subject matter, painting technique and manipulation of form, it offers a vivid and compelling portrayal of the last of the great Biblical prophets.1 Yet, as is the case with so many early icons, the image remains a cypher. From the moment it became a subject of art historical inquiry, the icon dazzled viewers with the virtuoso quality of its style; that is the manipulation of such elements as line, colour and composition central to the artistic endeavour. The masterful use of devices such as contrapposto together with illusionistic techniques of light and shade modelling established its pedigree in the traditions of classical painting and led to its universal characterization as ‘Hellenistic.’ There agreement stopped. While the visual splendour of the image was beyond doubt, there was no consensus, regarding the ‘when’ and the ‘where’ of its manufacture. Using the tools of formal and iconographic analysis, studies proposed dates ranging from the fifth century through the seventh, and connected the icon to workshops in Alexandria, Constantinople, greater Egypt, Palestine and Syria.2 In large measure, this impasse results from the consideration of style. Almost all discussion of the Baptist’s image has focused on the analysis of style, assuming its utility as a diagnostic tool for purposes of artistic attribution, dating and the determination of provenance. In so doing, these analyses follow a model devised for the study of Renaissance and post-Renaissance art that understands style as a chronological, teleological development that is the product of individuals, workshops and geographical regions. Yet, it has long been clear that Roman art resists characterisation according to this kind of developmental model, as do the visual traditions of the late antique Mediterranean world in general.3 Moreover, there is little evidence to suggest that questions of date and provenance were of interest to late antique artists and observers for whom style operated less as a diagnostic and more as an interpretive tool whose function was to give shape and substance to iconography. This much is clear from the comments of the fifth-century rhetor, Nicholas the Sophist, whose instructions on the most effective way to describe painting and sculpture enjoin students to pay attention to the formal characteristics of a work of art that reveal inner

An icon of John the Baptist

19

Figure 2.1 Kiev, Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum, icon (inv. no. MX–113). John the Baptist. [Source: S. Bassett; Reproduced with Permission © Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts, Kiev, Ukraine]

states of being.4 In making this charge, Nicholas assumed that style was an equal partner with subject matter in the creation of meaning, and that his students would find that meaning in a universal visual language that operated across chronological and geographical frontiers. Taking the lead from Nicholas, my purpose in this chapter is to set aside issues of date and provenance to consider how style interacts with and enhances subject matter in the image of John the Baptist. Building on the analogy between the verbal and the visual in Byzantine art that Henry Maguire has so successfully mapped, I look to the lessons of rhetorical theory to understand aspects of the icon’s visual presentation. In taking up Henry’s model, I am aware of two things: how much I have learned and how much I have yet to learn from his example. With this in mind, I offer these thoughts with gratitude and admiration. The image of John the Baptist is painted in encaustic on a beech panel measuring cm 46.8 x 25.1. A four-colour palette of black/brown, blue, ochre

20 Sarah Bassett and white is applied directly to the surface in strokes ranging from the fluid to the impasto. Cracks run vertically through the panel, and pigment loss exposes substantial areas of the wood surface. Although the damage is considerable, the iconography remains legible. John dominates the composition, standing in a contrapposto pose at its centre against a variegated blue and green background from which he seems to emerge. Two medallion portraits, Christ and Mary against ochre grounds, occupy the upper left and right corners respectively. John dresses in accordance with his biblical description, sporting a brown chiton cinched with a black, bezel-studded belt beneath an ochre himation flecked with white highlights. The grey woolly sheepskin, or melote, that constitutes his signature look wraps around his right shoulder and knots at the front. A nimbus, long beard and shaggy hair frame his face, distinguished by the dark colour of its weather-beaten skin and the bags under the eyes. With his sandalled feet visible below the hem of his garments, John faces forward. At the same time, he turns his head upwards and slightly towards the right, his gaze directed towards Christ’s portrait. He also gestures towards the medallion with his raised right hand, while he extends his lowered left arm to display an unfurled scroll documenting his own words: ‘Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’ (John 1:29).5 Style remains the most arresting feature of the icon. Three formal elements in particular stand out, the contrapposto pose, light and shade modelling and an energetic use of line. Together, these devices structure the central figure of John, and, by extension, the larger composition. Thus, the Baptist stands against the background, the dynamic use of contrapposto and line creating the sense that he is at once stable and in motion. The chiastic balance that emerges from the arrangement of straight and bent limbs anchors the figure in space. At the same time, this technique of juxtaposition conveys a sense of motion by suggesting the figure’s rotation, an effect enhanced by the upward gaze. Light and shade modelling complements the pose. The play of light and dark establishes the figure’s weight and volume by creating the illusion of massive drapery folds wrapping around and responding to the underlying body. At the same time, the alternation between and contrast of colours together with the modulation of the individual hues creates a series of lines that breaks up and enlivens the visual field. The ochre himation falls over the body as a net of sharp, splintered marks of varying length, width and colour, some light, some dark. Zigzagging diagonally across the torso, they expand and contract as if responding to the figure’s shape and movement. Finally, an elaborate external profile complements this internal web of line, confirming the sense of motion. With its masterful use of contrapposto, control of light and shade modelling and dynamic sense of line, the icon of John the Baptist has been prized as the manifestation of an enduring Hellenistic tradition, an idea supported by the virtuoso use of the encaustic medium. It also presents a conundrum. On the one hand, the stylistic characteristics evoke the traditions of classical Graeco-Roman

An icon of John the Baptist

21

painting and in so doing suggest the possibility of an early date, while the virtuoso quality of the painting invites an artistic association with a major metropolitan centre. On the other hand, given its unique subject matter and its status as a portable object in a universe of similarly unfixed stars, there has been no agreed-upon assignation of date or provenance. Yet this is not for want of effort. The icon first attracted scholarly attention in the nineteenth century as one of a group of four pre-iconoclastic images taken from the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai by Porphyry Uspenski (1804–1885). Uspenski brought the cache to Jerusalem in 1850. From there, it travelled with him until his death in 1885, when, at his bequest, the four icons were sent to the Ecclesiastical Archaeological Museum of the Theological Academy in his native city of Kiev. In 1930 they were removed to the city’s Central Anti-Religious Museum, and from there, in 1940, they were deposited in what was then known as the Museum of Western and Eastern Art, now the Khanenko Museum.6 During this early period, discussion focused on questions of date and provenance, and it is in this context that the question of the icon’s style first was addressed. Thus, in 1902, Dimitri Ainalov observed that the image was of pre-iconoclastic manufacture because of its encaustic technique, proposed a sixth-century date on the basis of perceived stylistic similarities to the relief of John the Baptist from the ivory Throne of Maximianus now in Ravenna and suggested further that throne and painting shared an Alexandrian provenance.7 With the exception of Ormonde Dalton,8 who dated the icon between the seventh and the tenth centuries without explanation, a first wave of publication supported Ainalov’s proposal of pre­ iconoclastic manufacture and the idea of an Alexandrian provenance. There was, however, little agreement about the details of the date. In a joint publication, Oscar Wulff and Michael Alpatov, wavered between a fifth-sixth­ century and a sixth-seventh-century attribution. The masterful handling of the wax technique, the contrapposto pose and the lifelike quality of the Baptist’s facial features, which they thought had been painted from life, led them to prefer the earlier attribution; however, finding themselves swayed by Ainalov’s comparison to the ivory throne, they adjusted their chronology upwards, settling on the later date. 9 Although allowing for the possibility of a sixth-seventh-century span, subsequent publications tended to favour Ainalov’s sixth-century attribution, largely on the basis of style. Walter Felicetti-Liebenfels marvelled at the realism of the image, referred to it as antique and thought it must surely be Justinianic,10 as did Viktor Lazarev.11 Only Ernst Kitzinger wanted to reserve judgment, noting that the image had no known parallels, portable or fixed, in the corpus of early painting. That said, observing the loose, cursive brushwork, which he connected with Hellenistic illusionism, he eventually came down on the side of the sixth century.12 When the series of expeditions to the Monastery of St. Catherine undertaken by Princeton University and the University of Michigan in conjunction with the

22 Sarah Bassett University of Alexandria between 1956 and 1965 revealed the full extent of the monastery’s icon holdings, interest in the Kiev group revived and with it the study of John the Baptist. Kurt Weitzmann included the four Kiev images in his catalogue of the Sinai icons, and his discussion of John’s image was the most exhaustive to date. On the matter of date, he too was inclined to an earlier assignation. Although his official attribution reads ‘around the sixth century’,13 he wanted, like Wulff and Alpatov before him, to place it as early as the fifth century because of what he described as the classical aspects of its style: the contrapposto pose, the realistic rendering of the face and the use of irregular line and flickering highlights. He was, however, reticent about such an assignation and concluded only that if any icon were to date to the fifth century this would be it.14 Weitzmann addressed the issue of provenance more emphatically. He excluded the idea of a Constantinopolitan attribution, arguing that the image bore no stylistic affinity to other icons from Sinai which he had already dated to the sixth century and assigned to the capital, the images of Christ, the Theotokos and Saints and Saint Peter.15 Noting major stylistic differences between John’s image and icons of the apostles now in the Freer Collection, he also rejected a source in greater Egypt, a ban he extended to Alexandria, arguing that there was neither stylistic nor iconographic parity between the icon and John’s depiction on the Throne of Maximianus on which that association rested.16 Where he did see a similarity, however, was in an icon of the Ascension, also at Sinai, which he had already attributed to sixth-century Palestine17 and select miniatures from the Vienna Genesis. In particular, he compared the rendering of eyes with those on the icon and the treatment of background features to those in the Genesis miniature.18 Weitzmann also had a good deal to say about iconography; however, his remarks were in no way systematic or synthetic. He associated the icon with the Baptist’s feast,19 noted a resemblance between John’s figure and that of prophet Elijah in the apse mosaic of the Transfiguration in the Sinai monastery church20 and suggested that the facial features derived from the model of a tragic mask.21 These were passing observations, however. What truly interested him was the particular combination of figures, John, Christ and the Virgin, which he believed to have been distilled from a larger narrative composition showing John gesturing to the incarnate Christ and which he felt represented a precursor to the Deesis in the apse mosaic.22 Weitzmann, whose aim was documentary, perpetuated both the early interest in the questions of date and provenance and the use of stylistic analysis as a diagnostic procedure. In so doing, he set the terms for ongoing discussion. An essay by Kathleen Corrigan continued to pursue answers to the central questions of date and provenance, but using a different approach.23 Recognizing the limitations of stylistic analysis, Corrigan turned to iconography,24 which she felt offered a more promising solution to the seemingly intractable puzzle of date and provenance. She noted that, although the iconography of the Baptist himself conformed to known models, other aspects of the image, specifically the inclusion of the portrait medallions, represented a departure from convention. In earlier depictions, John

An icon of John the Baptist

23

appears holding a medallion showing Christ in the guise of a lamb, a reference to his divine nature. In the Kiev icon, the portrait medallions of Christ incarnate and his mother, Mary, recall his human nature.25 Corrigan expanded on these observations by explaining this new imagery in terms of historical developments, suggesting first that this iconographic change represents a response to Canon 82 of the Quinisext Council of 692, which forbade Christ’s ovine depiction on the ground that it did not acknowledge his human nature and, with it, his redemptive sacrifice for humanity. She argued further that the new iconography connected to sixth- and seventh-century theological concerns, in particular arguments about the relationship between the human and divine in the person of Jesus, and with them the related issue of the legitimacy of image veneration. It did so by emphasizing John’s role as a witness to Christ’s divine and human natures. She proposed that the icon acknowledges John’s witness to Christ’s divinity in the words of the scroll, and attests to his experience of the Incarnation through his interaction with the portrait medallion, an image of his human nature.26 Finally, Corrigan suggested that the medallion portraits be understood as icons within an icon, images that not only attest to Christ’s human nature, but also argue for the legitimacy of image veneration. Because of its relationship to the Quinisext Council and the fact that debates about Christ’s nature and the validity of icons were addressed by theologians in and around the major cities of Palestine in the seventh century she proposed a seventh-century date and a Palestinian provenance for the icon.27 In stepping back from the analysis of style to explore its iconographic implications, Corrigan was able to see the icon as the visualization of specific theological and doctrinal concerns and so connect the image to a specific historical context that offered persuasive evidence for date and place of manufacture. Nevertheless, her argument has not been fully accepted. Thus, although Hans Belting agreed that the icon did indeed offer testament to John’s dual witness, he fell back on a sixth-century date, gave no thought to the relation of the image to the larger devotional issues Corrigan proposed and avoided any discussion of provenance.28 Thomas Mathews was more explicit in his rejection of Corrigan’s work, proposing instead that the icon was the product of a mid-sixth-century Constantinopolitan workshop. Mathews based his argument on the iconography of the medallion portraits, citing their presence in sixth-century consular diptychs and another Sinai icon, that of St. Peter, which he also dated to the same time.29 As this most recent discussion indicates, style remains central to the inquiry and a persistent cause for discomfort. The enduring, if unspoken, conviction that the formal values associated with classical tradition and quality of execution signal early, metropolitan manufacture have proved a stumbling block to the acceptance of Corrigan’s proposal. Yet, there is nothing to preclude her suggestion. As the image of the Maccabees from Santa Maria Antique in the Roman Forum, dated to the seventh century and thought to be the work of eastern monastics, indicates classical painting traditions had a long and vibrant

24 Sarah Bassett life in the later Roman world where they existed side by side with images of a less classical bent.30 The question is, ‘why?’ Although the impulse has been to answer this question as if style were an indicator of time and place, the lesson of Nicholas the Sophist referred to earlier points to another possible response in its assumption that images communicated as much through style as through iconography. For Nicholas, form and content stood together in a vital, symbiotic relationship in which subject matter determined the nature of style and style in turn evoked emotion. This a useful lesson to bring to bear on the image of John the Baptist. In following the Sophist’s dictate to consider what ideas and emotions the icon’s formal strategies might summon, it is possible to move beyond the diagnostic use of style to an interpretive understanding that engages with the visual splendour of the image. Two related stylistic devices, contrapposto and light and shade modelling, structure the image. Central to both formal devices is the idea of contrast. The contrapposto pose, which results from the juxtaposition of straight and bent limbs, suspends its subject in the moment between stasis and motion. Similarly, the opposition of light and dark pigment creates the illusion of vibrant, threedimensional matter on the two-dimensional surface of the panel. In both instances, the contrast produces a paradoxical image. Although these stylistic devices have lost any meaning beyond the formal for modern viewers, Nicholas’ exhortation to explore style as a bearer of meaning suggests their expressive potential for an ancient viewer. It is difficult, however, to know what implications, if any, these devices may have carried. There is, for example, no specific commentary on the use of contrapposto, and the ancient term, if there was one, has not survived.31 Pliny (Nat. Hist. 34.55) states only that Polykleitos had his statues ‘throw their weight on one leg’, and ventures no opinion as to what ideas and emotions such form might conjure. Visual materials offer better evidence of how contrapposto might have been understood. The earliest use of the pose dates to the fifth century BC, when it appears in works such as the Kritios Boy (c. 480 BC) or the Doryphoros of Polykleitos (c. 450 BC). In their subject matter, both statues suggest association with the heroic – the Kritios Boy memorializes an Athenian youth, and the Doryphoros has been identified as Achilles32 – and it is possible that the pose was considered suitable to the visualisation of such subject matter. Quintilian (Inst 5.12.21) seems to support such an association with his observation that the Doryphoros was appropriate to the representation of warriors and athletes. The continued use of contrapposto by the Romans suggests a similar, if expanded, understanding. From the Augustan period into the late imperial age, contrapposto remained in use as a compositional device in honorific portrait sculpture of emperors, military men and civil servants, suggesting at the very least an association with monumental aggrandizement. Thus, although poles apart in terms of iconography, the one emphasizing the military, the other the civilian aspect of the emperor, the first-century BC statue of Augustus from Prima Porta (c. 32 BC) and a fourth-century portrait of Valentinian II (c. AD 390) from Aphrodisias, share the use of contrapposto.33

An icon of John the Baptist

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The long-standing association between contrapposto and heroic subject matter appears to have continued with the advent of Christianity, where its forms together with those of light and shade modelling were marshalled for the depiction of a new generation of heroes. As the rendering of the mosaics in the fifth-century mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna suggests, the apostles, saints and Christ himself might be understood to enjoy heroic status. Seen in this context, the Baptist’s classical pose appears not as the product of a chronologically or geographically determined style, but as a deliberate and traditional formal choice designed to present him in a heroic mien. It is also possible that the light and shade modelling that is so prevalent a feature of the image enhanced this identity by giving shape and substance to the body and the garments clothing it. Gathered around him in massive folds, his clothing not only responds to and articulates his movements, but also enlarges his body, lending it a sense of monumentality.34 To observe that contrapposto and its helpmate light and shade modelling may have signalled the heroic is one thing, to imagine how this juxtaposition of opposites might have been appropriate to the task is another. Perhaps a partial explanation lies in the nature of heroes themselves: hunters who are hunted, destroyers who defend, death-defying but all too mortal, heroes are themselves paradoxical creatures of contrast for whom contrapposto and modelling effects might offer a visual analogy.35 Rhetorical theory may shed further light on the question. It is possible that the visual contrasts integral to contrapposto and light and shade modelling represent an analogue to rhetorical antithesis, a stylistic device conceived and developed as a means to present and clarify contrasting ideas.36 Interestingly, the first use of contrapposto in fifth-century BC sculpture coincided with the initial rhetorical definition of antithesis as a juxtaposition of opposites by the pre-Socratic philosopher Gorgias of Leontini.37 Gorgias, fascinated by paradox, established antithesis as a mainstay of rhetorical composition, an idea that was subsequently developed by Aristotle and later Latin authors before going on to a long life in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Its aim was to highlight contrasting propositions on the principle that ideas are set off to best advantage when presented in opposition.38 As a rhetorical device, it was at once simple and complex. Its basic tool was parallel construction, which it manipulated through complex changes of repetition and variation in long periodic sentences to the simultaneous, if contradictory, ends of clarifying and embellishing language. These verbal complexities, in turn, lent a sense of grandeur to subject matter and speaker alike. It is possible that contrapposto, the pose suitable first for warriors and athletes, then for emperors and civil servants, and finally for prophets, saints and the incarnate God, visualized similar ideas in its own juxtaposition of straight and bent forms. Like its verbal counterpart, contrapposto was at once simple and complex. On the one hand, it expressed motion. On the other hand, it embodied stasis. In the combination of the two, it proposed a paradox. In so doing, it both clarified and embellished its subjects, lending them an air of monumentality and grandeur appropriate for the heroes it envisioned.

26 Sarah Bassett In this regard, the manipulation of style serves to gloss personality. In the case of the icon, John emerges from the background as a heroic figure consistent with his biblical persona. A prophet who was prophesied, a desert ascetic who returns to society to take up his mission of witness before meeting a martyr’s death, John’s physical representation embodies heroic antithesis. This stress on antithesis also is consistent with the Baptist’s role as witness to the dual nature of Christ, an aspect of his life emphasized in the iconography. In the juxtaposition of straight and bent, light and dark, stasis and motion and the unified presentation of these forms in the larger composition, visual antithesis makes the imponderable mystery of John’s experience and with it the perplexing reality of Christ’s own dual nature accessible to human perception and understanding. Although the figure of the Baptist dominates the icon, the manipulation of style around the concept of antithesis that structures his form extends to the composition as a whole, where it plays out in the placement of iconographical elements. Across the diagonal moving from the upper left corner to the lower right corner, the raised golden image of the medallion portrait proclaiming Christ’s humanity plays off against the lowered white surface of the unfurled parchment’s rectangular shape and its witness to the divine word. Circle plays off against rectangle, visual against verbal, human against divine. With its emphasis on John’s heroic status, the icon brings to mind the words of the seventh-century theologian John of Damascus. Writing in defence of images, John observed, ‘The icon is a hymn of triumph, a manifestation, a memorial inscribed for those who have fought and conquered, humbling the demons and putting them to flight.’39 As these words make clear, John saw the icon as a visual encomium, an eloquent panegyric in the Grand Manner. This rhetorical analogy is useful because it not only suggests how contemporary observers understood and engaged with the image, but also underscores the link between verbal and visual forms that structured classical and late classical imagination. That understanding is evident in the visual splendour of the icon of John the Baptist, where style merged with content to create a portrait descriptive of the physical man, his character, mission and the mystery that fires Christian imagination.

Notes 1 This paper was written while a Member at the Institute for Advanced Study. I thank the Institute and with it the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the support that made this work possible. I also thank the curators and staff at the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum in Kiev for access to the icon that is the subject of this chapter. Finally, many thanks to Sarah Bidgood and Janet Kennedy, who provided translation and transliteration of sources in Russian. 2 Inventory number MX–113, Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum, Kiev. For general overviews of the icon and bibliography, see the entry in R. Nelson and K. Collings, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (Los Angeles, CA, 2006), 125; O. E. Etingof, Vizantiiskie ikony VI–pervoĭ poloviny XIII veka v Rossii (Moscow, 2005), 538–42; K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Icons (Princeton, NJ, 1976), 32–5.

An icon of John the Baptist

27

3 On the matter of style in Roman and late Roman art see O. Brendel, Prolegomena to the Study of Roman Art (New Haven, CT and London, 1979); E. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making: Main Lines of Stylistic Development in Mediterranean Art, Third through Seventh Centuries (Cambridge, MA, 1977). 4 For the text see L. Spengel, ed. Rhetores Graeci (3 vols., Leipzig, 1856), vol. 3, 491–3 on ekphrasis. On Nicholas and his comments, see H. Maguire, Art and Eloquence in Byzantium (Princeton, NJ, 1981), 34. 5 [+ E(IDE) O/AM(NO)C/TOV (UEO)V O(AΙΡW)N/(THN) A(MA)PTI/- (AN) TOV/ KOCMOV]. 6 On the icon’s peripatetic existence see Etingof, Vizantiiskie ikony, 538–42. 7 D. Ainalov, ‘Sinaiskie ikony voskovoi zhivopisi’, VizVrem 9 (1902), 368. 8 O. M. Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology (Oxford, 1911), 316–7. Dalton was also uncertain of the figure’s identification, and entertained the possibility that the image depicted a prophet. 9 O. Wulff and M. Alpatov, Denkmäler der Ikonenmalerie (Dresden, 1925), 21–2 (fifth-sixth century) and 258 (sixth-seventh century). 10 W. Felicetti-Liebenfels, Geschichte der byzantinische Ikonenmalerei (Olten and Lau­ sanne, 1956), 261. 11 V. Lazarev, Storia della Pittura Bizantina (Turin, 1967), 92–3. 12 E. Kitzinger, ‘On some icons of the seventh century’, in K. Weitzmann, ed., Late Classical and Medieval Studies in Honor of A.M. Friend, Jr. (Princeton, NJ, 1955), 139, note 26. 13 Weitzmann, Monastery of Saint Catherine, 32. 14 Ibid., 35. 15 Ibid., 34. 16 Ibid., 35. 17 On the Ascension icon see Ibid., 31–2. 18 Ibid., 33, note 3, 35. 19 Ibid., 33. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., 34. 22 Ibid., 33–4. 23 K. Corrigan, ‘The witness of John the Baptist on an early Byzantine icon in Kiev’, DOP 42 (1988), 1–11. 24 Ibid., 1–3. 25 Ibid., 8–9. 26 Ibid., 3–4, 7–8. 27 Ibid., 9–11. 28 H. Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. E. Jephcott (Chicago, IL and London, 1994), 142. 29 Nelson and Collins, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground, 125. 30 P. J. Nordhagen, ‘S. Maria Antiqua: the frescoes of the seventh century’, ActaNorv 8 (1978), 89–142; Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making, 113–5. 31 On the history of contrapposto as a term see, D. Summers, ‘Contrapposto: style and meaning in Renaissance art’, ArtB 59.3 (1977), 336–61. 32 The association of Doryphoros with Achilles rests on a remark by Pliny (Nat. Hist. 34.18) which refers to nude, spear-bearing youths as ‘Achillean.’ See T. Lorenz, Polyklet Doryphoros (Stuttgart, 1966), 10–3; idem, Polyklet (Wiesbaden, 1972), 4–17. 33 For the statue of Valentinian II (Istanbul Archaeological Museum no. 2264) see N. Fıratlı, La sculpture byzantine figurée au Musée archéologique d’Istanbul (Paris, 1990), 6–7 and Pl. 2, fig. 4. 34 For a similar consideration of the role of drapery in classical art, see C. Hallett, ‘The origins of the classical style in sculpture’, JHS 106(1986), 71–84, esp. 75–8.

28 Sarah Bassett 35 E. Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley, CA, 1979), 83–116. 36 Summers (‘Contrapposto’) observes a similar function for the device in Renaissance art. 37 On Gorgias, see R. Wardy, The Birth of Rhetoric: Gorgias, Plato and Their Successors (London and New York, 1996), 6–9. 38 See Aristotle, Rh. 1410b – III, 9 for an explanation. 39 John of Damascus, Oratio Apologetica 2, PG 94, col. 1296B-C, F. Chase, trans., Writings (Washington, DC, 1958), 59.

3

Internationalizing Russia’s Byzantine heritage Medieval enamels and

chromolithographic geopolitics

Elena N. Boeck

In 1892 a marvel of bibliophile luxury boldly attempted to shift the international discourse on Byzantine art. It was the publication of the collection of enamels belonging to a wealthy Russian collector Alexander Zwenigorodskoi.1 The book was cleverly marketed and ostentatiously celebrated: the collector did not permit the book to enter the monetized marketplace – no copies of the volume were sold upon its release.2 Though now nearly forgotten, this book remains the most authoritative and comprehensive academic study of Byzantine enamels. Written by Nikodim Kondakov and dedicated to Tsar Alexander III (r. 1881–94), it was a tour de force of imperial Russia’s Byzantium. This study outlines the biography of this object, discusses its narrative framing of Byzantium, and touches upon the competitive world of nineteenth-century collectors and scholars. It is a fittingly appropriate subject for honouring Henry Maguire, since Kondakov’s text in the Zwenigorodskoi volume was one of the first scholarly studies to consider a connection between King David and the enamelled plaques with dancers on the so-called Crown of Constantine Monomachos, now in Budapest, Hungary. Though Kondakov was inclined to link the dancers to imperial banquets or processions, Henry has convincingly connected the imagery to Davidic virtues and other common motifs of imperial panegyric.3

A typographical masterpiece, its owner and its publicity The book was most definitely designed to be judged by its cover (Figure 3.1). It has the appearance of carved relief. If a beholder brushes his or her hand over it, this impression is confirmed. Its central decorative elements, a poly-lobed medallion loosely resembling a cross, and the outer frame are raised a few millimetres above the white background. Elaborately decorated with gilt leather and ebullient with Byzantinizing ornament, the cover is adorned with four colours: gold, silver, black and white. The flight of ornamental fancy creatively reinterprets enamels from the Byzantine world, such as roundels, pearl borders, interconnected floral designs, and includes inscriptions in neo-Byzantine style. A prominent, central, halo-shaped decoration above the poly-lobed element cleverly previews one of Zwenigorodskoi’s treasures contained inside – a gold enamelled halo, which now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a gift from the J. Pierpont Morgan collection.4

Figure 3.1 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins (Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). Front cover of the book. [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, DC]

Russia’s Byzantine heritage

31

An encounter with this volume is a calculatedly privileged experience, from the prestige of receiving this gift, to its cover, to the impressive size, to the quality of illustrations, to its decorative adornments, such as a silk bookmark, which accompanied each book.5 Simultaneously issued in Russian, German and French, the publication consisted of 600 volumes with 200 hand-numbered copies in each language. Though Zwenigorodskoi spent over 120,000 rubles on the publication (an astronomical sum proudly announced in his preface equivalent to well over a million US dollars today), the book only circulated in the prestigious space of lauded recipients (heads of state, diplomats, nobility, scholars and scholarly institutions) deemed worthy by the collector to receive it.6 A special mark of favour identified his friends or individuals whom he held in particular esteem. Their volume included an additional embellishment: a portrait of the collector facing the title page (Figure 3.2).7 Perhaps the greatest coup of this bibliophile tournament of values was a stunning dedication to Tsar Alexander III, which preceded the title page (Figure 3.3). A decade in the making, the book exemplifies the best achievements of chromolithography.8 The luxury of the printed simulacra of enamelwork included not only skilled representations of the golden texture of enamels, but also the use of pure gold for the creation of a stunning visual experience.9 Each chapter opens with an ornamental frame filled with golden and multicoloured decoration inspired by Byzantine manuscripts;10 nearly every page is adorned with red or blue decorative initials embellished with gold (that is, 24-karat sheet gold).11 Decorative aspects of the book exemplify ‘Russo-Byzantine style’, which was fashionable at the time. A large filigreed sheet of aluminium (unlike silver, aluminium does not oxidize) simulated the effect of silver on the page dedicated to Tsar Alexander III.12 The decoration unifies Byzantium and Russia – Byzantine floral motifs serve as a foundation for Russian stylistic elements, including double-headed imperial eagles, which sprout from the base of Byzantine ornament. The page also includes an opulently bejewelled adaptation of medieval Russian script [viaz’], spelling the name of the sovereign (Figure 3.3). The ornamental edifice, culminating with a jewelled orb of world dominion, evokes the tsar’s seat [tsarskoe mesto] in the most important Muscovite churches.13 By unifying stylistic elements of Byzantine enamels with contemporary signs of Russian imperial authority the page interconnects the two cultures in the celebration of empire and Orthodoxy. As a luxury, elite medium, enamels serve as a perfect vehicle for embodying such ideological construction. Exceptional attention to detail also applied to chromolithographic plates which meticulously transcribe even the fragmentary enamels of the collection. Such celebration of ornament is not surprising for a period which prized and praised it, often in nationalistic terms, as exemplified by the dedication page.14 Though at its heart this was a vanity publication, it is a testament to grand ambition. Zwenigorodskoi wrote a ten-page preface in order to frame his collection and shape the narrative. In the first sentence he announced that his collection of Byzantine enamels was simply the best:

[Source: © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, DC]

Figure 3.2 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins (Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). The title page with a portrait of the collector.

Figure 3.3 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins (Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). The dedication page (dedicated to Tsar Alexander III) fea­ turing a specially prepared, large, filigreed sheet of aluminium. [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, DC]

34 Elena N. Boeck Due to felicitous circumstances I am the owner of a collection of Byzantine enamels, which according to the French, German, English and Russian great connoisseurs, is considered the most important in the entirety of Europe, on account of the quantity as well as the perfection of objects it contains.15 In tandem with this self-aggrandizement he offered an altruistic motivation for the publication. He correctly claimed that European scholarship still lacked a comprehensive book dedicated to Byzantine enamels.16 Furthermore, the collector was aware that many objects in Russian collections (particularly his own, as well as objects sourced from the Caucasus) had never before been published or made accessible in western European languages.17 Thus his endeavour served the greater good by advancing international knowledge of ‘one of the most ancient, most beloved, most artistic and most important arts of humanity.’18 The idea for the superlatively luxurious publication had originated with his competitive desire to outshine western European chromolithographic achievements.19 Though he does not acknowledge it in the preface, the model for this publication and for its exclusive distribution was provided by the French publication of L'Imitation de Jésus-Christ which was produced in Paris in 1855, at the order of Napoleon III (r. 1852–70). That book received international renown following its display at the world fair in Paris in the same year. A special case was built for it at the imperial library in St. Petersburg, so that the admiring public could properly marvel at it.20 Forty years later this book was still remembered, with envy, in a volume dedicated to the reception of Zwenigorodskoi’s book: That edition [that is, Imitation] had to have become, by the will of the emperor [Napoleon III], the ‘miracle’ of typographical and illustrative art, and a celebration of France before eyes of all peoples of the world. And indeed, with its rich, marvelous material and artistic means, which France possessed, and its autocratic and uncontrollable master, then emperor of the French, a real ‘marvel’ was published, at which the entire European public could not stop marvelling.21 The past was far from being a foreign country when it came to chromolithographic geopolitics. The French book-of-hours-style publication celebrated Catholic piety and France’s late medieval cultural moment. The Zwenigorodskoi volume had surpassed that technological marvel, and accordingly glorified Russia and its imagined past: But now suddenly, after nearly half a century, it is among us in Russia that there appears our own ‘miracle’ of a similar kind, but now without the par­ ticipation of the highest government power, without government expend­ iture and without the government printing houses, a book, published by

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a private individual, and his private funds, but with such perfection of artis­ tic and technical forms, which, perhaps, leaves far behind not only many others, but even the Paris ‘miracle’ of 1855.22 The Russian ‘miracle’ proved to be no less political than the French one for imagining a medieval, ancestral past. It, too, received a special display case in the St. Petersburg library, so once again the public could adore an incredible book, but now it could also share a patriotic pride in this accomplishment.23 Purposefully addressing international audiences, Zwenigorodskoi’s volume emerged as a celebration of Russia’s Byzantium. The collector mused: I have always thought that study and publication of the creations of Byzan­ tine art belongs, perhaps, ahead of many other peoples, to the tasks of a Russian person, that is such a person, who from his earliest youth is sur­ rounded by the legends and the heritage of Byzantium, to the person who in accordance with the historical destinies of his fatherland is able to empa­ thize particularly strongly with the great artistic and truly creative facets of Byzantinism [Vizantiistva], avoiding those facets which are unsatisfactory, coarse, ossified and barely artistic; that person, finally, who by his very birth in the milieu [sreda] of our fatherland, cannot but feel in all of its force the ancient foundational connection between our art and the art of the Orient and Byzantium.24 This is nothing less than a hymn to protective patronage. As discussed below, the book’s argument openly celebrated a selective vision of Byzantium, which elevated Russia as the successor to Byzantine legacy. These sentiments represent a combination of romantic nationalism, faith in the living legacy of Byzantium, and Russia’s unique ‘destiny’ for unifying East and West. Even though Kondakov had not been the patron’s first choice for this encyclopaedic endeavour, he definitively became the best choice, judging by the results and Zwenigorodskoi’s satisfaction. The collector had rather bluntly narrated that not only the impetus for the publication had originated from his sojourn in Western Europe,25 but also that he first desired a western European scholar to write the book. The first choice was Jean Schulz, the priest of Aix-laChapelle in Aachen.26 His publication did not fully satisfy the collector.27 In 1886 Zwenigorodskoi finally commissioned Kondakov, ‘one of the great Byzantinists of our time’, to write this magnum opus on the recommendation of Stasov, an important cultural broker on the St. Petersburg scene.28 Both men ardently pursued Russia’s Byzantium. Each travelled widely in Europe, and within the Russian empire (especially the Caucasus), the former in pursuit of objects and the latter of knowledge.29 The importance of their extensive travels was acknowledged in the book’s reviews. Charles Diehl, for instance, appreciated the encyclopaedic breadth of the volume, noting that the collector and the scholar had studied all the works which constitute the corpus of Byzantine enamelwork.30

36 Elena N. Boeck This monument to scholarship and testament to ambition has withstood the test of time. Though a few years after Zwenigorodskoi’s death his collection was sold and dispersed, the luxury volume preserved the memory of the collection, and influenced how other collectors publicized their treasures.31 The scholarly result, too, was revolutionary. It was nothing less than the first comprehensive and encyclopaedic study of Byzantine enamels.32 In certain respects Kondakov’s accomplishment remains unmatched to the present day.

Narrative framing of Byzantium Kondakov’s vision is revealed by the breadth of the narrative and the selection of objects. From the opening paragraph he, like his patron, was consciously writing for a broad European audience. Already on the first two pages of his text he displayed European learning and mastery of the European scholarship by citing du Cange in the etymological discussion of smaltum,33 and Labarte on the definition of enamel.34 Kondakov set an erudite tone for the volume in the first chapter by confidently providing a progressive historical narrative of enamels from ancient Egypt to Byzantium. In Chapter 2 he discussed Byzantine enamels in general, while Chapters 3 and 4 were dedicated particularly to the objects in Zwenigorodskoi collection. Chapter 3 focused on the collector’s Byzantine enamels. The book concluded with a chapter on Zwenigorodskoi’s RussoByzantine and Georgian enamels. The last chapter was revolutionary for its time, for Kondakov was the first scholar to identify and differentiate between the ‘schools’ of Georgian and Byzantine enamels,35 as well as the Rus’ and Byzantine enamels.36 Furthermore, by situating the collection within a sweeping chronology Kondakov integrated Byzantine enamels and Byzantium within an established civilizational discourse, while authoring a kind of global art history. The volume is simultaneously a masterwork of erudition and an argument for another Byzantium. The Byzantium of this book (and of Russian scholarship of that era, more broadly) was not only the intellectual foundation of the Russian empire, it was also the centre of its cultural memory. Thus reimagined, Byzantium was not an empire which ossified in the sixth century (per then prevailing western European typologies), but it remained a vibrant and living civilization, which was granted a new life on Russian soil.37 Kondakov did not offer a watershed moment for the origins of Byzantine enamels. He was not as definitive about the sixth-century origins of the Byzantine enamel as French scholars, like C. Diehl, J. Labarte and C. Bayet.38 In his view, this technology entered Byzantium from the Sassanian empire sometime between the fourth and sixth centuries.39 For him, eastern origins of the art of enamelling were not a cause for ideological complexity. Not being an Orientalist in a western European sense, he sought to understand the causation of this cultural development: ‘It is important to ask whether the Byzantines had a particular reason for preferring translucent enamels and if these enamels came from the Orient to Byzantium as well.’40 He was frequently critical of the claims made by his western European peers, including de Linas, who

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described in minute details the luxurious jewellery of Byzantium which was borrowed from the Orient. But this picture lacks clear features and characteristics … without conducting a comparative study of ornamental polychromy appreciated by the Orient and by the Byzantine empire of the Middle Ages.41 Kondakov attempted to redress this issue by bringing into discussion objects from Central Asia. In France Byzantium was construed as an empire of decadence,42 while in the hands of Kondakov we encounter the restitution of a glorious empire, with a deliberate selection bias to support the narrative of Byzantium as Russia’s cultural progenitor. He introduced into wide circulation objects theretofore unknown in western European scholarship, such as the celebrated Khakhouli triptych.43 The face and hands of the Mother of God from the central icon of the Khakhouli triptych were some of the most prized objects in the collection.44 These enamels are unique in size and importance, for nothing comparable survives.45 They were meticulously represented in an impressive colour plate (Figure 3.4).46 Notably, they were stolen from Zwenigorodskoi around the time of the publication.47

Figure 3.4 N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins (Francfort sur Mein: [s.n.], 1892). The face and hands of the Mother of God from the Kha­ khouli triptych (colour plate 15 in the book; the place of origin is not men­ tioned by name in the book). [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, DC]

38 Elena N. Boeck Kondakov did not mention in the text either the association of these enamels with the Khakhouli triptych or their complex acquisition history. Though the author was familiar with the scandalous history of these and other Georgian enamels as recently stolen objects (see below), he was evidently not allowed by Zwenigorodskoi to discuss unsavoury facets of the patron’s acquisition practices.48 The aforementioned large enamels of the face and hands of the Mother of God entered the Botkin collection under mysterious circumstances ca. 1892,49 and were among the objects returned by the Soviet government to the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1923.50 Though these objects were a revelation to western European audiences, Kondakov was building on a body of knowledge that had been established in Russia in the preceding two decades by imperial and aristocratically sponsored expeditions to Georgia and their ostentatious publications.51 His efforts to establish a narrative of Byzantine art which extensively relied on objects from Russian collections, though generally lauded, met some resistance from western European scholars who preferred their own alreadyestablished discourse of masterpieces from the western European collections. For Diehl, for instance, the measure of quality firmly remained with objects that were already familiar to him, such as the Limburg staurotheke.52 The new objects, however impressive, could not outshine what was already known; the best that could be hoped for was a discursive place at the side of such celebrated masterworks. On the other side of the same coin, Diehl noted with some surprise that Kondakov could not permit himself to be infatuated with the Pala d’Oro, a well-established masterpiece of western European narratives.53 It is possible that Kondakov engaged in a deliberate decentring of this object, which was also not illustrated in the publication. He noted with scepticism that the Pala d’Oro had been perceived as the most celebrated piece of Byzantine enamelwork, however he found this appraisal to be an exaggeration, for the object’s fame was compounded by the difficulty of access.54 Kondakov judged several of its enamels to be inferior. Also notable, his discussion of the Pala d’Oro was succeeded by the analysis of the Khakhouli triptych, which he characterized from the outset as a ‘magnificent ornate setting that is a triptych.’55 The narrative thrust of the book was rooted within the Russian narrative framework, since it culminated with Russo-Byzantine and Georgian enamels. Within the Russian historical discourse this was a logical progression of cultural and imperial succession. In fact, this was the fulcrum of the book. From the western European perspective this narrative was not unproblematic. Since western European scholars worked with a different discursive model, they could criticize the Russian ideological framework. For instance, Diehl agreed with the book’s overarching narrative thrust of Byzantium’s importance for Russian culture: ‘We know the kind of influence that the Byzantine civilization exercised, from the twelfth century, upon the nascent Russia, and how it formed its arts and its industry from the school of Greece.’56 However, Diehl’s Russia was placed in a relationship of ‘apprenticeship’ with Byzantium, and Russian

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enamels were a ‘strange imitation’ of the ‘infinitely delicate art’, representing ‘much cruder’ results.57 The Byzantium of Kondakov’s narrative and of the Zwenigorodskoi collection was not an empire on the margins of Europe. Here Byzantium mirrors the breadth of the Russian empire, and incorporates ‘RussoByzantine’ and ‘Russo-Georgian’ into its territory.58 Kondakov concluded the book as follows: The history of various cross-overs between European art and the artistic prod­ ucts of the Orient are becoming more and more the fundamental task [com­ manding] the attention of Russian archaeologists. The antiquities of our country provide the most precious sources for writing such history. And these materials will one day be the pivot which will change the study of questions that are the most important to the history of art of the Middle Ages.59 The book thus provides an intellectual place for a productive relationship between East and West. This ideological model did not articulate a binary opposition between East and West, because Russia provided the geographical and cultural space for the meeting of the two worlds. For Diehl, by contrast, the Occident was consistently the positive and active space, while the Orient was the more passive, less known and more surprising locale, even in terms of the preservation of objects: ‘… des émaux byzantins vraiment remarquables que conservent les musées d’Occident. L’Orient, heureusement, comble en quelque manière ces lacunes …’60 The Orient could only supplement what was known and valued in the Occident, it could not direct or reshape the narrative. How does one measure the impact of a book? If we evaluate it in terms of the honours it garnered the patron, the volume was a stellar success. Zwenigorodskoi accumulated prestigious signs of international recognition: he was made an honorary member of various academies – from the German Palestine Society to the Greek Philological Academy in Constantinople.61 He received medals and orders from numerous royal and princely houses, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bukhara, Greece, Egypt, Spain, China, Persia and Japan.62 He also received one of the highest Russian recognitions: the order of Saint Anna of the first class granted by the tsar.63 A most remarkable honour was bestowed upon him by Gerasimos, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who granted Zwenigorodskoi the title of ‘crusader’ and gifted him a golden Jerusalem cross with a fragment of the True Cross. How do we know all of this? From a follow-up vanity publication or ‘book about Zwenigorodskoi’s book.’64 Zwenigorodskoi had V. V. Stasov compile a follow-up Histoire du livre ‘Les émaux byzantins, A. W. Zwenigorodskoi’, which was published in 1898 (Figure 3.5). This publication followed the same model of distribution and non-monetized circulation as the original.65 The content included a brief introduction by Stasov, followed by laudatory excerpts from national and international responses in praise of the book and its collector. Zwenigorodskoi’s recognitions and awards were listed in the back of the book

Figure 3.5 V. V. Stasov, Istoriia knigi Vizantiiskiia emali A.B. Zvenigorodskago [Histoire du livre Les émaux byzantins, [collection de] A.W. Zwenigorodskoi] (St. Petersburg: [s.n.], 1898). Front cover of the book. [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Rare Book Collection, Washington, DC]

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as a single list. Kondakov’s accomplishments and recognition were not discursively relevant, though most excerpts discussed the intellectual content of his work. This book, too, should be judged by its cover. It openly speaks in Russian cultural codes by highlighting enamels discovered on the territory of the Russian empire, including the Old Riazan treasure as well as a diadem from Kiev, and the title executed in the decidedly neo-Slavic style. Within six years Byzantium had become fully Russianized in substance as well as in style.

The collection assembled and dispersed The monumental volume is the most enduring legacy of the Zwenigorodskoi collection, which proved to be ephemeral and tainted by scandal. Though the entire collection numbering 43 objects was published in 1892, at least four of the published enamels had already left the collection.66 Following Zwenigorodskoi’s death, his enamels faced an uncertain future for nearly two decades: he died in 1903 in Germany, in debt, and the inheritance was immediately contested. The rightful heir had to raise funds against the collection in order to fight for the inheritance. He deposited the collection with Jacques Seligmann, an important art dealer and a supplier of J. Pierpont Morgan.67 That action foreshadowed the future of the collection. The Russian government considered acquiring it for the state, but lost it to Morgan. The Russian government’s interest in the collection was hampered as much by the price as by Zwenigorodskoi’s acquisition practices. The best enamels in the collection came from Georgia and Ukraine. Some of the latter – from recently unearthed Rus’ hoards – are now at the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.68 The story of the former is more complicated, for in Georgia the acquisition chain was so nefarious, that it was even acknowledged in Stasov’s volume about the Zwenigorodskoi book: ‘… it turned out later that [nine of the 11 enamel roundels now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art] were torn off by an unknown robber from the revetment of the icon of Archangel Gabriel, from the Djumati monastery in Georgia.’69 Most likely for that reason Zwenigorodskoi had attempted to shape a narrative about his good acquisition practices already on the second page of the preface and offered names of some previous owners and dates of acquisition. This supposed candour was covering up well-known pillaging that was taking place in Georgia, often conducted with the knowledge of local authorities.70 The people implicated in these thefts included the former governor of Kutaisi count Levashov, the St. Petersburg photographer and thief Sabin-Gus,71 and middlemen who operated between Tbilisi and St. Petersburg.72 Around the time when he was completing the book on the enamels, Kondakov lobbied the Russian government to appoint a special commission to record and document the Georgian medieval patrimony. The scholar was successful and in 1890, following an extended visit to Georgia, he published The Description of Ancient Monuments in Select Churches and Monasteries of Georgia.73 It is quite likely

42 Elena N. Boeck that he realized the true scale of the pillaging during his research of the Zwenigorodskoi enamels and therefore took steps to stop further decimation of medieval treasures. When the Council of Ministers convened a special commission in 1909–10 to determine whether to acquire the Zwenigorodskoi collection, the question of provenance consistently came up.74 Kondakov, a member of the commission, advocated for the restitution of Georgian enamels to the robbed monasteries and for the criminal persecution of the aforementioned photographer. Though the imperial justice was delayed, in 1923 the Soviet government returned to Georgia multiple stolen medieval enamels, including the face and hands of the Mother of God from the Khakhouli triptych.75 Where the Russian government failed, J. Pierpont Morgan succeeded. In 1910 Germain Seligman, according to his memoirs, travelled incognito to Russia to acquire the Zwenigorodskoi enamels (while the Russian government was still deliberating).76 He secretly transported them out of the country.77 He was the 18­ year-old son of Jacques Seligmann, described by Germain as ‘J. Pierpont Morgan’s chief art advisor’,78 on his ‘first important mission.’79 By 1912 the Zwenigorodskoi collection was in Morgan’s possession; the Morgan enamels were published the same year. Ormonde Dalton and Roger Fry issued the publication, with the objects from the former Zwenigorodskoi collection taking the pride of place. Clearly in dialogue with the Zwenigorodskoi volume, Morgan had his new trophies published in a slim, but well-circulating issue of the Burlington Magazine (1912), which was immediately reissued as a hand-numbered separate book.80 The publication of Morgan’s enamels, with several colour photographs (including the enamelled halo), was accompanied by a cover designed by Roger Fry. It was meant to evoke Byzantine style – with crosses in pearl roundels, and the initials J. P. M. forming part of the rectangular design filled with purple and gold – but it was more reminiscent of Ottonian manuscript illuminations rather than Byzantine aesthetics. The text is suffused with memories of the Zwenigorodskoi collection and its encyclopaedic publication. Dalton opened the narrative by establishing the value of the newly constituted collection: ‘Few collections are now more difficult to form than those adequately representative of Byzantine enamelling.’81 A few sentences later he articulated the value of the new trophy: The purchase by Mr. Morgan of the well-known Swenigorodskoi [sic] enamels places his collection in the first rank, by adding to it not only a homogeneous group of medallions unrivalled in their magnificence, but other figure-plaques and some purely decorative pieces, such as haloes, and backgrounds of ikons, which in their richness and the amplitude of their development seem almost to possess the flexibility of delicate woven stuffs.82 Ironically, but also appropriately for a discourse about collectors and collections, Kondakov’s contribution to knowledge was relegated to extensive footnotes, and was obliquely referenced in the text: ‘In the following pages references will not be

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unduly multiplied, since detailed accounts of Byzantine enamelling are already in existence.’83 Thus, in only two decades the first and ground-breaking book dedicated to Byzantine enamels transformed Byzantine enamels into a wellestablished and familiar subject. Though the Zwenigorodskoi/ Kondakov collaboration would continue to be cited for decades, the fascinating historical context in which it arose was soon forgotten.

Notes 1 Though it was issued in Russian, French and German, for the sake of consistency I will refer to the publication in French, including the pagination. The book has two titles: Emaux byzantins: collection Zwénigorodskoi, and N. P. Kondakov, Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins (Francfort sur Mein, 1892). I will be referring to it as Emaux byzantins. 2 Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, in Emaux byzantins, ix. 3 H. Maguire, ‘Davidic virtue: the crown of Constantine Monomachos and its images’, in A. Cohen-Mushlin and B. Kühnel, eds., The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1998), 117–23; Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 228–34. 4 Zwenigorodskoi was so pleased with the reception of this book that he commis­ sioned V. V. Stasov to write a follow-up volume on the book’s reception. The pur­ pose of the book was to compile quotations from the profusely adulatory notes of gratitude that Zwenigorodskoi received in the aftermath of the publication, as well as several published book reviews. The volume includes a brief introductory essay by Stasov, which is sprinkled with quotes from Zwenigorodskoi’s preface to the original publication. Stasov also discussed aspects of the volume’s production, including the binding, the iconography of the cover (such as the enamelled halo), and the orna­ mental decoration of the binding as ‘Byzantine-Russian’ [vizantiisko-russkii] and ‘Byzantine-Georgian’ [vizantiisko-gruzinskii]. V. V. Stasov, Histoire du livre ‘Les émaux byzantins A. W. Zwenigorodskoi’ [Istoriia knigi: Vizantiiskiia emali A.V. Zwenigorodskago] (St. Petersburg, 1898), 12. 5 The bookmark was made of silk woven with gold and silver thread. The book also came with a silk cover, in order to protect the binding; see Stasov, Histoire du livre, 13. 6 We can ascertain the recipients from Stasov’s Histoire du livre. 7 Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, ix. Three representations of round enamels arranged into the Deesis in the upper register of the title page are also objects from his collection. Stasov, Histoire du livre, 11. 8 Though Zwenigorodskoi’s idea for the volume originated in 1882, the book has the accepted publication date of 1892 (per first title page, while the date of 1889 appears on the title page with Kondakov’s name). The book was only distributed in 1894–95. See Stasov (Histoire du livre, 14–5) for the discussion of specially ordered paper, places of publication, engravers, etc.; Y. Piatnitskii, ‘Peregorodchatye emali iz sobraniia A.V. Zvenigorodskogo i issledovanie L. Pekarskoi’, ‘Jewellery of Princely Kiev. The Kiev Hoards in the British Museum and the metropolitan museum of art and related material’, Tyragetia 9.2 (2015), 299. 9 Stasov, Histoire du livre, 15. 10 This is not accidental, for Kondakov consistently emphasizes the close relationship between the aesthetics of enamels and Byzantine miniature painting. This decoration is also in stylistic dialogue with C. Bayet’s L’art byzantin (Paris, 1883), where each chapter opened with a similar black and white frontispiece.

44 Elena N. Boeck 11 The design of these initials bears little relation to Byzantine art, but evokes French or English Romanesque production. 12 This was a new technological accomplishment, for large sheets of aluminium had to be specially ordered, since sheets ‘of this notable size are not available for sale.’ 13 Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, xi; Stasov, Histoire du livre, 11. 14 In his review of the book Charles Diehl waxes poetic about the beauty of ornament in the book; see his ‘Les émaux byzantins’, GBA 13 (1895), 293. 15 Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, iii. Diehl (‘Les émaux byzantins’, 288) agreed with this assessment, categorizing the Zwenigorodskoi collection as ‘the absolutely unique collection of ancient Byzantine enamels.’ Stasov (Histoire du livre, 6) called the collection ‘the first in beauty and importance.’ 16 Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, vi. 17 Ibid., viii. 18 In a sentiment that rings true for any art historian today, Zwenigorodskoi (‘Préface’, viii) mentioned the challenges he faced in obtaining good photographs of objects, which served as the basis for the published lithographs of the same objects. The quotation is from Stasov, Histoire du livre, 6. 19 Stasov, Histoire du livre, 1–3. 20 Ibid., 4. 21 Ibid., 1. 22 Ibid., 3. The book was printed in Germany on special paper that was also manufactured in Germany. 23 Ibid., 4. 24 Quoted in Ibid., 5; Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, x. 25 He took his enamels along when he travelled to Germany for health reasons in 1884. After displaying them in Aachen, he claims to have been encouraged by various connoisseurs to publish the collection. Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, v. 26 Ibid. Schulz was recommended to him by unnamed western European experts. 27 J. Schulz, Die byzantinischen Zellen-Emais der Sammlung Swenigorodskoi (Aachen, 1884). Zwenigorodskoi (‘Préface’, v, vi) desired a more comprehensive work by Schulz, but came to the conclusion that though Schulz was an expert on western European material, his lacunae of knowledge on the subject of Byzantine enamels were far too great. 28 Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, vi. In his review Diehl (‘Les émaux byzantins’, 288) also validated Kondakov as ‘one of the men most qualified to speak about Byzantine objects.’ Kondakov was paid 100 rubles per page, per his letter to F. I. Buslaev from October 20, 1886, published in I. L. Kyzlasova, Istoriia izucheniia vizantiiskogo i drevnerusskogo iskusstva v Rossii (Moscow, 1985), 171. 29 Zwenigorodskoi, ‘Préface’, iv, for the beginning of his acquisitions in the Caucasus. 30 Diehl, ‘Les émaux byzantins’, 288. 31 These include M. P. Botkin and J. Pierpont Morgan. 32 The book was awarded the gold medal by Russian Archaeological Society. V. Lazarev (Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, 1844–1925 [Moscow, 1925], 14) con­ sidered this book as ‘one of the most foundational works of Kondakov.’ 33 Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 1, note 1. 34 Ibid., 2, note 1. 35 Sh. Ia. Amiranashvili, Istoriia Gruzinskogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1950), vol. 1, 226–7. 36 According to Stasov (Histoire du livre, 10), Kondakov’s discussion of the enamels from Georgia represents ‘new material, which was untouched by anyone before him …’. 37 N. Kondakov, Vizantiiskiia tserkvi i pamiatniki Konstantinopolia (Odessa, 1886), v, 83, 86.

Russia’s Byzantine heritage

45

38 Diehl (‘Les émaux byzantins’, 290) viewed enamels within the more familiar west­ ern European narrative trope of ‘le luxe byzantin’, and within the more sensational­ ist discourse of grand ceremonies and imperial treasures. See also: Bayet, L’art byzantin, 94–95. 39 Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 68 ff. Ascription of Persian origins to Byzantine enamels was a widely held position in French scholarship. Bayet, L’art byzantin, 60; Stasov, Histoire du livre, 9. 40 Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 68. 41 Ibid. 42 E. Boeck, ‘Archaeology of decadence: uncovering Byzantium in Victorien Sardou’s “Theodora”’, in R. Betancourt and M. Taroutina, eds., Byzantium/Modernism: The Byzantine as Method in Modernity (Leiden, 2015), 102–33. In his review Diehl (‘Les émaux byzantins’, 296) speaks about the decadence of the twelfth century. 43 Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 122–34. The central image of the Mother of God is the largest extant (though fragmentary) Byzantine enamel icon. See T. Papamastorakis, ‘Re-deconstructing the Khakhouli Triptych’, Δελτ.Χριστ.Ἀρχ.Ἑτ. 41 (2002), 225–54. 44 L. Z. Khuskivadze, Srednevekovye peregorodchatye emali iz sobraniia Gosudarstvennogo muzeia iskusstv Gruzii (Tbilisi, 1984), 30, no. 16. 45 Amiranashvili, Istoriia Gruzinskogo iskusstva, vol. 1, 228. 46 Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 302–4. 47 Piatnitskii, ‘Peregorodchatye emali’, 301. 48 Ibid., 297–8. See also the discussion below. 49 Ibid., 299. 50 Sh. Ia. Amiranashvili, Istoriia Gruzinskogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1963), 257, note 1; Khuskivadze, Srednevekovye peregorodchatye emali, 11, 30; Piatnitskii, ‘Peregorod­ chatye emali’, 299–300. 51 This Georgian material is building on the scientific expeditions by the Moscow Archaeological Society and its publications such as Materialy po arkheologii Kavkaza: sobrannye ekspeditsiiami Imperatorskago Moskovskago Arkheologicheskago Obschestva (Moscow, 1888–1916). 52 Thus, for Diehl (‘Les émaux byzantins’, 292) the Zwenigorodskoi enamels of Georgian provenance ‘méritent de prendre place immédiatement à còté du célèbre reliquaire de Limbourg, ce chef-d’oeuvre de l’art byzantine … ’ Kondakov’s analysis and the book’s illustrations included several established masterpieces, such as the Limburg staurotheke, which was previously illustrated in such publications as Didron’s Annales archèologiques, Bayet’s L’art byzantine, Figure 71. 53 Bayet (L’art byzantin, 211), for instance, calls it the ‘celebrated Pala d’Oro.’ He also discusses the ‘lively controversies’ surrounding its time of production and its addi­ tive nature. Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 115–21. 54 Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 115. 55 Ibid., 122. 56 Diehl, ‘Les émaux byzantins’, 293. 57 Ibid., 293, 294. 58 This approach is very different from Bayet’s narrative in L’art byzantin, where the medieval arts of Russia, Georgia and Armenia are discussed briefly and rather paren­ thetically at the end of the book, but with some illustrations in a chapter dedicated to the Byzantine influence in the East. They do not fit the narrative of Byzantine art proper. 59 Kondakov, Emaux byzantins, 368. 60 Diehl, ‘Les émaux byzantins’, 291. 61 Stasov, Histoire du livre, 239. 62 Ibid., 240–2 for the complete list.

46 Elena N. Boeck 63 Ibid., 242. In addition to great honour, the order of first class provided the recipient with the privileges of hereditary nobility. 64 Stasov’s letter to N. F. Findeizen dated February 15, 1901. Published in V. V. Stasov, Pis’ma k deiateliam Russkoi kul’tury (2 vols., Moscow, 1962–67), vol. 2, 266. 65 Ibid. 66 Piatnitskii, ‘Peregorodchatye emali’, 299–300. 67 Ibid., 308–10. 68 They were recently reunited in the book by L. Pekarska, Jewellery of Princely Kiev: The Kiev Hoards in the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Related Material (Mainz and London, 2011). The volume also contains a brief discussion of the Zwenigorodskoi collection, 158–60. 69 Stasov, Histoire du livre, 6. 70 According to Amiranashvili (Istoriia Gruzinskogo iskusstva, vol. 1, 13): ‘Some collectors, with the aid of the Georgian exharchate, stole from the monasteries and treasuries the richest collections of Georgian antiquities under the guise of the restauration of the monuments of antiquity.’ 71 For an extended discussion of the theft, see N. L. Beruchashvili, Sud’ba dvukh pamiatnikov kul’turnogo naslediia Gruzii (Tbilisi, 2015). See also Amiranashvili, Istoriia Gruzinskogo iskusstva (1963), 257. 72 Ibid. See also Piatnitskii, ‘Peregorodchatye emali’, 300. 73 N. Kondakov and D. Bakradze, Opis’ pamiatnikov drevnosti v nekotorykh khramakh i monastyriakh Gruzii (St. Petersburg, 1890). 74 State interest in the collection was reported in the Russian press: ‘The Council of Ministers will determine the question about the acquisition of the famous collection of ancient Byzantine and ancient Russian enamels of A. V. Zwenigorodskoi, consisting of forty three objects.’ Starye Gody December 1910, 46 (in Piatnitskii, ‘Peregorodchatye emali’, 307). Excerpts from the committee’s deliberations are available at http://skurlov.blogspot.nl/2009/02/blog-post_1563.html (last accessed March 2018). 75 Amiranashvili, Istoriia Gruzinskogo iskusstva, vol. 1, 226, note 1. 76 Yuri Piatnitsky (‘Peregorodchatye emali’, 311) rightly questioned this representation by the seller and suggested that the Council of Ministers had not yet reached its decision when the enamels were removed from Russia. 77 He did not declare them at customs because of ‘the voluminous red tape’ and to avoid ‘the inevitable gossip over the great value of such small objects.’ G. Seligman, Merchants of Art: 1880 Jewellery of Princely Kiev 1960. Eighty Years of Professional Collecting (New York, 1961), 68. 78 Ibid., 66. 79 Ibid., 60. 80 O. M. Dalton, with a note by R. Fry, Byzantine Enamels in Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s Collection (London, 1912). The edition was limited to 100 copies. 81 Ibid., 3. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. This statement is accompanied by a lengthy footnote referencing Kondakov’s work and offering a brief schema of the narrative development of enamelling beginning from the ancient period.

4

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images Leslie Brubaker

The Byzantines expressed hierarchies of status visually. This means – as Henry Maguire has repeatedly demonstrated1 – that ‘style’ and ‘iconography’ are rarely neatly segregated in Byzantine imagery, where artisans habitually used formal conventions to convey meaning. Examples of how this was achieved are mostly preserved in high-status goods, such as the mid-sixth-century apse mosaic at the monastery on Mount Sinai, where the central, passive, frontal and self-contained figure of Christ is flanked by the prophets Moses and Elijah posed in three-quarter turns towards him with slightly extended arms, and all three are underpinned by the peripheral, twisting apostles with arms extended in amazement (Figure 4.1).2

Figure 4.1 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, main church, apse mosaic. Transfiguration. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expeditions to Mount Sinai]

48 Leslie Brubaker For later examples in a range of media one need only recall the use of composition to convey meaning in the ninth-century Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos in Paris;3 the use of gaze to elevate the emperor Michael VII (r. 1071–78) and his son above king Geza (r. 1074–77) on the eleventh-century crown of Hungary,4 and the employment of scale, corporeality and motion to distinguish between the archangel and the monk on the twelfth-century icon of St Michael at Chonai now on Sinai (Figure 4.2).5 As the first and last of these examples indicate, degrees of corporeality and movement were used to distinguish between people of different statuses, but there was not a simple correlation between static and divine. Christ is the still centre of the Sinai mosaic, but Michael is differentiated from the flat and slight monk he saved by his twisting, three-dimensional pose. As we shall see, this is probably because Christ in Justinian’s imperial foundation at Sinai was presented following an imperial presentation formula, whereas Michael and the

Figure 4.2 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Archangel Michael at Chonai. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expeditions to Mount Sinai]

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 49 monk conformed to a different but complementary set of ideas entirely, encapsulated long ago by Ernst Kitzinger in his discussion of the ‘modes’ of presentation of the (three-dimensional) Virgin and child, (flat) saints and (almost translucent) angels on the famous sixth- or seventh-century icon preserved at Mount Sinai (Figure 4.3).6 For now, the important point is that the examples just adduced all demonstrate that, across the early and middle Byzantine centuries, artisans used formal means to convey social hierarchies in flexible ways that were dependent on context. These examples also indicate that gesture was an important component of how hierarchies were articulated in images. Whether or not figures gesticulated or carried their arms close to the body was not only a narrative device, but also a means of indicating their place in the social hierarchy. This was also the case in daily life, at least as we can reconstruct it from surviving texts and images.7

Figure 4.3 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Mary and Christ and saints and angels. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expeditions to Mount Sinai]

50 Leslie Brubaker Gender also played a role in the construction of hierarchies. When the Byzantines depicted the imperial family with Christ or the Virgin, for example, the emperor was almost always portrayed on the (viewer’s) left with the empress on the (viewer’s) right. What mattered was not, however, the viewer, but the central figure, and for Christ or the Virgin, the male was in the position of privilege to their right. Hence, at San Vitale in Ravenna (Figure 4.4), the mosaic panel picturing Justinian and his retinue is on the left (north) wall of the sanctuary, where he is the beneficiary of Christ’s gesture from the apse to his right, while Theodora is on Christ’s left (our right).8 So both gesture and gender played important roles in visual expressions of Byzantine social hierarchies. The relationship between gender and gesture is not, however, well understood. In honour of Henry Maguire’s seminal work

Figure 4.4 Ravenna, San Vitale, apse. View showing the side panels with Justinian and Theodora. [Source: Courtesy of Fine Arts Library, Harvard University]

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 51 on gestures of sorrow in Byzantine art,9 I would like to dedicate the rest of this chapter to an exploration of the connection between gesture and gender in Middle Byzantine images; to consider, in other words, how visual representation intersects with social construction, as viewed through the twin lenses of gender and gesture. There has been little interest in the relationship between gesture and gender in Byzantium. Gaze, yes: for example, Ioli Kalavrezou’s work on the mid-eleventh-century imperial portrait of Zoe and Constantine Monomachos at Hagia Sophia (Figure 4.5) demonstrated that Zoe’s gaze was lowered to visualize greater respect for Christ and her third husband;10 but physical gesture, no. This is surprising because gesture functioned as a clear marker of status in Byzantine images across the early and middle periods. As we saw in the apse mosaic at Sinai, Christ’s importance was signified by his centrality, his frontality, his size, his white garments and his physical passivity, with arms drawn in and an

Figure 4.5 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, southwest gallery, mosaic. Constantine XI Monomachos, Christ and Zoe. [Source: The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC]

52 Leslie Brubaker unbroken contour line around his body. Secondary figures, the visionary spectres of Elijah and Moses, flank him, turn toward him and allow one arm to gesture toward him, thus breaking through the contour line that notionally encircles their bodies. The least divine figures, the three witnessing apostles, meanwhile sprawl across the lower register of the composition, their bodies twisting and their arms and legs protruding into space. Spiritual hierarchy is reinforced by a hierarchy of gesture, and the model we see at Sinai recurs in imperial imagery until the end of the empire.11 With this pattern in mind, the gestures of Zoe and Constantine Monomachos can be seen to reinforce their readjusted gazes: both turn slightly inward in respect of Christ’s frontal centrality, but Constantine is on the favoured right hand of Christ, and his arms do not break out of the contours of his body, while Zoe’s do. This arrangement continues in the second imperial portrait panel, immediately to the right of Zoe and Constantine, which shows John II Komnenos, the Virgin, John’s wife Eirene and their son Alexios (Figure 4.6).12 Both emperor and empress now face the viewer, but the child Christ blesses the self-contained John, who gazes off into the middle distance, while Eirene’s gaze is directed toward the Virgin and her arms and the chrysobull she carries expand outward from the contour of her body.

Figure 4.6 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, southwest gallery, mosaic. John II Komnenos, Virgin Mary and Eirene. [Source: The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC]

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 53 An examination of Byzantine images from the years before 1204 demonstrates that the patterns just sketched out recur over and over again. They exhibit, however, two distinct variants, with imperial, or imperially inflected, imagery – normally symmetrical in composition and without narrative details – significantly different from images of ordinary people depicted as part of a larger story. In short, what we might call ‘formal’ representations of gender and gesture differ significantly from ‘everyday’ representations.

Gender and gesture in ‘formal’ representations In the mid-sixth-century mosaic panels of Justinian and Theodora at San Vitale in Ravenna (Figures 4.7 and 4.8) noted above, Theodora is slighter and considerably shorter than Justinian, and her arms extend the chalice well outside the contour of her body. This provides a contrast with her broader and taller husband, whose right arm remains in front of his torso as he cradles the paten with his veiled left hand; while the drapery covering his hand protrudes beyond his shoulder line, the fact that his arm is draped extends the contour of his mantle, and he is thus presented as a relatively self-contained unit. As with the later imperial portraits at Hagia Sophia, those at San Vitale visualize imperial gender hierarchy by location, size and degree of activity, with Justinian on Christ’s right, and larger and more self-contained than his wife.

Figure 4.7 Ravenna, San Vitale, sanctuary, mosaic. Justinian panel. [Source: Courtesy of Fine Arts Library, Harvard University]

54 Leslie Brubaker

Figure 4.8 Ravenna, San Vitale, sanctuary, mosaic. Theodora panel. [Source: Courtesy of Fine Arts Library, Harvard University]

Roughly a century later, one of the well-known David plates, dated to the years 628–30 by silver stamps and usually associated with the court of the emperor Herakleios (610–41), presents the marriage of David and Mihal (Figure 4.9). The act of marriage requires the couple to join hands, but the five figures on the plate are nonetheless sharply distinguished by their postures. The bearded Saul, in the middle, is largest, framed by the arch that backs the scene, frontal and fully self-contained; he is clearly the dominant figure here. David, beardless, stands to Saul’s right, very slightly turned toward him but with frontally facing legs. As required by the ceremony, David’s arm extends toward Mihal, but his drapery merges into that of Saul so that his extended arm is never backlit. Mihal, on Saul’s left, inclines her head and the turn of her body is emphasized by the drapery pulling over her left leg; her right arm extends across the background space to meet David, and her left arm, though backed by her mantle, moves away from her body. She is a far more active figure than David, but shows considerably less movement than the two musicians who stand on either side of the couple, outside the architectural backdrop, playing pipes.13 The David plate thus participates in the same hierarchical visual model as the earlier mosaics at Sinai and San Vitale, and the later ones in Istanbul. There are not many images that show men and women together preserved from the eighth century, but the Trier ivory (Figure 4.10) has been re-dated recently to 796, and the imperial figures have been re-identified as Constantine VI and Eirene dedicating the church of Hagia Euphemia.14 Whether or not this identification stands the test of time, the imperial couple perpetuates and anticipates the formula we have seen on the David plates and earlier and later

Figure 4.9 Nicosia, Archaeological Museum, silver plate. Marriage of David and Michal. [Source: Courtesy of Fine Arts Library, Harvard University]

Figure 4.10 Trier, Cathedral treasury, ivory plaque. Constantine VI and Eirene dedicating the church of St Euphemia (?) [Source: Hohe Domkirche Trier – Domschatz/photo by Ann Münchow]

56 Leslie Brubaker imperial mosaics. The male figure is larger and bulkier than the female figure. The pair turn toward each other, Constantine (if it is he) on the viewer’s left holding a candle in front of his chest; his mother (if it is she) extending her arm away from her body towards him. Once again, then, the imperial male is on the left, though there is no central figure here, so he is simply closer to the image of Christ above the gateway on the far left of the panel; he is, however, as with the other examples we have considered, more self-contained than the imperial female, and is larger than she is as well. The ninth-century ivory now in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome (Figure 4.11), which is probably the closest stylistic comparison to the Trier ivory,15 also shows an imperial couple, here placed directly above a non-imperial couple. The imperial couple has been variously identified, most compellingly by Henry Maguire as Basil I (867–86) and his wife Eudokia.16 Basil and Eudokia flank Christ, with Basil on Christ’s right. In this case, both the emperor and the empress turn toward Christ with inclined heads and with their rear hand extended slightly; the female of the couple below them, however, is distinguished by her prominently extended hand, which makes her by far the most active figure of the group. This is a slightly different hierarchical pattern, and distinguishes imperial (above) from non-imperial (below) as well as continuing the male/left, female/right composition.

Figure 4.11 Rome, Palazzo Venezia, ivory box, lid. Basil, Christ and Eudokia with gifting couple. [Source: © Bildarchiv Foto Marburg/Albert Hirmer; Irmgard Ernstmeier-Hirmer]

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 57 As we have already seen, the pattern established here continues into the eleventh century, as exemplified by the Zoe and Constantine IX panel in the southwest gallery of Hagia Sophia (Figure 4.5), and on into the twelfth, as seen in the adjacent panel of John II and Eirene (Figure 4.6). In all the cases we have considered except for the Trier ivory, the composition is bifurcated, with men on privileged left of a central figure and women on the right. Across the six centuries covered by these examples, the men are consistently larger and more self-contained, while the women show motion and their gestures break the framing contours of their bodies. The images we have considered thus far are either imperial portraits, or, like the Sinai mosaic (Figure 4.1) and Palazzo Venezia ivory (Figure 4.11), were apparently commissioned by or for an emperor or empress; they are all elite, high status objects,17 and – except for the Trier ivory (Figure 4.10) – present centralized compositions. If we turn to narrative imagery that does not concentrate on the emperor and empress, we find some differences.

Gender and gesture in narrative representations The ninth-century copy of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos (a fourthcentury church father) now in Paris includes a miniature that depicts Gregory delivering a sermon to the townspeople of Nazianzos after a hailstorm had destroyed their crops (Figure 4.12).18 Gregory’s father, who was the bishop of the town, was devastated by the natural disaster and could not speak; his silence is indicated by his lack of gesture: indeed, his arms are totally hidden within his cloak. Gregory rose to the occasion and spoke to the people who had rushed to the church for comfort: the townspeople are arranged in two groups, with the men closest to Gregory and the women following behind. The men gesticulate in speech, asking Gregory what has happened; the women, in this instance, are the self-contained figures, and their lack of gesture – as was the case with Gregory’s father – signifies their silence. In comparison with the imperial, or imperially inflected, images with which we began, the narrative image in the Homilies manuscript shows both similarities and differences. As in the imperial images, men and women are separated, with the men on the viewer’s left, and thus (as on the Trier ivory) closer to the centre of activity, in this case the two Gregories. But here it is the men who gesture rather than the women. Why? To answer this question, we need to return status to the list of discriminators, alongside gender and gesture. It was the imperial masculine ideal to appear in public like an immobile statue, an ideal famously expressed by Ammianus Marcellinus, talking about the emperor Constantius visiting Rome in 357.19 That this ideal continued is clear from Michael Psellos’s admiring words about Isaak Komnenos, brilliantly analysed in conjunction with the imperial portraits in an eleventh-century copy of the Homilies of John Chrysostom in Paris (Paris, BNdF, Coislin 79) by Henry Maguire, who concluded that ‘the rigid style of the images was intended to illustrate not only imperial virtues of inflexibility but

58 Leslie Brubaker

Figure 4.12 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 78r. Gregory preaching after a hailstorm. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

also the emperor’s special closeness to God.’20 So while the distinction between male and female gestures is certainly inflected by gender, it is also affected by the ideals of imperial behaviour, which have their own set of idealized gender roles, as we see visualized in the examples we have just discussed. Non-imperial representations of men and women are also modulated by gender conventions, but in somewhat different ways. In the Gregory miniature, the group of women follows the group of men (they are, in other words, segregated and secondary) and are passive rather than active participants in the scene. The men gesture in speech, one using the familiar open-palm hand gesture; the other pointing to his mouth, in a gesture used elsewhere in the manuscript to signify dialogue.21 The women are self-enclosed and their lack of gesticulation indicates their silence. This is not the frontal passivity that suggests statuesque authority in imperial males; this is an obliquely turned, with bowed head, passivity that suggests subservience. The manuscript that contains this miniature is one of the most heavily illustrated Byzantine books preserved, made for the emperor Basil I between 879 and 882,

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 59 probably at the instigation of the patriarch Photios.22 It incorporates women and men, shown together in the same scenes, in about two-thirds of its 46 full-page miniatures. Many of the pictures represent biblical events, where each participant has a specific role assigned by the scriptural narrative, but there are several pages that illustrate non-biblical stories, and others where the scriptural account is augmented by mixed-sex groups. These are the images I would like to turn to now, to explore what they tell us about gesture and gender in a narrative setting that does not include imperial portraits. The first example shows Gregory of Nazianzos and his family in the top section of the page (Figure 4.13); the funeral procession of his brother in the

Figure 4.13 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 43v. Family of Gregory of Nazianzos; funeral of Gregory’s brother; death of Gregory’s sister. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

60 Leslie Brubaker middle; and the death of his sister at the bottom.23 In the upper section, Gregory – the most important figure – is in the centre; his father (next in importance) stands to his right; his brother (third in importance) stands to his left. Beyond the core male grouping stand Gregory’s mother and his sister. The miniature is not in good condition, but the right half of the top scene is well preserved, and shows us clearly that the pattern we saw in the hailstorm miniature continues here: the male (Gregory’s brother) gestures actively, arms extended, consuming space, while the female beside him (Gregory’s sister) pulls her arms in front of her body and remains self-enclosed. The open and active male/closed and passive female binary could hardly be more explicit. The distinction is nuanced in the lowest register, which portrays Gregory’s mother lamenting over her dying daughter. Lamenting over the dead was one of the few active public roles that females were expected and permitted to perform in the Greek world from antiquity onward, though churchmen regularly suggested that such emotion-laden, communally visible physical action was unseemly for respectable females.24 There is, however, a considerable difference between the active male of the top register and the active female below him, and the distinction is both interactional and directional: Gregory’s brother, the active male at the top of the page, stands in prayer and faces the viewer with outstretched arms; Gregory’s mother, the active female below him, bends over the dead body of her daughter as she mourns. In other words, though she is indeed active, Gregory’s mother remains self-contained and otherdirected. Unlike Gregory’s brother’s open-armed prayer, his mother’s action is also emotionally driven. The miniaturist presented the public face of female emotional response to death, and this was tacitly accepted at least in part because of the Byzantine belief that to display strong emotion was a weakness typical of women:25 in short, the active female here performs a role believed to be gender-appropriate. A later page presents a series of (male) conversions, and in the lowest register we see the conversion of Gregory’s father, who awakens from a dream/ vision in which he hears a Psalm verse, rushes to convert to Christianity, stumbles en route and is inadvertently ordained a priest, then is baptized (Figure 4.14).26 The male-female pairing shows Gregory’s parents as his father awakens from his dream: his mother is behind him, to the right, and inclines her head downward as her husband raises his eyes to the Hand of God responsible for his vision. This is, obviously, another active male/passive female composition, and the female is, as our examples have repeatedly shown, placed firmly on the viewer’s right. Further on in the manuscript, a visual life of St Basil, Gregory’s best friend, introduces Gregory’s funeral oration for him (Figure 4.15).27 Basil first appears with his mother and father in a cave, hiding from persecution. He is central, and his parents are shown to defer to him by the direction of their gazes; his mother – unusually, on his favoured right side – also gestures toward him. On the same page, in the third register, we have a group of mixed-gender townspeople, rushing to Basil’s aid as he defends a poor widow (kneeling at his

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 61

Figure 4.14 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 87v. Conver­ sion of Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew with Christ and Zachias; Christ and the rich youth and the conversion of Nathanael; conversion, bap­ tism and ordination of Gregory’s father. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

feet on the left side of the register) from an evil judge. It is by now not surprising that the actively gesturing men are followed by the passive women, most of whose hands are not even visible. About two-thirds of the way through the manuscript is a narrative image that focuses on the life of St Cyprian (Figure 4.16).28 Before the future saint converted to Christianity, he invoked magic to try to seduce a woman named Juliana. She resisted by praying to Christ, who protected her, and her faith eventually resulted in

Figure 4.15 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 104r. Life of St Basil of Caesarea. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 63

Figure 4.16 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 332v. Life of St Cyprian. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

her sanctification.29 Juliana is portrayed gesturing in prayer toward a medallion image of Christ above her head, and this is one of the rare instances in the manuscript where a female gestures and looks upward, even in prayer, a distinction presumably motivated by her saintly status. Towards the end of the book, we return to the imperial mode, with the empress Helena discovering the True Cross in Jerusalem (Figure 4.17).30 Helena is far from the most active participant in this drama, but she is nonetheless not permitted the

64 Leslie Brubaker

Figure 4.17 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 440r. Con­ stantine’s dream; Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge; Helena dis­ covering the True Cross. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

frontal, self-enclosed authority of the imperial men we looked at earlier; in both portrayals, her hand gesture breaks through the physical contours of her clothing. Aside from Justina, however, she is the most active female we have observed so far in this manuscript, but, as we saw earlier in this chapter, the visual standards for imperial men and women were not quite the same as those for ordinary people, and Helena’s activity here is just as gender-specific as was the passivity of the women listening to Gregory’s sermon or following the men protecting Basil.

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 65 In the final miniature of the manuscript, Gregory leaves his family to sail to, one presumes, Constantinople to take up his duties as patriarch in 380 (Figure 4.18).31 The family line up in some sort of hierarchical order: father, brother, sister and – I think we are meant to understand – mother in the

Figure 4.18 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 452v. Life of St Gregory of Nazianzos. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

66 Leslie Brubaker background. The hand positions here are standard departure gestures, but only Gregory’s sister inclines her head downward so that she must look up at Gregory. There are also mixed groups in some of the biblical scenes, such in the Multiplication of Loaves, but in this case the miniature is so badly abraded that we cannot make out the gestures.32 The figures are much clearer in the painting of the Entry into Jerusalem (Figure 4.19), and here, as usual, the men gesture actively at the front of the group and the women stand passively at the back – though here one of them grasps a child firmly by the wrist.33 Below the Entry into Jerusalem is the Crossing of the Red Sea, with the dance of Miriam, which often accompanies images celebrating the Israelites’ safe passage across the waters and escape from the Egyptians. Miriam is

Figure 4.19 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 264v (detail). Crossing the Red Sea with the Dance of Miriam. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 67 a whirl of activity, with arms thrown high as she plays her castanets. As Mati Meyer has demonstrated, this motif was borrowed early on more or less verbatim from maenad figures on pre-Christian sarcophagi, and then repeated ad infinitum, with little variation across the entire Middle Byzantine period.34 It cannot be assumed to bear any resemblance to actual Byzantine women (who were expressly forbidden to dance in public by various church councils, beginning in the fourth century, their bans comprehensively covered by the Council in Trullo of 691/2).35 But the motif persisted, and provides one of the few examples of active female gesturing in Byzantine imagery. It functions as a kind of transgressive ‘other’, rather like the women who dress as men to enter male monasteries so beloved of early Byzantine hagiographers:36 in other words, women were actually not permitted to do this, but this is the visual story that one woman is allowed to perform to ensure that no one else does.

Conclusions What can we conclude? As we have seen, in examples from the sixth to the twelfth century, there is a set of imperial, or formal, gestures that are heavily gendered, and these are different from the gestures visualized for ordinary people. In formal portraiture, apparently following the rhetorical conventions that promoted statuesque imperial behaviour, males are self-contained and, in three-part compositions, are normally accorded the privileged position on the right of the central figure (the viewer’s left); females are far more likely to be shown with their contours broken by extended arms or legs, and are usually turned more toward the central figure than are males. In contrast, in less formal, narrative scenes (which are also normally non-imperial37), males are depicted as more active than females, who are normally presented as passive presences. We can conclude that status is an important component of the gesture/gender interface. A different set of rhetorical conventions parallels the portrayal of ‘ordinary’ people in narrative settings. Here, the gestures visualized in the material we have examined reinforce (and are reinforced by) literary conventions portraying women as secondary and passive; although, in the precise context of lamentation, a gendered activity in the Byzantine world, they can display emotion through gesture. There are, however, some exceptional women visually, just as there are textually. As we saw in the case of Miriam, these have the effect of emphasizing how women should behave by visualizing how they should not. In the end, then, the gendered rhetoric of gesture in images is remarkably similar to the gendered rhetoric of words: to Henry Maguire’s Art and Eloquence in Byzantium, we append an epilogue of gender and gesture. What the images we have looked at here do is to add the dimension of gesture – of corporeality – to the rhetorical conventions of status and gender expressed in words. They, quite literally, embody the social construction of Byzantine gender.

68 Leslie Brubaker

Notes 1 See, for example, H. Maguire, ‘Style and ideology in Byzantine imperial art’, Gesta 28.2 (1989), 217–31; H. Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies. Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, 1996), 48–99. 2 G. Forsyth and K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Church and Fortress of Justinian (Ann Arbor, 1973), pl. CIII. 3 L. Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium. Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge, 1999), 98–107. 4 Multiple layers of formal distinctions were applied here. The most important figure, the emperor, is central and raised above the other two figures; second in importance, the emperor’s son, is portrayed to his right (our left) and shares with his father strict frontality (an absence of gesture) along with royal insignia, a royal red inscription and neatly trimmed hair (his junior status is however clear from his position and lack of beard, a key life-course status indicator). Least important is the apparent recipient of the crown, King Geza of Hungary, on the inferior lefthand side of the emperor, who is distinguished from his Byzantine patrons by attri­ butes, hair and beard style, inscription colour and his gaze, looking up towards the emperor. See further I. Kalavrezou, ‘Irregular marriages in the eleventh century and the Zoe and Constantine mosaic in Hagia Sophia’, in A. Laiou and D. Simon, eds., Law and Society in Byzantium: Ninth-Twelfth Centuries (Washington, DC, 1994), 241–59. 5 H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, AD 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 118; G. Peers, Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium (Berkeley, 2001), 53–5. 6 E. Kitzinger, ‘Byzantine art in the period between Justinian and Iconoclasm’, in Berichte zum XI. Internationalen Byzantinisten-Kongress 4/1 (Munich, 1958), 1–50, at 30 and 47. See also Peers, Subtle Bodies, 49–52. M. Dal Santo (Debating the Saints’ Cult in the Age of Gregory the Great [Oxford, 2012], 337–41) has (somewhat fancifully) recently interpreted this icon as a visualization of the ‘God-guarded’ empire. 7 See, for example, L. Brubaker, ‘Gesture in Byzantium’, in M. Braddick, ed., The Politics of Gesture, Historical Perspectives (Oxford, 2009), 36–56. 8 For convenient reproductions of San Vitale, see H. Maguire, Earth and Ocean. The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art (University Park, 1987). 9 H. Maguire, ‘The depiction of sorrow in Middle Byzantine art’, DOP 31 (1977), 123–74. 10 As in note 4. 11 On which see Maguire, ‘Style and ideology’, and, for Palaiologan examples, L. Brubaker, ‘Pictures are good to think with: looking at Byzantium’ in P. Odorico, P. Agapitos and M. Hinterberger, eds., L’écriture de la mémoire. La littérarité de l’historiographie (Paris, 2006), 221–40. 12 T. Whittemore, The Mosaics of Hagia Sophia at Istanbul. Third Preliminary Report, Work Done in 1935–1938. The Imperial Portraits of the South Gallery (Boston, 1942). 13 Discussion of the plates, with references to the voluminous bibliography, in R. Leader, ‘The David plates revisited: transforming the secular in early Byzantium’, ArtB 82 (2000), 407–27; R. Leader-Newby, Silver and Society in Late Antiquity: Functions and Meanings of Silver Plate in the Fourth to Seventh Centuries (Aldershot and Burlington, 2004), 182–216. 14 P. Niewöhner, ‘Historisch-topographische Überlegungen zum Trierer Prozession­ selfenbein, dem Christusbuld an der Chalke, Kaiserin Irenes Triumph im Bilder­ streit und der Euphemiakirche am Hippodrom’, Millennium 11 (2014), 261–87. 15 L. Brubaker, ‘The Chalke gate, the construction of the past, and the Trier ivory’, BMGS 23 (1999), 258–85.

Gender and gesture in Byzantine images 69 16 H. Maguire, ‘The art of comparing in Byzantium’, ArtB 70 (1988), 88–103. 17 Whether or not the David plates were made for the emperor Herakleios, they were clearly very expensive, elite products. Leader argues against a direct imperial connection, but presents an overview of the arguments for and against this position in the two publications cited in note 13. 18 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, cod. gr. 510, fol. 78r in Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 124–7. 19 History 16.10.5–10 in Ammianus Marcellinus I, trans. J. Rolfe (London, 1956), 247. 20 Maguire, ‘Style and ideology’, 224. 21 See the miniature of the vision of Ezekiel in Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 438v in Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 286–8. 22 Ibid., 5–7, 412–4. 23 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 43v in ibid., 119–21. 24 On female mourners, and images of them, see M. Meyer, An Obscure Portrait. Imaging Women’s Reality in Byzantine Art (London, 2009), 162–82, with extensive bibliography. For Chrysostom’s fourth-century condemnation of this activity, see ibid., 164–5. On mourners more generally, see N. Constas, ‘Death and dying in Byzantium’ in D. Krueger, ed., Byzantine Christianity (Minneapolis, 2010), 124–45. The classic study of lament after death in the Greek world remains M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge, 1974). 25 For the late antique period, see G. Clark, Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Lifestyles (Oxford, 1993), esp. 120–6. Prokopios’s Theodora is a prime example of a woman unable to control her emotions, as discussed in my ‘Sex, lies and textuality: the Secret History of Prokopios and the rhetoric of gender in sixthcentury Byzantium’, in L. Brubaker and J. Smith, eds., Gender in Society, 300–900 (Cambridge, 2004), 83–101, at 92–3. There does not seem to be a study of this topos in the later Byzantine world, but the conceit is rampant in, for example, Psellos’s Chronographia. 26 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 87v in Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 127–31, 380–6. 27 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 104r in ibid., 137–41. 28 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 332v in ibid., 141–4. 29 Juliana shares a feast day with Cyprian in the typikon of Hagia Sophia; see J. Mateos, Le typicon de la Grande Église (2 vols., Rome, 1963), vol. 1, 58–9. 30 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 440r in Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 163–9. 31 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 452v in ibid., 134–7. 32 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 165r in ibid., 83–92. 33 Paris, Bibliothèque de France, gr. 510, fol. 264v in ibid., 217–21, 337–43, 356–60. 34 On female dancers in general, see Meyer, An Obscure Portrait, 200–17, with extensive earlier bibliography; on Miriam in particular, ibid., 205–8. See also M. Meyer, ‘Did the daughters of Israel come dancing and singing to meet … David? A biblical image in Christian-Macedonian imperial attire’, Byzantion 73 (2003), 467–87. 35 On Trullo and its relationship with earlier councils, see J. Herrin, ‘“Femina Byzantina”: The council of Trullo on women’, DOP 46 (1992), 97–105, esp. 102–3; repr. with bibliographical additions in J. Herrin, Unrivalled Influence. Women and Empire in Byzantium (Princeton, 2013), 115–32. On the lack of rela­ tionship between the images and any sort of Byzantine realia, see Meyer, An Obscure Portrait, 201–16. 36 See S. Constantinou, Female Corporeal Performances. Reading the Body in Byzan­ tine Passions and Lives of Holy Women (Uppsala, 2005), 90–126; S. Constantinou, ‘Holy actors and actresses, fools and cross-dressers as the protagonists of saints’

70 Leslie Brubaker lives’, in S. Efthymiadis, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagi­ ography (2 vols., Farnham and Burlington, 2014), vol. 2, 343–62. 37 The obvious exception to this generalization is the Madrid Skylitzes, but, as Elena Boeck (Imagining the Byzantine Past: The Perception of History in the Illustrated Manuscripts of Skylitzes and Manasses [Cambridge, 2015]) has so carefully demon­ strated, the miniatures in the manuscript are less concerned with Byzantine etiquette than with re-imagining Byzantine history to suit the protocols of the court of Roger II of Sicily, so I have not included it in this study.

5

Portrait of a lady Annemarie Weyl Carr

No theme commandeered art’s eloquence more persistently in Byzantium than prayer, or played more tellingly upon the slippages between saying and seeing, asking and being answered. Thus to honour Henry Maguire, consummate scholar and colleague, I turn to one of the most beautiful prayer images from the crusader era: the bilateral icon of a sculpted St. George with a female donor in the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens (inv. no. BM 1108) (Figure 5.1).1 At 109.7 x 72 cm, it is an imposing, visually complex panel. Multiple in medium, combining sculpture and painting, it is also complex in address. Bilateral, mounted on a pole and framed on its obverse by vita scenes of St. George, it must have been the title icon of an institution or congregation, configured for variable placement and viewing from all sides in ceremonial events. Yet grand and public as it is in form, it also includes the portrait of an individual woman deeply bent in prayer. It is richly gendered, for though its dominant saint is an armed warrior, the other figures are women: not only the tiny, praying donor, but also two radiantly beautiful, full-length women saints on the panel’s reverse (Figure 5.2), and the empress Alexandra given exceptional prominence in the scenes of George’s vita.2 The saints on the reverse, one swathed in a red maphorion, the other in imperial dress, turn inward in profile orant pose, their hands raised to a figure of Christ who extends both arms from an arc of heaven to bless each equally. Their original names have long vanished, though the saint in red is identified – very plausibly – in a later inscription as Marina. Along with medium, format and gender, the panel is complex in cultural identity, for though its painting is identifiably Byzantine, its title figure of George is more crusader than Greek, with his short, bobbed hair, simple cuirass, high boots and triangular shield. The icon is consistently dated in the mid-thirteenth century on the basis of its volumetric, softly colourful style, but its place and context of origin have been extensively debated, though it came to Athens from Kastoria. Its very high quality and luminous early Palaiologan manner have suggested a Constantinopolitan origin.3 In turn, the silver ground of the panel’s reverse and the crusader inflexion of St. George have drawn attention to Cyprus,4 while the paired women saints have pointed instead to Sinai,5 where a number of icons pair St. Marina with an imperially clad counterpart, either Catherine or Eirene.6 Neither Constantinople, Cyprus nor Sinai is noted for sculpture,

Figure 5.1 Athens, Byzantine and Christian Museum, icon (inv. no. BM 1108), obverse. St George with female donor. [Source: Byzantine and Christian Museum]

Figure 5.2 Athens, Byzantine and Christian Museum, icon (inv. no. BM 1108), reverse. Two female saints. [Source: Byzantine and Christian Museum]

74 Annemarie Weyl Carr however, and the three-dimensionality of St. George’s figure has turned attention more consistently to Kastoria itself, or Arta,7 both drawn deeply into the kind of mingled Greek and Latin military engagements that his arms and clothing seem to reflect. The panel raises many questions; just three are offered for fuller exploration here: the form of the sculpted St. George, his relationship to the woman donor, and the question of her identity. Visually, it is not the tiny donor but the figure of St. George that dominates attention. The angularity of his bobbed hair, unadorned harness and quartered, triangular shield contrast with the fluent grace of the painted forms around him, and give him a stark, action-ready contemporaneity. Were it not for the technique with which his blocky form has been painted, one might question his Byzantine craftsmanship.8 Yet for all his preparedness, he stands not frontally, but in profile orant pose, eyes averted towards a small, painted figure of Christ descending toward him from an arc of heaven. Sculpted icons, though rare, are known across the path of the Via Egnatia, in Thrace, and in Macedonia, especially Kastoria; Arta, too, is known for sculpture. But even in these regions where sculpted icons are known, they are characteristically and recurrently frontal. One thinks of the haunting, three-metre-tall St. George of Omorphoklesia in Gallista near Kastoria,9 the two-metre Hodegetria in Kastoria itself10 or the more measured but still powerful Mother of God Tryphiotissa from Thrace,11 and St. Clement in Ohrid.12 George’s averted posture in the Athens icon is disturbing. It puts him in close relationship with Christ, who addresses him directly, extending a conspicuously twofingered gesture of blessing while clutching a closed scroll. But if George is closely bound to Christ, his devotees – be they the crouching donor or viewers like us – are conspicuously peripheral. The orant profile posture is exceptional enough to demand attention. In icons devoted to them alone, only the Mother of God and John the Forerunner customarily assume this pose.13 Especially for a warrior saint, it blunts the cocky panache of his frontal presence. Yet precisely warriors did assume the profile orant posture, in images designed to emphasize their identity as martyrs.14 Most often shown in confronted pairs, they turn to receive the confirmation of their martyrdom from Christ, who confers it from an arc of heaven in the form of a blessing, or through the signature motif of the martyr’s crown. The two Theodores may assume this posture together; more often one sees St. George paired with one of the two Theodores or another military saint. In time, it was George who pre-empted the posture, appearing from the sixteenth century onwards in painted icons showing him raising to Christ both his severed head, ultimate sign of his martyrdom, and a scroll demanding due reward.15 This Christ awards him, bending from an arc of heaven as in the Athens icon but now brandishing an open and inscribed scroll. George’s words – Ὁρᾶς τι πεπράχασιν ἄνομοι, Λόγε, ὁρᾶς κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ σοῦ Τετμεμένην (You see what [the] lawless have done, O Word. You see [my] head cut off for your sake) – had originated centuries earlier in icons of the orant John the Baptist with his severed head,16 again stressing martyrdom rewarded.

Portrait of a lady 75 The motif of the warrior saints receiving their martyrs’ reward was well known in small-scale sculptures, both seals and especially steatites.17 But Ivan Drpić has recently published a hitherto unknown monumental instance of it.18 This was a carved icon, presumably of some size, housed in an aedicule of its own in the naos of the cathedral in Serres. It showed the two Theodores, appropriately, as the cathedral owned a highly venerated relic of the Theodores, and was dedicated to them. The icon emerges into visibility through accounts of a series of miraculous events that occurred in the mid-thirteenth century, very near the years to which its style has assigned the Athens icon. Climactic were two interventions on behalf of the emperor Theodore II Laskaris (1254–8) during his siege of Melnik in 1255.19 Theodore reciprocated in 1256 by sheathing the icon in precious metal. Again later, in 1305 during the reign of Andronikos II (1282–1324), the sculpted warriors were reported to have lifted a Catalan siege of Serres.20 Visual evidence, Drpić argues, shows that this icon was widely known and venerated in the region, for mural and panel paintings showing the two Theodores together survive in Macedonia from the late thirteenth century onwards, including two well-known panel-painted icons in Kastoria and Veria.21 The fame of Serres’s sculpted icon of military saints in profile might well have helped to inspire the form of the St. George in the icon in Athens. Both the panel’s vita-icon format and the exceptional posture of its saint have led Nancy Patterson Ševčenko to believe that it must have been intended to evoke some other sculpted icon of attested efficacy;22 she pointed to the St. George in Gallista, but the Theodores in Serres could offer a prototype in profile. The plausibility of their impact on the Athens icon is reinforced by the saints on its reverse, for they, too, adopt the profile orant posture, their paired forms echoing the paired warriors on the famed icon in Serres. As much as they appeal to Christ in intercession, the sainted women – like the martyrs – receive Christ’s confirmation from his outstretched, giving hands. This confirms to me the probability that the icon in Athens was produced not in the culturally mingled environment of Sinai or the Crusader States, but in the no less culturally mingled corridor of transit across the Via Egnatia. Diversity assumed particularly concrete force in the domain stretching from Kastoria to Arta during the confrontation of Nicaea and Epiros in the very period to which the Athens icon is attributed by its style. Between 1256 and the so-called Battle of Pelagonia fought – possibly at Kastoria – in 1259, Michael II, despot of Epiros, sealed alliances with both Manfred of Sicily and Guillaume II de Villehardouin of the Morea, gathering an army of Franks, Italians and Greeks as composite as any in the Holy Land, and more fractious.23 It is very probably this environment of mingled Greek and Latin military engagement that the figure of St. George reflects. The association of the figure of St. George here with the sculpted icon at Serres affects not only its attribution, but also its interpretation. St. George is not engaged only, or even above all, in transmitting intercessory prayer. He is engaged in receiving beatitude. This has inevitable implications for the figure of

76 Annemarie Weyl Carr the lady who kneels behind him, and so turns attention to their relationship. As Glenn Peers emphasizes, an extended diagonal does bind the painted figure of the blessing Christ at the panel’s upper right with the tiny silhouette of the devotee below, while the angle of her posture reverberates in the scenes of George’s painted vita, as though they rippled with her prayers.24 But interposed emphatically between them is the opaque, averted bulk of the saint himself. He acknowledges neither her invocations nor ours. Recurrently, scholars single out the saint’s profile posture as strange. In fact, however, the portrayal of donors with profile saints proves to be notably unexceptional, at least in the one considerable inventory of icons with portraits that remains to us: that at Sinai.25 Eighteen icons from the later eleventh- to thirteenth-century span of crusader-era pilgrimage fervour include portraits, and though their sacred subjects bespeak the specialness of Sinai’s site, the individuals portrayed are diverse: lay and religious, reflecting a range of ethnicities and vocations, and even including one female, who entrusts her prayers to a warrior saint as the lady in the Athens icon does.26 Their chronological distribution within this timespan has eluded scholarly consensus, and preferred themes and formats seem to have recurred over the decades. Certain emphases emerge: four paintings centre on the Mother of God; four include St. George, the most frequently chosen of the non-biblical saints, while Moses ties him at four among the biblical ones. With five examples, the vita icon is the favoured format for the inclusion of portraits, a preference that resonates at once with the icon in Athens. But in a way hardly anticipated on the basis the Athens image, a full eight – very nearly half of Sinai’s total – place portraits with profile figures. The most striking among them is itself a vita icon (Figure 5.3): the huge panel showing Neilos (?), archbishop of Sinai and Raithou, prostrate at the feet of a towering Moses receiving the Law.27 Two further paintings also show donors at the feet of Moses on Mount Sinai, one a large panel with a turbaned man kneeling in the frame below Moses at the Burning Bush,28 the other a smaller work showing the monk Petros venerating Moses receiving the Law.29 In all three examples, Moses turns firmly up and away from his prostrate devotee to receive God’s word. After the vita icon, the most frequently adopted compositional type shows paired orant saints turning to Christ in an arc of heaven. There are three of these, all small. The first offers yet another image of Moses on Sinai, now reaching together with Aaron to receive a marbleized plaque from Christ’s hands (Figure 5.4). Theodosios tou Saloustiou, a layman, crouches with outstretched hands below. The second panel pairs Abraham and Melchizedek, gesturing in shared speech beneath a Christ with arms at his side. Abraham bishop of Sinai and Raithou huddles below, his hands extended to touch Melchizedek’s jewelled boots. The third, finally, includes St. George (Figure 5.5). From an arc of heaven escorted by flying angels, Christ here bends to bestow a book upon each of two orant saints: John Chrysostom in episcopal robes, and George in the tunic and chlamys of a courtly martyr. Both raise one hand to Christ and lower the other toward a now nameless, tightly huddled monk with his hands out in prayer.

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Figure 5.3 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Moses receiving the Law with the donor, archbishop Neilos (?) of Sinai and Raithou. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expedition to Mount Sinai]

Certain conclusions emerge already from the panels that have been cited so far. In interpreting vita icons, Nancy Ševčenko proposed viewing their enclosing bands of narrative episodes as rich framing devices akin to the jewelencrusted, precious-metal claddings with which pious devotees embellished and set off chosen images. Thus set off by its frame, the central icon stood out, inviting attention as recognizably special. In many cases, the images endowed

78 Annemarie Weyl Carr

Figure 5.4 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Moses and Aaron receiving the Law with the donor, Theodosios tou Saloustiou. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expedition to Mount Sinai]

with such elaborate borders actually were already well known as efficacious. Either way, the images at the core of the vita panels offered themselves as icons of venerated icons. In much the same way, we have seen above how Ševčenko’s sense that the St. George in Athens might have echoed an existing icon was given plausible confirmation by the emergence of the sculpted icon at

Figure 5.5 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. St John Chrysostom and St George with a donor monk. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expedition to Mount Sinai]

80 Annemarie Weyl Carr Serres. At Sinai, there is no question but that one – at least – of the vita icons with portraits functioned in exactly this way (Figure 5.3). The panel of Moses receiving the Law is a painted translation of the great sixth-century mosaic panel of the same subject that looms over the interior of the church from the gable high over the bema.30 It offers access through its image to the site of Sinai itself. It is easy to understand archbishop Neilos’s introduction of his image into it, bonding his person and prayer to the place. Nothing implies that Neilos assumed that Moses in receiving the Law was transmitting his own prayers; rather, he prays in a site charged with the power of Moses’s theophany. He fulfils the desire of the icon’s viewer not by receiving the saint’s benefaction, but by entering into his holy space. This example surely holds for the other images of Moses on Sinai, too. The great mosaics in the gable of the bema show Moses with the Burning Bush, and Moses receiving the Law. Both images are repeated in icons with donor portraits added. The icons place the donor’s prayer in the holy space of Sinai. But much the same can be said about the icons with paired orants, too: the gift of grace which the saints receive creates a space of sanctity to which the ardent devotee can bring his prayer. Be it before Moses with God on Sinai or the paired orants with Christ, the orant saints give the portrayed devotee the benefice of a charged, holy space. As such, the portraits also echo the condition of the icon’s viewers, for they, too, find less a confirmation of their own grace than a blessed space that ignites their ardour. This suggests that the profile orant saint presents a distinctive kind of context for the portrait figure. The final two icons in our group reinforce this. These include just one holy figure each. In the first, he is the Archangel Michael, dressed not in armour but in chiton and himation shot with heavy, crusader-era chrysography (Figure 5.6).31 Wings still open, he stands before a hunched and praying monk. But his eyes are not turned to him; they turn upward as if towards the heaven that expands above him. Charles Barber’s analysis of the image is beautifully intuitive: ‘the covered hands of the archangel may indicate that he is to be the recipient of a sacred gift from an unseen God, the divine grace that the donor-monk has sought through Michael’s mediation.’32 Once again, the saint as receiver of grace irradiates a space for the prayer of the beseeching devotee. It is not the donor’s confident receipt of grace, but the lodging of his prayer in a space of grace that is shown. The perfect eloquence of this icon contrasts with the oddness of the second, in which a slender, orant St. George hovers beside the gem-laden, imperviously frontal King David II Bagratuni the Builder of Georgia (1089–1125) (Figure 5.7).33 The message is blurred: if George is meant to be praying for the king, his effort is dwarfed; if he is meant to be receiving the grace that warrants prayer, the king does not avail himself of it. David has violated an otherwise consistent rule of intercession before the orant saint: all other donors bend in profound, even exaggerated proskynesis.34 Doula Mouriki cogently contrasted the humility of donors in Sinai’s icons with the donors portrayed in monumental programmes, who needed to display not only

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Figure 5.6 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. Archangel Michael with a donor monk. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expedition to Mount Sinai]

their piety but also their social prestige, and often appropriated for this purpose the formulae of imperial portraiture.35 King David’s portrayal in full state, exceptional at Sinai, underscores her point. But its conjunction with an orant saint says more, for it brings out how pointedly and emphatically the

82 Annemarie Weyl Carr

Figure 5.7 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, icon. St George with King David II Bagratuni, the Builder. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria expedition to Mount Sinai]

message of the portrait with profile orant saints is tailored to humility. The lady in the icon at Athens adheres emphatically to this canon of humility (Figure 5.1). Before the icon of her grace-crowned saint, she crouches in ardent prayer. But she, too, has bent the rules of the genre she adopted. All other donors kneel before their chosen saint. Exceptionally, she kneels behind him. This inflects her

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83

ardour with a distinctive tone. She seems less to be praying to, than to be praying for. This is captured in Nancy Ševčenko’s very intuitive suggestion that [i]t is possible to argue that it was not on her own behalf that this lady commissioned the icon, but on behalf of her dead husband… She herself does not expect a response from George: he is there to intercede for her husband.36 The lady’s action of ‘praying for’ demands an object, implying that the icon addresses a specific occasion or circumstance with biographical import. That the occasion at issue is a death would accord with the Hetoimasia and angels in the upper border of the obverse, and the black veil around the lady’s hat and head. Yet the judgment implied by the Hetoimasia is a minatory message, harsh for a context of bereavement, and death may not be the occasion crystallized in the lady’s panel. The implication of occasion does, however, turn attention to the lady’s identity. Just one attempt has been made so far to give a name to the matron of the Athens icon: Chrysanthe Baltoyanni identified her as Eirene Doukaina Angelina Komnene, wife of Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria (1218–41), mother of his eventual successor, Michael II (1246–56) and daughter of Theodore I Komnenos Doukas, wily ruler of Epiros (1215–30) and sometime emperor of Thessaloniki (1225/7–30).37 As Baltoyanni shows, the clothing of the lady on the icon accords very closely with that of Eirene in a fresco portrait painted during the reign of her son Michael II on the outer wall of the Taxiarches Mitropoleos in Kastoria.38 Both women wear an unfitted dress with long, tight sleeves under an open, sleeveless cloak with a darker border that may in the icon be fur; and both bind a round hat to their head by a scarf wrapped tightly around the neck. Eirene in the fresco also wears circular earrings and a diadem of metal plaques or gems. Similar elements – the loose, tight-sleeved dress, open cloak, headdress bound by a scarf tied around the neck and circular earrings – are seen again in the ravishing portrait of Desislava at Boiana of 1259,39 but both Eirene herself and the lady on the icon wear them more practically, with the cloak drawn closer over the shoulders. In each case, their garb resembles that of the imperial women portrayed a generation later in the famous scene of the Hodegetria procession in the Blacherna church in Arta, identified as Eirene Eulogia Palaiologina, sister of emperor Michael VIII, and her daughters Theodora Rhaoulaina and Anna, the basilissa of Epiros and daughter-in-law of St. Theodora of Arta.40 Their hats are boxier, though, and their sleeves hang in long, open triangles. Thus while their general kinship reinforces the plausibility of the icon’s kinship with the Epirot court, the contrasts show that it belongs – as its style indicates – to Eirene’s mid-century date. Given the close kinship, Baltoyanni proposes that the lady is Eirene, and suggests that the imperial saint on the icon’s reverse must be St. Eirene (Figure 5.2). Her loose hair might point to St. Catherine, the name most often given to her, but

84 Annemarie Weyl Carr there are also icons in which Eirene wears her hair unbound.41 St. Marina, in turn, is invoked to explain the context of the icon, for she guards ill or endangered children, and Eirene’s sons all predeceased her. The kinship of the lady on the icon to the figure of Eirene in Kastoria is compelling, but the Epirot court was rich in forceful women, and the saints on the reverse of the icon might point to another of them, contemporary with Eirene. The path into this identification begins with the saint in red on the icon’s reverse. She is identified as Marina but her identifying label is a later addition, obscuring an earlier inscription. This allows one to question if she could have been another saint. Lacking Marina’s usual martyr’s cross, she looks very much like Anna, the mother of Mary, and assumes the profile orant posture that Anna often does when paired with Joachim.42 If considered as Anna, the figure is freed of the Sinaitic tradition of coupling Marina with Catherine or Eirene, and the imperial saint’s identity, too, becomes open. There was an imperial saint who, like Anna, was usually depicted paired (again, with a man), and this was Helena. As Anna and Helena, the two saints step into a pair of names closely associated with crusader warfare, the mid-thirteenth-century court of Epiros, and a very compelling woman within it. Helena and Anna were the daughters of Theodora Petraliphina wife of the despot Michael II Angelos Komnenos of Epiros, and later revered as St. Theodora of Arta.43 Helena and Anna enter history as nubile teenagers of fabled beauty in late 1258 or early 1259, when both were expediently wed.44 The determination of their mother Theodora to ease Epiros and Nicaea together in 1256 – the year of Theodore II Laskaris’s gift at Serres – by marrying her son Nikephoros to Theodore’s daughter had precipitated instead the intractable hostility of her husband, Michael II.45 Besieged by both Nicaea and Manfred of Sicily, Michael allied with Manfred against Nicaea, offering his eldest daughter, Helena, as Manfred’s wife; they were wed at Trani in late 1258 or early 1259.46 Soon after allying with Manfred, Michael formed an alliance with the most potent ruler in Greece, Guillaume II de Villehardouin of Achaia. Widowed three years earlier, Guillaume was offered the hand of Helena’s younger sister, Anna.47 Thus fortified, Michael assembled a host combining his own army with two Latin ones for a conclusive showdown with Nicaea. It came in the chaotic and catastrophic battle of Pelagonia in 1259.48 Badly defeated, Michael was able only with the help of Manfred to gather his forces and reclaim his capital cities of Arta and Ioannina, reasserting his authority in his despotate. Within the plan of Michael’s alliances, his young daughters were both sacrifices to and the intended saviours of his power. Their Latin husbands were to be the enabling force of his victory as Byzantium’s redeemer. For the women, the impact was diverse. The first years must have been harrowing for Anna, who as a 13- or 14-year-old under the Latin name of Agnes became the regent for the realm of her imprisoned husband, and was forced to cede his dearest castles to the victorious Nicaeans.49 Helena’s marriage seems to have had a more buoyant beginning, but it resolved into tragedy with Manfred’s

Portrait of a lady 85 death in 1266: she died still young in early 1271, alone and in isolation as a prisoner of Charles d’Anjou. For her father, ironically, Manfred’s death was a boon, and though he died in 1267 or 1268,50 Arta soon flourished under the rule of Nikephoros and his dynamic new Palaiologan bride, the basilissa Anna, whom we have seen portrayed in the Hodegetria procession in Arta.51 At Michael’s death, Theodora withdrew into monastic life. She retired to a convent that she had founded earlier, joining Michael when he was engaged in church patronage at the church of the Kato Panagia in the 1240s.52 Her establishment stood in the centre of Arta, and was dedicated to St. George.53 Her vita says she gave it many rich gifts when she took the habit,54 but her benefactions to it surely did not begin then. She must have endowed it over the years. It is suggested here that the icon in Athens was produced as a titular icon for her convent church of St. George. Its crusader image of the warrior saint; the radiant saints with the names of her daughters, salvific and yet sacrificed, on the reverse; and her own sombre demeanour might fit such a supposition. 1259 would be the necessary terminus post quem for the panel, and 1268 the terminus ante. A date near the catastrophic Battle of Pelagonia is most probable. That a titular icon dedicated to St. George could have left Theodora’s church, even if given by her, is not inconceivable, for the convent’s dedication was changed near the end of the thirteenth century, and has borne her name ever since. Its architecture was modified by the addition of a narthex, and a tomb structure was erected to serve her cult. The centrality of St. George and the enigmatic saints on the icon’s reverse may have slipped into incomprehension as Theodora’s cult gained force. The tomb still occupies the narthex, displaying on its west face a low relief with the imperially clad figures of a towering woman and smaller male, widely believed to represent Theodora with her son Nikephoros.55 The image could scarcely be more unlike that on the icon in Athens, and challenges the very idea of their identity. Two conditioning factors come into play, however. One is the range of doubts about the origin and purpose of the plaque. The tomb itself was reconstructed in 1873. Anastos Orlandos judged the relief a copy of this time; Theochares Pazaras assigned it to the late thirteenth century56 and Branislav Cvetović endorsed this date, since narthex and tomb were added only after Theodora’s death to serve her cult.57 Its iconography, he notes, can be fitted only with difficulty into the biography of Theodora, who never functioned as the regent for a minor child. Instead, it accords readily with that of the basilissa Anna, regent for her son Thomas from 1296–1313, and the likely matron of the narthex.58 He sees the relief as a donor portrait of Anna. Conclusive identification is hard without archaeological analysis. Whether Theodora or Anna, however, the figure is clearly portrayed in state. The lady on the icon in Athens is not. Byzantium’s crowned women were portrayed in state, regardless of medium: not just historic figures like the empress Theodora on the icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy,59 but living rulers like the basilissa Anna herself, and basilissa Maria Palaiologina of Ioannina in Epiros on her icons in Cuenca and Meteora.60 But state dress was not the

86 Annemarie Weyl Carr inevitable garb of the royal lady in devotion, as exemplified by the basilissa Anna in the mural of the procession of the Hodegetria in the narthex of the Blacherna church in Arta. Abandoning the attributes of state here did not apparently strip Anna of her identity as a crowned queen. It integrated her into a devotional event. The context of the icon in Athens is comparable. The black of the lady’s shrouded head, the Hetoimasia’s sombre invocation to judgment and the profile posture of the saint together imply a context of deep humility. The intractability of imperial garb in the context of humility has been demonstrated already by the icon of King David II Bagratuni the Builder. The distinctive inflexion of the portrait with a profile saint joins with the figures of the women to suggest that the icon responds to a distinctive event or occasion, here associated with Theodora and her daughters. The Athens icon emerges from this reading as what one might, for want of a better name, call an ‘occasional icon’, one that reflects in its unusual imagery the occasion from which it emerged. Other occasional icons might include the Doubting of Thomas in Meteora associated with Maria Palaiologina, the Poganovo icon,61 Helena of Anjou’s icon given to the Vatican,62 the various funerary icons of women in Cyprus.63 Such works tempt us quickly into dangerous speculation, especially when a female matron is at issue. The recurrence of women donors here is striking. So I close with a question. Is the priority of women in occasional icons a product of our own selective attention, or are there icons of men with comparably occasional character?

Notes 1 Most recently A. Drandaki, D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi and A. Tourta, eds., Heaven and Earth. Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections (Athens, 2013), 317–18 with earlier bibliography; G. Peers, Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (University Park, 2004), 77–99; M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, Icons of the Byzantine Museum of Athens (Athens, 1998), 26–28; C. Baltoyanni, ed., Conversation with God. Icons from the Byzantine Museum of Athens (9th–15th centuries) (Athens, 1988), 48–51; N. P. Ševčenko, ‘The representation of donors and holy figures on four Byzantine icons’, Δελτ.Χριστ.Ἀρχ.Ἑτ. 4/17 (1993–94), 158–60. 2 On the story of St. George and the Empress Alexandra, see T. Mark-Weiner, ‘Narra­ tive cycles of the life of Saint George in Byzantine art’ (unpubl. PhD thesis, New York University, 1977), 225–36. Converted to Christianity by the saint, Alexan­ dra was condemned along with him to a martyr’s death by her husband the emperor. The two vignettes of Alexandra are adjacent to a now illegible inscription within the icon’s main field. 3 G. A. Soteriou, ‘La sculpture sur bois dans l’art byzantin’, in Mélanges Charles Diehl. Études sur l’histoire et sur l’art de Byzance (2 vols., Paris, 1930), vol. 2, 179. 4 M. Chatzidakis, ‘Greece: icon painting from the twelfth to the sixteenth century’, in K. Weitzmann, M. Chatzidakis and K. Mijatev, eds., Icons from South Eastern Europe and Sinai, trans. R. E. Wolf (London, 1968), xxvi. 5 K. Weitzmann, ‘Crusader icons and maniera greca’, in I. Hutter, ed., Byzanz und der Westen. Studien zur Kunst des europäischen Mittelalters (Vienna, 1984), 157–58. 6 The Sinai Web site at Princeton, vrc.princeton.edu/Sinai, includes one icon with Marina, Catherine and Barbara, two with Marina and Eirene, and two with Marina and Catherine (consulted 25 July 2016). The latter two are excellently reproduced in

Portrait of a lady 87

7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18 19 20 21

22 23

R. S. Nelson and K. Collins, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (Los Angeles, 2006), 102, fig. 83 of the eleventh–twelfth century, and 103, fig. 84 of the thirteenth century. See Drandaki, Papanikola-Bakirtzi and Tourta (Heaven and Earth) as well as Bal­ toyanni (Conversations with God) as in note 1; A. Xyngopoulos, ‘Icones du XIIIe siècle en Grèce’, in V. Ɖurić, ed., L’art byzantine du XIIIe siècle. Symposium de Sopoćani (Belgrade, 1967), 80–81. Peers, Sacred Shock, 85.

R. Lange, Die byzantinische Reliefikone (Recklinghausen, 1964), 123–24, of 290 cm.

H. Pelakanidou, ‘Ἡ εἰκόνα τῆς Ὁδηγήτριας τῆς Ἀρχαιολογικῆς Συλλογῆς Καστοριᾶς’, in Αφιέρωμα στη μνήμη Στυλιανοῦ Πελεκανίδη (Thessalonike, 1983), 389–96, of 207 cm. Ch. Penna, ‘Ξυλόγλυπτη βυζαντινή εἰκόνα Ὁδηγήτριας ἀπὸ τὴν Ἀλεξανδρούπλη’, in Αφιέρωμα στη μνήμη Στυλιανοῦ Πελεκανίδη (Thessalonike, 1983), 397–405, of 130 cm. Lange, Die byzantinische Reliefikone, 124–25, no. 51, of 140 cm. For the Mother of God see especially S. Der Nersessian, ‘Two images of the Virgin in the Dumbarton Oaks collection’, DOP 14 (1960), 69–86; for John the Baptist see Nelson and Collins, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground, 146–47. See I. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, Byzantine Icons in Steatite (2 vols., Vienna, 1985), no. 5 in Dumbarton Oaks and no. 100 in Berlin with George and Theodore, no. 6 in the Vatican of St. Theodore originally with another saint, and nos. 7, 24b, 25 and 26 in Cherson, Veliko Turnovo, Kiev and Princeton respectively, with fragments of a warrior saint in profile orant pose. For seals see the extensive inventory assembled by I. Drpić, ‘The Serres icon of Saints Theodores’, BZ 105 (2012), 684. For painting see ibid., and the icon of George and Niketas at Sinai (unpublished). C. Walter, ‘St. George Kephalophoros’, in E. Kypraiou, ed., Eυφρόσυνον. Αφιέρωμα στον Μανόλη Χατζηδάκη (2 vols., Athens, 1991), vol. 2, 694–703. See the Sinai icon of John the Baptist cited in note 11. It has been discussed since then by C. Barber, ‘Regarding prayer: contemplating an icon of John the Forerunner’, in S. E. J. Gerstel and R. S. Nelson, eds., Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai (Turnhout, 2010), 305–17; A. W. Carr, ‘The face relics of John the Baptist in Byzantium and the West’, Gesta 46.2 (2007), 161–63. It is notable that St. George is often associated with John the Baptist in icons at Sinai, suggesting that they were seen as paired as archetypal martyrs. See note 14.

Drpić, ‘The Serres icon’, 645–94.

R. Makrides, George Akropolites: The History (Oxford, 2007), 288–91.

Drpić, ‘The Serres icon’, 670.

Ibid., 686–89. For the icon in Veria, see Th. Papazotos, Βυζαντινὲς εἰκόνες τῆς Βέρ­ οιας (Athens, 1995), 46, fig. 13; M. Kagiadaki, ed., Άγιοι του Βυζαντίου: ελληνικές εικόνες της Βέροιας, 13ος–17ος αιώνας. Saints de Byzance. Icônes grecques de Veroia, XIIIe – XVIIe siècle (Athens, 2004), 144–45. For the icon in Kastoria see A. N. Trifonova, ‘The iconographical type of Saints Theodore Teron and Theodore Stratelates facing each other and its diffusion during the Byzantine and PostByzantine period’, Zograf 34 (2010), 59. Ševčenko, ‘The representation of donors and holy figures’, 158–60; N. P. Ševčenko, ‘The “vita” icon and the painter as hagiographer’, DOP 53 (1999), 158–59. On the Battle of Pelagonia see Makrides, George Akropolites, 356–60; J. A. Fine, The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Period (Ann Arbor, 1987), 160–62; D. M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford, 1957); D. J. Geanakoplos, ‘Greco-Latin relations on the eve of the Byzan­ tine restoration: the battle of Pelagonia’, DOP 7 (1953), 101–41.

88 Annemarie Weyl Carr 24 Peers, Sacred Shock, 91–92. 25 G. Parpulov, ‘Mural and icon painting at Sinai in the thirteenth century’, in Gerstel and Nelson, eds., Approaching the Holy Mountain, 404; D. Mouriki, ‘Portraits de donateurs et invocations sur les icônes du XIIIe siècle au Sinai’, Études balkaniques. Cahiers Pierre Belon 2 (1995), 103–35. 26 H. C. Evans, ed., Byzantium, Faith and Power (1261–1557) (New York, 2004), 374 with earlier bibliography, especially L.-A. Hunt, ‘A woman’s prayer to St. Sergios in Latin Syria: interpreting a thirteenth-century icon at Mount Sinai’, BMGS 15 (1991), 96–145. 27 A. Drandaki, ed., Pilgrimage to Sinai, Προσκύνημα στο Σινά (Athens, 2004), fig. 2.1; D. Mouriki, ‘A Moses cycle on a Sinai icon of the early thirteenth century’, in D. Mouriki, C. F. Moss and K. Kiefer, eds., Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton, 1995), 531–46, giving the inscription on 531 n. 1 as: ὁ ευτελ(ης) (μον)αχ(ος) Νε(ιλος) ὁ Βοουερί…. αρχιεπισκοπος και καθη [γου]μενος του αγ(ιου) σινα; Parpulov (‘Mural and icon painting’, 402) reads Nε (όφυτος). Ševčenko (‘The “vita” icon’, 158) reads ὁ Βοουερί as Querini, the Venetian family name. 28 H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, AD 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 179–80; Mouriki, ‘Por­ traits de donateurs’, 111; G. A. Soteriou and M. Soteriou, Eἰκόνες τῆς Μονῆς Σινᾶ (2 vols. Athens, 1956–58), vol. 1, fig. 160. 29 Mouriki (‘Portraits de donateurs’, 107) giving the inscription as: ἅγιε τοῦ Θεοῦ βοήθησον σὀν δοῦλον Πέτρον μοναχόν; Soteriou and Soteriou, Eἰκόνες τῆς Μονῆς Σινᾶ, vol. 1, fig. 161. 30 As argued in Nelson and Collins, ed., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground, 254–55. 31 Ibid., 150–51. 32 Ibid., 151. 33 I owe the identification to Parpulov (‘Mural and icon painting at Sinai’, 401), who gives the inscription as Δαυὶδ ἐν Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῳ πιστὸς βασιλεὺς πάσης ἀνατολης ὁ Παγρατουνιανός; see also Ševčenko, ‘The representation of donors and holy figures’, 162, fig. 5. 34 Though see also the icon on Cyprus that adds the standing figure of John Moutoullas to the composition of the orant John the Baptist seen in the Sinai icon cited in note 13 above: P. L. Vocotopoulos, ‘Three thirteenth-century icons at Moutoullas’, in N. P. Ševčenko and C. Moss, eds., Medieval Cyprus: Studies in Art, Architecture, and History in Memory of Doula Mouriki (Princeton, 1999), 167–70 and pl. 12. Rather than simply occupying the blessed space of the saint’s interchange with God, the donor places his own plea on the Baptist’s scroll, compelling him to devote his prayer to the donor. 35 Mouriki, ‘Portraits de donateurs’, 131–32. 36 Ševčenko, ‘The representation of donors and holy figures’, 160. 37 Baltoyanni, ed., Conversation with God, 48–51. 38 E. Drakopoulou, Η πόλη της Καστοριάς τη βυζαντινή και μεταβυζαντινή εποχή (12ος– 16oς αι.) (Athens, 1997), 75–77, reproduced in colour in E. Drakopoulou, ‘Kastoria: art, patronage, and society’, in J. Albani and E. Chalkia, eds., Heaven and Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece (Athens, 2013), 124, fig. 107. 39 R. B. Schroeder, ‘Transformative narratives and shifting identities in the narthex of the Boiana church’, DOP 64 (2010), 108, fig. 6. On the clothing seen in Epirot donor por­ traits, see K. Kontopanagou, ‘Donor portraits in the state of Epiros. Aesthetics, fashion, and trends in the late Byzantine period’, in V. Stanković, ed., The Balkans and the Byzantine World Before and After the Captures of Constantinople, 1204 and 1453 (Lanham, 2016), 59–68.

Portrait of a lady 89 40 M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, Ἡ Βλαχέρνα τῆς Άρτας· Τοιχογραφίες (Athens, 2009), 192, fig. 50; M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, ‘The basilissa Anna Palaiologina of Arta and the monastery of Vlacherna’, in J. Y. Perrault, ed., Les femmes et le monachisme byzantine. Actes du Symposium d’Athènes, 28–29 mars 1988 (Athens, 1991), 43. For an excellent explication of their clothing, see M. Parani, ‘“The joy of the most holy Mother of God the Hodegetria the one in Constantinople”: revisiting the famous rep­ resentation of the Blacherna monastery, Arta’, in S. E. J. Gerstel, ed., Viewing Greece: Cultural and Political Agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterra­ nean (Turnhout, 2016), 126. 41 See an unpublished Sinai icon with Marina and Eirene and Nelson and Collins, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground, 262–63. For Catherine with her hair exposed, see ibid., 264–65, the big vita icon of Catherine, and 103, fig. 84, a thirteenth-century icon of Catherine and Marina. 42 Ševčenko, ‘The representation of donors and holy figures’, 163, fig. 6. 43 On Theodora of Arta, see A.-M. Talbot, ‘Life of Theodora of Arta’, in A.-M. Talbot, ed., Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation (Washington, DC, 1996), 323–33, and Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros, 149–50, 190–92 and passim. 44 Their stories are ably told by ibid., 169–94. 45 Ibid., 159–60. To make sure the marriage happened, Theodora went with Nikephoros to meet Theodore in Thessaloniki. Seeing her unprotected, Theodore compelled her to concede Durazzo and Servia with the marriage. 46 On Helena, see D. M. Nicol, The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits (1250–1500) (Cam­ bridge, 1994), 11–23 with earlier bibliography. 47 J. Haines, ‘The songbook for William of Villehardouin, prince of the Morea (Paris, Bib­ liothèque nationale de France, fonds français 844). A crucial case in the history of ver­ nacular song collections’, in S. E. J. Gerstel, ed., Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Medieval Peloponnese (Washington, DC, 2013), 97–107; A. Bon, La Morée fran­ que. Recherches historiques, topographiques, et archéologiques sur la Principauté d’Achaïe (1205–1430) (2 vols., Paris, 1969), vol. 1, 120–57; and J. Longnon, L’empire latin de Constantinople et la principauté de Morée (Paris, 1949), 223–57. 48 See note 23. 49 For the famous ‘Parliament des dames’ over which she presided, see Longnon, L’em­ pire latin de Constantinople, 230. She went on after Guillaume’s return to be a respected wife and strong mother, and in 1280, two years after Guillaume’s death, married Nicholas II de Saint-Omer, powerful and cultivated Lord of Thebes. Her tombstone, recording her death in 1286 with a Latin inscription on a late Antique plaque carved anew in a mingled Western and Byzantine pattern, remains in Andra­ vida; see most recently A. Papalexandrou, ‘The architectural layering of history in the medieval Morea. Monuments, memory, and fragments of the past’, in Gerstel, ed., Viewing the Morea, 23–24 with earlier bibliography. It is excellently reproduced in colour in Papanikola-Bakirtzi and Tourta, eds., Heaven and Earth, 300, fig. 125 and Haines, ‘The songbook for William of Villehardouin’, 107, fig. 15. 50 Talbot, ‘10. Life of Theodora of Arta’, 332, n. 50. 51 On Anna Kantakouzene Palaiologina, wife of Nikephoros, see AcheimastouPotamianou, ‘The basilissa Anna’; G. Saint-Guillain, ‘The lady and the merchants: Byzantine and Latin prosopographies in dialogue in a commercial court case relating to Epiros’, in G. Saint-Guillain and D. Stathakopoulos, eds., Liquid and Multiple: Individuals and Identities in the Thirteenth-Century Aegean (Paris, 2012), 195–234. 52 Talbot, ‘Life of Theodora of Arta’, 332; P. L. Vocotopoulos, ‘La peinture dans le Des­ potat d’Épire’, in J.-P. Caillet and F. Joubert, eds., Orient et Occident méditerranëens au XIIIe siècle. Les programmes picturaux (Paris, 2012), 123. 53 B. Papadopoulou, ‘Arta’, in Albani and Chalkia, eds., Heaven and Earth, 130–11. 54 Talbot, ‘10. Life of Theodora of Arta’, 332.

90 Annemarie Weyl Carr 55 Papadopoulou, ‘Arta’, 130, fig. 113; B. Cvetković, ‘The investiture relief in Arta, Epiros’, ZRVI 33 (1994), 103–14; Th. Pazaras, Ἀνάγλυφες σαρκοφάγοι κα ἐπιτάφιες πλάκες τῆς μέσης κα ὕστερης βυζαντινῆς περιόδου στὴν Ἑλλάδα (Thessaloniki, 1988), 79–80, 90–91, 170–72, 174–75, figs. 36 γ, δ; 37 α – δ; A. Orlandos, ‘Ὁ τάφος τῆς ἁγίας Θεοδώρας’, ABME 2 (1936), 105–15. 56 See Talbot, ‘10. Life of Theodora of Arta’, 333 n. 53 on the plaque’s varied attribution. 57 Cvetković, ‘The investiture relief’, 108–9. 58 Ibid., 109–10. 59 Evans, ed., Byzantium, Faith and Power, 154–55 with earlier bibliography. 60 For Anna in state, see the shattered fresco at Philippiada, in P. Vocotopoulos, ‘Η κτι­ τορική τοιχογραφία στο περίστωο της Παντανάσσης Φιλιππιάδος,’ Δελτ.Χριστ.Ἀρχ. Ἑτ. 4/29 (2008), 73–80. On Maria, see M. Vassilaki, ‘Female piety, devotion and patronage: Maria Angelina Doukaina Palaiologina of Ioannina and Helena Uglješa of Serres’, in J.-M. Spieser and E. Yota, eds., Donations et donateurs dans l’empire byzantine (Paris, 2010), 221–25; Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power, 51–53, cat. 24a, 24b and 24c. 61 Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power, 198–99 with earlier bibliography. 62 Ibid., 50. 63 A. W. Carr, ‘Cypriot funerary icons: questions of convergence in a complex land’, in S. Hayes, ed., Medieval Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Jeremy DuQuesnay Adams (2 vols., Boston, 2005), vol. 1, 153–74.

6

The perils of Polyeuktos On the manifestations of a martyr in Byzantine art, cult and literature Anthony Cutler

No later than the Acta Sanctorum, the great Bollandist enterprise of the seventeenth century,1 the ways in which scholars have treated the representations of the saints have shaped the apprehensions of their contemporaries. Their historiography has become part of their topics’ history. Twenty years ago, Henry Maguire added what can only be called an essential dimension to this broad field of study.2 In it, he demonstrated, as he put it, the correspondences between the physical form of the saints’ images and the varying roles they were believed to play in ‘the invisible processes of intercession and salvation’,3 going on to show why and when the Byzantines developed this system of hagiographic portraiture, and concluding with the textual lives of the saints which, like the visual biographies, enabled their auditors and readers to learn from ‘differing formal characteristics’ the understandings that such variations could convey. The structure of Henry’s argument was conceptually ‘latitudinal’, that is, each chapter corroborated what had been said in its predecessor and demanded the elaboration offered by its successor. In the essay that follows, I complement this approach (and compliment its deviser) by looking ‘longitudinally’: I investigate the historical evolution of the imagery in question, the changes that came about over time.4 Given the necessary difference in length between a book-length study and an essay on the present scale, I confine myself to just one figure, Polyeuktos, who never belonged to the company that Hippolyte Delehaye, followed by Christopher Walter, labelled the état-major.5 In the greater heavenly scheme of things in Byzantium this general staff was largely unchanging and abiding. On the other hand, Polyeuktos, as one of a broader class of saints, was, as we shall see, both protean and fugitive in his depictions. For these very reasons he might be more typical of the norms of Orthodox hagiographical representation than Michael the archistrategos, Demetrios and their like. I stress the enduring nature of this higher echelon because, by contrast, the reputation and conscription of Polyeuktos (and his ilk) waxed and waned. In other words, he had a history which, at least in the realm of art, remains to be written. I am concerned not with his historicity, the problem over which Benjamin Aubé agonized nearly a century and a half ago,6 but I am interested in the historical sequence of earthly manifestations of his cult. The supposition that our hero was an officer in the Roman army, martyred at Melitene in Armenia in 251, is founded

92 Anthony Cutler upon three accounts of his passio, the earliest of which is a sermon said by Aubé to have been preached in an Eastern church shortly after 363.7 The homiletic power of these words lies in the assertion that at the time of his death Polyeuktos remained unbaptized but that following his martyrdom he was instantly a wonderworker, arranging a cloudburst which saved the lives of his thirsty fellow legionaries. These same sources tell of his love for Nearchos, a Christian with whom his desire to be reunited in the afterlife, rather than with his wife and children, is clearly articulated.8 Yet, while their ‘measureless friendship’ (ἀμέτρῳ φιλία) continued to be a main theme in later versions of the narrative, it found no expression in visual representations in any medium. If this invisibility is unsurprising, more remarkable is the fact that Polyeuktos is all but imperceptible in the West until the early modern era.9 The only references to him that I can find are two, both made by Gregory of Tours shortly before the end of the sixth century. In the first, the saint, identified as Polioctus, is invoked in the rhetoric surrounding a political struggle of the Merovingian king Childebert II (r. 575–95).10 The second – perhaps prompted by travellers from the East – concerns the building activities of Anicia Juliana and Justinian (r. 527–65),11 a story to which we shall come momentarily. Polyeuktos is absent from the Roman catacombs where one might expect him in such contexts as the martyrs in the hypogea of Domitilla in the fourth (?) century and Ponzianus at the end of the fifth.12 He makes no appearance in Santa Maria Antiqua, San Clemente, nor, apparently, any later wall-painting in Rome.13 Conversely, Greek testimony to his cult, while never abundant, occurs on several lamps found in Egypt14 and a seal inscribed ‘Πολυεύκτου στρατελάτου’, variously dated to the sixth or seventh century.15 To the extent that the choice of Christian names reflects focused devotion to a holy man, it is noteworthy that the sigillographic evidence points to the saint’s no greater popularity in the Middle Byzantine era.16 The number known from texts offers a slightly richer sample: apart from the Patriarch Polyeuktos, who occupied the see of Constantinople from 965 to 970,17 eight other individuals of that name are recorded between the tenth and the mid-twelfth century.18 Yet the very infrequency of these textual witnesses to our saint across a broad swathe of time makes all the more important the material remains of his church in Constantinople. Completed by Anicia Juliana before 527 or 528,19 the capstone of its embellishment was the decoration auro purissimo of its roof. It was this final stage that provoked Justinian’s hope that he could extract from her a donation to the public treasury and her canny substitution of a ring ‘containing not more than one half ounce of gold’, as related in the narrative of Gregory of Tours to which I have already referred.20 Beyond this story, and more important for our present investigation, lies the question why the grande dame’s building was dedicated to Polyeuktos. The answer, in fact, is furnished by the church’s own decoration, the long inscription that ran around the nave as corroborated by and preserved in the Palatine Anthology.21 This begins by evoking the empress Eudokia, Anicia Juliana’s ancestor, who built the first church on the site. Even while this was not ‘as great and beautiful’ as Juliana’s

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creation, the ‘prophetic soul’ of the original founder ‘told her that she should leave a family well-knowing how better to adorn it.’22 The prescience attributed to Eudokia is obviously intended as a compliment to the ‘second founder’, but which of the two women acquired Polyeuktos’s head, a relic reported as still in the church in the eleventh century,23 is unknown. By this time there existed at least three accounts of the saint’s life in the calendrical literature. The brief notice in the tenth-century Synaxarion of Constantinople hardly expands upon the already noted earlier vitae,24 although this parsimony is more than remedied in the Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes.25 In turn, this ample version of the end of the same century, was adapted for the text of the ‘Imperial Menologion’, represented by Baltimore, MS W521, perhaps of the 1040s.26 This and related manuscripts nonetheless drew their stock of images from the great so-called Menologion that is Vat. Gr. 1613, produced about 40 years earlier, in which the text is a Procrustean version of the Constantinopolitan Synaxarion. But before turning to these images it is worth looking at the unique witness to the cult of Polyeuktos available in the tenth-century Typikon of the Great Church. The practice of this document is to use the term synaxis for both the assembly of those gathered for the Eucharist and the site where this congregation met. Thus we learn that Polyeuktos’s devotees processed at dawn from the Great Church to the Forum Tauri before continuing to his shrine near the Church of the Holy Apostles27 in the vicinity of Juliana’s family compound. The words pronounced at the start of the liturgy were modified to include the Kyrie, eleison, recognizing that on this day the great earthquake that had occurred in the reign of Basil I (r. 867–86) in 869 was likewise commemorated. Fragmentary as the text is for January 9 in the Typikon, it still puts some ethnological flesh on the bare-bones accounts that we have of the rituals surrounding one of Byzantium’s lesser saints. The earthquake of 869 is not to be found in the so-called Menologion of Basil II (r. 960–76), even while other such events, or rather their commemorations (ἀνάμνησις), are depicted.28 Instead, occupying, as usual in this manuscript, the upper third of the page, the illustration represents the beheading of Polyeuktos (Figure 6.1). Grosso modo, this conforms to the manner of many martyrs’ deaths in the manuscript. The composition of the illuminator Nestor’s miniature replicates the scheme he used in three other instances;29 here he adheres to the schema used for the execution of Theophilos the Younger (p. 374), painted by Pantoleon who ‘signed’ more miniatures than any of his seven colleagues,30 and may have played a paradigmatic role in this book’s creation. It is not unimportant to note that, unusually, the pictures in the book were laid out, before the texts were added.31 Formulaic as the Polyeuktos miniature is, its idiosyncrasies, both in technique and content, are worth examining. Nestor’s palette is unusual, although this has been little remarked, perhaps for want of a good facsimile until a decade or so ago. Direct inspection of the image in question32 reveals the range of blues, deep in the case of the executioner’s tunic, and modulated in the martyr’s coif (as against the youthful killer’s blond hair), the foremost mountain and the coulisse-like arcade at

94 Anthony Cutler

Figure 6.1 BAV MS 1613 (Menologion of Basil II), fol. 302. Martyrdom of St Polyeuktos. [Source: Author]

left that suggests his martyrium. Both actors are impassive, the visual stimulus coming from the colours employed in the miniature and its iconographic details rather than from any depiction of emotion. The chrysography that enlivens the garments, especially the executioner’s ‘Superman’ mantle, is obvious; less so, the gold piping that decorates the seams of his tunic.

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The Metaphrast’s account of Polyeuktos’s vision describes Christ exchanging the martyr’s military dress for the himation worn by the heavenly army.33 Even the gold fibula (περόνη) is in evidence in the Vatican miniature.34 This detail is lacking in the Baltimore version (Figure 6.2) which in several other respects

Figure 6.2 Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, Cod. 521 (Imperial Menologion), fol. 58v. Martyrdom of St Polyeuktos. [Source: Author]

96 Anthony Cutler departs further from its exemplar. While the two images agree in their main elements, notably the martyr’s hands tied behind his back and the submissive stance that he adopts, the changed ratio of the pictures to the page as a whole results in the diminution of the former – the sword, for example, now touches the upper frame – and a greater horizontal extension.35 Accordingly, there is more landscape in the later picture than in its model, with the result inter alia that the drama of the scene is reduced: where in the original Polyeuktos’s head partially overlaps his assailant’s body it now hovers in the space shared by the latter’s raised arm and right leg. Gone, too, are the nuances achieved by the proximate relationship of colours. The dark sword drawn from a dark sheath in Baltimore loses the menace of the steely blade pulled from its blood-red encasement in the Vatican picture, where, painted in a colour similar to the braided band above his waistline, it is at once more decorative and less functional than the low-slung swordbelt in the later image. All in all, the differences between the two versions say much about the discrepancies between the aesthetic attitudes of the eleventh century and those of our own time.36 A more immediate sign of the contrast between the responses of the medieval and the modern era, when in the latter illuminated books are treated as ‘works of art’, is the disfigurement of the executioners in W521. The Polyeuktos miniature is one of the ten in the manuscript in which the killers (and often their weapons) are literally defaced. These erasures almost surely occurred before the book left the Greek Patriarchal Library in Alexandria shortly before 1914. Polyeuktos’s imminent death in the Menologion of Basil and the Walters manuscript proposes a piece of history painting in which the martyr’s fate is at once imagined and treated as an actual event. The raison d’être of illuminated books of this sort was to furnish images appropriate to the saints and to climactic events in the life of Christ and the Mother of God. But glancing casually at the books, the modern non-believer might suppose that their creators thought the most important thing about the life of a martyr was his death, a beheading which in the case of Polyeuktos subsumed the other tortures he suffered, including the scourging described in earlier textual accounts.37 Yet while of course a martyr’s witness was distilled in his ultimate fate, his physical representation could serve purposes other than those of artists who limited his appearances to his earthly end. One such cycle was described by Gregory of Nyssa in a homily delivered in the martyrium of St Theodore at Euchaita in the Pontos.38 If the text is authentic and properly ascribed to this bishop, then one or more images there depicted the martyr’s brave deeds, the ferocious faces of the tyrants, the insults, that fiery furnace [Theodore was burned on a pyre], the martyr’s most blessed death and the representation in human form of Christ who pre­ sides over the contest – all of these [the painter] wrought by means of colors as if it were a book that uttered speech … for painting, even if it is silent, is capable of speaking from the wall and being of the greatest benefit.39

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The analogy with book illumination that Gregory suggests raises the problem of the visual sources on which hagiographical representations drew, a quixotic pursuit in which scholars have engaged since almost the beginning of our discipline. It is a vain question not only in that it presupposes unfettered access on the part of artists to objects in a wide variety of mediums, but also because, at our end, as we gaze retrospectively at their evolution, there is no way of assessing the nature and extent of what has been lost; we do not know what was on offer. The dependence of the images in the Menologion of Basil on ‘earlier, longer cycles’ has been mooted,40 but without the specificity that would sustain such a proposition. What is sure is that calendars and related panel paintings41 after the great Vatican manuscript for the most part eschewed miniatures devoted to scenes of martyrdom alone, preferring to combine these with images of standing, frontally disposed saints. One such is the mid-eleventh century Sinai cod. gr. 512, the portion of a ten-volume menologion that displays in its frontispiece Polyeuktos and other holy men venerated during the first half of January (Figure 6.3).42 Looking directly at the beholder, Polyeuktos in the uppermost register stands out in the splendid garb of a ‘gentleman’, a bright red chlamys with a golden hem and tablion over a light blue tunic. His status as a martyr is indicated by the small cross that he holds and perhaps his age – he has been described as ‘elderly’43 – is signalled by his bluish­ grey hair and neatly trimmed, pointed beard. These features are remarkable especially when he is compared to his neighbour Marcian who has lost most of his head to flaking, and who, clad as a priest, is no match for the polychrome brilliance of Polyeuktos. One would expect such contrasts when the adjacency of figures is determined by their calendrical situation, and, predictably, greater variants are to be found across the densely populated span of eleventh-century menologia. In one relatively neglected portion of a sumptuous book, Vat. Gr. 1156,44 studied mostly for the miniatures in the lectionary that precede it, the image of Polyeuktos, here with a double-barred cross and far from elderly, exclusively occupies the left column of a page, ahead of Markianos, John of Saba and Theodosios the Koinobiarch45 near the top of the adjoining column (Figure 6.4). As against his garb in the Sinai Menologion, Polyeuktos is dressed in a blue mantle over a pink, but no less richly adorned, tunic with a fibula. It is clear that his appearance in the Menologion of Basil authorized not only his presence in the later manuscript but also his gorgeous raiment. If the problem of why images migrated from one manuscript of this sort to another is well founded on the construction of the Orthodox church’s year, this explanation will not suffice for objects that do not depend on the calendar. To consider only those that incorporate Polyeuktos in their design, there remains in question his presence on the reverse of the silver-gilt and enamel icon of the half-length Archangel Michael in the Treasury of San Marco in Venice (Figure 6.5).46 Assigned normally to the late tenth century or the first half of the eleventh, on this sumptuous creation Polyeuktos appears in the upper frame between Elias at the centre and Stephen the Protomartyr at left. This is ostensibly an honorific station, perhaps less so if his 11 o’clock position is

Figure 6.3 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, Cod. gr. 512 (Menologion), fol. 2v. Saints of the first half of January. [Source: Courtesy of Fr Justin of Sinai]

Figure 6.4 BAV MS 1156 (lectionary), fol. 294r. St Polyeuktos, St Markianos, St John of Saba and St Theodosios the Koinobiarch. [Source: Author]

100 Anthony Cutler

Figure 6.5 Venice, Basilica of San Marco, Treasury. Reverse of icon of Archangel Michael. [Source: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria di San Marco]

taken into consideration. Much depends on the order in which the busts are read.47 A model for interpretation may be the sequence of the quadrilateral inscriptions that surround the images on other icons of roughly the same period. The classic investigation of the problem was that of Enrica Follieri who pioneered the reading of the non-metrical epigram on the cross-reliquary at Cortona, probably brought to the West from Nicaea by a Franciscan friar during the Latin occupation of Constantinople but likely dating from the reign of

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Nikephoros II (r. 963–69). In this case she argued that the upper portion of the border was to be read first and horizontally, followed by the right vertical side; this, in turn, preceded the left vertical, with the entire epigram concluding with the lower portion of the border, again, of course, read horizontally. The same arrangement, according to Follieri, is found in the verse inscription of the famous staurotheke in Limburg an der Lahn, adorned first by Constantine VII (r. 945–59) and his son Romanos, and then between 968 and 985 by Basil the parakoimomenos. This reading has been challenged several times on grounds not directly germane to our concerns, but no less often rehabilitated.49 In any event, the overall sequence of the text on this object is less important than the fact that, although the Michael icon was heavily refurbished before 1816, a pre­ restoration drawing shows that the position of Polyeuktos was not changed: originally, as now, he inhabited the upper frame.50 In this situation he accompanies not only fathers of the church like Basil, at the hub of the cross below, various anargyroi and early martyrs such as Stephen, James the Persian, Christopher and Menas but also with a selection of others, not least Elias who in the Menaion is celebrated for having slaughtered the priests of confusion – that is, the priests of Baal in the service of the idolatrous Ahab and Queen Jezebel (I Kings 18:40, 19:1) – ‘with his sword.’51 Of the saints in the lower frame, only Orestes at the start of the row is recorded as a soldier, but all are described as contemporaneous martyrs in the Typikon of the Great Church.52 Not the least interesting aspect of most of the saints on the reverse of the Treasury icon is that they were martyred in cohorts. Arethas, who occupies the spot to the right of Elias corresponding to our protagonist’s situation at the prophet’s left, is said to have died with 4,253 companions.53 This number vastly exceeds that of the military saints shown in the icons flanking Basil II in the frontispiece of his Psalter in Venice, but their function as ‘allies’ (συμμαχοῦσιν) of the emperor declared in the poem on the preceding verso is unmistakable.54 All the sources agree that Polyeuktos was decapitated alone after bidding farewell to Nearchos, but their fellowship as Roman officers anticipates the ideal, as against the historical, community represented on the great ivory triptychs of the tenth century. One result of a recent scrutiny of these has been the recognition that many of the figures depicted were saints from the eastern provinces of the empire.55 This was, of course, the region in which Polyeuktos was martyred and his ‘venerable body’ preserved at Melitene. Despite the fact that he does not appear among them, the general observation of their places of origin as propagated by the hagiographers, and the argument that this is an expression of ‘the new triumphalism of the empire’56 are valuable insights. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to emphasize their military activities at the expense of their roles as martyrs: in the tenth and eleventh centuries these qualities were mutually reinforcing57 and manifested in such images of Polyeuktos as we know from the later history of Byzantine art. Before turning to this, we should note the ebbing of his reputation in Komnenian Byzantium, a period in which one could fairly describe Polyeuktos

102 Anthony Cutler as a martyr to fashion. One early harbinger of this occurs already in the ‘popular fiction’ that is the collection of stories known as the Patria. Exploiting the day of Polyeuktos’s commemoration merely as a calendrical signpost, the later tenth-century author or redactor is far more concerned with the ‘frightful and extraordinary earthquake [that] happened during the reign of Basil’58 than with our early Christian martyr. This elision, albeit in a homespun source, probably had little to do with popular devotion to the relics of Polyeuktos retained in his church – both his right arm and his head are signalled in the scholarly literature59 – but the fact remains that his shrine goes otherwise unmentioned in the primary Greek sources of the Middle Byzantine era. It has been supposed that the church was ‘semi-derelict’ by the middle of the twelfth century,60 but the archaeological evidence does not point to its collapse before the end of the twelfth.61 We have seen that Polyeuktos still received the special attention of illuminators in the third quarter of the eleventh century,62 but this preferment was not to last. Despite the wealth of manuscripts of Symeon Metaphrastes and the fact that his accounts were standard reading in monastic circles from the eleventh century onwards, thereafter few such books were produced.63 Indeed, among Palaiologan instruments of personal piety I know of only one example in which Polyeuktos is visually represented, a fourteenth-century sticherarion in which, as in the Menaion,64 but here for January 9, he is attached to a troparion commemorating his martyrdom. Its bust, as in the frame on the reverse of the Michael icon in Venice, is enclosed in a roundel.65 Polyeuktos’s image here is in parlous state and it is not clear if he holds the martyr’s small cross. But his beard – like his eyes, this feature is abraded – seems to define him as an older man clad in an elaborate mantle clasped with a fibula. In at least this instance, one version of the saint’s likeness persisted. The artistic domain, however, in which Polyeuktos persisted, albeit spasmodically and in particular circumstances, is wall painting. He does not appear in the Church of the Forty Martyrs at Veliko Tŭrnovo,66 built by the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II (r. 1218–41) to celebrate his victory over the Byzantines on these saints’ feast day in 1230, although a token presence among these fourth-century heroes would not have been amiss. The agonies of the martyrs are arranged in calendrical order, a synaxarion transposed onto the walls of the narthex. But Polyeukos’s absence here is not surprising: a thematic relationship between his person and the larger visual context of a monument would, as we shall see on Mount Athos, determine whether or not he is present, not to speak of the traditional association in Greek tragedy between a mythical hero (Agamemnon, Herakles) and a specific locale (the Peloponnese). The same criterion applies to much better known programmes of decoration across a broad span of regions: he is missing from the wall paintings of Cappadocia and Mistra, the mosaics of Chios and Constantinople and, for our purposes perhaps most dispiriting, from the more than 140 saints on the walls of Hosios Loukas. This visual reticence is matched in literature from John Geometres in the second half of the tenth century to Manuel Philes in the first half of

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the fourteenth. Accordingly and tellingly, he is absent from saints’ lives of the Palaiologan period where, as has been pointed out, hagiographers wrote, or more often rewrote, the vitae of ancient holy men.67 In this era, too, only two men are recorded as having borne the name Polyeuktos.68 Yet in one solitary and unexpected place, hagiography did play a part in producing an image of him. A wall painting in the parekklesion of St Euthymios, renovated in 1302–3 in the Church of St Demetrios in Thessaloniki, circumstantially depicts an incident in the life of that saint, or rather the events that led up to it: Euthymios’s parents, Dionysia of Melitene and her spouse Paul, pray for a child in Polyeuktos’s basilica in that city, a site almost certainly designated by the bust of Polyeuktos in the semi-dome of the apse (Figure 6.6). The half-length figure of an angel, hovering over the structure, functions by analogy to the celestial creature making his annunciation to the Mother of God on the wall directly above the apse and embodies the promise that the plea of Euthymios’s father and mother will result in the desired conception.69 The image points to their

Figure 6.6 Thessaloniki, Basilica of St Demetrios, Chapel of St Euthymios, fresco, west wall. Prayer of St Euthymios’ parents, angel of the annunciation and presentation of the child Euthymios. [Source: Courtesy of E. N. Tsigaridas]

104 Anthony Cutler reverence for a martyr in his own city. For the Thessalonican viewer Polyeuktos’s presence was a topographical marker rather than an index to local devotion. The nine surviving scenes of the saint’s life derive directly or indirectly from Symeon Metaphrastes’s capacious vita of Euthymios70 but much of their content can be traced to the sixth-century Cyril of Skythopolis.71 Most of these accounts are addressed to Euthymios’s career as a founding father of Palestinian cenobitic monasticism, yet the adherence of the frescos to the tenth-century hagiographer’s text is remarkable: for example, the painted simulation of Dionysia’s and Paul’s repeated supplications clearly has its origin in Symeon’s report on the many days the couple spent in prayer (πολλαῖς ημέρεις ἐν τοῦτῳ τῆ προσευχῆ) in Polyeuktos’s church in Melitene.72 This is not to argue that the artist dutifully consulted the text of the Metaphrast. More likely both the hagiographer and the painter, whom Tsigaridas proposed was Manuel Panselinos, supposedly active a few years earlier at the Protaton on Mount Athos,73 drew on what is somewhat airily called ‘collective memory’, by which I mean the often orally transmitted network of stories generated by and pervasive in Byzantine culture, one that entailed matters of belief, the practice of art and its social applications. To my mind, the question of the painter’s identity is less interesting than the reasons for the presence across the temporally extensive communities of martyrs represented in churches in Macedonia, Serbia and the Holy Mountain. Our understanding now is clouded by the loss of images and inscriptions in the monasteries of Mount Athos still legible less than a century ago. For example, Polyeuktos was, it seems, evident to Gabriel Millet among the martyrs in roundels on the arches in the north transept at Vatopedi, dated 1314 by inscription, although the scholar’s frequently generic captions do not enable the recognition of Polyeuktos’s specific participation.74 What is clear is that the ranks of soldier-saints and martyrs in the nartheces of churches from Vatopedi onward did duty as guardians against pirates, then after the Turkish occupation of the peninsula (1387, 1393–1403) and finally, during the period of Athonite autonomy, in the face of Ottoman control. If I am correct in this interpretation, then the situation is quite other than that of the Euthymios chapel in Thessaloniki. In the latter case, even while its sponsorship is credited in an inscription to a military man, Michael Glabas Tarchaneiotes, the protostrator of Andronikos II (r. 1282–1328) and defender of Macedonia against the Serbs, there is no pronounced martial emphasis in the programme of decoration. Rather, the parekklesion was a site, first, for the Eucharist, and then for the commemoration of a sainted and (as far as we know) peaceable establisher of monasticism.75 The monuments of what are now Serbia, Kosovo-Metochija and Montenegro present a somewhat different picture. Unhampered by the chronological order of the menologion, Polyeuktos is shown in various guises and, more importantly, as a full-length figure exclusively occupying a pier or at least sharing one with another martyr, as against the serried ranks preferred by earlier painters

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(cf. Figure 6.3). In the King’s Church at Studenica, the foundation of Stefan Uroš II Milutin (r. 1282–1321) in 1313–14, Polyeuktos appears among the warrior saints in the north arm of the naos.77 He recurs in this situation, more favoured than the narthex, in the church of St George at Staro Nagoričino (Figure 6.7), painted in 1317–18, and in the nave at Gračanica, again built by Milutin, between 1318 and 1321.78 In the former he is frontal and stationary save for a hand raised in blessing, as against the military figures of a century later at Manasija, such as Arethas, Nestor and Niketas, shown ‘in mid-movement, as if to burst out from the wall and join the defense of their religion.’79 In other

Figure 6.7 Staro Nagoričino, Church of St George, fresco, north pier. St Polyeuktos. [Source: Courtesy of R. Schroeder]

106 Anthony Cutler words, at Staro Nagoričino he appears as a martyr, not a warrior. As we have noted, the garb seen as appropriate to this status is resplendent: over a tunic shot with various shades of blue Polyeuktos wears a magnificent red mantle, the garniture of which consists of precious stones and pearls, and a richly ornamented tablion. No less remarkable is that he is depicted as a man with grey hair and beard, an obviously ageing but still commanding figure. If this suggests his immortal state rather than the youthful officer who met his end at Melitene, his successor of a generation later on the intrados of an arch between the south-west bay of the nave and the parekklesion of St Nicholas, at Dečani is, by contrast, still a youngster (Figure 6.8).80 This Polyeuktos is clad in a pinkish-red tunic with a golden collar, armbands and hems, and a mantle with a white (silk?) lining; long curls falling to his neck frame an incipient beard. His dress and physical attitude are far from those of a warrior. This fact discomfits the assertion that in Milutin’s time and the decades that

Figure 6.8 Dečani, Church of the Saviour, nave, fresco, arch of southwest bay. St Polyeuktos. [Source: Courtesy of the Srpsko Blago Fund]

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followed the soldier-saints were always depicted in full military equipment.81 But for our purposes, much more important than this amendment is the fact that the vast painted reaches of the Church of the Saviour at Dečani offer a resolution to the representational ambivalence demonstrated in earlier images of Polyeuktos. On a pier separating the central part of the nave from the north choir appears another image of the martyr (Figure 6.9). Although the names are differently dispersed, neither is provided with a locative qualification. This second Polyeuktos seems even younger than the first – there is no hint of a beard – he lacks the gold armbands sported by his namesake, and the pinkish-red of the latter’s tunic is now confined to the mantle. Moreover, he holds his cross with both hands and averts his gaze from the beholder. Like the Polyeuktos on the intrados he keeps company with Basiliskos (who appears immediately below him) but, exploiting the height of the pier, the painter puts St Romanos and Sebastian above him and at the viewer’s eye level, Theodore Stratelates, the most familiar of the five occupants of the east side of the pier.82

Figure 6.9 Dečani, Church of the Saviour, nave, north choir, pier. St Polyeuktos. [Source: Courtesy of the Srpsko Blago Fund]

108 Anthony Cutler Across the centuries we have seen great diversity in the manifestations of Polyeuktos, as in his frequency and the strength of the ‘signal’ he sends much in the way that an electric light flickers before it finally goes out. Doctrinally, extinction does not come to a saint and on occasion one still sees his image in Orthodox churches, although almost always as an element in a calendar icon. Panels of this sort adhere to the chronological strictures of the synaxaria and menaia, a dependence not shared by other displays of the martyrs and early saints. Nonetheless, these are likewise selections; they, too, anthologize the available repertories. Such textual sources may dictate whether a saint is shown as an impassive witness or unsuffering victim but, little given to physical description, they will not account for the sundry clothing, hairstyles and physiognomy of the fugitive figure that is Polyeuktos. Indeed, one wonders whether, despite the inscriptions, Byzantines considered him to be a single, if singular, individual.83 It follows that it is neither possible nor desirable to construct a genealogy of the martyr’s appearances. These enjoyed no straightforward line of descent from his earliest manifestations in art or text. While the close relationship between his images in the Basil Menologion and the ‘Imperial’ menologia (Figures 6.1 and 6.2) is self-evident, the nexus, if any, between other representations may be far from direct. As with Darwin’s Galapagos finches, there may have been both interbreeding and adaptation to a new environment. These conditions would seem to have occurred in the case of the reverse of the Michael icon (Figure 6.5), the fictive Polyeuktos in the Euthymios chapel (Figure 6.6), and one of his two images at Dečani (Figure 6.9). This said, I return to the premises laid out at the beginning of this essay – the connections between his successive representations and other aspects of Byzantine history. The decline in the number of known images of Polyeuktos that we have noted is matched by (and conceivably not unrelated to) the indignities he suffered in the course of his veneration. Cult and literature are of the essence here because they are the stations along the ‘feedback loop’ that nourished Byzantine culture: devotion provokes buildings and their decoration; icons in all mediums stimulate further devotion. After the long heyday of his relics in his own shrine84 these were moved to another site, the Church of the Holy Apostles, older and more august, but one where they would have received short shrift in comparison with those of apostles and emperors. Pious pilgrims from the north noted in the middle of the fourteenth century, and until the second decade of the fifteenth, that Polyeuktos’s body, together with that of St Spyridon (a fourth-century shepherd and then bishop on Cyprus, and, according to later hagiography, a miracle worker whose patients included Constantine the Great) was incorrupt and accessible to a kiss ‘in a tomb under a canopy of the left-hand side of the altar as you enter the church.’85 Apart from these testimonies, all is silence. The greatest peril faced by Polyeuktos was not to have shared his name with another martyr as in the Menologion of Basil, but to be forgotten, a plight from which this chapter has attempted to rescue him. Oblivion would be the ultimate irony for a saint whose name means ‘much prayed-for’ or ‘much desired.’ Nomen est omen.

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Notes 1 AASS (71 vols., Paris, 1863–1940). 2 H. Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantine Art (Princeton, 1996). I am indebted to many colleagues of Henry’s and mine, particu­ larly Alice-Mary Talbot, Nancy Ševčenko, Christina Maranci, Rossitza Schroeder, John Cotsonis, Ivan Drpić and Vessela Anguelova for their help in the production of this chapter. 3 Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies, 3. 4 Such a diachronic approach has previously been taken with respect to St Menas, first by M. Marković, ‘O ikonografije sveti ratnika u istočnoj hriščanskoi umetnosti i o predstavama ovih svetitelja u Dečanima’, in V. Djurić, ed., Zidno slikarstvo mana­ stira Dečana, gradja i studije (Belgrade, 1995), 611–5; W. Woodfin, ‘An officer and a gentleman: transformations in the iconography of a warrior saint’, DOP 60 (2006), 114–43. 5 H. Delehaye, Les légendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris, 1909); C. Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (Aldershot and Burlington, 2003). 6 B. Aubé, Polyeucte dans l’histoire: étude sur le martyre de Polyeucte d’après des documents inédits (Paris, 1882), 5–16. 7 BHG, vol. 2, nos. 1566–67f. Aubé, Polyeucte, 72. 8 The homosocial nature of the relationship is well curated by J. Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (New York, 1994), 141–6. 9 Corneille’s play Polyeucte martyr, in which Nearchos is a leading figure, was per­ formed in Richelieu’s presence in Paris in 1643. For the text and a valuable introduc­ tion, see the edition of L. Picciola, Corneille: théâtre complet (2 vols., Paris, 1996), vol. 2, 3–89. The playwright turned the story into an ideological (and heterosexual) contest between Polyeuktos and his wife Paulina, daughter of the Roman governor of Armenia, in which the martyr-to-be smashes and tramples the idols the pagans were parading in the city, all events derived from Lorenz Sauer’s Latin translation of Symeon Metaphrastes in his Vitae sanctorum (Cologne, 1617–18). For the Meta­ phrastic version, see note 25. 10 B. Krusch and W. Levison, eds., Gregory of Tours, Libri Historiarum (Hannover, 1951), 7.6, 329. 11 Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs, trans. R. Van Dam (Liverpool, 1988), 93–5. 12 J. Wilpert, Roma sotterranea: le pitture delle catacombe romane (2 vols., Rome, 1903), vol. 2, 23.3, 76.1, 124–6, 127.2, 258. 13 On surviving Italian cycles with hagiographic imagery see the literature cited by H. Deliyanni-Doris, ‘Menologion’, RBK 6 (2005), col. 131. 14 Aubé, Polyeucte, 10. To these undated testimonials should be added the onomastic devotion expressed in a foundation inscription of 595 that names an archbishop Poly­ euktos in a floor mosaic in the church of St Paul at Rihab, a village south-west of Bostra in Jordan. See M. Piccirillo, The Mosaics of Jordan (Amman, 1993), 312 and fig. 629. 15 PLRE, vol. 3B, 1046, a magister utriusque militiae. 16 The sole (eleventh-century) example shows an identified bust of the saint, bearded and holding a small cross, and the inscription φρουρὸς γενοῦ τῷ Πολυεύκτῳ, μάκαρ, ‘Be a guard for me, Polyeuktos, o blessed one’, on the reverse. See G. Zacos and J. Nesbitt, Byzantine Lead Seals (2 vols., Berne, 1972–85), vol. 2, no. 677. It is note­ worthy that the Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database, as of now covering saints from the eighth to the tenth century, makes no reference to Polyeuktos. 17 On whose interest in the relics of the Prodromos, see H. Thurn, ed., Johannes Sky­ litzes, Synopsis historiarum (Berlin and New York, 1973), 245.27–32. One wonders if his patriarchal name reflects a similar concern for the relics of St Polyeuktos. 18 PBW, s.v. Polyeuktos, http://db.pbw.kcl.ac.uk/jsp/index.jsp (accessed May 5, 2016).

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19 For some precisions on the date, see J. Bardill, Brickstamps of Constantinople (2 vols., Oxford, 2004), vol. 2, 62. To magnify the splendour of this achievement the Patria (3, 58–9) declares that the church was completed in four and a half years, with workers coming from Rome. For the text and its translation, see A. Berger, Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 170–1. 20 See n.10. 21 As observed by C. Mango and I. Ševčenko, ‘Remains of the church of St Polyeuktos at Constantinople’, DOP 15 (1961), 243–7. For the political context and the architec­ tural competition between Anicia Juliana and Justinian, see J. Koder, ‘Justinians Sieg über Solomon’, in Θυμίαμα στη μνήμη τες Λασκαρίνας Μπούρας (2 vols., Athens, 1994), vol. 1, 138–41. 22 AnthGr, 1.10.1–6; W. R. Paton and M. A. Tueller, trans., The Greek Anthology (Cambridge, MA, 2014). 23 K. Cigaar, ‘Une description de Constantinople traduite par un pelèrin anglais’, REB 34 (1976), 259, no. 27. By the fourteenth century relics of the saint were to be found in the Church of the Holy Apostles. See n. 83. 24 Synaxarium CP, 379. 25 BHG 2, no.1568; Symeon Metaphrastes, Certamen Sancti Martyris Polyeucti, PG 114, cols. 417–29; W. Lackner, ‘Zu Editionsgeschichte, Textgehalt und Quellen der Passio S. Polyeucti des Symeon Metaphrastes’, in W. Hörandner, ed., Byzantios: Festschrift für Herbert Hunger zum 70. Geburtstag (Vienna, 1984), 221–31. 26 F. Halkin, Le ménologe impérial de Baltimore: textes grecs publiés et traduits (Brussels, 1985); N. Ševčenko, ‘The Walters “Imperial” menologion’, JWalt 51 (1993), 58–9. On the Polyeuktos image, ibid., 48. 27 J. Mateos, Le Typicon de la Grande Église. Ms. Saint-Croix n. 40, Xe siècle. Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes (2 vols., Rome, 1963), vol. 1, 192. 28 Polyeuktos’s church figures twice in imperial processions on Easter Monday, first as the site of a reception on the way back from the Apostoleion to the Palace and then as a site where the emperor exchanged processional candles. See Constantine Por­ phyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies, trans. A. Moffatt and M. Tall (2 vols., Can­ berra, 2012), vol. 1, 50, 75. Because of this proximity, Mateos (Typicon vol. 1, 191, n. 4) insists that the church was not the shrine noted by R. Janin (Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins: Bithynie, Hellespont, Latros, Galèsios, Tré­ bizonde, Athènes, Thessalonique [Paris, 1975], 420), on the basis of Synaxarium CP, 860, as located near the Chalkoun Tetrapylon and dedicated to Polyeuktos and three other martyrs. Could this other church have been dedicated to Polyeuktos, martyr of Caesarea, burned alive on December 19 (Basil II, Menologium Basilianum, PG 117, col. 216B-C). See P. Mijović, Menolog: istoričesko-umetnika istraživania (Belgrade, 1973), 269, no. 19, and the Menologion of Basil (El ‘Menologio’ de Basilio II Emperador de Bizancio [Vat.gr.1613] [Madrid, 2005], 257). 29 El ‘Menologio’, 65 (September 5); 142 (October 27); 350 (January 25). 30 The fundamental study of the inscription identifying the painters and their distribu­ tion remains I. Ševčenko, ‘The illuminators of the Menologium of Basil II’, DOP 14 (1962), 245–76. 31 R. Nelson, ‘Book illustration and illumination’, in A. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot, eds., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (3 vols., New York and Oxford, 1991), vol. 1, 306. The priority of the miniatures is likewise a feature of Vat. Gr. 1156, considered further below. M.-L. Dolezal, ‘The middle Byzantine lectionary: textual and pictorial expressions of liturgical ritual’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago, 1991), 231–2 notes of the decoration of the menologion portion that it ‘periodically impinges on the context of the text and forces abridgement of it.’ 32 A privilege for which I am grateful to Fr Leonard Boyle, O. P., of blessed memory. 33 Symeon Metaphrastes, Certamen Sancti Martyris Polyeucti, PG 114, col. 421, 424.

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34 The adornment does not seem to be an addition of the eighteenth century when the images in Vat. gr. 1613 were in part overpainted. 35 The Walters manuscript is more than 20 per cent smaller in area than the Meno­ logion of Basil which measures 36.4 x 28.4 cm. 36 The most measured assessment of this distinction is L. Brubaker, ‘Perception and conception: art, theory and culture in ninth-century Byzantium’, Word and Image 5 (1989), 19–32. By contrast, the persistence in Middle Byzantine art of types even across antithetical figures, is marked. A relevant instance is the relationship between the executioners with drawn swords in the manuscripts considered here and military saints in similar poses. See Merkourios in the late-twelfth-century church of St Nicholas tou Kaznitzi at Kastoria in Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies, fig. 45. 37 Aubé, Polyeucte, 99. The accounts of the martyr’s superhuman endurance of unbelievable tortures are what Stratis Papaioannou (Christian Novels from the Meno­ logion of Symeon Metaphrastes [Cambridge MA, 2017], xiii–xviii) has recently called ‘Christian novels.’ 38 Gregory of Nyssa, Laudatio S. Theodori, PG 46, col. 737; C. Mango, trans., Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453 (Toronto, 1972), 36–7. There is a passing reference to the portico of Basil I’s Nea Ekklesia which is said by Theophanes Continuatus (I. Ševčenko, ed. and trans., Chronographiae quae Theophanis Continuati nominae fertur Liber quo Vita Basilii Imperatoris amplectitus [Berlin, 2011], 86) to have con­ tained ‘the struggles and contests of the martyrs’, an uninformative clause that tells us no more than can be gleaned from the Laudatio S. Theodori. Both passages rank among the ‘known unknowns’ that beset our problem. I have not seen the most recent study of Theodore sauroktonos by T. de Giorgio, San Teodoro, l’invincible guerriero: Storia, culto e iconografia (Rome, 2016). 39 Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 37. 40 Deliyanni-Doris, ‘Menologion’, col. 132. 41 G. Soteriou and M. Soteriou, Εἰκόνες τῆς Μονής Σινά (2 vols., Athens, 1956–1958), vol. 1, 121–3; vol. 2, pl. 139. 42 K. Weitzmann and G. Galavaris, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Illuminated Greek Manuscripts (Princeton, 1990), 70–3, no. 27 and colour plate XV. 43 N. Ševčenko, Illustrated Manuscripts of the Metaphrastian Menologion (Chicago, 1990), 23. For Polyeuktos in other Metaphrastian menologia, see ibid. 44 (Venice, Bib. Marc. Z589, fol. 1r) and 161 (BAV gr. 1679, fol. 15r). 44 The only satisfactory study is the unpublished dissertation of Dolezal, ‘The middle Byzantine lectionary’, where, however, the page in question is not reproduced. Consequently, it has not been noticed that Polyeuktos here receives special treatment from the illuminator, being preferred over Gregory of Nyssa who is mentioned two lines below in the text. Two pages in the menologion portion of the book are repro­ duced in J. M. Plotzek, ed., Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: Liturgie und Andacht in Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1992), no. 22. 45 Mijović, Menolog, 195, who assigns these saints to January 10 rather than January 9 as in the Synaxarium CP, 379 and Mateos, Typicon, vol. 1, 192. 46 H. R. Hahnloser, ed., Il Tesoro di San Marco (2 vols., Florence 1965–71), vol. 2, 27–7, no. 17. 47 Disconcertingly, Grabar, followed by B. D. Boehm (‘Panel with half-figure of St Michael’, in D. Buckton, ed., The Treasury of San Marco, Venice [Milan, 1984], 141), reports the names in clockwise order as if this were the sequence observed in Byzan­ tium (The dial clock is an invention of the fifteenth century). Much more useful is the diagram offered by A. Eastmond, ‘The heavenly court, courtly ceremony, and the great Byzantine ivory triptychs of the tenth century’, DOP 69 (2015), 85.

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48 E. Follieri, ‘L’ordine dei versi in alcuni epigrammi bizantini’, Byzantion 34 (1964), 447–67; A. Goldschmidt and K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.–XIII. Jahrhunderts (2 vols., Berlin, 1930–34), vol. 2, no. 77. The most recent study of this reliquary is S. Leggio, ‘La stauroteca eburnea della chiesa di S. Francesco a Cortona’, Arte Medievale 4 (2014), 9–34. 49 B. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (Univer­ sity Park, 2010), 163–6; B. Hostetler, ‘The Limburg Staurotheke: A reassessment’, Athanor 30 (2012), 7–13. 50 Boehm, ‘Panel with half-figure’, 141 and fig. 12a. 51 Menaion, s.v. July 20. 52 Mateos, Typicon, vol. 1, 128. Further on these five see Synaxarium CP, 305–6 and for their later depiction, K. Weitzmann, ‘Illustrations of the Lives of the Five Martyrs of Sebaste’, DOP 33 (1979), 97–112. 53 Mateos, Typicon, vol. 1, 76. 54 Eastmond, ‘The heavenly court’, 89–91. 55 Ševčenko, ‘Illuminators’, 271–3; A. Cutler, The Aristocratic Psalters in Byzantium (Paris, 1984), 115–6 no. 58, and fig. 412. 56 Eastmond, ‘The heavenly court’, 91. The point had already been made by M. White, Military Saints in Byzantium and Rus, 900–1200 (Cambridge, 2013), 5, 59 and passim. In particular and directly germane to the present essay, she notes, at 32, the recapture of Melitene from the Arabs and its destruction in 934 by John Kourkouas, Romanos I’s trusted general and supporter. 57 Nikephoros II took the unprecedented step of urging the Patriarch Polyeuktos to rec­ ognize as martyrs the soldiers who died in war, contradicting a canon of Basil the Great which excommunicated for three years those who killed an enemy. See Thurn, ed., Johannes Skylitzes, 274–5. The Patriarch declined the request. 58 Berger, Accounts, 214–5. I borrow from Berger, xvii, the apt characterization of the Patria as popular fiction. 59 On his right arm, sent to Constantinople by the archbishop of Jerusalem, see K. G. Holum ‘Pulcheria’s crusade AD 421–22 and the ideology of imperial victory’, GRBS 18 (1977), 163; on his skull, Cigaar, ‘Description’, 258 §27. 60 C. Milner, ‘The image of the rightful ruler: Anicia Juliana’s Constantine mosaic in the church of Hagios Polyeuktos’, in P. Magdalino, ed., New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th–13th Centuries (Aldershot and Burlington, 1994), 80. 61 M. R. Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium: The Discovery and Excavation of Anicia Juliana’s Palace-Church in Istanbul (London, 1986), 142. 62 See n. 43. 63 A. Kazhdan and N. P. Ševčenko, ‘Symeon Metaphrastes’, in A. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot, eds., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (3 vols., New York and Oxford, 1991), vol. 3, 1983–84. On the abundance of copies H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), 573, counts ‘in mindestens 693 Handschriften.’ 64 Menaion, s.v. July 20. 65 Mount Athos, Kutlumusi cod. 412, fol. 97r. I have not seen this MS of which, how­ ever, a photograph is available in the Princeton Index of Christian Art, no. 32 M92A MyK 19,72.A 004083. My thanks to Beatrice Kitzinger for providing a photocopy of this detail. 66 A. Grabar, La peinture religieuse en Bulgarie (2 vols., Paris, 1928), vol. 1, 99–103; vol. 2, pl. 1, 6. The wall paintings still require ample monographic treatment, not least because Deliyanni-Doris, ‘Menologion’, cols. 197–200, with Grabar, regards them as the oldest example of calendrical distribution and one influential in shaping what was to come elsewhere in monumental painting.

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67 A.-M. Talbot, ‘Old wine in new bottles: the rewriting of saints’ lives in the Palaeolo­ gan period’, in S. Ćurčić and D. Mouriki, eds., The Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in the Late Byzantine Empire (Princeton, 1991), 15–26. 68 PLP fasc. 10 (Vienna, 1990) nos. 23512–13. 69 The most useful assessment of this much-damaged image and the nine scenes of the Euthymios cycle that precede and succeed it is E. Tsigaridas, Οι τοιχογαφίες του παρεκκλεσιόυ του Ἀγίου Εὐθυμἰου (1302/3) στον ναό του Ἀγίου Δημητρίου (Thes­ saloniki, 2008), 137–40. I am most grateful to Professor Tsigaridas for supplying the image used in Figure 6.6. 70 Symeon Metaphrastes, Vita et res gestæ S. P. N. Euthymii, PG 114, cols. 596–733. 71 For this text see E. Schwarz, ed., Kyrillos von Skythopolis (Leipzig, 1939), 3–85. 72 Symen Metaphrastes, Vita et res gestæ, col. 597. 73 Cf. A. Embiricos, ‘Manuel Panselinos’, in Le Millénaire du Mont-Athos 963–1963 (2 vols., Chevetogne, 1963–64), vol. 2, 263–6; P. Miljković- Pepék, ‘L’atelier artisti­ que proéminent de la famille thessalonicienne d’Astrapas’, JÖB 32.5 (1982), 491–4. 74 G. Millet, Monuments de l’Athos relevés avec le concours de l’armée française d’Orient et de l’École fraņaise d’Athènes (Paris, 1927), pls. 82.1, 83.1 Similarly, in the survey of the decoration of the narthex by E. Tsigaridas (‘The wall-paintings of the exonarthex’, http://pemptousia.com/2011/10/the-wall-paintings-of-the-exonarthex­ the-wall-paintings-of-the-katholikon/ [accessed August 10, 2016]), we learn only of ‘chiefly monastic or warrior saints.’ The now lost wealth of such images in other, later churches is represented by the following illustrations and dates offered in Mil­ let’s corpus, which I cite to facilitate future research. Molivoklisia (1536), pl. 154. 1–2; Xenophontos (narthex 1536, nave 1544), pls. 170. 2, 184; Dionysiou (1547), pl. 212, 1; Docheiariou (1568), pl. 230, Lavra church of St Nicholas (1560), pl. 259,1; Portaitissa (1719), pl. 263, 1, 2. 75 T. Gouma-Peterson, ‘The parecclesion of St Euthymios in Thessalonica: art and monastic policy under Andronicus II’, ArtB 58 (1976), 168–83. Euthymios has fre­ quently and controversially been associated with an Armenian monastery in Jerusa­ lem dedicated to Polyeuktos. For the most recent discussion, see K. C. Britt, ‘Identity crisis? Armenian monasticism in early Byzantine Jerusalem’, Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies 6 (2011), 135–40. 76 These return in the crude eighteenth-century paintings in the village church of St Nich­ olas at Pelinovo where one would like to think that the wooden boards are the expres­ sion of a troparion chanted at the commemoration of SS Sergios and Bakchos as recorded in the Typikon of the Great Church (Mateos, Typicon vol. 1, 62, lines 21–4): ‘The miracles of your martyr saints whom you have given us, o Christ God, as an impregnable wall.’ An economic explanation of this cladding seems more likely. On these paintings, where Polyeuktos appears in the order of the menologion in one of the topmost row of boards, see P. Mijović, Bokotorska slikarska škola XVII–XIX vijeka (Titograd, 1960), 58 and pl. XXII. The martyr here is superimposed on a group of three other figures; Mijović mentions only Polyeuktos’ companion Nearchos. 77 G. Millet and A. Frolow, La peinture du Moyen Âge en Yougoslavie (4 vols., Paris, 1927–69), vol. 3, pl. 58, 2. An image in colour is accessible at www.srpskoblago. org/Archives/Studenica/Kings/Pictures/Interior/North-wall/North-wall,-fourth-and­ third-register/STUD_1_2_DSCF0087.html. 78 B. Todić, Gračanica: slikarstvo (Belgrade, 1988), 100, 212, 214. 79 A. Eastmond, The Glory of Byzantium and Early Christendom (London, 2013), 278–79, no. 266. 80 This he shares with Basiliskos of Komana, one member of a group of three martyred under the emperor Maximian and commemorated on March 3 and May 22. See AASS Novembris, col. 503 and index s.v. M. Marković, ‘Pojedinaćne figure svetitelje u naos

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Anthony Cutler i paraklisima’, in Djurić, ed., Zidno slikarstvo manastira Dečana, 256, 261, where he suggests that because Polyeuktos was rarely depicted, the painter was obliged to employ a generic type. Marković, ‘O ikonografije’, 600–7, who, mostly preoccupied with the état major, makes no reference to Polyeuktos. These are not grouped together in the Synaxarium CP, the Typikon of the Great Church or the Menaion. Cf. n. 28. See n. 58. Stephen of Novgorod (G. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Four­ teenth and Fifteenth Centuries [Washington, DC, 1984], 42–3); the ‘Russian Anonymous’, (ibid., 149); Ignatius of Smolensk, (ibid., 94–5); Zosima the Deacon (ibid., 184–5).

7

Hanging by a thread The death of Judas in early Christian art Felicity Harley

Judas Iscariot has long endured a position of notoriety in Western culture as the disciple who with a kiss (Mk 14:44–5), and for a bribe of silver (Mt 26:14), betrayed Jesus to arresting soldiers.1 In the past decade, following the publication of Codex Tchacos and the Gospel of Judas, biblical and literary scholars have re-evaluated the presentation of Judas’s actions and suicide in ancient texts and early literary traditions.2 Yet there has been no such re­ evaluation of visual evidence for the representation of Judas, and specifically the treatment of his voluntary death. The attempt to do so here is inspired by Henry Maguire. The example of his rigour in looking closely at iconographic detail and thinking carefully about the relationships between image and text has been of great importance to me, and this study is offered in thanks for his generous mentoring. The hanging body of Judas came to receive special attention in Byzantine and Western Christian art by the thirteenth century. Among the many pejorative images that were constructed and circulated across the medieval period, it was that of the ‘Hanging-Judas’ that arguably became most prominent.3 Beyond portraying Judas as a betrayer whose punishment was death and damnation, the image of his hanging body could be used to express pointed theological and social, as well as political, attitudes towards the unforgivable sin of suicide, and it played a pivotal role in subsequent characterizations of the apostle as evil in medieval art and literature. Despite its influence, the origins of the iconography remain poorly understood. We know little about when the image was created; and, owing to the nature and prominence of its role in medieval art and literature, we may assume too much about its original purpose. It is the aim of this chapter to explore that purpose by returning to the earliest surviving depictions of the death, and examining the pictorial contexts in which they appear, and for which they were developed. In order to probe the possible motivations for creating an iconography of Judas’s suicide, before turning to examine the images themselves it will be necessary to sketch some background about the cultural perceptions of suicide by hanging in the Roman Empire during the first century AD, and to review the early textual traditions concerning the death of Judas in the New Testament.

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Literary evidence Although suicide is neither expressly forbidden nor condemned in either the Hebrew Bible (where six instances are recorded)4 or the New Testament, in the course of the third century attitudes towards voluntary death began to shift in both philosophical and Christian circles.5 Discussion of voluntary death came to new prominence with the emergence of Neo-Platonism as a vibrant school; by the fourth century Christian writers had not only begun to comment on the instances of suicide in the Hebrew Bible, an explicitly condemnatory attitude had also emerged.6 In the late fourth century, Jerome argued that Judas offended Jesus more by hanging himself than by his betrayal.7 A definitive point in ethical thinking about voluntary death came with Augustine, who argued that suicide was both sinful and criminal.8 Although he was not the first Christian thinker to oppose suicide, he provided the first systematic treatment against it in his highly influential City of God, written beginning around 413, and furnished an influential reading of Judas, interpreting his suicide as an act of despair and therefore counter to hope – which in his terms meant counter to faith in God.9 In this way, Judas’s death was seen not to atone for but to augment his crime. The earliest representations of the Hanging-Judas image are produced at the same time as this shift in attitude towards suicide was taking place. Given the prominent role iconography came to play in characterizing Judas as evil in medieval art, it is tempting to locate a trigger for the creation and use of the image in early Christian attitudes towards suicide as well as towards Judas. Yet in re-evaluating early Christian attitudes towards Judas, and interpretations of his actions, it is important to resist the temptation of reading back into the earliest images a particular theological interpretation of suicide, and of his death in particular, that had not yet been widely articulated or circulated. Different versions of Judas’s death flourished in early Christianity; his evil character was sharply accented in some traditions as early as the second century,10 and writers as well as poets were depicting him as the enemy of Jesus by the fourth.11 Nonetheless, an examination of the pictorial contexts in which the earliest images of Judas’s suicide appear reveal different thematic priorities on the part of artists, priorities that must be understood within the context of early literary traditions concerning Judas’s decision to kill himself. An active focus on Judas and his role in the arrest and subsequent execution of Jesus emerges gradually in early Christian literature across the last decades of the first century. In Pauline writings Judas is not mentioned by name. Paul recalls that on the night of the Last Supper, Jesus was handed over to the authorities; but he does not say by whom.12 Elsewhere Paul proclaims that God was the one who handed Jesus over to be crucified (Rom 8:31–2), or that Jesus gave himself over to death (Gal 2:19–20).13 It is in the Gospel of Mark (c. 70) that Judas is first named as the one who hands Jesus over, although the motivations for his doing so are unclear and the precise nature of his act is uncertain (Mk 14:10). In the Gospel of Matthew, composed perhaps a decade or so later, there is a small development in the characterization of Judas as traitor with the specification that

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14

he betrays Jesus for money. Although this detail is later emphasized by writers in their characterization of Judas,15 and ultimately becomes an important narrative component for medieval artists, there is no judgment attached to it in the text. Moreover, on confessing his guilt to the High Priests and Elders, Judas repents for the sin of betraying an innocent man, casting down the money and going out to hang himself (Mt 27:3–5). Matthew links this act with the fulfilment of prophecy (Mt 27:9–10).16 The reader is explicitly told that he had remorse; and there is no condemnation of Judas in his choice to take his own life in the way that he does.17 Rather, in recording the suicide Matthew allows guilt to pass from Judas to the Jewish leaders who ‘ignore Judas’s confession and his atoning gesture and are thereby rendered guilty.’18 Matthew’s lack of comment or censure regarding Judas’s decision to take his own life is characteristic of the second account of his death, preserved in Acts (1:16–20) written perhaps some decades later.19 Again the death is mentioned without comment or condemnation; it is seen as the fulfilment of prophecy (the author quoting Ps 69:26 and 109:9); and again, there is the suggestion that as a traitor, Judas met a bad end. The key difference between the two versions is the way Judas died. In Matthew the action is not described in any detail: we are told that Judas ‘departed, and went and hanged himself’, an exit strategy reminiscent of Greek drama where characters left the stage to hang themselves, thereby leaving the audience to imagine the specifics.20 In Acts (1:18), the specifics are literally unravelled: ‘Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.’21 While this presumably accidental death became the focus of attention in later medieval art, no depictions survive from antiquity. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the characterization of Judas as betrayer is developed, but the act of suicide is not used as a literary device by which to do so. In the Gospel of Luke, perhaps written by the same author as the Acts of the Apostles, the devil enters Judas (22:3) just as the scribes and chief priests were looking for a way to kill Jesus. In the Gospel of John (probably written after the other gospels) the sense of Judas’s remorse is replaced by an active characterization of the disciple as evil – not just unclean and possessed by Satan (13:27), but the personification of a devil (6:70–1). This relationship with the devil becomes extremely important for later pictorial traditions in the West and East where, by the ninth century, the devil is an active participant in images of the hanging. However, evil does not appear to have been a motivating factor for the initial decision to develop a Hanging-Judas image for early Christian narrative cycles.

Artistic evidence No depictions of a human figure (whether mythological or historical) having committed suicide by self-hanging are currently known to survive from antiquity. This makes the formulation of an explicit iconography for Judas’s suicide remarkable, and all the more so given that Christian art surviving from

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before the fifth century betrays no interest in the representation of death, but a steadfast focus on instances of healing and deliverance from death.22 Just three images of the Hanging-Judas survive from before the sixth century, the earliest of which indicate that the iconography was developed before the end of the fourth century.23 All of the examples are preserved in relief carving (two in ivory, one in marble), produced in Italy. During this century, an increasing number of episodes from the New Testament began to be incorporated into cycles of textbased imagery; and specifically, between AD 340–70, there is intense interest in the Passion narrative, with a marked expansion in the repertoire of Passion scenes and the active formulation of compositions for their representation.24 It is as part of these developments that the actions of Judas received attention; and it is to the second half of the fourth century specifically that the creation of iconographies for his betrayal and his death can be traced. The Passion narrative contains various episodes relating to Judas.25 Among these, it was his betrayal of Jesus to the soldiers with a kiss that received most attention in fourth century art.26 This image could serve different didactic functions in early Christian pictorial contexts. Although kissing had numerous and often overlapping meanings in the cultural context of Greco-Roman antiquity (mostly limited to blood relationship or marriage), in Christian practice from the time of Paul it was a specifically religious act, one that produced a kinship of faith.27 Judas’s manipulation of this ritual act is thus deeply provocative, one that effects the arrest of Jesus, but also his death. Henry Maguire exposed the capacity of early Christian and Byzantine artists to convey human drama and psychology long before the field had begun to think about a history of emotions. His interest in and fundamental work on the use of gesture in early Christian and Byzantine art to convey emotion will be crucial in pursuing the depth of that provocation in further studies of the kiss-iconography and its placement within nascent illustrations of the Passion narrative. But for now, it is possible to say that as an image of the betrayal, the kiss could have two levels of meaning and two uses in early Christian art: as a stand-alone subject, independent from the Passion narrative, placed among a selection of biblical images, it was an example of a bad deed; within a continuous Passion cycle, it was an act with broader historical ramifications, initiating the arrest and thereby propelling the narrative towards the death and resurrection of Jesus. The actions of Judas were therefore essential for the narrative. Herein lies an important clue for understanding the formulation of an iconography of his death, an iconography that although rarely used, would have didactic utility. Of the three images that survive, one appears as an independent motif, and two are incorporated within Passion cycles. The Brescia casket On a large ivory casket produced in Northern Italy in the last quarter of the fourth century and now in Brescia, the suicide of Judas appears as a stand-alone image.28 Possibly functioning as a pyxis or a reliquary, the casket exemplifies the intense interest in Biblical narrative at this time. The lid is dedicated to

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a single narrative theme (the Passion), while the four sides are densely illustrated with a complex pictorial programme of stories from the Old and New Testaments. Each of the four sides follows the same design, being divided into three horizontal registers: a large middle, with narrower registers above and below. Judas’s death is placed on the back of the casket within a narrow vertical border that runs at the right of the main middle register (Figure 7.1). Although not specified by Matthew, Judas is shown hanging from a tree; the rope is wound around his neck and attached to a large branch. The corpse and the tree form a compact pictorial unit, with the rigid body hanging parallel to the trunk and the foliage arching over to crown Judas’s head. This unit borders a different story of disobedience and greed: that of Ananias and his wife Sapphira (Acts 5) (Figure 7.2).29 Like those of Judas, the actions of Ananias and Sapphira were mentioned by early Christian writers but rarely illustrated. According to the Acts, the couple sold a piece of property, secretly withholding a portion of the proceeds for themselves before presenting the remainder of the total to Peter, lying to him about how much they actually received. When Peter confronted him about the lie, Ananias died (Acts 5:1–11). In the composition on the casket’s back panel,

Figure 7.1 Brescia, Museo Civico dell’Eta Cristiana, Brescia Casket, 380s (inv. avorio 1). Back panel. [Source: © Luisa Ricciarini/Bridgeman Images]

120 Felicity Harley

Figure 7.2 Brescia, Museo Civico dell’Eta Cristiana, Brescia Casket, 380s (inv. avorio 1). Line drawing of detail of back panel: Peter with Ananias and Sapphira (L), Sui­ cide of Judas (R). [Source: Raffaele Garrucci, Storia della arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della Chiesa, vol. VI: ‘Sculture non cimiteriali’ (Prato: G. Guasti, 1881), plate 444]

a conspicuously large bag of money is shown lying between Sapphira and Peter, who sits in judgment on her; behind Sapphira, Ananias is carried off to be buried. The figures are confidently handled, their plasticity of form gracefully intimating movement and weight and betraying the carver’s familiarity with classical prototypes for the representation of young men carrying heavy objects.30 The handling of Judas is less assured. His body hangs awkwardly and conveys no sense of the weight of a hanging corpse, suggesting that the composition is still new. Nonetheless, its deployment betrays a deep understanding of the figure’s didactic potential in early Christian narrative contexts. The self-contained figure of the Hanging-Judas succinctly recalls the broader story of his betrayal and remorse, of which suicide is the denouement; in Byzantine and later medieval pictorial contexts the sense of Judas’s social isolation becomes increasingly pronounced through the intentional placement of his lone body (Figure 7.3). In this pictorial context however, where its excision from the Passion narrative is pronounced, the image serves as an example of dishonesty and greed, and as such contributes actively to the elucidation of the broader theme of betrayal. On the back of the casket, the movement of action across the central register from left (Peter) to right (Ananias) draws the viewer’s eye directly to Judas such that collectively the figures of Peter, Sapphira, Ananias and Judas can be read as examples of deceit: all made bad choices and performed dishonest deeds. Peter, who denied Jesus three times (Lk 22:31–62), repented and was forgiven;31 but Judas and Ananias bring about their own death through avarice and betrayal of Jesus and their community. Hence through design, the pictorial isolation of Judas from the Passion narrative is not so much about condemning him and his actions,

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Figure 7.3 Rossano, Museo Diocesano d’Arte Sacra, The Rossano Gospels (Codex Pur­ pureus Rossanensis), fol. 8r. [Source: Image in the Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)]

as about using him as a didactic tool.32 As we turn to the second surviving example of the Hanging-Judas image in early Christian art we see that even when embedded within the Passion narrative, the image could be used successfully to illuminate other themes.

122 Felicity Harley The London ‘Maskell’ casket Where the lid of the Brescia casket was devoted to the Passion, all four sides of a second and smaller ivory casket, manufactured in a Roman or Northern Italian workshop between AD 420–30, were devoted to this narrative (Figure 7.4). This second casket is likely to have functioned as a container for a relic or a portion of the consecrated host.33 Once part of the collection of liturgical scholar William Maskell, the four panels (the lid and base of the casket being lost) are skilfully carved in high relief with a Passion sequence that begins with Pilate in judgment over Jesus and concludes with the appearance of the risen Jesus to the apostles (including the doubting of Thomas). The Hanging-Judas is an integral part of a sequence of four episodes leading to the Crucifixion that is illustrated across the first two panels. The private suicide of Judas is paired with the public execution of Jesus on the same panel, effecting one of the most powerful visual interpretations of Christ’s death as a triumph in Christian art. With Mary’s back turned to him, Judas is effectively excluded from the scene at the cross, and a sense of his social isolation is effectively conveyed. Here, the artisan is entirely comfortable in handling the composition, treating both the tree and the clothed corpse with deft assurance. The

Figure 7.4 London, British Museum, Maskell Casket (inv. no. MME 1856.06–23.5). The Hanging of Judas and the Crucifixion. [Source: © The Trustees of the British Museum]

Hanging by a thread 123 head is now rotated into profile and tilted backwards implying that the neck has broken in the tightly drawn noose. The eyes are closed; and in a dexterous treatment of the limbs, the body is shown to turn subtly as the rope twists under its dead weight, the right arm shown falling slightly forward of the body, the left arm behind. Here Judas’s choice of death is made stark in the contrast with Jesus’s decision to submit to death. The naked and muscular body of Jesus is unfolded on the cross and so revealed to the viewer’s gaze as defiant: taut, erect, its neck firm, the eyes open looking boldly out of the picture frame. While this juxtaposition of death and life is striking, of equal importance for the presentation of the narrative as a victory for Jesus is the contrast between Judas and Peter, who appears in the scene immediately before the suicide.34 As on the Brescia casket therefore, where Judas’s greed is compared with that of Ananias and Sapphira, consecutive examples of disloyalty support each other in articulating the theme of betrayal. Peter, accompanied by the rooster, is caught in the act of denial; but the viewer knows that he ultimately repents, becoming heir to Jesus’s power, a fact illustrated on the final panel where Jesus sends the apostles out to do his work. Judas, accompanied by the coin-purse, is caught in the act of suicide; the coins remind us that his failed attempt to return them drove Judas to end his life.35 Their prominence, rolling beneath the feet of Judas and within the same picture frame as the very death they purchased, is a clever narrative device expressing cause and effect: Judas is presented as a necessary instrument in the history of salvation, his act of betrayal being integral to the ultimate victory of Jesus.36 To this end the tree receives more attention than it did on the Brescia casket: it is oak, evoking the theme of victory, and its branches support a nesting bird and her young, underscoring the idea of the betrayal being necessary in securing victory and new life.37 The Arles ‘Servanne’ sarcophagus In addition to the two ivory examples, a third image of the Hanging-Judas iconography may be reconstructed from the fragmentary remains of a doubleregister sarcophagus produced in a workshop in Rome sometime during the second third of the fourth century, thus making it the earliest surviving representation of Judas’s death and the only example from funerary art (Figure 7.5).38 Eight episodes from the Passion narrative are illustrated in sequence across the lower frieze of the sarcophagus, reading from left to right: the Agony in the Garden, the Kiss of Betrayal, Christ Taken to Pilate, Christ before Pilate, the Women at the Tomb, Christ Appearing to the Disciples, the Suicide of Judas and finally the Ascension. Unfortunately, the lower frieze survives only in fragments, and these have sustained extensive damage.39 While only the lower half of the figure proposed as the Hanging-Judas is preserved, there is evidence to accept the reconstruction of the suicide as an original component of the design.40 A drawing of the sarcophagus made by Pierre de Beaumesnil around 1783 when the object was fully intact records the presence of the suicide in the lower frieze, with Judas shown standing against a tree, the foliage acting as

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Figure 7.5 Arles, Musée de l’Arles et de la Provence antiques, Servanne Sarcophagus (inv. no. FAN.92.00.2503) including the drawn reconstruction of missing com­ ponents proposed by Wilpert. [Source: © DAI Rome]

a crown above his head (Figure 7.6).41 Overall, Beaumesnil is regarded as having remained faithful to the main iconographic features of the frieze;42 and in his drawing, Judas is depicted frontally and clothed in a pallium, the left hand placed beneath or clutching the pallium, the right hanging freely to the side to form the same compact pictorial unit seen on the Brescia casket. Analysis of the extant fragment confirms that for the lower part of the body at least, Beaumesnil recorded the iconographic details of the lower body, feet, arms and garment accurately. On the basis of the parallels between the

Figure 7.6 Arles, Musée de l’Arles et de la Provence antiques. Line drawing of Servanne Sarcophagus (inv. no. FAN.92.00.2503) by Pierre de Beaumesnil c. 1783. [Source: after Edmond Le Blant, Études sur les sarcophages chrétiens de la ville d’Arles (Paris, 1878), plate XXX]

Hanging by a thread 125 partially preserved Servanne figure, and the wholly preserved Judas on the Brescia casket, Joseph Wilpert accepted Beaumesnil’s Hanging-Judas as part of his own reconstruction of the Passion narrative as illustrated across the frieze (Figure 7.5).43 Herbert Kessler has previously observed a direct relationship between the Servanne Passion frieze as a whole and Passion imagery extant on contemporary ivories. Thus if we are to accept the reconstruction of the Hanging-Judas in the frieze, and so the strong likelihood that the Servanne and Brescia images were fashioned after a shared pictorial model, further work needs to be done in demonstrating the processes by which iconography, and Passion imagery in particular, was developed and models shared among artisans and different workshops at this period.44 Together with the drawing, and the iconographic parallels between the extant fragment and the Brescia Judas, an additional source of evidence to support the theory that the Hanging-Judas was an original and integral inclusion in the Servanne Passion cycle is the central concern of the narrative itself: the triumph of Jesus, and that of the Church. Ultimate responsibility for the death of Jesus in the Servanne relief is shown to rest on Pilate, echoing Matthew’s gospel. Pilate’s judgment, which initiates the narrative on the Maskell reliefs, is placed at the centre of the frieze: it is the axial point between Jesus’s suffering (which begins in the Garden, where Jesus is ‘grieved unto death’ in the presence of the apostles, Mk 14:34) and his Ascension (where he is glorified in the presence of the apostles, Lk 24:51). Accepting that the suicide is depicted, Judas appears twice in the narrative, in the second and penultimate episodes, with the result that the Servanne cycle explicitly reflects the earlier New Testament tradition that specified Judas’s role in handing Jesus over (Paul and Mark) and indicated his regret with suicide (Matthew). In their respective positions, the two Judas episodes counterbalance and effectively frame the sequence of events from Jesus’s arrest through to his postresurrection appearance to the disciples. To achieve this counterpoise, the cycle must depart from the sequence of events in Matthew’s Passion narrative, with the suicide-event moved to a chronological point after the trial and immediately preceding the Ascension. This movement enables a powerful juxtaposition: Judas hanging, Jesus ascending. The juxtaposition is similar to that on the Maskell relief: Judas hanging dead from his tree, Jesus standing alive against his cross. On both the sarcophagus and the ivory, Judas’s remorse, which according to Matthew inspired his suicide, is able to be directly contrasted with the faith of the disciples, who will carry out the mission of the Church in Jesus’s absence. This contrast is teased out in the Maskell cycle where the final panel is dedicated to the mission of the apostles. Nonetheless, both cycles actively utilize the Hanging-Judas figure to support the overarching theme of victory, and neither cycle explores dramatic possibilities for the condemnation of Judas. Further evidence Literary evidence further supports the idea that a Hanging-Judas model was circulating in the Northern Mediterranean by the late fourth century and was

126 Felicity Harley available for experimentation to artisans working in a variety of media and visual contexts. Aside from being placed into miniature narrative cycles for small-scale luxury objects, or larger funerary objects, it was envisioned as occupying a place within a cycle of biblical images intended for the walls of a church. The influential Spanish Christian poet Prudentius included it in his late fourth century poem ‘Scenes from History’, the verses of which probably functioned as captions for such a pictorial cycle.45 His description of the Hanging-Judas in verse 39 felicitously evokes the iconography preserved on the Brescia and Maskell caskets: ‘The unhappy Judas, hanging off the ground, draws a noose tight about his neck for his great crime.’46 Since in subject and content the verses of the poem have been shown to demonstrate Prudentius’s interest in contemporary art,47 it is tempting to imagine that he was familiar with the Hanging-Judas iconography from art (or pattern books) he had seen; and that this familiarity influenced both the details of his prose and his consideration of the image as part of a narrative cycle.

Some conclusions From the surviving artistic and literary evidence collated and examined here it is possible to conclude that the Hanging-Judas iconography that became so influential in medieval art was formulated by the late fourth century. Given the absence of a pictorial model for suicide by hanging in classical art, and the fact that deaths of biblical figures were eschewed in early Christian art in favour of scenes demonstrating deliverance from death, this formulation is remarkable. The image is first attested in Italy, where it was developed for use in different pictorial contexts during the late fourth and early decades of the fifth century. From the three images that survive it is apparent that it was concisely composed, relying on the viewer to supply the broader details of the bribe, the subsequent betrayal and the resulting remorse. In this it conformed to the development of other Christian narrative images across the third and fourth century, which were also capable of being juxtaposed with other scenes or figures. Just as Matthew treats the suicide very briefly, the iconography and the pictorial contexts into which the image is inserted betray no interest in elaborating or lingering over the details of Judas’s actions for broader interpretative purposes, such as condemnation.48 The image was largely symbolic in detail (the coins in the Maskell relief for example) and symbolically located (abutting other scenes of betrayal, or moved chronologically to a time after the Trial), strategies that enabled it to exercise particular didactic functions: as a self-contained unit, independent of the Passion narrative, it could provide a negative exemplum of behaviour and the peril of yielding to greed (as on the Brescia casket); within the Passion narrative, it could support the theme of Jesus’s triumph over death, one of the most important themes in fourth century Christian art. In both the Servanne and Maskell Passion cycles, Judas’s role is affirmed as necessary (if regrettable) in facilitating the glorification of Jesus, and allowing God’s

Hanging by a thread 127 purpose to be fulfilled on the Cross. The images of Judas in those cycles are subordinate to this theme, and in the exercising of a specific didactic function, there is no place for overt condemnation either of his betrayal or his choice to end his life. The Maskell ivories, carved only a few years after Augustine wrote the City of God, demonstrate the way in which the early textual tradition had utility for the development of the Hanging-Judas image. There is no evidence to suggest that nascent pictorial interest in his actions or in the development of an iconography for his death was motivated and subsequently influenced by the expressions of hatred and active condemnation of Judas flourishing in early Christian literature by the second century. Even in Luke and John, while the evil of Judas is accentuated, the act of suicide is not used as a literary or artistic device by which to characterize him as such. Matthew offers no condemnation of him, and neither did artisans, patrons or their advisers in devising the pictorial cycles in which the Hanging-Judas image was placed. In this way, the earliest surviving artistic representations performed a role that ran counter to the contemporary shift in ethical and theological thinking about suicide, where the actions of Judas were condemned, as was his decision to take his own life. Christian condemnation of suicide, alongside complex social and political attitudes towards the taking of one’s own life, ultimately did cultivate a negative use of the Hanging-Judas iconography in medieval visual culture, particularly in the West. The iconographic core of the suicide remained stable, yet like attitudes towards suicide itself, its meaning shifted. This shift might be appreciated most clearly in the detail of the tree from which Judas was shown to hang. For early Christians, the remorseful disciple was suspended from a leafy oak on earth, a living tree symbolic of the victory ultimately secured by Judas’s regrettable but necessary actions. For medieval Christians, the tree was transferred to a dark corner of Hell and shown to be dead, underscoring the despair and eternal damnation of the evil betrayer.49 Drawing together the fragments of early Christian artistic evidence we glimpse a more generous stance towards Judas, a remorseful figure whose actions were deemed necessary, and whose character was not yet overtly reviled, but hung by a thread.50

Notes 1 In the New Testament, Judas appears in lists of the 12 disciples (Mt 10:4, Mk 3:9, Lk 6:16), and is often designated as ‘one of the Twelve’ (Mt 26:14, 47, Mk 14:10, 43, Lk 22:3, 47, Jn 6:71, 12:4, cf. Acts 1:17). 2 L. Jenott, The Gospel of Judas: Coptic Text, Translation, and Historical Interpret­ ation of ‘the Betrayer’s Gospel’ (Tübingen, 2011), 72 note 70 with a bibliography of the literature that has been generated about Judas and his character since the discov­ ery of the text (including discussions of his ‘rehabilitation’). 3 Particularly prominent in monumental sculpture and illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: A. Weber, ‘The hanged Judas of Freiburg cathedral’, in E. Frojmovic, ed., Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other: Visual Representation and Jewish-Christian Dynamics in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (Leiden and Boston, 2002), 165–88.

128 Felicity Harley 4 Abimelech, Saul, Saul’s armour-bearer, Samson, Ahithophel and Zimri. See A. J. Droge and J. D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco, 1992), 53–61. 5 Ultimately, some motives for Christian rejection would be borrowed from Neo-Platonism. On the interaction between philosophy and theology, see A. J. L Van Hooff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-Killing in Classical Antiquity (London, 1990), 192–7. 6 From Clement of Alexandria and Origen in the East, to Jerome and Ambrose of Milan in the West; see Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 141–4, 149–52; A. Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages (2 vols., Oxford, 2000), vol. 2, 98–101. 7 U. Luz, Matthew 21–28 (Minneapolis, 2005), 471; and discussion in Murray, Suicide, vol. 2, 100. 8 Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, present Augustine as such, e.g., 167. 9 City of God 1.17. For a summary of discussion of suicide in the Patristic literature, including Augustine, see Murray, Suicide, vol. 2, 98–121, and 99 note 19; D. W. Amunsden, ‘Suicide and early Christian values’, in B. A. Brody, ed., Suicide and Euthanasia: Historical and Contemporary Themes (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 1989), 96–122. 10 I am thinking here of the so-called ‘third’ version of Judas’s death, written only a few decades after the composition of Matthew and Acts, recorded in the second century by Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis. A. W. Zwiep, Christ, the Spirit and the Community of God: Essays on the Acts of the Apostles (Tübingen, 2010), 83, writes: ‘In Papias, Judas is a victim of extreme defamation.’ For the Greek text, see F. J. Jackson and K. Lake, eds., The Acts of the Apostles (London, 1933), 22–4, commentary 24–30. For a reconstruction of the Papias fragments, see A. W. Zwiep, Judas and the Choice of Matthias (Tübingen, 2004), 110–21. The Arabic Infancy Gospel (perhaps datable to the fifth century) also infers that Judas was possessed by Satan from the beginning, see Luz, Matthew, 481, and on the post-biblical traditions, particularly prominent in the West, ibid., 481–2. 11 R. Dijkstra, The Apostles in Early Christian Art and Poetry (Boston and Leiden, 2016), 281, and passim. 12 From an analysis of the Pauline material, Kim Paffenroth (Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple [Louisville, KY, 2001], 14) concludes that some first-generation Christians probably did not know that Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples. 13 Paul uses forms of the Greek verb paradidonai to describe the act; the same verb is used in the Gospel of Mark (14:10–50) to describe the act of Judas. Meaning ‘give over’, ‘deliver’ or ‘hand over’, it can also mean ‘betray’, but not necessarily with all of the negative connotations that are now inherent in the modern usage of that word. Note for example that Pilate ‘hands over’ Jesus for crucifixion, John 19:16. See W. Klassen, Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? (Minneapolis, 1996), 48–9. 14 Luz, Matthew, 468–90, disagrees with the interpretation of the death as noble 473 note 64; C. F. Whelan, ‘Suicide in the ancient world: a re-examination of Matthew 27:3–10’, Laval théologique et philosophique 49.3 (1993), 505–22. 15 Dijkstra, The Apostles, 175 on Gregory of Nyssa for example, or 331 regarding Pru­ dentius and his reference to the betrayal in the Psychomachia. 16 Matthew’s quotation ‘They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel’, is a conflation of Zechariah 11:12–14 and Jeremiah 18:1–3; 32:6–15, see Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 126 note 1. 17 Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 113. Zwiep (Judas, 107 note 11) observes that Judas ‘fulfills all the biblical conditions to express repentance.’ 18 Whelan, ‘Suicide’, 521, with detailed textual analysis at 522. 19 Scholarly estimates of the date of Acts vary; recently a date as late as the mid-second century has been suggested by R. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis, 2009).

Hanging by a thread 129 20 One example is Phaedra in Euripides’s Hippolytus (769–775), written 428 BC. 21 King James Version. See the commentaries by Pervo, Acts, 51–4, including an excur­ sus on ‘punitive miracles’; and C. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, 2012). On the characterization of Judas in Acts and the Gospel of Luke, see D. McCabe, How to Kill Things with Words: Ananias and Sapphira under the Pro­ phetic Speech-Act of Divine Judgment (Acts 4.32–5.11) (London, 2011), 200–8. For a detailed comparison between the accounts of the hanging in Matthew and Acts, see Zwiep, Judas, 16–7. 22 F. Harley-McGowan, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory: scenes of death in early Christian art and the emergence of Crucifixion iconography’, Cultural Studies Review 17.1 (2011), 101–24. 23 Against the view that only the betrayal had been depicted before the end of the fourth century: Dijkstra, The Apostles, 297. The three images have been previously analysed together by H. Jursch, ‘Das Bild des Judas Ischariot im Wandel der Zeiten’, in Akten des 7. Internationalen Kongresses für christliche Archäologie, Trier, 5–11 Sept. 1965 (Vatican City, 1969), 565–73. Some of the conclusions outlined here were made inde­ pendently of, but agree with, those reached by her. 24 See, for example, F. Gerke, Die Christlichen Sarkophage Der Vorkonstantinischen Zeit (Berlin, 1940). 25 Namely: his interaction with the chief priests and voluntary betrayal of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver; his presence at the Foot Washing, in the Garden of Gethsemane and at the arrest of Jesus following his betrayal of him to the soldiers with a kiss; his attempted return of the silver; and his death. 26 Preserved on six early Christian sarcophagi, from Gaul and Italy, see Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage (3 vols., Wiesbaden and Mainz, 1967–2003), vol. 2, 152; ibid., vol. 3, 42, 62 (lid), 83a, 199a, 498; Dijkstra, The Apostles, 329–30. In John’s Gospel, Jesus declares himself to the soldiers (18:5). 27 M. P. Penn, Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church (Philadelphia, 2005), 37. 28 Brescia Casket, Northern Italy (Milan?), 380’s, h. (with lid) 24.7cm; width 31.6; depth 22. Brescia, Museo Civico dell’Eta Cristiana, Italy, inv. avorio 1. See C. Tkacz, The Key to the Brescia Casket: Typology and the Early Christian Imagin­ ation (Notre Dame, Paris, 2002), with the bibliography across 19–20, notes 1–4. 29 Ibid., 221–3. 30 H. L. Kessler, ‘Scenes from the Acts of the Apostles on some early Christian ivor­ ies’, Gesta 18.1 (1979), 110–1, notes the similarities with classical compositions for the representation of Meleager. 31 Tkacz, The Key, 42, 103–4; Harley-McGowan, ‘Death’, 111–12. 32 I therefore disagree with Tkacz (The Key, 103–4) who regards the isolation of Judas as inherently condemnatory. 33 F. Harley-McGowan, ‘The Maskell Passion ivories and Greco-Roman art’, in J. Mullins, J. Ní Ghrádaigh and R. Hawtree, eds., Envisioning Christ on the Cross: Ireland and the Early Medieval West (Dublin, 2013), 13–33. There is more research to be done on the likely function of this object. 34 Mt (26:75) had implicitly contrasted Judas with Peter. Luz (Matthew, 469–71) writes ‘Judas and Peter differ not in the seriousness of their remorse but only in the severity of their guilt.’ 35 In Matthew’s text, the coins are not so much about Judas and revealing his greed as about revealing the ‘malice of the chief priests’, see Luz, Matthew, 475. 36 So concluded Jursch, ‘Das Bild des Judas’, 569. 37 Harley-McGowan, ‘The Maskell’, 21, 25–6. 38 Musées d’Arles antique, 60 x 220 x 20 cm, inv. FAN 92.00.2503. Fragments of the sar­ cophagus were held by architect M. Henri Révoil (1822–1900) at his property in

130 Felicity Harley

39 40

41 42

43 44 45

46 47

48 49 50

Servanne (or Servanes), Southern France; see E. Le Blant, Études sur les sarcophages chrétiens de la ville d’Arles (Paris, 1878), 46, plate XXIX. For the date accepted here and place of production as a workshop in the city of Rome, see Repertorium, vol. 3, 29–31, nr 42, with bibliography, pl. 15.3–5. For Arles as the production place, see J. Wilpert, ‘Una perla della scultura cristiana antica di Arles’, RACr 2 (1925), 35. I am deeply grateful to Alain Charron at the Musées d’Arles Antique for allowing me to view the fragments in storage. Uncertainty is fuelled by the fact that the antiquarian Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peir­ esc (1580–1637) did not mention the suicide as part of his description of the programme (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS Latin 6012, fol. 46r); for the Latin text see Le Blant, Études, I nr. 35, 46–7. Note the cautious reference to the presence of the suicide by Dijkstra, The Apostles, 331. Le Blant, Études, I, 47, plate XXX. Le Blant (Études, I, 47) noted that by and large Beaumesnil remained faithful to the main iconographic features of the sculpted frieze, as did Wilpert (‘Una perla’, 47). A point that cannot be explored here is Beaumesnil’s representation of Judas as bifrontal in both of the episodes in which he appears. Wilpert (‘Una perla’, 48 note 1), observes that this unusual feature is clearly discernable in the betrayal scene; Dijkstra (The Apostles, 331) rejects the idea. Wilpert, ‘Una perla’, 48. Kessler (‘Scenes’, 110) specifically noted the iconography of the Ascension, which he compared with the leaf from an ivory diptych in Munich, arguing that the rela­ tionship between the two objects deserved further attention. The Tituli historiarum (or Dittochaeon) provides one of the earliest templates for an illus­ trated concordance of Old and New Testaments, the sequence of images possibly hypothet­ ical or intended for a specific cycle of images in a church as part of a commission: C. Davis-Weyer, Early Medieval Art 300–1150 (Englewood Cliffs, 1971), 25–33. Dijkstra, The Apostles, 225 for the Latin text and 226 note 652 regarding the translation. An important exploration of the connections between the themes of the verses and themes illustrated in early Christian art remains R. Pillinger, Die Tituli historiarum, oder, Das sogenannte Dittochaeon des Prudentius: Versuch eines philologisch­ archäologischen Kommentars (Vienna, 1980), and page 97 for discussion of verse 39 of the Tituli. See Dijkstra, The Apostles, 52–5, 196–7, summarizing the scholarly responses to Pillinger. Luz, Matthew, 471.

As in the thirteenth century cupola mosaics of the Baptistery of St John in Florence:

M. Boskovits, The Mosaics of the Baptistery of Florence (Florence, 2007), 311. I am deeply honored to be part of this volume and so very grateful to the editors for their invitation, and for their patience, kindness and attention to detail. The ideas briefly outlined here will be explored in more detail in a forthcoming study; and I thank Harry Attridge, Jaś Elsner, Lee Jefferson and Andrew McGowan for com­ ments on the research as it progressed, and on drafts of this chapter.

8

Claiming the Cross Reconsidering the Stavelot Triptych* Lynn Jones

As this volume makes clear, Henry has made many important contributions to art history. One of the most influential is his work on imperial imagery.1 I offer tribute in the form of this chapter, hoping to add to the discussion of one of the most common imperial image types in Byzantium: that of Constantine and Helena. My particular focus is on their depictions – both Byzantine and Mosan – on the Stavelot Triptych, and on the presentation and reception of their images by Western audiences. The Stavelot Triptych is a well-known object, housed in the Morgan Library since its acquisition in 1914 and frequently displayed in museum exhibitions (Figure 8.1).2 It is one of the earliest Western triptychs, a form generally agreed to derive from Byzantium.3 It is also the earliest surviving reliquary featuring a narrative of the Finding of the True Cross.4 The patron is identified in the scholarship as Wibald (1098–1158), abbot of Stavelot and Corvey.5 This attribution is based on compelling, if circumstantial, evidence, linking the triptych with two of Wibald’s known commissions, the Retable of St Remaclus, destroyed but preserved in a 1661 drawing, and the Head of Pope Alexander.6 The date of production of the Stavelot Triptych is generally accepted to be 1155–56, when Wibald undertook a diplomatic mission to Constantinople on behalf of Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152–90).7 Scholars suggest that it was during this trip that Wibald was presented by the Byzantine court with the two Byzantine reliquaries featured in the central panel of the triptych.8 In 1972, Joyce Brodsky noted that the Byzantine reliquaries are a ‘pastiche’, with the Byzantine cloisonné enamel panels removed from their original context, cut down, reassembled and re-set in Byzantine and Mosan frames.9 In 1980 William

* Henry taught me to be disciplined, to strive for prose that eschews poetry in favour of clarity and to look closely and repeatedly at the objects I study. He also taught me that most Americans, or maybe just me, will never understand the proper use of the colon. For me, at that time, Henry was a combination of Yoda (with grammar and syntax corrected) and the Cheshire Cat. He was an illu­ minating and inspiring teacher and I am grateful for his continued guidance and friendship. The Stavelot has been on the periphery of my work for a long time, and I am lucky to have colleagues who provided advice and feedback along the way. I single out Henry and Eunice Maguire, Anne­ marie Weyl Carr, Bob Ousterhout, Tia Kolbaba, John Cotsonis and Brad Hostetler for providing insight and references. I also thank the editors of this volume for their work and their patience. I alone am responsible for any errors, particularly those of punctuation.

132 Lynn Jones

Figure 8.1 New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, Stavelot Triptych. Full view, wings and doors open. [Source: The Morgan Library & Museum. AZ001. Bequest of J. P. Morgan (1867–1943)]

Voelkle published the first monograph devoted to the triptych. He confirmed that the Byzantine reliquaries were originally attached to the Mosan frame and not a later addition, and demonstrated the ways in which the Mosan workshop appreciated the craftsmanship of the Byzantine enamels.10 Subsequent scholarship on the Stavelot has presented this appreciation as a Western fetishization of Byzantine art. In this view, the triptych was created to showcase the beautiful and prestigious Byzantine objects acquired by Wibald to advertise his connections with Byzantium and the court in Constantinople.11 In the pages that follow, I demonstrate the ways in which the Western reception was more complicated than an appreciation of Byzantine aesthetics and the desire to own or display Byzantine art. In the Stavelot Triptych the Byzantine identity of Constantine and Helena is strategically displayed, and then painstakingly refashioned, in order to claim Western ownership of the Cross.

Constantine and Helena The Stavelot Triptych makes many visual demands of its audience – there is a lot to look at. It is important to keep the primary purpose of the work in mind: it was

Claiming the Cross 133 created to display a relic of the True Cross. If, then, we first look to the ‘point’ of the triptych, the relic of the True Cross held in the central, large reliquary, we find flanking images of Constantine and Helena. Both are recognizably Byzantine: they wear middle Byzantine regalia, are nimbed, have naming inscriptions in Greek and are also identified as saints. This stands in sharp contrast to the Mosan representations of the imperial pair, which are, I will argue, non-Byzantine in every way. It is clear that Wibald had access to a relic of the True Cross and a Byzantine reliquary of the Cross.12 Depictions of Constantine and Helena on middle Byzantine enamel arts are found, with one exception, in conjunction with relics of the True Cross.13 The Byzantine images of Constantine and Helena in the larger Byzantine reliquary are generally accepted to have been the impetus for the design of the Mosan triptych; the placement of the Mosan narratives of Constantine in the left wing, and Helena in the right, is correctly seen as responding to the placement of Constantine and Helena in the Byzantine reliquary. This raises a question: why were the Byzantine enamels reassembled in this particular way? Holger Klein convincingly argues that the two Byzantine triptychs served to legitimize and authenticate the Cross relic.14 We can more precisely identify the source of this legitimacy and authentication in one particular Byzantine iconography – that of Constantine and Helena flanking the Cross. The Byzantine enamel plaques featuring these images were removed from their original context and then repositioned to accommodate a relic of a specific size that was intended to be viewed in a specific way. Byzantine reliquaries of the True Cross function as containers to hold the relics, which can be removed.15 The Stavelot reliquary exhibits the Cross relic fixed in place. It is possible that the wood displayed in the Stavelot was not, or was not only, that which was contained in the original Byzantine reliquary, and that a larger relic necessitated the expansion of the Byzantine container. Regardless of the reasons for disassembling the original object, the Mosan workshop could have rearranged the Byzantine enamels in any form, in any number of visual presentations of the saints and angels depicted on them. The choice to re­ present Constantine and Helena in this particular – and particularly Byzantine – iconography supports the suggestion that it was required. This recognizable presentation of the Byzantine emperor and empress with the Cross advertised a specific, Byzantine provenance for the relic and assured its authenticity.

Constantine The Byzantine representation of Constantine is given visual ‘correction’ in the Mosan depictions of Constantine on the left wing. This was achieved in several ways. The most obvious is size: the medallions are 10.8 cm in diameter while the width of the enamel panel of Constantine is 2.5 cm.16 The choice of iconography is equally important. The medallions are read from the bottom up and present Constantine’s conversion in three scenes: the dream before the battle with Maxentius, the battle and the baptism by Pope Sylvester. Constantine’s name is

134 Lynn Jones inscribed in all three medallions but he is not given any royal or imperial titles. He is also depicted with minimal regalia and scant clothing. He is not shown to be a saint, which is understandable, as he was not recognized as such by the Latin Church. In the lowermost Mosan medallion, Constantine is depicted sleeping, wearing a white tunic. A crown, the only definite indication of royal or imperial status, hangs above him, suspended from the architectural framework. The middle medallion shows Constantine in battle gear that is similar to that worn by the soldiers depicted with him, except for the red stockings which he alone wears.17 In the topmost Mosan medallion Constantine is naked, half immersed in the baptismal font. He is identifiable here, as in the battle scene, by his beard and moustache. How are we to interpret this Mosan striptease? One answer is that the clothing, or lack thereof, conforms to the needs of the narrative. When Constantine is in bed, he wears a nightshirt, in battle he wears armour, and he is naked in the baptismal font. I suggest that a polemical message is also intended: the visual disrobing, as it were, when combined with the lack of titles and sainthood separates the Byzantine emperor and Saint Constantine from the Constantine of legend. Voelkle’s observations on the similarity between the banner depicted in the medallion depicting Constantine’s battle with Maxentius and that seen in the Crusade Window at St Denis are important to this reading.18 In the Mosan medallion, the composition, the armour and the use of a distinctive Crusader banner rather than the Cross presents Constantine as a Crusader. Also important is Voelkle’s observation that the baptismal font, depicted in the uppermost medallion, is octagonal and coloured a speckled blue, and thus is likely a visual reference to the porphyry font in the Lateran Baptistery in Rome, the location of Constantine’s legendary baptism.19 The Byzantine Constantine, so necessary in the large reliquary of the central panel, is visually revised by the Mosan presentations of Constantine. Here, Constantine’s role has been refashioned to reflect the contemporary political landscape, locating him in Rome, as a Crusader who is submissive to the Pope. This refashioning removes him from Byzantium. It is useful to look at the only surviving middle Byzantine narrative scenes featuring Constantine and Helena to see the degree to which the Mosan representations of Constantine differ. Folio 440r in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos (Paris. gr. 510), dated 879–82, is divided into three registers (Figure 8.2).20 The upper two depict the narrative of the conversion of Constantine; the lower register features two scenes of Helena and the Invention of the Cross, which I discuss below. In the upper register Constantine is shown receiving the dream, asleep on a jewelled couch, dressed in purple, gold and jewelled regalia, and nimbed.21 The middle register depicts Constantine’s vision. He is shown mounted on a white horse, galloping towards the Milvian Bridge and spearing Maxentius, who falls from his black horse. Constantine is unaccompanied, is again wearing full regalia and is nimbed. The Cross appears in the sky above his horse’s head, set in an orb, with the inscription ‘in this conquer.’22

Figure 8.2 Paris, BnF, MS gr. 510 (Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos), fol. 440r. Constantine’s dream; Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge; Helena discovering the True Cross. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

136 Lynn Jones In the Byzantine manuscript, Constantine’s conversion is achieved through a dream and a vision that are granted directly to him, in contrast to the Mosan medallion in which an angel conveys the message to the sleeping man. In the Homilies, Constantine single-handedly defeats Maxentius, aided by the vision of the Cross. In the Mosan depiction of this scene Constantine is surrounded by an army labelled ‘Romans’, and the battleground is not that of the Milvian Bridge – there is no bridge or water.23 In each scene in the Byzantine manuscript Constantine wears contemporary imperial regalia. As we have seen, in the Mosan medallions Constantine is without regalia or is naked. Byzantine imperial costume would be highly unsuitable for sleep or battle, and is correctly seen to visually underscore the imperial office and not the man. As such, it connects the Emperor Constantine with the contemporary Byzantine emperor, and in this context reinforces Byzantine ownership of the Cross. In the middle Byzantine period, comparisons of Byzantine emperors to Constantine, and of empresses to Helena, are well documented.24 As Leslie Brubaker notes, the evolution of the legends of Constantine and Helena into a single, interwoven textual narrative functioned in Byzantium to underscore imperial authority and the supremacy of the Orthodox Empire.25 Given this context, it is not surprising that Constantine was regarded with great ambivalence in the medieval West, or that this ambivalence is fully on display in the Stavelot Triptych. In the Mosan medallions, Constantine is depicted through the lens of Rufinus’s translation of, and additions to, Eusebius.26 This Constantine is not Eusebius’s holy Emperor, but is rather a conduit through which actions are accomplished. He is not granted a vision, but only the dream, in which an angel tells him what to do. Constantine carries out these instructions in the next scene, where he is visually presented using iconography associated with depictions of Crusaders who, during Wibald’s lifetime, occupied Jerusalem and proclaimed their identity through the display of the Cross, both symbol and relic. Only in the final Mosan medallion is Constantine granted divine approval in the form of the blessing Hand of God – and only after he accepts the True Faith and is baptized by the Pope, in Rome. Constantine was necessary to the story, but the way in which he is depicted demonstrates that he was deemed necessary of correction. The Mosan workshop achieved this correction by removing the imperial office and keeping only the man.

Helena The Stavelot Triptych preserves the earliest narrative on a reliquary of the Finding of the Cross.27 The act of granting Helena her own narrative was, itself, a way of removing her from her Byzantine context. The only surviving Byzantine example of narrative scenes of Helena is that on folio 440r of The Homilies of Gregory Nazianzus, where the lowest of the three registers is devoted to her role in the Invention of the Cross (Figure 8.2).28 Although Helena is isolated in one register, it is the lowest on the page and would be viewed last, as a continuation of the narrative of Constantine depicted in the two registers above her.

Claiming the Cross 137 The presentation of Helena in the Stavelot Triptych differs. Formally, she and Constantine are given equal space and visibility. Her narrative is also displayed in three medallions, and is also placed on a single wing of the reliquary.29 It should be noted that we, the modern viewers, frequently rely on images of the triptych and forget or discount its size and impact. The distance between the two wings is considerable: 66 cm.30 The physical placement of the two narratives thus encourages the viewer to read each separately.31 On each wing the medallions are framed by silver-gilt columns, presenting the narratives as two distinct parts of the whole. The upper curve of the triptych’s wings, when open, terminate in points to the left and right, respectively. This directs the viewer’s eye away from the centre, further isolating the narratives in each wing. The iconographical details in the Mosan presentation of Helena also function to remove the Byzantine identity conveyed by her presentation in the large Byzantine reliquary. The Homilies of Gregory Nazianzus again provides the Byzantine standard (Figure 8.2). Helena is shown in two scenes in the lowest of the three registers on the folio. In both she wears middle Byzantine regalia and is nimbed. In the left scene she is seated on a lyre-backed, jewel-encrusted throne and holds a globus cruciger in her lap. To her right are figures wearing clerical costume, to the left imperial guards stand ready.32 In the second scene she stands, directing the excavation of the Cross. In contrast, the Mosan medallions depict a Helena who wears a Western crown, is dressed in unadorned robes, sits on an unadorned throne, is labelled ‘Queen’ and, in the uppermost medallion is also labelled ‘Saint.’ It is clear that the Helena narrative was necessary for the Stavelot Triptych – it bears repeating that this is the earliest depiction of the legend to survive on a Cross reliquary. But why was it necessary, and why is Helena given greater status in comparison to the Mosan representations of Constantine? I suggest that her presence on the Stavelot served two related purposes: to further remove Constantine from the Cross relic, and to claim Western ownership of the Cross. Helena as presented on the right wing functions to visually counter the depictions of Constantine on the left wing. In the first Constantinian medallion, he is asleep, turned away from the instructing angel. In the first medallion featuring Helena she is enthroned and active, brandishing a scroll upon which is inscribed her demand to the group of Jews huddled before her: ‘reveal the wood.’ She thus initiates the only dialogue depicted on the Stavelot Triptych; the Jews respond ‘Judas knows.’ This dialogue sets in motion the events that will bring the Cross to Stavelot. In all three medallions Helena is shown in postures of activity and engagement: she stands, bends and gestures to communicate her demands and instructions. It is only in the second medallion that Constantine is shown as an active force, in iconography presenting him as a Crusader. In the baptism medallion Constantine is situated in Rome; the other two scenes do not include any imagery or labels that allow us to identify a specific location. In contrast, each scene featuring Helena takes place in Jerusalem, and the location of the Invention is specifically identified as Calvary.

138 Lynn Jones In each medallion Helena is positioned to the far left and is shown facing to the right. In each medallion she wears a blue tunic, a white headdress and a gold crown, and is framed by a dark halo. This repetition of placement, costume and colours make her easily recognizable. In contrast, Constantine is placed in a different location in each of the three medallions of the left wing, is shown in different attitudes, and, as we have seen, is not given any consistent, identifying costume. For the viewer, Helena is easy to spot, even from a distance. Constantine is not. In middle Byzantine art Helena is presented with, and in the context of, Constantine. On the Stavelot Triptych the Mosan Helena is independent of Constantine. Not only is her narrative physically distanced from his, she is given greater visibility through her placement and dress. She is also more closely identified with the Cross, with which she is depicted in two medallions. All of these choices reflect and emphasize Helena’s Western identity: to a twelfth-century Western viewer, Helena was a local saint. Her birthplace was claimed by tradition to be Trier, and her relics were housed in the Trier cathedral, having been translated from Rheims in 952.33 During Wibald’s lifetime, Trier was part of the Holy Roman Empire. The depiction on the Stavelot Triptych of a narrative in which St Helena finds the True Cross serves to establish and justify the claim of ownership of the Cross by the Latin Church in general, and by the imperial Abbey Church of Stavelot in particular.

Constructing the Stavelot The Stavelot Triptych imitates, in its overall form, Byzantine ivory triptychs that were not reliquaries.34 Wibald wanted his triptych to hold relics.35 He either had, or acquired, at least one Byzantine enkolpion containing a relic of the True Cross, likely a polyptych but possibly a variety of Byzantine-produced objects. Anatole Frolow demonstrates that the tableau form, essentially a box with a sliding lid, was the most distinctive and common type of middle Byzantine reliquary of the True Cross.36 Those in the form of triptychs were less common, and of these, many included additional doors and sliding panels, and so were also categorized by Frolow as polyptychs.37 Why, then, refashion the Byzantine enamels into triptychs?38 They were, I suggest, constructed to conform to, and visually echo the form of, the larger Mosan triptych in which they were placed. In the case of the smaller Byzantine reliquary, the Mosan workshop fashioned it in the form of Byzantine ivory triptychs. All surviving middle Byzantine triptych reliquaries have straight edges.39 The Mosan frame of the central Byzantine panel of the smaller reliquary was given a curved upper edge, echoing the curve of the upper edge of the Stavelot’s central panel. The wings on the small reliquary were also reshaped by manipulating the components – Byzantine cloisonné strips and Mosan filigree – so that they too have curved upper frames. When closed, the small reliquary takes the form of the triptych’s central panel. When open, it echoes that of the entire triptych. The larger Byzantine reliquary also echoes the tripartite form of the larger Mosan triptych, but was not manipulated to conform to its shape.

Claiming the Cross 139 The two Byzantine reliquaries are centred in the Mosan panel only when viewed together, as a single unit. The distance between the upper edge of the small reliquary and tip of the cusp of the Mosan frame above it is the same as the distance between the lower edge of frame on the large reliquary and the lowest point of the cusp beneath it. Further evidence that the two reliquaries were constructed in relation to each other is found in their relative size. When the wings of the smaller reliquary are open, its width is equal to the width of the central panel of the larger reliquary – it is important to remember that the latter width is created by the Mosan frame and not by the size of the Byzantine enamels.40 In addition, when the wings of the larger reliquary are open, the whole fits precisely within the cusps of the Mosan frame to either side – a fit that is, again, accomplished by the thickness of the Mosan frame that surrounds the central Byzantine plaque, and not by the size of the Byzantine enamels. This sophisticated assemblage was motivated by the desire to display a relic of the True Cross for which a recognizable Byzantine provenance could be constructed. The likely patron of the work was, as noted above, Wibald, abbot of the Imperial Abbey of Stavelot. In scholarship, once the identity of the patron was established, the acquisition of the Byzantine objects became associated with Wibald’s diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 1155–56.41 This has created a narrative for the date and means of acquisition of the Byzantine reliquaries that should be questioned. We can say with certainty that Wibald received diplomatic gifts while in Constantinople. He may have been presented with one or more enkolpia, with or without a relic of the Cross. The assumption that Wibald acquired a Byzantine reliquary of the True Cross in Constantinople in 1155–56, and that this reliquary is now displayed in the Stavelot Triptych, may be correct – but it should be recognized as only one of many possibilities. Wibald served three rulers: Lothar III (r. 1133–37), Conrad III (r.1138–52) and Frederick I (r. 1152–90).42 During this time there was a flurry of marriages and diplomatic missions between the court of Constantinople and those of the Holy Roman Empire. Conrad’s adopted daughter, Bertha, became Manuel Komnenos’s wife Eirene in 1142.43 In 1147, during the Second Crusade, Conrad fell ill in Ephesus and was transported by ship to Constantinople. He remained there for three months, nursed back to health by Manuel and Bertha/Eirene.44 In 1148 Manuel’s niece Theodora married Henry II Jasomirgott, the uncle of Frederick I.45 Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, also served as diplomat to Lothar III and Frederick I. His travels provide corroborative evidence that Wibald was not the only official representative of the Holy Roman Empire who spent time in Byzantium. Anselm travelled to Constantinople in 1135–36 for an audience with John II Komnenos (r. 1118–43) on behalf of Lothar III. He returned in 1153, on behalf of Frederick I, and when he left for Germany in 1154 was accompanied by Byzantine envoys.46 He was back in Constantinople later the same year, participating in debates in which he defended the Latin filioque doctrine.47 In this context, there is no reason to fix Wibald’s trip in 1155–56 as the only, or even the most likely, occasion when the Byzantine enamels entered Germany. Marriage dowries brought Byzantine objects to Germany, and diplomacy involved the exchange of gifts.48

140 Lynn Jones The acceptance of the date of acquisition as 1155–56 has in turn influenced the dating of the Byzantine enamels. Kurt Wessel and Klein date them to the first half of the twelfth century, based on style.49 Style is a precarious tool for dating enamels. The evidence of technique and elements of iconography, taken into consideration with style, allow us to extend the range of dates. The enamel technique, Senkschmelz, was used in Byzantium from the mid tenth century.50 The thorakion, the shield-shaped scarf worn by Helena, is first seen in Byzantine art in the eleventh century.51 There is, therefore, nothing that precludes dating the Byzantine enamels to the eleventh century. Several scenarios can be proposed. If a Byzantine reliquary was given to Wibald in 1155–56, it would not necessarily have been newly made, but could have been gifted from an existing collection of such objects, kept for such purpose, in the Great Palace.52 An earlier dating of the enamels could indicate that they were in Germany before 1155, and could have been acquired by Wibald from a German source. It is possible that the Cross relic was not a gift from the court at Constantinople and thus came to Stavelot without a recognized provenance. In such a case, Wibald may then have chosen to claim its authenticity by providing it, visually, with a Byzantine pedigree.

Reading the Stavelot As we have seen, the Mosan narratives of Constantine and Helena unfold from the bottom up. The precise placement of the Byzantine reliquaries in the central panel encouraged a viewer to also read from left to right, across the triptych. The larger Byzantine reliquary is positioned to align horizontally with the centre medallions on the left and right wings. The size of the constructed reliquary is also important evidence for this argument. The central panel of the large triptych, featuring the wood of the Cross and the images of Constantine and Helena is, with the addition of the Mosan frame, equal to the diameter of the Mosan medallions.53 As we have seen, the width of the smaller reliquary, when open, is equal to that of the central panel of larger reliquary; its width is therefore also equivalent to the diameter of the medallions. And, as I shall demonstrate, it too was positioned to create a horizontal visual connection with the uppermost medallions on the left and right wings. The most important element of Stavelot is the relic, and the reliquary that holds it dictates the primary horizontal reading. This begins with the second Constantinian medallion, depicting the battle with Maxentius, continues to the large Byzantine reliquary with Constantine, the wood of the Cross and Helena, and then the second medallion of the Helena narrative, which depicts the Invention of the Cross. This reading is encouraged by the alignment of the three components and by the composition of the battle scene on the second medallion of the left wing. This is the only medallion in which the composition does not reflect its circular frame but instead moves from left to right. Constantine and his army charge from the left, extending their lances before them. Maxentius and his companions flee to the right. They are only partially

Claiming the Cross 141 depicted, and so appear to be galloping out of the medallion.54 The extension of the scene into/beyond the frame directs the viewer to continue to read across the triptych, to the relic of the Cross, flanked by Constantine and Helena. The Byzantine Helena then draws the eye to the Mosan Helena, placed to the left in the central medallion of the right wing. This suggested horizontal reading can be interpreted on three levels. The first is the symbolic representation of the triumph of Christianity through the wood of the Cross. The second interpretation takes this further. Constantine, in the image of a Crusader, defeats the infidel and claims Jerusalem – and Calvary, where Helena discovers the True Cross. The third interpretation incorporates the verses inscribed in the arcs above the uppermost medallion on each wing. On the left wing: ‘Behold the Cross of the Lord: let adverse parties flee’, and on the right: ‘The lion of the tribe of Judah and of the root of David, has conquered.’ These are drawn from the readings for the Divine Office for the celebration of the Discovery of the True Cross.55 The verses interact with the central medallions and large reliquary to present Maxentius/the infidel who flees before Constantine/the Crusaders, and Christ’s resurrection and triumph over death is signalled by the True Cross, discovered by Helena, descendant of the Kings of the Old Testament. The militaristic language of the verse is given visual presence in the Mosan battle scene and continued in the inner wings of the large reliquary, where the Mosan workshop placed four Byzantine enamel plaques, each depicting a military saint.56 The horizontal reading emphasizes the victory-bringing powers of the Cross and its ownership by the Latin Church. By analogy, contemporary Crusaders would see here confirmation of their role as divinely sanctioned instruments of God’s will. The triptych then offers to the viewer a second, and secondary, horizontal reading of the upper trio: the Mosan baptism of Constantine, the small Byzantine reliquary with a single figural panel depicting the Crucifixion and the Mosan testing of the Cross.57 Beginning at the left, Constantine, naked and half-submerged in the font, bows humbly before the Pope. The central Byzantine depiction of the Crucifixion offers the essence of the Faith that Constantine has embraced, made possible by Christ’s death on the Cross. In the testing of the Cross Helena is shown, like Constantine, submitting to the authority of the Church. She serves as witness, raising her hands in affirmation, as an unnamed bishop holds the Cross above the dead man to affect the miracle of resurrection. This horizontal grouping thus presents the Baptism, Crucifixion and Resurrection. The emphasis on the authority of the Church, conveyed in the uppermost medallions, is appropriate for an object held in an imperial abbey of the Holy Roman Empire. It is also appropriate that this reading alone does not interact with, or depend upon, the large reliquary and the Byzantine images of Constantine and Helena.

Conclusion In 1980 Voelkle described the Stavelot as a ‘meeting ground of East and West: cloisonné meets champlevé, the Eastern symbolic mode is played against the

142 Lynn Jones Western narrative mode, Byzantine hagiography and liturgy are contrasted with their Western counterparts, and Eastern Cross legends are combined with Western ones.’58 I agree with his assessment – to a point. The designers of the Stavelot Triptych knew well the messages conveyed by the Byzantine objects that were necessary for their objective. The only required Byzantine images were those of Constantine and Helena. The purpose of these images was to authenticate the Cross relic, and once put in place in a recognizable Byzantine iconography, this purpose was achieved. All other elements of the triptych were designed to work together to refashion their identities. Visually demoting Constantine and promoting Helena distanced both from Byzantium, and thus proclaimed a Western identity for the Cross. Voelkle’s ‘meeting ground of East and West’ is instead a battleground, where we find carefully constructed messages reflecting the fraught alliances between Empires and the fragility of the West’s hold on Jerusalem. The composition and arrangement of the Stavelot Triptych visually insists that the relic of the True Cross was, from the moment of its Invention, owned by the West, ensuring divinely granted approval of the patron and of the Empire he served.

Notes 1 H. Maguire, ‘The art of comparing in Byzantium’, ArtB 70 (1988), 88–103; idem, ‘Style and ideology in Byzantine imperial art’, Gesta 28.2 (1989), 217–31; idem, ‘The mosaics of Nea Moni: an imperial reading’, DOP 46 (1992), 205–14; idem, ‘A murderer among the angels: the frontispiece miniatures of Paris. Gr. 510 and the iconography of the arch­ angels in Byzantine art’, in L. Brubaker and R. Ousterhout, eds., The Sacred Image East and West (Urbana and Champaign, 1995), 63–71; idem, ‘The heavenly court’, in H. Maguire, ed., Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204 (Washington, DC, 1997), 247–58; idem, ‘Images of the court’, in H. C. Evans, and W. D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 182–91; idem, ‘Davidic virtue: the crown of Constantine Monomachos and its images’, in A. Cohen-Mushlin and B. Kühnel, eds., The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1998), 117–23; L. Jones and H. Maguire, ‘A description of the jousts of Manuel I Komnenos’, BMGS 26 (2002), 104–48. 2 A. Frolow, La relique de la Vraie Croix: recherches sur le développement d’un culte (Paris, 1961); J. Brodsky, ‘The Stavelot triptych: notes on a Mosan work’, Gesta 11.1 (1972), 19–33; W. Voelkle, The Stavelot Triptych: Mosan Art and the Legend of the True Cross (New York, 1980); K. Holbert, ‘Mosan reliquary triptychs and the cult of the True Cross in the twelfth century’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Yale Univer­ sity, 1995); H. Klein, Byzanz, der Westen und das ‘wahre’ Kreuz: die Geschichte einer Reliquie und ihrer künstlerischen Fassung in Byzanz und im Abendland (Wies­ baden, 2004), 206–19; B. Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image, trans. L. Preedy (Leiden, 2004); K. Holbert, ‘Relics and reliquaries of the True Cross’, in S. Blick and R. Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles (Leiden, 2005), 337–63; C. Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reli­ quaries, 400–Circa 1204 (University Park, PA, 2012), 209–21. Recent exhibition and bibliography on past exhibitions, see Evans and Wixom, eds., Glory of Byzantium, 461–3; B. D. Boehm and M. Holcomb, eds., Jerusalem, 1000–1400: Every People under Heaven (New York, 2016), 57, 200–2, 213–4.

Claiming the Cross 143 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27

Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 11. Ibid.; Baert, Holy Wood, 82. Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 10–1; Hahn, Strange Beauty, 209–21. For the works commissioned by and linked to Wibald, see S. Wittekind, Altar – Reliquiar – Retabel: Kunst und Liturgie bei Wibald von Stablo (Cologne, 2004). J. Freed, Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth (New Haven, CT, 2016), 194–6. Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 11; Holbert, ‘Mosan reliquary triptychs’, 28; Hahn, Strange Beauty, 212. The examination of the Stavelot in 1973 revealed the contents of the smaller reliquary. A cavity in the wooden support behind it held a fragment of the Cross and a small portion of the Virgin’s garment, both identified by inscriptions written in a twelfth-century hand on parchment and enclosed in a silk pouch. See Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 19. Brodsky, ‘The Stavelot triptych’, 13.

Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 8.

Ibid., 10–1; Hahn, Strange Beauty, 27–8, 234–6, 211–5. While the evidence for Wibald’s patronage is circumstantial, it is also compelling. I follow convention and use his name. I am aware of only one exception, A. Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of Soviet Museums (New York, 1978), no. 189, p. 307. For Constantine and Helena and reliquaries of the Cross see A. Frolow, Les reliquaires de la Vraie Croix (Paris, 1965), 217–25; Klein, Byzanz, 127–30. See also N. Teteriatnikov, ‘The True Cross flanked by Constantine and Helena: a study in the light of the post-iconoclastic re­ evaluation of the cross’, Δελτ.Χριστ.Ἀρχ.Ἑτ. 18 (1995), 169–88; and H. Klein, ‘Constantine, Helena, and the cult of the True Cross in Constantinople’, in J. Durand and B. Flusin, eds., Byzance et les Reliques du Christ (Paris, 2004,) 31–59. Klein, Byzanz, 210–6. For a discussion of the removal of relics from their containers, with complete bibli­ ography see B. Hostetler, ‘The function of text: Byzantine reliquaries with epigrams, 843–1204’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Florida State University, 2016), 78–106. Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 25. These red stockings may reference the red shoes that were part of Byzantine imperial regalia, and are commonplace in imperial imagery. For example, they adorn the feet of Constantine in the larger Byzantine reliquary. Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 13–14. Ibid., 15. L. Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory Nazianzus (Cambridge, 1999), 163–9. For a black and white image, see ibid., fig. 45. Ibid., 163 n.79, 164. The inscription preserves only fragments of Constantine’s name. For variations on, and meanings of, altered versions of the Battle see R. Van Dam, Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge (Cambridge, 2011). P. Magdalino, ed., New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th–13th Centuries, Papers from the Twenty-Sixth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, St. Andrews, March 1992 (Aldershot, 1994). Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 164 n. 82, 165. Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 12. For a discussion of the variants of the Helena legend, including that of Rufinus, see J. W. Drijvers, Helena Augusta. The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of her Finding of the True Cross (Leiden, 1992), esp. 119–22 and A. Georgiou, ‘Helena: the subversive persona of an ideal Christian empress in early Byzantium’, JEChrSt 21.4 (2013), 597–624. Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 11; Baert, Holy Wood, 82.

144 Lynn Jones 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 164. Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 20. Ibid., 25. Hahn (Strange Beauty, 214) notes that the two wings are ‘linked by through cause and salvational effect.’ I focus not on the thematic linking, which is undeniable, but on the visual separation of the two narratives. The paint is badly flaked. Brubaker (Vision and Meaning, 164) suggests that they are the Bishop of Jerusalem and court officials. Baert, Holy Wood, 108–9; Drijvers, Helena, 21–30. A mid-tenth century ivory triptych, now in Paris, presents a particularly compelling argument: the overall form is the same as that of the Stavelot Triptych, Constantine and Helena are depicted in the central panel and the wings feature bust portraits of saints in medallions. It is now in the Médailles et Antiques of the Bibliothèque natio­ nale de France (inv. 55.301). For the date, see A. Goldschmidt and K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X. bis XIII. Jahrhunderts (2 vols., Berlin, 1930–34), vol. 2, 37. See also the important article by A. Cutler, ‘A Byzantine trip­ tych in medieval Germany and its modern recovery’, Gesta 37.1 (1998), 3–12, which convincingly demonstrates the repurposing of a tenth-century Byzantine ivory in eleventh-century Ottonian Germany. The reliquary at Cortona is the only Middle Byzantine True Cross reliquary in ivory, and it features images of Constantine and Helena. It survives only as a single panel, but a recent study suggests that it was most likely part of a triptych; see S. Leggio, ‘La stauroteca eburnea della chiesa di S. Francesco a Cortona’, Arte medievale ser.4.4 (2014), 9–34. See also H. Klein, ‘Die Elfenbein-Staurothek von Cortona im Kontext mittelbyzantinischer Kreuzreliquiarproduktion’, in G. Bühl, A. Cutler and A. Effenberger, eds., Spätantike und byzantinische Elfenbeinbildwerke im Diskurs (Wiesbaden, 2008), 167–90. Frolow, Les reliquaires, 93–115. See also Klein, Byzanz, 104–41. Frolow identifies the triptych/polyptych True Cross reliquary as originating in Byzan­ tium, the earliest of which dates to the tenth or eleventh centuries. He identifies ten as Middle Byzantine. Frolow, Les reliquaries, 57–65; Frolow, La relique, nos. 178, 179, 233, 358.3, 427, 428, 429, 430, 467 and 472. See also Klein, Byzanz, 138–61. C. Hahn (Strange Beauty, 214) has written of the performative aspect of the Stavelot – the opening of the wings of the outer frame, then of the inner reliquaries – and the way in which this would both enhance the presentation and function within the liturgy. See n. 37. For measurements see Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 25. Wibald died in 1158 while returning from a second diplomatic mission to Constan­ tinople. See Freed, Frederick Barbarossa, 54. Lothar and Frederick were both invested as Holy Roman Emperors, Conrad was not. Freed, Frederick Barbarossa, 48. Bertha died in 1160. Wibald attempted to negotiate a marriage between Conrad’s son Henry and a ‘Byzantine princess.’ See ibid., 54. Ibid., 51–2. Conrad remained in Constantinople for two months, recovering. Ibid., 53. Theodora Komnena, d. 1184. Ibid., 116, 120; J. Lees, Anselm of Havelberg: Deeds into Words in the Twelfth Cen­ tury (Leiden, 1998), 108–9; C. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, 1180–1204 (Cambridge, MA, 1968), 15. A. P. Kazhdan and A. J. Wharton, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Los Angeles, CA, 1985), 189. Freed (Frederick Barbarossa, 19) presents many such objects and untangles their provenance. An example is the ‘gold cross’ that was originally owned by Eirene Komnena and was passed down the matrilineal line until it was included in the mar­ riage dowry of Judith, mother of Frederick I Barbarossa.

Claiming the Cross 145 49 K. Wessel, Byzantine Enamels from the 5th to the 13th Century, trans. I. Gibbons (Greenwich, CT, 1967), 155–9; Klein, Byzanz, 211. 50 D. Buckton, ‘“All that glisters … ”: Byzantine enamel on copper’, in Θυμίαμα στη μνήμη της Λασκαρίνας Μπούρα (2 vols., Athens, 1994), 47–9. 51 M. Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th centuries) (Leiden and Boston, MA, 2003), 25, n. 55 for further references. 52 Cutler, ‘A Byzantine triptych.’ Another example is the now lost staurotheke of the Grandmont Abbey, which was commissioned by a certain Alexios Doukas in the first half of the twelfth century and given to Amalric I by the court sometime before 1174; B. Hostetler, ‘Image, epigram, and nature in middle Byzantine personal devo­ tion’, in R. Bartal, N. Bodner and B. Kühnel, eds., Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500–1500 (New York, 2017), 172–89. 53 Measurements in Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 25. 54 The use of colour may also come into play. The red, in the stockings worn by Constantine in the Mosan battle scene, which lead the viewer’s eye to the (admit­ tedly tiny) red shoes of the Byzantine Constantine, who, with his mother, flanks the wood, then to Helena on the right wing, whose robe features bands of red, shown in the act of excavating the Cross at Calvary. 55 Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 24. 56 SS. George and Prokopios, on the left wing, and SS. Theodore and Demetrios, on the right. 57 Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 24–5, makes the case for a horizontal reading of the upper medallions and the small reliquary, linking it to the inscriptions above the arches of the wings, and characterizing it as didactic. 58 Voelkle, Stavelot Triptych, 25.

9

The making of an icon ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ Andrea Olsen Lam

Little is known about how Byzantine viewers would have responded when looking back at religious art of the pre-iconoclastic era, which was not so strictly policed in its iconography as images after Iconoclasm. The early Byzantine apse mosaic at the Monastery of the Latomou in Thessaloniki, today called Hosios David, is useful and possibly unique in its ability to illuminate this issue, because the mosaic itself survives, along with textual and artistic evidence attesting its significance during the medieval period. With its landscape rather than neutral ground, its unidentified figures, and long-haired, youthful Christ, the mosaic is clearly an early Christian image. Yet exceptionally, this ex voto composition went on in the Byzantine period to serve as the basis for at least two known paintings venerated as icons. This chapter is devoted to exploring this rare functional transformation. The small church called the ‘Monastery of the Latomou’ (or Latomoi), meaning ‘Stonecutter’, is named for the quarries nearby. It is located on a hill of the upper city of Thessaloniki, overlooking the port. It is usually cited as one of the earliest surviving examples of a cross-in-square church, though only approximately two-thirds of its original structure survives.1 Previous studies have aimed to determine the mosaic’s date, explore its apocalyptic themes and determine its significance in pre-iconoclastic times.2 Most recently, Liz James focused on discrepancies between the mosaic’s inscriptions and the Thessaloniki abbot, Ignatios’s, history of the mosaic, ‘Beneficial Narrative of the theandric image of our Lord Jesus Christ …’ (hereafter, Diegesis),3 which internal features suggest he probably recorded in the late ninth or the twelfth century.4 James concluded that the anonymous patroness’s purpose for dedicating the mosaic remains unknown, but raises the possibility that its private meaning reflected the apocalyptic expectations of local Thessalonians.5 Careful study of its inscriptions has connected the mosaic to the twelfth-century fresco at the Bachkovo Monastery’s ossuary and to the late fourteenth-century Poganovo icon.6 My purpose here is to investigate the mosaic’s intended meaning versus how Byzantines responded to it when it was rediscovered (probably in the early ninth century); I also discuss how the imagery gained the status of an icon and how it acquired a funerary significance. I will investigate these questions first through the mosaic’s inscriptions; second, through Ignatios’s ‘Beneficial narrative’ (hereafter, Diegesis), which dates to the late ninth or the twelfth century. Finally, I address

Figure 9.1 Thessaloniki, Church of Hosios David. Apse mosaic. [Source: Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Archaeological Receipts Fund and Expropriations]

148 Andrea Olsen Lam ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’s’ evolution into an icon by examining two of its descendants, which adapt the mosaic's imagery to meet post-iconoclastic standards. This study of the reception of the Christ of the Latomou is inspired by Henry Maguire’s ground-breaking scholarship of formal characteristics of icons, their anthropological function and the relationship between texts and images in Byzantium.

The mosaic and its inscriptions The small apse mosaic is dated broadly between the late fifth and early seventh centuries based on its iconography; the dense landscape makes a date in the mid-sixth century or earlier most probable (Figure 9.1).7 It measures approximately 18 feet wide by 8 feet tall and rises only about 12 feet above the floor. At its centre, a long-haired, beardless Christ sits on a narrow rainbow, surrounded by a circular mandorla, from which emerge four winged beasts – man, lion, ox and eagle – symbolic of the four evangelists. No inscriptions identify Christ, who is easily recognized by his cruciform halo. His right hand gestures upwards; his left hand holds an unfurled scroll. Four rivers originate from the green hill under his feet,8 flowing into the river or lake below, which is inhabited by seven fish and a monochromatic figure that is probably a personification of the water itself. Prominent in the mosaic are elements from the apocalyptic visions of Ezekiel, Isaiah, Habakkuk and John’s Revelation, but the crowded apse does not faithfully portray any single prophet’s vision. In the lower left and right corners of the apse are male figures generally identified as the biblical prophets, Ezekiel and Habakkuk, according to the medieval description of Ignatios.9 As is common for pre­ iconoclastic images, their names are not inscribed their portraits do not correspond to the portrait types for Ezekiel and Habakkuk that became conventional in the middle Byzantine period.10 This vivid combination of features from prophets’ visions of God seems to suggest the fundamental unity among biblical apocalyptic writings. But what was this vision’s intended purpose during the sixth century? The best, indeed the only, reliable evidence of the mosaic's original meaning and function is found in the three inscriptions in the apse mosaic itself. First, the patroness’s dedicatory inscription at the lower border glimmers in silver letters on a red background: This most-holy house is a fountain of life; it receives and feeds the souls of the faithful. I prayed and my prayer was granted. Having attained my wish, I executed [this work] in fulfilment of a vow, [she] whose name is known to God.11 The anonymous inscription is comparable to three contemporary, similarlyphrased, anonymous inscriptions in the basilica of St. Demetrios in Thessaloniki. The votive mosaics at the basilica of St. Demetrios were probably not intended to mediate sacred presence, and the same may be true for the nearby Latomou apse mosaic, as

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well as other similarly inscribed votives until at least the end of the seventh century, if not later.12 Indeed, the donor’s inscription makes clear that the mosaic is a public attestation to a completed private transaction between the donor and God.13 The second inscription in the Latomou Monastery’s apse is found in the right-hand prophet’s book: ‘A life-giving source, accepting and nourishing the souls of the faithful [is] this most venerable house.’14 It is an abbreviated version of the patroness’s dedication, and it arguably performs a different function within the schema of the apse, because it is oriented towards the prophet, not the viewer; its positioning implies that the viewer and the prophet are beholding the same vision.15 Both the donor’s dedication and the prophet’s book refer to the ‘life-giving source’, or ‘spring’, which has been interpreted as either a reference to the church itself (‘this house’ suggests that it may refer to the church, originally cruciform, as ‘life-giving’), the rivers depicted in the mosaic or even to the Eucharistic rites performed below the mosaic. A fourth possibility is that there was a water source – a literal spring – nearby whose waters were attributed with miracles.16 Although the Virgin is commonly referred to as a spring or fountain (‘Πηγὴ’) beginning in the ninth century, in these inscriptions, ‘life-giving spring’ (‘Πηγὴ ζωτικὴ’), is best understood as referring to ‘this most-holy house’, as Mango indicated in his translation.17 The mosaic’s third inscription appears on the unfurled scroll that Christ holds in his left hand: ‘Behold our God in whom we hope, and let us rejoice in our salvation, [for] he will give rest to this house’, in part, an adaptation of Isa 25:9–10.18 As will be discussed below, this inscription is the strongest link among the mosaic, Ignatios’s text and later depictions of ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou.’ The unambiguous invitation to behold God proclaims the image as a theophany. In the pre-iconoclastic period, the inscription would have opposed the Arian heresy through its affirmation of the visibility of the divine, a theme later iconophiles invoked in conjunction with image veneration. Though the possibility that the unnamed patroness intended the mosaic to function as later icons (i.e. as an image that mediated sacred presence) is doubtful, the possibility that some early beholders approached it in this manner cannot be excluded and even seems to be invited by the inscription on Christ’s scroll.

Ignatios’s Diegesis and Christ of the Latomou Ignatios, abbot of the Akapniou Monastery in Thessaloniki, recorded the oral traditions associated with the mosaic of Christ in the Latomou Monastery. His writings remain our only written source regarding the history of the mosaic, its rediscovery and theological import. The earliest surviving manuscripts date to the eleventh or twelfth century,19 but several features of the text indicate that the narrative originated earlier, perhaps in oral traditions known from between the early ninth and the early eleventh century.20 Ignatios’s text has not previously been examined as a way to understand why the mosaic’s iconography would be copied

150 Andrea Olsen Lam into icons rather than judged inadequate, since it lacks the features commonly associated with later icons, such as standard portrait types and inscribed names. I argue here that the traditions Ignatios records about the mosaic provide a way of understanding its acceptance as an accurate revelation of Christ, as well as its posticonoclastic association with funerary contexts. In the first part of Ignatios’s text, he recounts the pious legend that Theodora, the daughter of a pagan emperor, commissioned an image of the Virgin for the chapel’s apse, but on the day the artisan-monk planned to finish the mosaic, he arrived to find that his image of Mary had miraculously changed into a depiction of the exalted Christ. The vignette implies that the mosaic is a divinely approved image, so that if any of its details were objectionable to post-iconoclastic viewers, they would not have been judged as human errors, but idiosyncratic to the mosaic. Its miraculous creation undoubtedly also helped explain the presence of Christ in the church’s apse to Ignatios’s readers, because after Iconoclasm, the Virgin Mary became the predominant apsidal figure.21 From a theological perspective, the transformation of the mosaic from the Virgin into Christ is a vivid metaphor for the Incarnation: just as the physical birth of Christ occurred through Mary’s physical body, the mosaic of Christ miraculously materialized from Mary’s image. The second, longer portion of Ignatios’s text, which today is accepted as slightly more credible than the first portion, relates how the mosaic was rediscovered in the early ninth century. Scholars presume that the theophanic vision of Christ was concealed to protect it during Iconoclasm, even though Ignatios would have us believe that the mosaic dates to the late fourth century and that the patroness Theodora covered it soon after its creation to hide her Christianity and to save it from destruction by her pagan father.22 There is every reason to believe that the mosaic was rediscovered during the early ninth century, whether under the reign of Leo III (r. 813–20), as Ignatios claims, or sometime soon thereafter, as suggested by the biographer of Joseph the Hymnographer, who records that the saint took orders at the Monastery of the Latomou because of the miracle that occurred there (i.e. probably the astounding rediscovery of the mosaic, as will be argued below).23 Other than the plausible (but admittedly inconclusive) reference in Joseph the Hymnographer’s vita, Ignatios’s account is the only resource for understanding the middle Byzantine reception of the apse mosaic. The second part of Ignatios’s narrative centres around the monk Senouphios’s earnest quest to see God ‘as he would appear at the end of time’, a desire eventually satisfied in the wondrous rediscovery of the mosaic of Christ. Senouphios, a monk from Egypt, travelled to Thessaloniki in a kind of ‘reverse pilgrimage’ away from the loca sancta of Jerusalem and Egypt, as he was directed in his spiritual visions. He searched throughout the city for an image of God as he would appear at the end of time. He even stayed at the Monastery of the Latomou and questioned the monks, but when they responded that they knew of no such image – in their monastery or in the entire city – he was saddened, yet he continued searching persistently for six months. Thinking himself deceived by the devil, he finally returned to Egypt with great disappointment.

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Again at home in his own cell, he was assured by his spiritual visions that the devil had not tricked him, and that he should return to the Monastery of the Latomou, where he would indeed see Christ ‘as he would appear at the end of time’ and spend his final days. With hesitation, the elderly Senouphios journeyed back to Thessaloniki. After he had recovered from his travels to the monastery, one day he remained in the church to pray alone after communal prayers. Suddenly, a great earthquake shook the building, and a covering of bricks and ox hide fell from the apse, revealing the mosaic of Christ on a rainbow, surrounded by four beasts. At this glimpse of Christ, the elderly Senouphios thanked God and died. When the monks of the monastery found Senouphios and realized that his long-sought vision of God had been fulfilled through the previously hidden mosaic, they praised God, prepared Senouphios’s body and buried him with his belongings in the church. Though not the focus of the present chapter, the terms Ignatios uses (and does not use) to describe the mosaic deserve mention. Present-day scholars have suggested that the Greek term ‘acheiropoietos’ (an image ‘not made with human hands’) may apply to the mosaic,24 but Ignatios himself never uses this word. Instead, Ignatios uses words such as ‘γραφός’ (picture), ‘ἱεροῦ ἐκείνου ἐκτυπώματος’ (that holy figure) and ‘ἱερὸν τοῦτο ἐκτύπωμα’ (this sacred image or imprint) to refer to the mosaic. Ignatios writes that at the burial service for the monk, many people were healed of all sorts of diseases, and the news spread all around the city and to neighbouring areas: ‘Many people, flowing like a river, climbed to the monastery and were cured of spiritual and bodily diseases …’25 Healing miracles continued to occur until Ignatios’s day, the church became a popular destination, and Ignatios refers to the mosaic as ‘holy’ and ‘sacred.’ But even though Ignatios’s account promotes neither the apsidal image nor the monk’s tomb as sites of healing or veneration, Senouphios’s rediscovery of the mosaic and the subsequent flood of visitors and healings explicitly affirms the usefulness and power of religious images in spiritual devotion.26 It is not accidental in Ignatios’s history that Senouphios’s quest for a vision of ‘Christ as he would appear at the end of time’ is fulfilled in a physical representation rather than another spiritual vision; the narrative presupposes the validity of images as pilgrimage destinations and even presumes the mosaic’s fidelity to spiritual reality. This last point may be the most surprising aspect of Ignatios’s Diegesis, because when viewed from the vantage point of the twenty-first century, the mosaic of Christ looks quite different from most middle Byzantine icons of Christ.27 We might imagine that his beardless, youthful face and light-coloured hair, combined with the prophets’ atypical portraits and the absence of inscribed names would clash with a medieval viewer’s expectations of monumental icons of Christ, who was more often portrayed as dark-haired, bearded and slightly older, as in depictions of Christ Pantokrator.28 We have depictions of the youthful Christ after Iconoclasm, but these almost always appear in different contexts, such as Gospel books, and they seem to serve other purposes. The

152 Andrea Olsen Lam most relevant examples for the present study are representations of Christ in Majesty, which proliferated under the Komnenian dynasty (1081–1185).29 Like the Latomou mosaic of Christ, the latter examples portray him surrounded by the tetramorph with two prophets below, but they depict an even younger, childlike, beardless Christ, rather than the adolescent Christ seen in the mosaic. As noted, the Komnenian images were frequently frontispieces for Gospel books rather than monumental images, and when present, the prophets depicted with the Komnenian Christ in Majesty vary. There is no evidence that this image-type derives from a single textual or visual source such as Hosios David, which is connected to at least two depictions of the so-called ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ discussed below. Ignatios may have noticed the ‘missing’ inscriptions and ‘incorrect’ portraiture in the mosaic, but he does not mention these issues, nor does he attempt to justify iconographic gaps between the early Byzantine depiction of Christ and posticonoclastic icons. To the contrary, it seems that Christ’s cruciform halo was a sufficient identifying attribute, and the tradition of the mosaic’s divinely-willed origins, Senouphios’s miraculous rediscovery and subsequent healing miracles prompted Ignatios and others to accept the mosaic and to overlook what we perceive as pre-iconoclastic peculiarities that do not coincide with the later canon for icons. But perhaps the real litmus test for how accepting later beholders were of this early Byzantine mosaic is not Ignatios’s account, but the iconographic adjustments witnessed in later depictions of the Latomou Christ, whose inscribed names claim a relationship to the early mosaic.

Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou The two paintings that are revelatory in this regard are the twelfth-century fresco in the narthex of the ossuary of the Bachkovo Monastery and the Poganovo icon, a sumptuous double-sided icon of the late fourteenth century (Figures 9.2 and 9.3).30 The partially preserved fresco in the narthex of the ossuary depicts Christ in a dark blue mandorla and seated on bands of light, flanked by two prophets (Figure 9.2). Despite heavy damage to the fresco (the upper portion of the fresco, including the portraits of Christ and the prophets, does not survive), its iconographic similarities with the Latomou mosaic are easily seen, but the matching inscription on Christ’s scroll is the key surviving feature that links the fresco to the mosaic and to Ignatios’s description of it. The words on Christ’s scroll are nearly identical to those recorded in Ignatios’s Diegesis: ‘Behold our God in whom we hope and rejoice in our salvation. He will give rest to this house.’31 The left-hand prophet stands upright (in the mosaic he is bent at the waist), while the right-hand prophet sits, holding a book that faces the viewer; the book’s inscription is not legible. The fresco’s presence in the narthex, over the door that leads into the ossuary itself, clearly suggests the imagery’s funerary significance in the early twelfth century.

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Figure 9.2 Bachkovo, Bachkovo Monastery, ossuary, narthex, fresco. Christ with prophets. [Source: Elka Bakalova]

The better-preserved descendant of the Thessaloniki mosaic is the Poganovo icon, an impressive late fourteenth-century panel that measures over 1 metre tall (Figure 9.3).32 A hole in the bottom of the panel indicates that it was mounted on a pole and used in liturgical processions. One side portrays the mourning Theotokos with the elderly John the Evangelist on a gold background; the other side, more pertinent to the present discussion, depicts Christ surrounded by circular bands of blue and the tetramorph on a gold background above a lake flanked by two prophets. Like in the Latomou mosaic, Christ on the Poganovo icon is beardless and holds an unfurled scroll, with his right hand raised, but on the Poganovo icon, his light-coloured hair is cropped shorter, his robes are orange-yellow with gold highlights, and he sits on red and gold beams of light rather than a rainbow. Christ’s scroll bears nearly the same inscription as in the Latomou mosaic and the Bachkovo fresco: ‘Behold! Our God in whom we hope and here rejoice in our salvation, for he will give us rest and hospitality in

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Figure 9.3 Sofia, Crypt of the cathedral of Alexander Nevski, the Poganovo icon. Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou with Ezekiel and Habakkuk. [Source: National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences]

this house.’33 Alongside his head is inscribed the epithet, ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’, linking the icon to the early Byzantine mosaic, and also referencing a miracle presumably known by viewers.34 Ezekiel and Habakkuk stand and sit, respectively, on each side of the lake, with their names inscribed above their heads. The portraits reflect accepted post-iconoclastic portrait types: for Ezekiel, a longer beard with silver hair; for Habakkuk, a youthful, prophet with curly, dark hair without a beard, the same portrait employed in the Paris Gregory manuscript (Paris, BnF, gr. 510,

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fol. 285r). Between them is a fish-filled lake surrounded by a rocky landscape. Habakkuk’s book unexpectedly displays a verse from Ezekiel’s first vision, ‘Son of man, eat this scroll!’ (Ezek 3:1).36 No satisfactory explanation for this seeming anachronism has been proposed, unless it is to affirm the unity of the Old Testament prophets’ visions of Christ’s return. The theophany appears on a shimmering gold background that reflects the wealth of the female patroness who donated the icon on behalf of her deceased father, probably either Helena Dragaš, wife of Manuel II (r. 1391–1425), or Helena Kantakouzene, wife of John V Paleologos (r. 1341–91).37 The icon could have been used in various liturgical processions, especially funerary processions. It is probably the passing of the patroness’s father, that resulted in the imagery’s selection for the icon.38 35

Funerary significance The ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’s’ funerary significance is infrequently discussed, though it is discernible in Ignatios’ account and unmistakable by its twelfth-century appearance in the Bachkovo Ossuary. The small-scale, originally cruciform plan of the Latomou Monastery was included in A. Grabar’s study of martyria,39 but even though cruciform martyria were often used for funerary purposes,40 this was not necessarily the apsidal imagery’s original significance. The strongest evidence against the mosaic’s funerary significance at its installation is in Thessaloniki’s necropolis, where the cross is the most popular subject in painted burials contemporary with the mosaic. In these burials the cross is often flanked by an ‘Α’ and ‘Ω’, pairs of birds or plants, but no depictions of Christ were found.41 Additional evidence is found in at least three mid-sixth-century mosaic programmes in or around church apses that employ similar iconography in public, non-funerary churches. These include the apse of San Vitale in Ravenna (AD 547), where a beardless Christ sits on a luminous blue sphere from which four paradisiacal rivers flow into a rocky landscape resembling that at the Latomou Monastery. A second example, on the arch above the apse in San Apollinare in Classe (AD 549), depicts a bust of Christ flanked by four winged apocalyptic beasts, all of which float among celestial clouds. And a third mosaic is at the Basilica of Euphrasius in Poreč (ca. AD 560), where above the arch Christ sits on a heavenly blue sphere, with 12 apostles bearing crowns, scrolls, codices and other honorific attributes. These mosaics are not identical to each other (or the Thessaloniki mosaic), but they share apocalyptic themes (cf. Isa 6; Ezek 1–4, Rev 4–6), such as Christ seated on a heavenly sphere, the presence of four paradisiacal rivers and apocalyptic beasts or martyrs. In each of these mid­ sixth-century depictions, Christ appears with apocalyptic imagery above the altar in a public, non-funerary church, and the Latomou mosaic’s imagery is similar to these more-or-less contemporary examples. The absence of such apocalyptic depictions of Christ from contemporary painted burials in Thessaloniki, coupled with its known usage in prominent, non-funerary churches suggests that the Latomou mosaic’s intended meaning was not funerary at its installation.

156 Andrea Olsen Lam Another consideration supporting this is that the patroness’s inscription at the Latomou Monastery does not indicate a funerary purpose. Indeed, it does not include any reference to death or afterlife, but clearly commemorates a special blessing she received from God. Though probably not an aspect of the initial meaning of the mosaic, it seems to have had acquired well-defined associations with death and the afterlife when Senouphios rediscovered it, perhaps in the mid-ninth century. Ignatios acknowledges the imagery’s biblical sources, but the mosaic’s special role as the last physical representation Senouphios saw before death, which simultaneously fulfilled his long-sought vision of Christ ‘as he would appear at the end of time’, suggests that in Ignatios’s own day, this imagery was associated with both Christ’s return and a blessed death. I propose that the ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ was introduced into the funerary contexts of the Poganovo icon and the Bachkovo Ossuary – and possibly other representations that do not survive – because of its powerful associations with a blessed death in the oral traditions Ignatios records (recall that Senouphios’s miraculous rediscovery of the mosaic coincides with a peaceful death and is followed by healings and other miracles).

Texts and images A. Xyngopoulos proposed that the Poganovo icon’s painter relied on a hypothetical miniature illumination that accompanied Ignatios’s text.42 Maguire’s and others’ analyses of the Byzantine saints’ portraits and iconography have since made it possible to consider other alternatives for the continuation of the imagery.43 For instance, a well-trained Byzantine painter could have achieved similar results by relying on Ignatios’s description of the mosaic – which includes the prophets’ names and most inscriptions – and by incorporating standard portrait types for Ezekiel and Habakkuk.44 However, Ignatios’s text does not mention Habakkuk’s book or any inscription in it; therefore, his description or any image based solely on this text could not have served as a complete model for either the Bachkovo fresco or the Poganovo icon (since the latter both portray the right-hand prophet with a book).45 We do not know precisely how the imagery was conveyed to the painter of the Poganovo icon (whether through written description or visual model) or if he had seen the mosaic itself,46 but it is clear that in the later versions of the Latomou Christ, certain details were intentionally adjusted to meet Byzantine expectations for devotional icons and to suit their contexts. Despite the acknowledged probability that that the mosaic was repaired and restored between its posticonoclastic discovery and its re-concealment under the Ottomans,47 the prophets’ names and Christ’s epithet were never inserted into the mosaic, nor was Christ’s portrait modified to reflect more common depictions of Christ in majesty or Christ Pantokrator. Presumably, devotees standing before the mosaic of Christ did not need to be reminded of their location or the miracle that had earned the mosaic its epithet, ‘Christ of the miracle of the Latomou.’ Nevertheless, the fact that the probable middle or late Byzantine repairs to the mosaic did not result in the

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addition of proper inscriptions and portraits that would make the mosaic conform to viewers’ expectations suggests a certain restraint or respect for the early Byzantine mosaic.48

Conclusions The apse mosaic at the Latomou Monastery is exceptional in that, as an early votive, it was not necessarily intended to function as an icon to mediate sacred presence, nor was it initially connected with death and burial, but its imagery endured and was eventually developed into the icon named for ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’, and later became associated with a true vision of God at death. The early Byzantine mosaic lacks the normative features of icons, including inscribed names and standard portrait types, and yet the abbot and chronicler Ignatios did not seem disturbed by these omissions. Instead, he transmitted the traditions that lent the image its pedigree, though without designating it a miraculous ‘acheiropoietos’, or a source of miracles in itself. Its believed origins as an image of Mary transformed into one of Christ, its antiquity and extraordinary rediscovery undoubtedly contributed to its preservation and imitation. Despite the acceptance and the honour rendered to the Latomou mosaic, the Poganovo icon, the closest surviving depiction of ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’, reflects iconographic modifications that reveal the expectations and attentiveness of later icon painters, and probably beholders, to standards for Byzantine iconography. The modified and added elements were deemed more essential to the devotional icon than detailed replication of the mosaic’s iconography. The uncommon persistence of the ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’s’ general iconography over the centuries demonstrates the force of pious narratives to determine the meaning and legitimacy of an image, even if it did not fully adhere to the visual regulations of post-iconoclastic Byzantine icons.

Notes 1 A. Grabar, ‘A propos d’une icône Byzantine du XIVe siècle’, CahArch 10 (1959), 297; E. Tsigaridas, Latomou Monastery: The Church of Hosios David, trans. D. Whitehouse (Thessaloniki, 1988), 10–1, 16; R. Krautheimer and S. Ćurčić, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (London and New Haven, 1986), 239–40. 2 V. Grumel, ‘La mosaïque “du Dieu Sauveur” au monastère du Latome à Salonique’, EO 33 (1930), 157–75; C. Diehl, ‘A propos de la Mosaïque d’Hosios David à Salo­ nique’, Byzantion 7 (1932), 333–8; C. Morey, ‘A note on the date of the mosaic of Hosios David, Salonica’, Byzantion 7 (1932), 340; R. F. Hoddinott, Early Byzantine Churches in Macedonia and Southern Serbia (London, 1963), 173–9; Tsigaridas, Latomou Monastery. See also J.-M. Spieser, ‘The representation of Christ in the apses of early Christian churches’, Gesta 37.1 (1998), 70–1, fig. 7. 3 ‘ΔΙΗΓΗΣΙΣ ΕΠΩΦΕΛΗΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΘΕΑΝΔΡΙΚΗΣ ΕΙΚΟΝΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΚΥΡΙΟΥ ΗΜΩΝ ΙΗΣΟΥ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ …’ Greek text was published as Narratio de imagine Christi in monasterio Latomi in A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed., Varia graeca sacra (St. Petersburg, 1909; rpr. Leipzig, 1975), 102–13. For translations, see Hoddinott,

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4 5 6 7

8 9

10 11

12

13

14

Early Byzantine Churches, 68–9, 173–79; C. Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Toronto, 1993), 155–6. Tsigaridas, Latomou Monastery, 9. L. James, ‘Images of text in Byzantine art: the apse mosaic in Hosios David, Thessa­ loniki’ in K. Krause and B. Schellewald, eds., Bild und Text im Mittelalter (Cologne, 2011), 255–66. A. Xyngopoulos, ‘Sur l’icône bilatérale de Poganovo’, CahArch 12 (1962), 341–50. The decorative borders have been compared to those in the baptisteries of Ravenna, the Basilica of Euphrasius at Poreč, as well as Hagios Demetrios and the Rotunda of St. George in Thessaloniki. See J.-M. Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments du IVe au VIe siècle: contribution à l’étude d’une ville paléochrétienne (Paris, 1984), 157–8; E. Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou and A. Tourta, Wandering in Byzantine Thessa­ loniki (Athens, 1997), 53, 191. The rivers have been identified as the four rivers of paradise, the Jordan River, and others; see James, ‘Images of text in Byzantine art’, 259. They are variously identified as Isaiah (based on the inscription on Christ’s scroll, which paraphrases Is 25:9–10) or Ezekiel (Ezek 1:4–28 and 10:1–22) and Habakkuk, Peter and Paul, or Ezekiel and John the Evangelist (Rev 1). Ignatios names the figures as Ezekiel and Habakkuk. There is little or no iconographic evidence for depictions of Habakkuk before Iconoclasm. See Grabar, ‘A propos d’une icône’, 289–304, esp. 298; J. Snyder, ‘The mean­ ing of the Maiestas Domini in Hosios David’, Byzantion 37 (1967), 143–52; J.-M. Spieser, ‘Remarques complémentaires sur la mosaïque de Osios David’, in Διεθνές Συμπόσιο Βυζαντινή Μακεδονία, 324–1453 μ.Χ. Θεσσαλονίκη 29–31 Οκτωβρίου 1992 (Thessalonike, 1995), 295–306, repr. as ‘Further remarks on the mosaic of Hosios David’, in J.-M. Spie­ ser, Urban and Religious Spaces in Late Antiquity and Byzantium (Aldershot, 2001), 1–12; James, ‘Images of text in Byzantine art’, 260. C. Walter, ‘The iconography of the prophet Habakkuk’, REB 47 (1989), 251–60. Πηγὴ ζ[ω]τική δεκτική, θρεπτικὴ ψυχῶν πιστῶν ὀ πα[νέντιμος οἶ]κος οὗτος [εὐξαμ]ένη ἐπέτυχα καὶ ἐπιτυχο[ῦσ]α ἐπλήροσα ὑπὲρ εὐχῆς ἧς οἶδεν ὀ Θεὸς τὸ ὄνομα With slight variances, in Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed., Varia graeca sacra, 107; trans., Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 155–6. See also Tsigaridas, Latomou Monastery, 40. The final phrase of the inscription, ‘For the blessing of one whose name is known to God’, matches three inscriptions (recorded only in watercolours of the now-destroyed mosaics) in the Basilica of St. Demetrios that are dated to the early seventh century; see G. A. Soteriou and M. G. Soteriou, Η βασιλική του Αγίου Δημητρίου Θεσσαλονίκης (Athens, 1952), 197, pl. 71a. On the themes of anonymity and private messages in public inscriptions, see A. Terry and H. Maguire, Dynamic Splendor: The Wall Mosaics in the Cathedral of Euphrasius at Poreč (2 vols., University Park, 2007), vol. 1, 142–5. It seems that holy portraits did not consistently take on the official mediating function of icons until the late seventh or early eighth century; see L. Brubaker, ‘Icons before Icono­ clasm?’, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 45 (1998), 1215–54, esp. 1236–7; L. Brubaker and J. Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680–850: A History (Cambridge and New York, 2011), 57–9. See also A. Eastmond, ‘Monograms and the art of unhelpful writing in Late Antiquity’ in B. M. Bedos-Rezak and J. Hamburger, eds., Sign and Design. Script as Image in Cross-Cultural Perspective (300–1600 CE) (Washington, DC, 2016), 219–35, esp. 230–5, fig. 11.7. Πηγὴ ζ[ω]τικὴ δεκ(τι)κὴ θρεπτικὴ ψυχῶν πιστοῦν ὁ πανέν(τι)μος οἴ(κ)ος ο(ὖ/ὗ)τος‧ Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed., Varia Graeca Sacra, 107. Pelli Mastora’s recent study (‘Τὸ ψηφιδωτὸ τῆς Μονῆς Λατόμου καὶ ἡ Διήγησις τοῦ Ἰγνατίου’, Ἐικονοστάσιον 5 [2014], 36–72, esp. 54, fig. 11) examines the medieval repairs performed on the mosaic, which she suggests are contemporary with Ignatios and the late twelfthcentury frescoes in Hosios David.

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15 See Mastora, ‘Τὸ ψηφιδωτὸ τῆς Μονῆς Λατόμου’, esp. 68. 16 The building was reportedly built on the remains of a Roman bath or temple, and there was a cistern near the church in later times. In the sixteenth-century census of Thessaloniki, the church is listed as ‘Suluca’ (literally, ‘a place of water’) Monastery; see Tsigaridas, Latomou Monastery, 13, 43. This proposal is made problematic by the fact that within Ignatios’s text, it is observed that the engineers must discover a way to bring water to the location, because there is not a nearby source; see Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed., Varia graeca sacra, 106, ll. 22–27. The possibility that this detail of Ignatios’s text is inaccurate is quite reasonable, given the historical errors identified in the first portion of the narrative, which has been branded an ‘attractive legend’; see Hoddinott, Early Byzantine Churches, 178; James, ‘Images of text in Byzantine art’, 261–2. 17 See Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 155–6. A church outside Constantinople was dedicated to the Virgin Mary Pege (of the Source) already in the pre-iconoclastic era; the church’s spring was attributed with healing miracles, as was common for early pilgrimage churches and holy sites; see N. P. Ševčenko, ‘Pege’, in A. Kazhdan and A-. M. Talbot, eds., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (3 vols., Oxford, 1991), vol. 3, 1616. In later periods, Mary herself was referred to as ‘temple’, ‘church’ or ‘house.’ For a recent consideration of Mary characterized as a spring in Byzantine liturgy and practice, see: H. Bodin, ‘“Rejoice, spring”: the Theotokos as fountain in the liturgical practice of Byzantine hymnography’, in B. Shilling and P. Stephenson, eds., Fountains and Water Culture in Byzantium (Cam­ bridge, 2016), 246–64. 18 Ἰδοῦ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμνῶν ἐφ’ ῷ ἐλπίζομεν καὶ ἠγαλλιώμεθα ἐπὶ τῇ σωτηρίᾳ ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ὅτι ἀνάπαυσιν δώσει ἐπì τòν ὄικον τοῦτον‧ For slightly different translations, see Xyngo­ poulos, ‘Sur l’icône bilatérale’, 342; B. Pentcheva, ‘Imagined images: visions of salva­ tion and intercession in a double-sided icon from Poganovo’, DOP 54 (2000), 142. 19 For the earlier date, see Tsigaridas, Latomou Monastery, 9. For the historical context of Ignatios’s text, see D. M. Deliyannis, ‘Agnellus of Ravenna and Iconoclasm: the­ ology and politics in a ninth-century text’, Speculum 71 (1996), 559–76; James, ‘Images of text in Byzantine art’, 262. 20 One aspect of the text that suggests an earlier date is the fact that Ignatios uses terms associated with both John of Damascus’s and Theodore Studites’s writings on icons. A useful examination of sculpture-related terms in Theodore Studites’s writ­ ings can be found in B. Pentcheva, ‘Painting or relief: the ideal icon in iconophile writing in Byzantium’, Zograf 31 (2006–2007), 7–14. The term ‘icon’ is not excep­ tional or localized to periods of iconomachy; see J. Bremmer, ‘Iconoclast, iconoclas­ tic, and iconoclasm: notes towards a genealogy’, Church History and Religious Culture 88 (2008), 1–17. 21 Spieser, ‘The representation of Christ’, 63–73. 22 Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 155 n. 2; Hoddinott, Early Byzantine Churches, 179; James, ‘Images of text in Byzantine Art’, 261. 23 S. Josephi Hymnographi Vita, PG 105, col. 945B; Tsigaridas, Latomou Monas­ tery, 11. 24 For example, James, ‘Images of text in Byzantine Art’, 263. 25 Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed., Varia graeca sacra, 112.10–13; Grumel, ‘La mosaïque “du Dieu Sauveur”’, 157–75. 26 Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed., Varia graeca sacra, 109.25–32. In this and other respects, Ignatios’s text resembles Agnellus’s ninth-century Liber pontificalis eccle­ siae Ravennatis, which is thought to draw on Byzantine traditions and iconophile writings. See Deliyannis, ‘Agnellus of Ravenna and iconoclasm’, 571–3. 27 That less variation or ambiguity regarding Christ’s portrait features existed in posticonoclastic Constantinople may be inferred from Photius’ Homily X (delivered May, 880), in which he describes the ceiling decoration of the Nea Ekklesia: Photius does not describe the appearance of Christ, but he expects that his auditors recognize

160 Andrea Olsen Lam

28

29 30

31 32 33 34

35 36 37 38

Christ’s features; see C. Mango, ed. and trans., Homilies of Photius Patriarch of Constantinople (Cambridge, 1958), 177, 187. The development of Christ’s portrait type is a complex topic that cannot be addressed comprehensively here, but a few comments are necessary for the present argument. Before Iconoclasm different portrait types for the adult Christ coexisted – and sometimes appeared in the same church, as at the Basilica of Euphrasius at Poreč and San Vitale in Ravenna – but by the tenth century the dominant portrait type depicts him with dark, wavy hair, a beard, brown eyes and a cruciform halo. Similar depictions of Christ already appear in the sixth-century apse mosaic at the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai. For relevant comparanda, see funerary chapels 26 and 51 at Bawit, Lmbat in Armenia, Dodo in Georgia and the earliest churches in Cappadocia. See E. Bakalova, Bachkovskata kostnitsa (Sofia, 1977), 68; Hoddinott, Early Byzantine Churches, 176, pl. 49; H. Maguire, Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, 1996), 12–14; Terry and Maguire, Dynamic Splendor, vol. 1, 137–9; G. Dagron, Décrire et peindre: essai sur le por­ trait iconique (Paris, 2007), 69–77; M. Bacci, The Many Faces of Christ: Portraying the Holy in the East and West, 300–1300 (London, 2014), 103–40. For a detailed study, see A. W. Carr, ‘Gospel frontispieces from the Comnenian period’, Gesta 21.1 (1982), 7–9, figs. 5, 7, 8. Xyngopoulos, ‘Sur l’icône bilatérale’, 342; Grabar, ‘A propos d’une icône’, 289–304; Bakalova, Bachkovskata kostnitsa, 67–70, figs. 36, 37, 142; Pentcheva, ‘Imagined images.’ Another depiction of Christ resembling the Hosios David mosaic is the front of the Vatican Sakkos, which portrays a beardless Christ seated on a rainbow and sur­ rounded by the symbols of the four evangelists. In the latter case, Christ is labelled as ‘the Resurrection and the Life’ (Jn 11:25), and the inscription on the book Christ holds is Matt 25:34, which instructs the blessed to ‘inherit the kingdom prepared for you.’ See H. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557) (New York, 2004), 300–1. ΙΔΕ Ο Θ(ΕΟ)Σ ΗΜ(ΕΙΣ) ΕΛΠΙΖΟΜ(ΕΝ) ΚΑΙ ΙΓΑΛΛΙ(ΩΜΕ)ΘΑΙ ΕΠΙ ΤΗ ΣΩΤΗ(ΡΙ)Α ΗΜ(ΩΝ) ΑΥΤΟ(Σ) ΔΩΣΗ ΑΝΑΠΑΥΣΙΝ ΤΩ ΟΙΚΩ ΤΟΥΤΩ. See E. Bakalova, The Ossuary of the Bachkovo Monastery (Plovdiv, 2003), 67–72, 81. Pentcheva, ‘Imagined images’, 141; Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power, 198–9. Ιδοὺ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν ἐφ’ ᾧ ἐλπίζομεν καὶ ἠγαλλιώμεθα ἐπὶ τῇ σωτηρίᾳ ἡμῶν αὐτὸς δώσει ἀνάπαυσιν τῷ οἴκῳ τούτῳ. Xyngopoulos, ‘Sur l’icône bilatérale’, 342. That there would be iconographic deviation from the supposed ‘model’ is not unex­ pected. For example, middle Byzantine Marian icons inscribed with epithets that ref­ erence famous icons do not consistently correspond to a particular iconographic type. See A. W. Carr, ‘Icons and the object of pilgrimage in middle Byzantine Con­ stantinople’, DOP 56 (2002), 75–92, esp. 76–8; A. W. Carr, ‘Seeing toponymic icons heirotopically’, forthcoming in volume honouring Alexei Lidov. Habakkuk’s portrait type after Iconoclasm is, admittedly, inconsistent; see Walter, ‘The iconography of the prophet Habakkuk’, 251–60; Pentcheva, ‘Imagined images’, 143–4, fig. 6; Mastora, ‘Τὸ ψηφιδωτὸ τῆς Μονῆς Λατόμου’, 70. For more on prophets holding quotations from other authors’ writings, see L. D. Popovich, ‘Prophets carrying texts by other authors in Byzantine painting: mis­ takes or intentional substitutions?’ ZRVI 44 (2007), 229–44. Xyngopoulos, ‘Sur l’icône bilatérale’, 348; Bakalova, Bachkovskata kostnitsa, 70. For additional bibliography, see Pentcheva, ‘Imagined images’, 139–40 n. 1. The primary association of the imagery with death and a blessed afterlife is an alter­ native to Pentcheva’s hypothesis (‘Imagined images’, 141–53) that the Poganovo icon was associated with and employed in celebrations for multiple feasts. Despite feasible links with liturgical feasts, Pentcheva affirms that the Poganovo icon’s most important role was to intercede for the deceased.

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39 A. Grabar, Martyrium: recherches sur le culte des reliques et l’art chrétien antique (2 vols., Paris, 1943–46), vol. 1, 164. 40 Indeed, there are documented burials in the church floor, but their undated nature provides no evidence for the mosaic’s original meaning. Grumel (‘La mosaïque “du Dieu Sauveur”’, 174–5) posits that the burial containing an iron belt is the body of the monk Senouphios. 41 Ε. Μarkh, Η νεκρόπολη της Θεσσαλονίκης στους υστερορωμαϊκούς και παλαιοχριστιανικούς χρόνους: μέςα του 3ου έως μέσα του 8 ου αι. μΧ. (unpublished PhD diss., University of Athens, 2006), 197–200, 246, figs. 154, 155, 160, 161. 42 Xyngopoulos, ‘Sur l’icône bilatérale’, 342. 43 Maguire, Icons of Their Bodies, 43–6. 44 Ignatios’s narrative does not specify Christ’s portrait type or include certain details found on the Poganovo icon, such as Christ’s wounds on his hands and feet, which indicate his post-resurrection state. As noted, Walter (‘The iconography of the prophet Habakkuk’, 251–60) observes that Habakkuk’s portrait type was not consist­ ent, even after Iconoclasm. See also Mastora, ‘Τὸ ψηφιδωτὸ τῆς Μονῆς Λατό­ μου’, 70. 45 The icon also depicts the crucifixion wounds on Christ’s hands and feet, which are neither recorded nor depicted in surviving sources directly linked to the Latomou mosaic, despite being associated with Habakkuk’s vision, as in the narthex of the Peribleptos Church in Ohrid. 46 Though not providing evidence of direct contact, the two monasteries were theoretic­ ally accessible to one another during the medieval period. The Bachkovo Monastery is 320–80 km from Hosios David by foot, depending on the route followed (com­ pared to the 630–40 km between Hosios David and Constantinople). 47 Mastora (‘Τὸ ψηφιδωτὸ τῆς Μονῆς Λατόμου’, esp. 50, 54, 68, 70–2, fig. 11) pro­ poses a series of interpretations on the basis of restorations she perceives. She sug­ gests that the inscription in Habakkuk’s book is contemporary with Ignatios and the late twelfth-century frescoes in the Latomou; she further proposes that Ignatios is a second ktetor, or donor, and should be identified with the figure of Habakkuk in the mosaic. 48 The omission of Habakkuk’s book and its inscription from Ignatios’s Diegesis sug­ gests the possibility that in Ignatios’s day, these elements were either damaged or otherwise missing from the mosaic. However, this does not explain why the Poga­ novo icon portrays the prophet inscribed with the name ‘Habakkuk’ holds a book with a verse from Ezek 3:1. See n. 36.

10 Firm flowers in the artifice of transience Eunice Dauterman Maguire

According to a persistent perception Byzantine art rejects softness and resists change. This view of an art self-hardened for the sake of religion is one Henry Maguire has found too confining, even in the Byzantine cultural responses to nature.1 This chapter proposes that Byzantine design continued for centuries to take a contrarian pleasure in oppositions and patterns that may be meaningful in their repetition and varied in their reconfigurations. Certain coded depictions of roses in Byzantine art exemplify the ways in which concepts of hardness and softness can overlap: rose images became altered and semi-standardized, dematerializing the flower across media by exaggerating or changing some of its natural features. Such usages coexist for centuries with other ways of depicting roses. Just as before and after the iconoclastic controversy, the ocean’s pearls express quintessential preciousness, the earth’s roses can make hardware of transience, playing a more than ornamental hardening or softening role: hard elements like pearls can be used to softening effect, while hardened rose-signs defy the blossom’s impermanence and transform the flower into something like a magic sign, even while it still features in narrative and in ritual.2 In Figure 10.1 hard roses in a textile shine as cropped concentric circles, softened by a bordering green frill of leaves. An inversion of expectation monumentalizes these roses while exaggerating their abundance and de-emphasizing their fragility: they appear as a firmly structured pyramidal heap set in a column capital basket rounded like an actual rose basket in a narrative mosaic scene.3 This small, colourful weaving mingles hardness and softness and the concepts’ connotations in meaningful designs.4 Traces of the original floating or supplementary weft show that the bowl of the capital was detailed with basketweave, like many sixth-century architectural capitals carved in limestone or Proconnesian marble.5 Both hard and soft shimmering effects are clearly among Byzantine artistic goals and their achievements inherited from late antiquity. At the end of the fourth century Claudian praises the intermingling of hard and soft on the robe worn by Honorius in 398 for the ceremonies of his fourth consulate: the garment joins woven and embroidered textile fibres in portraits adorned with ‘metal threads’ along with ‘jasper and sea-pearl … What ambitious distaff was able with the fingers’ art to give softness to materials so hard?’6 The image of the architectural basket of hard-line but shining roses executed in a soft material achieves the opposite effect.

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Figure 10.1 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Textile fragment (inv. no. 90.5.240). A rose basket/two-zone capital as a soft/hard cipher of luxury and strength, wool and linen tapestry weave, probably from a curtain. [Source: Image in the Public Domain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of George F. Baker, 1890]

Choosing Byzantine art as a model of changelessness, and art as an expression of power over nature, William Butler Yeats, in Sailing to Byzantium, bypasses Byzantium’s tribute to some of earth’s most fleeting experiences: roses’ bright sweetness or silk’s soft touch. Yeats isolates the harder choreography. He stands figures in a fiery gold-ground mosaic to express, instead of transience, ‘the artifice of eternity.’ Yet roses in the early Byzantine period, unknown to him and largely unremarked in our time, became a kind of notation for ‘the sensual music all neglect’; in a spiritual sense roses could offer hints not only ‘to lords and ladies of Byzantium’, but also to less courtly audiences ‘of what is past, and passing, and to come’, as when imperial ritual’s use of flowers and candles is reflected in a highly textured textile representing a ritual of welcome with lamps and scattered roses, presumably for honoured guests in Byzantine Egypt.7 Henry Maguire in an unpublished lecture has associated the materiality of softness with hardness, the brightness of glass mosaic with the luxury of silk in the formation of Byzantine

164 Eunice Dauterman Maguire taste. This aspect of Byzantine art mediates between mere appearance and a coded understanding of worldly things, extending beyond what we have been accustomed to recognize simply as abstraction, and opening rich avenues for polyvalence by infusing patterns with multiple, even seemingly contradictory associations.

Early Byzantine patterns with four-petal roses Roses, like pearls, adorned sacred and secular persons and things in formulaic ways. A type of schematic rose frequently appearing in Byzantine textiles preserved in Egypt, often figured against a neutral matrix of undyed linen plain weave, in the bright colours of wool and linen tapestry-woven embellishments such as the fragment in Figure 10.1; this type occurs also in wall and pavement mosaics and on painted architectural surfaces. The format of concentric rings for an individual rose programmatically implies a shimmer to the habituated eye, borrowing a conventional use of concentric circles to represent the shine of jewels or mirrors. The roses in the architectural basket, and many others in large textiles that were hung over panelled doors or in architectural openings provided a conceptual gleam. The fabric of bright, gleaming veils or curtains seems to compensate for their obstructive function of closing or opening spaces, just as glass-rich mosaics give a shimmer to solid wall surfaces in contrast with the steadier shine of marble.8 Behind the ambition signalled in Claudian’s text may therefore have been more than a hunger to project and exaggerate ostentatious contrasts as power. Claudian’s description forecasts a Byzantine aesthetic preference for mutually enhancing juxtapositions of hard and soft. Far from the appearance of an earthly flower, a rose in the form of four open circles fills an enclosing circle in the early Byzantine gold earring of Figure 10.2. Each small circle represents a petal, enlivened by a pierced pearl that hangs and gleams in it, with a three-dimensionality offset by pointed leaf-shapes where the petals meet; both roses and pearls are frequently associated with personal physical beauty.9 Flowers, like pearls, do more than dress up the Byzantine visual environment. In John of Gaza’s sixth-century description roses bloom brightly as they leave thorny stems below and deliberately open their petals out of buds.10 To express spiritual triumph in illustrations of Byzantine synaxaria, as Nancy Ševčenko observes, ‘the landscapes that receive the bodies of the martyrs bloom rich with flowers.’11 Likewise, Henry Maguire has pointed to floral imagery in relation to the Virgin.12 Yet roses, the floral embodiments of softness, fragrance and brightness, both sacred and secular, have generally been overlooked as an almost universally propitious sign in Byzantium because, like the coded roses in this earring and in the filled basket of Figure 10.1, they often come in stylized and far from soft presentations. The geometric design of the pearl earring represents the flower as a cipher to be identified as a rose by the leaf-like tips of the calyx that appear between the petals.13 The earring introduces the open, four-petal, isolated rose blossom without a stem, a design unit originating in antiquity but developing to function in particular ways across many Byzantine centuries. Its appearance in patterns can

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Figure 10.2 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, gold earring (inv. no. 1953.12.97). A rose in hardened outlines with diagonal leaf-shaped sepals, softened with a pearl’s reflections in each petal. [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC]

parallel or accompany roses on stems, usually buds in profile depicted as growing or as cut. Figure 10.3 shows roses in several distinct stylizations on a large linen panel: a whole repertory of roses woven in wool weft loops, supplemented by tapestry weave, under a cross. Much of the plain weave background is now gone. The wavy green stem of a budding rose-vine frames the main part of the panel. Most of the stems on which buds grew from this vine are no longer intact, but many buds remain. They dangle down the sides of the panel or point up toward the wreathed rose-red cross with its honour-guard of peacocks at the top of the textile. Inside the oblong vine frame nine dotted circles enclose individual motifs, somewhat as the circular petals in the earring enclose the pearls, although the medallions form a square of three rows across and three down. Large, geometricized four-petal roses have pride of place. Such a rose, in a yellow ring, is at the centre. Above, below and beside it four green medallions resolve chromatically into a cruciform arrangement without breaking the alignment of vertical and horizontal rows. The placing of the medallions with their dotted frames in regular alignments horizontally and vertically recalls the rows of X-rose medallions on a textile of the highest prestige, a caliphal Umayyad silk samite, the so-called Marwan tiraz (Figures 10.4a and 10.4b).14 The two designs have in common their medallions of large X-roses with four heart-shaped petals; the arrangement in straight, rather than staggered rows; the medallions’ dotted rims, and the alternation of the large roses with smaller roses of contrasting designs in the spandrels between the medallions. In both designs

Figure 10.3 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Textile fragment (inv.no. 90.5.808). A rose-rich panel of earth and ocean medallions enclosed by a rose-vine under a heavenly cross, on a fragmentary wool and linen hanging, missing much of the linen plain-weave background. [Source: Image in the Public Domain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of George F. Baker, 1890]

Figure 10.4a London, Victoria and Albert Museum, silk fragments from the field and border of the Marwan tiraz, weft-faced compound twill (inv. no. 1314–1888). Rose medallions and spandrel roses. [Source: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London]

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Figure 10.4b London, Victoria and Albert Museum, silk fragments from the field and border of the Marwan tiraz, weft-faced compound twill (inv. no. 1314–1888). Detail of rose garland border of buds or petals between bands of pearls and jewels. [Source: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London]

there is a qualitative difference between the roses inside the medallions and those in the spandrels. In the silk, the combined internal and external outlining of petals in the spandrel rosettes visually suggests a tactile change of texture with a possible model in the low relief of silver, while on the relatively naive linen and wool panel the spandrel roses are tapestry-woven, their actual texture contrasting in its smoothness with the woolly, furrowed look of the looped pile. Yet despite these textural hints given to the eye there is no attempt to make any of the roses look flexibly soft or pliable; as images of flowers unaffected by breezes, time or gravity, they are well-suited to their respective Umayyad caliphal and Christian paradisal contexts. The primacy of the rose in both textiles suggests its status as a flower epitomizing the blessings of heaven on earth. The roses in the looped-pile medallions are consistently colour-zoned. They alternate two red horizontal petals with a pale vertical pair, tipped with red at the outer edges. Around this bevy of four-petal roses of various sizes, schematic types and colour schemes, the rosebuds on stems dangling from the vine, as indicated in Figure 10.3, match stemless rosebuds in the spandrels above and below the group of nine medallions. The entire panel, like a sampler, demonstrates the mutual compatibility of varied rose-cipher designs. In the four corner-medallions dolphins framed in yellow alternate with green-framed roses or rose baskets to complement these heavenly gifts of earth with a beneficent reminder of the sea.15 Cut and scattered roses were celebratory in ancient usage. These are the roses depicted in the backgrounds of late antique and early Byzantine mosaic pavements and textiles, usually arranged in staggered repeat patterns that regularize the more randomly strewn floors and pavements of festive welcome.16 We find scattered roses as signs of hospitality behind greeters on fragmentary looped-pile hangings; or on representations of curtains in an

168 Eunice Dauterman Maguire earthly palace, a furnished monastic apse, or an honoured Torah shrine.17 In the tenth-century Paris Psalter, roses strewn in the foreground of his portrait honour David as king.18 The same floral tribute had appeared in a humorous early Byzantine mosaic vignette, the roses lying in profile, strewn before the seated Aphrodite and Adonis in Madaba’s House of Phaedra. They have been emptied from a basket into which a small naked Eros retreats from the chastisement of the goddess’s uplifted shoe.19 Rose-scattering, to mark the elevated status either of worldly pleasures or of objects of spiritual reverence not only spread a carpeting grid across mosaic floors;20 it was transferred in early Byzantine textile designs to brighten vertical surfaces, as in curtains or hangings, sometimes arranged in linear grids to make compartments for individual propitious fillers (Figure 10.5), rather than scattered as a backdrop to figural scenes. In vertical repetition the floral unit takes on a lightly screening function, like climbing roses in a latticed arbour, without relinquishing its connotations of well-being and delight, as if to define the curtains patterned in this way as a boundary permeable to both indoor and outdoor – or paradisal – pleasures.21

Figure 10.5 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hanging fragment (inv. no. 90.5.905). A rose-grid and prosperity-themed frieze, part of a probable cur­ tain pair joined across the top, linen and wool plain weave and tapestry-weave. [Source: Image in the Public Domain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of George F. Baker, 1890]

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Apart from the custom of rose-scattering, why was an individual rose worth repeating schematically? In addition to their inherent beauty, roses had defensive properties. From Dioscorides we know that the rose was considered efficacious as a medicinal plant. Its petals, so soothing to see, also treated bad eyes, and their dried powder or ashes assuaged other ills, as did the blossom’s yellow centre or the rose hips. Pendants to wear around the neck like pharmaceutical amulets could be made from the recipe for rose pastilles to counter the scent of sweat, confirming the reputation of the rose as an epitome of pleasantness.22 Its involvement in well-being is explicit in the rosebud held up by the personification of enjoyment, Apolausis, in a mosaic at Dumbarton Oaks, originally a pavement from an Antioch bathhouse.23 She wears a garland of roses under her head-covering, flowers represented only by the consistent zoning of their colours, shading from white to red. The painted ceiling tile in Figure 10.6 presents a four-petal stylization of the rose, made no later than AD 244–45 and inserted into a coffer-like grid in the synagogue at Dura-Europos. The rose, outlined in red against the plastered white ground of the ceramic tile, has a green calyx between the outer divisions of the petals. A similar rose, but with the green calyx replacing the petals’ sides and shaping the flower’s concentric circular centre, fills painted coffers on the ceiling vault of the south wall chapel in Justinian’s fortress on Mount Sinai.24 Unlike the deeply sculpted flora of rosettes in the vault coffers of Roman

Figure 10.6 New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Synagogue, Ceramic ceiling tile (inv. no. 33.276). A four-petal rose with diagonal sepals. [Source: Author]

170 Eunice Dauterman Maguire triumphal arches, these flat, painted roses join a repertory of beneficent motifs often displayed overhead. Here, inside the monastery’s defensive wall another repeated pattern also features roses, with a green bird set diagonally across a single long-stemmed rosebud in each square. The signs of peace and well­ being intrinsic to this garden-like design are underlined by the parallel with another version of the pattern, in a wooden relief panel in the Petrie Museum in London. There the bird is a quail and the plant a palm branch: tokens of blessing, for the food supply that the migratory flocks of quails have brought since before the time of Moses, and of victory, for the imperial and Christian use of the palm. Birds and roses join the more varied propitious subjects of the synagogue ceiling tiles; these subjects include an apotropaic evil eye, as on amulets, attacked by daggers and venomous creatures.25 The two small shell plaques in Figure 10.7 were excavated from graves in Egypt and interpreted as amulets. They combine the propitious material of pearly shell with the beneficent form of the four-petal, cross-shaped rose.26

Figure 10.7 London, University College, The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, Uni­ versity College, carved and pierced shell excavated at Qau. Roses with diagonal sepals. [Source: Author]

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Although carved on both sides, the pierced petals and centre of these plaques would have made it possible for them to function as belt appliqués, or as pendants along the upper edge of a curtain; whether used on the person or as a furnishing, they appear, like similar rosettes in architectural sculpture, to have been made as individual units in a series. On the cut surfaces of each solid petal, front and back, a pierced circle marks the centre, and the flower’s carved diagonal calyx separates the four petals of the shell plaques, each sepal shaped individually like a small baton, rather than defined by colour like the green between the petals on the Dura-Europos textile fragment in Figure 10.8.27 The textile design also marks the framed centre of each rose with a contrasting colour, framed as if it were an isolated gem, while conceptualizing the flower by colour-zoning the heart-shaped petals concentrically, with straight-line zones in the warp direction corresponding to curved colour zones in the direction of the weft. The colours in these conventional concentric zones28 deepen, as in nature, from the centre outwards, while the green ground, as in the Dumbarton Oaks ‘Green Carpet’ mosaic of Figure 10.9, vividly evokes an outdoor environment; Venantius Fortunatus, with his native Ravennate sensibilities,

Figure 10. 8 New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos, textile fragment (inv. no. 1933.48). Roses of four concentric colour-zones, with green ground between the petals suggesting diagonal calyces, woven in wool tapestry. [Source: Image in the Public Domain, Yale University Art Gallery]

172 Eunice Dauterman Maguire

Figure 10.9 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, ‘Green Carpet Mosaic’ from Antioch (inv. no. BZ.1938.75). Detail with four-petal circular roses divided diagonally and colour-zoned in a mosaic pavement, for a garland-like lattice of rosebuds or petals. [Source: Author]

associates the green of earth with paradisal roses.29 In the tapestry rose medallion of Figure 10.10 the gem-like centre of the green calyx explicitly promises heaven by holding a cross. Yet the number of four petals in the conventionalized rose-ciphers is unnatural to a rose. Five heart-shaped petals are common to the simple rosa gallica, as depicted in the early sixth-century illustration of the Vienna Dioscorides; and the sepals of the green calyx holding the petals are shown as five in a growing rose seen from behind, beside one of the canon tables in the Rabbula Gospels.30 They become four by a reduction that had been made for the two-dimensional reiterations of the open rose, in which the soft quality of the individual blossom disappears, boldly toned or stratified into the frequently depicted zones progressing outward from white to pink to red. Sometimes a yellow or green feature appears at the centre. When such flowers become geometricized as single open blooms the green cruciform or X-shaped calyx may be reduced to marks or lines between the petals, either diagonal as in the shell carvings or curving as in the tapestry rose of Figure 10.10. These geometricized roses, benign and thornless but visually hardened, go beyond nature. Singly or repetitively, they hold major axes or junctures. By being aligned

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Figure 10.10 London, Victoria and Albert Museum. A rose medallion, concentrically colour-zoned with curved diagonal sepals and a cruciform centre (inv no. 773–1886). [Source: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London]

in multiple reiterations, they can serve to situate a surface or mark a boundary.31 The four-petal rose in a linear series or in rose-grid patterns serves these purposes whether on curved, flat or planar surfaces in mosaic or painting, or on textile furnishings and garments. The green ground as a garden-like domestic metaphor in the Dura textile or behind the grid of roses in the Antioch Green Carpet mosaic at Dumbarton Oaks appears again behind an upright rectangular grid, like a window, as if to give a glimpse of paradise, in the lunette of one of the Rabbula canon tables, with a four-petal rose softening the barred effect while significantly marking or reinforcing each juncture of the grid.32 Such usage in early Byzantine abstract rose-patterning reveals its conceptual sources. In a grid on the Green Carpet mosaic and in many other textile and mosaic variations the pattern’s components combine two separate real-life precedents. The grid’s repeating framework of squares or lozenges derives from a latticed screen or barrier design such as might support a climbing rose plant. But the joints of the grid, where the lines cross, when they are visually secured with a single rose, borrow that unit from the traditional structure of a crown or garland. The flat lozenge-grids in mosaic and textile patterns, as trellis-like

174 Eunice Dauterman Maguire frameworks not supporting rose-vines but composed of deconstructed rose garlands, restore, in patterning, the individual distinctness of each floral unit, lost when blossoms or petals crowd into the particulate, extended mass of an actual garland. A looped-pile fragmentary hanging in Berlin illustrates the rose garland industry with Erotes in a rose-thicket carrying the buds and leaves in a basket and the finished garlands on a stick.33 Here pictorial narrative, including the irregularity of a rose-thicket, is combined with abstraction: straightened rose garlands divide a border, shaping compartments for the display of stylized X-roses, while the buds carried in a basket are given the heart-shape of single petals, a common rhetorical convention in abstract textile design. Heart-shaped petals in open roses, or as garland elements appear in Figures 10.3–10.5, 10.8, 10.9, 10.11, 10.12 and 10.14. The open four-petal rose is frequently used as a device to conceal the stringing-together of linear rose garlands, giving the illusion of continuity. This garlanding principle becomes a framing device, even for scenes of action. The heroic vignettes of elegantly dressed hunters confronting a charging boar and a bear or lion, as in a wool tapestry fragment at Dumbarton Oaks (Figure 10.12), are linked by stylized garlands. The garlands surround the rectangular panels as vegetal framing or chromatic coffering; four-petal roses, like soft seals, join the corners together.34 Four-petal roses play the same role in depictions of rose garlands. With their connotations of softness they nevertheless provide the visual hardware for the rigid repetitive structure of rose-grid and lattice patterns on curtains and hangings and on mosaic floors and vaults. The lines framing each large four-petal rose in a square or lozenge are defined by single petals with

Figure 10.11 New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Gerasa mosaic floor (inv. no. 1932.1736). Rosebuds or petals connected by open roses in a garland-like lattice playing with light and shading, with an inscription confirming the pattern’s connotations of well-being. [Source: Author]

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Figure 10.12 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Woolen tapestry with a boar hunt (inv. no. BZ.1937.14). Detail of a four-petal rose securing the corner of a garlanded frame. [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC]

smaller roses at the corners (Figures 10.9, 10.11). This common formula is widely varied: a field covered by a grid composed of roses or rose petals aligned in two directions of parallel rows and joined where the rows cross by the open four-petal X-roses to make a regular screen of square or lozenge-shaped compartments.35 The roses at the joins of the grid, as the Green Carpet mosaic exemplifies, imitate the roses used to conceal the joins between sections of an actual rose garland or the joined ends of the garlands that make a circular wreath. The open rose in this masking function becomes an axial marker like the jewelled clasps joining the sections of an imperial or a martyr’s laurel crown. In the south aisle of Hagia Irene in Constantinople four-petal roses join the compartments of at least three out of four grid patterns painted overhead, and also clasp a wreath around a radiant cross; earlier, in jeweller’s gold, a fourpetal rose, though hidden on the inside surface, fills the square clasp of a probably Constantinian bracelet at Dumbarton Oaks; and on two consular diptychs for Philoxenus (AD 525), small wreaths carved in relief on the ivory as binding elements or necking rings are clasped either with a quartered gem or

176 Eunice Dauterman Maguire with a four-petaled rose; garlands in architectural settings imitate this system of ostensibly joining strands or sections together with a frontal rose. In Egypt’s Red Monastery Church, golden rose-clasps join the painted garlands articulating horizontal divisions in the interior elevation; in Constantinople, rose-clasps at the junctions of grids in lost overhead mosaics at Hagia Sophia were recorded in the early eighteenth century.36 These designs characterize an aesthetic pleasure in the abstraction that, like an oxymoron, makes a perishable flower into a binding fixture of firmness. The rose grids and their contents appropriate this conception to celebrate prosperity. Antioch’s ‘Striding Lion’ floor mosaic in the Baltimore Museum of Art offers many kinds of bounty in its rose grid, protected by the lion pacing across the mosaic’s framework; the pavement’s border features the large, repeated, colour-zoned motif in Figure 10.13, with inward-curling petals and a flat cruciform centre, described by Henry Maguire as ‘flowers, crosses, and concentric circles combined.’37 In the stiffer pattern of the Green Carpet mosaic, roses are presented in three forms as the exclusive figuration in the design. Flattened, circular pink roses themselves are the single subject inside each compartment; smaller, squared roses connect the lines where the compartments join; and single petals or buds, aligned as if strung together, shape the compartments’ sides. The tesserae give the four-petal stylization sharp geometrical divisions between the petals, allowing the green background there to become a green calyx, cruciform or X-shaped, representing a part of the

Figure 10.13 Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, Antioch ‘Striding Lion Mosaic.’ Detail of a rose curling cupped, tapered petals toward concentric colour zones and a cruciform centre. [Source: after H. Maguire, ‘How did early Byzantine ornament work?’ in I. Garipzanov, C. Goodson and H. Maguire, eds., Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017)]

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flower that in nature is more fully visible from the back. This codified rosescatter conflates two opposing views: some roses, when actually scattered underfoot would fall face up, while others, especially if the stems were not removed, fall face-down, prominently displaying the green calyx outside the petals, joining them to the stem.39 As in the furnishing textiles with such patterns, in the mosaic grids the usually stemless flowers were seen as if not only garlanded but also, simultaneously, as if combining references to the effect of roses scattered on the floor to be seen both face-up and face-down.40 Fitted together at its floral joins, the gridded pattern further multiplies its signifying power, evoking the protected orderliness of upright garden enclosures and trellises, and connecting indoors and outdoors, or even earth and heaven with hints of the soft, intimate fragrance of the roses despite their regularized and twodimensional repetitions.41 Simplifying the abstract design enables it to deliver polyvalent sensory and symbolic information in one unified and easily modified formula that can be applied to any plane surface and to both sacred and secular environments. Latticed designs on textiles adorned the clothing of privileged persons with many variations of the pattern, and furnished the spaces around them. Alternatively, a large four-petal rose has become one of the fillers in a lozenge-grid painted for a monastic interior at Bawit, where a dado curtain might hang along the base of a white wall; these versatile patterns adapt to either monumental or intimate scales.42 Roses on door curtains – and perhaps also on dado curtains – would brighten the entrances to indoor spaces.43 The imagery accompanying them reinforces their propitious connotations. The tapestry work woven into one linen hanging (Figure 10.5) keys the design to two figural frieze-like upper registers placed above a rose grid filled with related worldly images in individual baskets or medallions.44 Formalized laurel garlands offset the two friezes above the lattice-like rose grid. Together they embody the prosperity figuratively screened by the grid, and actually, by implication, curtained by the textile. The lower frieze represents an equestrian scene framed by a portico of jewelled arches profiled against the light. In the upper frieze winged allegorical busts fill a framework of linked medallions set against a sky-blue ground. Two of the winged personifications here, linked by their gaze, proffer a stack of rosy fruit and a drinking bowl of wine amid a scatter of rosebuds and other signs of hospitality; in the rose-grid medallions a similar half-figure holds the gift of a large bird, while a nude Eros flies to present a large bud on a green stem, and a fully clad hunter on a white horse underlines the heroic seminudity of the hunting scene framed by the arches.45 An inscription in a mosaic pavement panel excavated in Gerasa from a house for a male choir (Figure 10.11), evidently for a neighbouring church, shows how a rose grid with varied fillers could speak for the character of the place it paved. ‘I am the most happy place’, it says.46 The light and shadow in the photograph, complementing the depiction of half-lit, half-shaded leaves, shows how such continuous patterns resist any sense of disruption. Their adaptability to variable lighting made them suitable for paving shaded areas such as the 38

178 Eunice Dauterman Maguire aisles of churches, for covering barrel vaults or passageways like those in the Sinai wall chapel or in the piers at Hagia Sophia, and for weaving into textiles that might hang gathered or falling in folds. As image-bearers, any or all of these popular grid patterns, and the roses in them, can refer simultaneously to several pleasing actualities. By their multiplicity and individuality they refer to rose-scattering and to rose garlands. Their lattice-like compositions mimic rosetrellises in gardens, and correspond to the smaller reflections of such patterns woven in silk.47 Overhead, they may also playfully refer to the rosettes traditionally centred in ceiling coffers; and when a curtain-like pattern covers a floor, it may refer to a privileged enclosure, confirming the widespread transfer of patterns between overhead, wall and floor planes.48 The Green Carpet mosaic is therefore a useful touchstone for identifying rose-grid patterning in other materials and colours. Its straightforward design helps to identify Constantinopolitan variations in Hagia Sophia’s non-figural mosaics, such as the ‘carpet’ grids on a Justinianic tunnel vault and on a slightly later wall.49 In the first, on the vault of the northwest passage, laurel or rose leaves indicate that garlands of contrasting colours form the grid. Star-shaped rosettes stud the intersections. In each compartment a four-petal rose fills a red medallion; four red dots, for the tips of the calyx outside the medallion, reinforce its cruciform orientation. A more floral version of such a grid surrounds a large medallion in the central bay of the east wall of the south vestibule. This pattern’s grid, and one in the south aisle’s vault at the base of the west pier (now less clear, apparently because of lost tesserae), recall the design of woven grids on silk samite textiles, where simple four-petal roses at the joins form compartments of undulating vines.50 In the aisles and galleries of Hagia Sophia the joining function of the rose medallion without either grid or garland is adapted to the articulation of architectural space. Red or blue medallions filled with silver four-petal roses alternate with poised-square lozenges in a continuous sequence, as a border to outline an arch or define an arch soffit, to cross the groins of the vaults, and to mark the edges of window bays and of their piers.51 In the vaulted recesses of the Thessaloniki Rotunda where light is held cupped around the central circular space under the dome, X-roses appear as discrete units, individually framed in repeat patterns. Some of them were erased, presumably when the X-rose and its companion motifs appeared too cruciform for the building’s conversion to a mosque, leaving only stray, peripheral survivors or empty, geometrically interlaced frames.52 A design of the crosses in roses such as Henry Maguire sees in Figure 10.13’s opulent pink four-petal blooms bordering the Antioch Striding Lion mosaic could, alternatively, be censored in the rendering of the design. This kind of censorship is effected through the use of colour changes in Figure 10.14, on a rare knotted carpet for the floor. In its border three rose-shaped frames survive, cradling crosses that have been denatured and disguised by varying the colours of the cross-arms, an adjustment evidently made by a weaver or for a buyer who did not want representations of the cross.53

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Figure 10.14 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fragmentary wool rug (inv. no. 31.2.1). Note the rose framing a chromatically effaced cross, its arms dis­ guised by discontinuous colours to hide its cruciform identity. [Source: Image in the Public Domain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1931]

The four-petal rose in middle and late Byzantium More detailed discussions of usage in early Byzantine Egypt would note the fourpetal rose as a quasi-architectural feature, especially in textile representations of plinths or on column shafts, or masking the elevation of a column base. But the present chapter must end by considering the presence of the motif in later centuries. During the period of the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy, the increased preference for the cross over other images effectively ended the great popular appeal of the schematic diagonal X-rose, although it did not disappear. On an indoor wall in the Great Palace complex in Constantinople, a probably ninth-century painted rose grid has shed the framework of garlands. Instead, its tile-like, squared units are filled with identical cross-rosettes; the cruciform cipher has circular, gem-like petals and centres, with green sepals spreading diagonally in the spandrels into the three-pronged shape of fleurs-de-lys, updating the centuries-old models followed at Dura by the tile­

180 Eunice Dauterman Maguire painter, and at an unknown location by the Byzantine goldsmith who made the Dumbarton Oaks earring (Figures 10.6 and 10.2).54 Elsewhere, the early Byzantine rotation of the X of sepals to show it uprght as a cross becomes during and after the time of the iconoclastic contorversy the dominant form for four-petal roses. This way it shared with other types of floral or leafy crosses the propitious and honorific associations of roses and of leaves. A rotated X-rose in the large medallions of a painted border in the aniconic programme of a ninth to tenth-century church on Naxos varies the application of the theme.55 A number of lead seals from the time of the Macedonian dynasty adopt the cruciform core for a four-petal formula in linear variations without colour, filling the petals with curly flora or with inward-pointing palmettes, as in Figure 10.15.56 The fixture of an X-rose securing or masking a joint survives but is much less common. Innovatively coloured, but still with a strongly marked diagonal calyx it serves as punctuation marks for the monumental and pictorial axes in the archaizing ninth-century garland borders of the apse mosaic at Hagia Sophia.57 In tiny scale it appears as a four-petaled rivet fastening the corner of a frame of a twelfth-century aniconic headpiece in the Vatican manuscript of the Homilies of James Kokkinobaphos, where its simple structure contrasts inconspicuously with the rich

Figure 10.15 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Tenth century Seal of Leo, imperial proto­ spatharios and strategos of Aigaion Pelagos (inv. no. BZS.1958.106.3284). A rose outlined around the cross, enclosing diagonal inward-pointing palmettes in the petals. [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC]

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Figure 10.16 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, MS 5 (Gospel book), f. 14. A rose/cross with radiant sepals heading a title medallion. [Source: © Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC]

vegetal density of the field inside the frame.58 Yet in Figure 10.16, to introduce Matthew’s Gospel in a lavishly ornamented headpiece, a very simple upright X-rose has become a sacred pictogram.59 At the top of the title window, and unlike the softly painted flora surrounding it, the rose is isolated and transformed into a cross enclosed inside four minimally indicated petals, with the sepals as rays. The status of this rose-cross has risen to equal writing. Uniquely unpigmented and spare, it stands apart from the tiny but softly painted X-roses that secure the corners of the outer frame. Such functionally and visually distinct roses at the end of this chapter’s discussion speak for my hope not so much to offer blossoms to my closest colleague as to hold up a glancing mirror to some of Henry Maguire’s concerns, while scattering, with the roses, hints of further directions for the pursuit of the eloquently staged dialogues between image and pattern encompassing hard and soft, the fixed and the transient, in sacred and secular Byzantine art.

Notes 1 E. D. Maguire and H. Maguire, Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Cul­ ture (Princeton, 2007); E. D. Maguire, H. Maguire and M. Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House (Urbana, 1989); H. Maguire, Earth and Ocean: the Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art (University Park, 1987), H. Maguire, Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature (New York, 2012). On the relationship between official art and ‘the material language of daily life’,

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2

3 4 5 6

7

8

see R. W. Preucel and S. A. Morowski, eds., Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism (Chichester and Malden, 2010), 29–31. See also M. Hatzaki, ‘The good, the bad and the ugly’, in L. James, ed., A Companion to Byzantium (Chichester and Malden, 2010), 93; M. Hatzaki, Beauty and the Male Body in Byzantium: Percep­ tions and Representations in Art and Text (New York, 2009); S. A. Harvey and M. Mullett, eds., Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls: Sense Perceptions in Byzantium (Washington, DC, 2017). For ‘magic signs’ ornamenting medieval Byzantine tableware, see H. Maguire ‘Magic in Byzantine pottery: the other within’, in Byzantine Identity and the Other in Geograph­ ical and Ethnic Imagination. Papers from the Fourth International Sevgi Gönül Byzan­ tine Studies Symposium, Istanbul, 23–25 June, 2016 (Istanbul, forthcoming). For roses illustrated in a narrative scene, see Aphrodite and Adonis in the Hippolytus Hall of Madaba’s House of Phaedra, M. Piccirillo, The Mosaics of Jordan (Aman, 1993), 66, fig. 4.5 or H. Evans and B. Ratliff, eds., Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th– 9th Century (New York, 2012), 99, fig. 4; for roses inherited in popular culture, see K. Dunbabin, ‘Mythology and theatre in the mosaics of the Graeco-Roman East’, in S. Birke, T. M. Kristensen and B. Poulsen, eds., Using Images in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2014), 237. For the flowers scattered and garlanded in Byzantine imperial adventus rituals, see A. Cameron, ed. and trans., Flavius Cresconius Corippus. In laudem Justini Augusti minoris, Libri IV (London, 1976), 196, 67, 77, 88, and in the note for 88, the use of flowers and candles. Wool and linen, with the image in tapestry weave, attributed to the fifth century, Metropolitan Museum of Art 90.5.920, Gift of George F. Baker, 1890. The rounded rose basket features in the Aphrodite and Adonis scene in Madaba cited in note 2. For the role of hard architectural sculpture in soft textile design see E. Kitzinger, ‘The horse and lion tapestry in Dumbarton Oaks: a study in Coptic and Sassanian textile design’, DOP 3 (1946), especially figs. 21 and 50. Ibid., 17–9; R. Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien Beiträge zu einer Geschichte des spätanti­ ken Kapitells im Osten vom vierten bis ins siebente Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1936), 161–5 and 227–52. Cited in H. Maguire, ‘Personal adornment: glory, vainglory and insecurity’, in A. Lazaridou, ed., Transition to Christianity: Art of Late Antiquity 3rd–7th century AD (New York and Athens, 2012), 43–4. For Claudian’s influence in sixthcentury Constantinople, see M. Whitby, ‘Paul the Silentiary and Claudian’, CQ 35 (1985), 507–16. See Corippus in note 2 and the textiles in note 17. For revisionist cultural approaches to the sensory alternatives Yeats sees in Byzantium, see R. Nelson, ed., Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (Cambridge and New York, 2000); B. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park, 2010); R. Betancourt, ‘Why sight is not touch: recon­ sidering extramission in Byzantium’, DOP 70 (2016), 1–23. For ostensibly ornamen­ tal images as signs freighted with spiritual meaning in Western medieval art, see P. Reuterswärd, The Forgotten Symbols of God (Stockholm, 1986), 96. H. Maguire discussed the relationships between shining materials in an unpublished lec­ ture, ‘Outshining the stars: silks, jewels, and mosaics in late Antiquity’, dedicated to the memory of Kathleen Shelton and given at the Art Institute of Chicago in honour of the 2013 loan exhibition Late Antique and Early Byzantine Treasures from the British Museum. For the beneficent associations of concentric circles and their coded reference to shining objects see Maguire, Maguire and Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers, 5–7. The role of curtains and other textiles in the early Byzantine visual environment has been discussed by E. D. Maguire, ‘Woven architecture and the early Byzantine sense of human space’, in BSCAbstr 40 (2014), 40–1; E. D. Maguire, ‘Design exchanges between hard and soft’, in BSCAbstr 41 (2015), 30; E. D. Maguire, ‘Through woven portals, textiles open to

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9

10

11 12 13

14

15 16

17

183

design’ (lecture, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC, March, 2015); E. D. Maguire, ‘Cur­ tains at the threshold: how they hung and how they performed’, in G. Bühl and E. D. Williams, eds., www.doaks.org/resources/textiles/maguire (forthcoming). For parallel studies on middle and late Byzantine curtains see M. Parani, ‘Mediating presence: curtains in late Byzantine imperial ceremonial and portraiture’, BMGS 42.1 (2018), 1–25; M. Parani, ‘Late Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic textiles’, in Bühl and Williams eds., www.doaks.org/resources/textiles/parani (forthcoming). Gender is no barrier, see Hatzaki, Beauty and the Male Body, 8, 9, 13, 18, 34, 76, 95, 141; M. Ross, Catalog of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection (3 vols., Washington, DC, 1962–72), vol. 2, pl. XLVII. Comparanda for this earring include, for the framing of individual pierced pearls in openwork, a pair of gold earrings in Athens, Benaki Museum 1778–9 in A. Drandaki, D. Papanikola-Bakirtzis and A. Tourta, eds., Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections (Athens, 2013), 256; for the outer framing of a central motif inside a pointed oval, a pair of gold palmette-centred earrings in Crete, Heraklion Historical Museum of Crete, Gen., Cat. 315, Spec. Cat All 0116, formerly in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in ibid., 259; and in Athens, a gold pendant of similar drop shape in which an eagle supports a cross-medallion, in the Paul and Alexandra Cannellopoulos Museum in ibid., 262. D. Lauritzen, ‘Nonnus in Gaza: the expansion of modern poetry from Egypt to Pal­ estine in the early sixth century CE’, in K. Spanoudakis, ed., Nonnus of Panopolis in Context: Poetry and Cultural Milieu in Late Antiquity with a Section on Nonnus and the Modern World (Berlin, 2014), 427. N. Ševčenko, ‘Synaxaria and menologia’, in V. Tsamakda, ed., A Companion to Byzantine Illustrated Manuscripts (Leiden and Boston, 2017), 321. Maguire, Nectar and Illusion 84–6. For botanical as opposed to design-coded views of roses, see the early sixth-century Dioscorides illustration, De Materia Medica, Codex Vindobonensis Med. gr. 1, fol. 282r, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Vienna, Austria); and a growing rose seen from the back to display the green calyx holding the petals, on one of the canon table pages of the Rabbula Gospels, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Plut. I.56, fol. 12a. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has published the fragmentary wool and linen rose panel 90.5.808, in the Museum’s online collections catalogue. L. Mackie (Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic lands, 7th–21st century [Cleveland, 2015], 52–5), attributes the Marwan silk samit, found in an Akhmim cemetery, to manufacture in eighth-century Iran. The online collection’s entry for the fragment at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1314–1888, proposes North Africa, perhaps because of the incomplete embroidered inscription’s mention of Ifriqiya, although acknowledging the close resem­ blance to contemporary Byzantine silks; the entry lists all the known fragments of this textile. For a more up-to date discussion by V&A curator M. Rosser-Owen, and a report of dye sample analysis, see Evans and Ratliff, eds., Byzantium and Islam, 238–40. Large X-roses in rows as well as some of the smaller ones centred in a mesh of overlapping circles in vault mosaics in the Thessaloniki Rotunda, cited in note 51, seem to have been censored by Ottoman iconoclasts as Christian images. For the history of such juxtapositions, see Maguire, Earth and Ocean. F. Cimok, ed., Antioch Mosaics (Istanbul, 2000), 288–9, a colour illustration of fifthcentury rosebud-scatter carpeting a floor from the House of the Phoenix, now in the Louvre, as background for a phoenix resembling an earlier representation used on coins ‘as a late antique emblem of imperial power’; see A. Walker, The Emperor and the World: Exotic Elements and the Imaging of Middle Byzantine Imperial Power, Ninth to Thirteenth Centuries C.E. (Cambridge, 2012), 73–5, fig. 32. M.-H. Rutschowscaya (Coptic Fabrics [Paris, 1990], 52) illustrates one of the secu­ lar greeters, a lamp-bearer, Musée du Louvre E 10530, from a looped pile group of

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18

19 20

21

22 23 24

25

furnishing textiles in which rosebud-scatter fills the ground between ornate columns; cf. a drink-bearer with wine bowl and ladle and better-preserved rose-scatter, visible in the online museum collection catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 49.313. For rose-scatter pattern in other contexts, see Cimok, ed., Antioch Mosaics, 291; S. Fine, ‘Jews and Judaism between Byzantium and Islam’, in Evans and Ratliff, eds., Byzantium and Islam, 102; L. I. Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: His­ torical Contexts in Jewish Art (New Haven and London, 2012), 244–7, 258–9, 338–41, figs 90 and 117. BnF, Par. gr. 139, fol. 7v. For a close-up view of the roses, all of them buds still bracketed by their calices, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10515446x/f18.item. zoom (accessed May 25, 2017). See also, I. Kalavrezou, ‘The Vatican Book of Kings (*Vat. Gr. 333)’, in Tsamakda, ed., Companion, 227–35; G. Parpulov, ‘Psalters and books of hours (horologia)’, in ibid, 300–9. See note 2. For rose-petals and other flowers gathered for Aphrodite in a textual tradition still current in the fifth century, Nonnos, Dionysiaca, trans. W. H. D Rouse (3 vols., Cambridge, MA, 1984–85) vol. 2, 437. For a rosebud-scatter fragment from Antioch bathhouse floor in the sixth century, see the online collections entry for The Metropolitan Museum of Art 40.185, Rogers Fund, 1940 (accessed October 2017). For a sacred application, see the curtain in front of the Ark of the Covenant on the Beth Shean Synagogue (Scythopolis) floor mosaic in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, IAA1963-634/1-3, Fine, ‘Jews and Judaism’, 103, fig. 48. Looped-pile textiles with rose-scatter, n. 17, were designed to hang vertically, while approximating mosaic compositions in their pixilated technique; they include, with rose­ bud pairs given opposing directions, the British Museum’s EA20717. M.-H. Rutschows­ kaya (Coptic Fabrics, 69) presented in colour on the Museum’s online collections catalogue; and with a similar border, a pair of winged dancing boys, formerly in the Rose Choron collection and now shared between Harvard Art Museums, as 2001.254 and, as a recent acquisition, Dumbarton Oaks, cf. E. D. Maguire, ed., Weavings from Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic Egypt: the Rich Life and the Dance (Champaign, 1999), 41. Above or behind the roof of the Beth Shean Ark’s shrine cited in note 21, hangs as a visual boundary a curtain or curtain pair patterned with a lattice-like rose grid. A complete, joined pair of actual curtains, British Museum EA 29771, represents the popular lozenge-grid structure defined by lines of rose petals. The alternating fillers are full X-roses, birds or footed rose or fruit bowls, see C. Fluck, G. Helmecke and E. R. O’Connell, eds., Egypt: Faith After the Pharaohs (London, 2015), 106–7, fig. 114. A. Stillé, Therapeutics and materia medica (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1874), vol. 1, 224; G. Tobyn, A. Denham and M. Whitelegg, The Western Herbal Tradition: 2000 Years of Medicinal Plant Knowledge (London, 2016), 4–5, 258–9, 284. G. M. A. Richter, Catalog of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collec­ tion (Cambridge, MA, 1956), pl. 27; E. D. Maguire and H. Maguire, ‘The Pleasures of Life’, in Drandaki, Papanikola-Bakirtzis and Tourta, eds., Heaven and Earth, 203, fig. 78. Levine, Visual Judaism, 101; C. H. Kraeling, The Synagogue (New Haven, 1956), plate XII, 2; J. Chi and S. Heath, eds., Edge of Empires: Pagans, Jews, and Chris­ tians at Roman Dura-Europos (Princeton, 2011), 49, fig. 2–16. For the Sinai wall chapel paintings, see G. Forsyth and K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Cather­ ine at Mount Sinai: The Church and Fortress of Justinian (Ann Arbor, 1973), pls. CXXIV–CXXV, CXCVI, CXVII A–B. For the relief panel in the Petrie Museum, University College, London, UC40770, see the Museum’s online catalogue or W. M. Flinders Petrie, Objects of Daily Use (London, 1927), 45, pl. XXXIX.108. For the evil eye, see Levine, Visual Judaism, 101, fig. 48; Maguire, Maguire and Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers, 4–5; M. W. Dickie, ‘The Fathers of the Church and the evil eye’, in H. Maguire, ed., Byzantine Magic (Washington, DC, 1995), 9–34.

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26 A photograph of the 1901 reconstruction by Gayet, possibly more imaginative than reli­ able, shows ‘Thaïs’ (Thaïas) in her reconstructed Antinoe burial at the musee Guimet wearing a necklace with such a pendant, but with the central hole larger than those in the 4 lobes, Antinoé à la vie, à la mode: vissions d’élégance dans les solitudes. Florence Calament, Maximilien Durand, eds., (Lyon, 2013), fig. 9, p. 339. G. Brunton, Qau and Badari (3 vols., London, 1927–30), vol. 3, 35, pl. XLV, 12. Only one of them, from Qau cemetery 900, appears as UC26371 in the Museum’s online catalogue. In their fashion­ ing and scale they are not unlike certain stone cross pendants with late Byzantine arch­ aeological provenance in Thessaloniki. See D. Papanikola-Bakirtzis, ed., Byzantine Hours: Works and Days in Byzantium (Athens, 2002), 501, of blackish steatite, in fourpetal floral form, pierced through the centre; ibid., 505, of pale green steatite, carved on only one face with an engraved concentric circle medallion on each arm. Similar roses with pierced petals between diagonal calyces are grouped together to clothe a sandstone capital in Berlin, Staatliche Museen 4472, said to come from Aswan; these rosettes occupy four square panels in a larger square, replacing the upright surface of a Corinthian acanthus leaf. See M. von Falk, ed., Ägypten Schätze aus dem Wüstensand: Kunst und Kultur der Christen am Nil (Wiesbaden, 1996), 93. 27 R. Pfister and L. Bellinger, The Textiles (New Haven, 1945), cat. 140, frontispiece and pl. XXI. 28 For the concentric circles, see note 8. When this hardened linear device is applied to zones of floral colouring, it intensifies the message of glowing brightness. See fig. 10.1; for the observation of colour-zoning, Kitzinger, ‘Horse and lion’, 31–2. 29 Rose garlands softened the transition from life to death in Roman Egypt, see M. Heilmeyer, ‘Flower garlands for the dead’, in Fluck, Helmecke and O’Connell, eds., Egypt: Faith, 242–3, figs. 299, 302. Venantius Fortunatus, Poems, trans. and ed. M. Roberts (Cambridge MA, 2017), 76–7. 30 See note 13. 31 J. W. Stephenson, ‘Veiling the late roman house’, Textile History 45 (2014), fig. 20 and note 75. 32 Canon Table 8, fol. 10r, Evans and Ratliff, eds., Byzantium and Islam, 67–8, fig. 21. For the appropriation of garden-based designs to heavenly and courtly contexts, see note 41. 33 Von Falk, ed., Ägypten Schätze, 318–21, for these related fragments: Berlin Staatliche Museen 2937a, b, c; E. Kitzinger, “The Horse and Lion Tapestry at Dumbarton Oaks: A Study in Coptic and Sassanian Design,” DOP 3 (1946), fig. 29; see also https://www. doaks.org/resources/textiles/catalogue/BZ.1939.13. This group collectively presents the rose-thicket’s quasi-naturalism as opposed to the formalized patterning above the figures of garland or basket bearers, see von Falk, ed., Ägypten Schätze, 318–19. 34 BZ.34.14 in Rutschowskaya, Coptic Fabrics, 64–5. BZ.1937.14 in the Dumbarton Oaks online textile catalogue; G. Bühl, S. B. Krody, and E. D. Williams, Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt (Washington, DC, 2019), 43-43, no. 10. 35 See note 21. For the garden aspect of the grid see, on a large tapestry hanging in the Textile Museum in Washington, TM 37.14, a screening trellis pattern rising under a pediment between columns, and filled with birds and grapes instead of roses, in lozenges strung on a rectilinear framework of garlands, J. Trilling (The Roman Heri­ tage: Textiles from Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean 300 to 600 A.D. [Washing­ ton, DC, 1982], 31 and pl. 2) considers the possibility that this grape-arbour pattern represents a curtained entrance; yet it continues horizontally below. 36 E. S. Bolman, ‘Monastic wall paintings’, in Fluck, Helmecke and O’Connell, eds., Egypt: Faith, 122–3, fig. 133. In the Hagia Sophia drawings by Cornelius Loos some discrepancies of detail remain unexplained; see C. Mango, Hagia Sophia: A Vision for Empires (Istanbul, 1997), 121, 124; N. Teteriatnikov, Justinianic Mosaics and Their Aftermath (Washington, DC, 2017), 36, 110–2, figs. 28, 29, 125, 126. See also

186 Eunice Dauterman Maguire

37

38 39 40

41 42

43 44 45

46 47

48

P. Niewöhner and N. Teteriatnikov, ‘The south vestibule of Hagia Sophia at Istanbul: the ornamental mosaics and the private door of the Patriarchate’, DOP 68 (2014), fig. 42; M. C. Ross, S. A. Boyd and S. R. Zwirn, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Medi­ aeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. Vol. 2. Jewelry, Enamels, and the Art of the Migration Period (Washington, DC, 2005), 166–70, pl. 115–6, colour pl. J. Kitzinger, ‘The horse and lion’, 44–5, pl. 47, and see note 42, for context; H. Maguire, ‘How did early Byzantine ornament work?’, in I. Garipzanov, C. Goodson and H. Maguire, eds., Graphic Signs of Identity, Faith, and Power in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2017), 237–8, fig. 7.17. As illustrated by one of the many roses in the Rabbula Gospels; see note 13. The conventional X-shaped or cruciform reference to the calyx in schematized, open four-petal roses coexists with profile views of the rose or rosebud socketed into the calyx at the top of a stem, as in fig. 10.3. For the mosaic grids and ‘all-over repeat patterns’ as chronologically significant acknowledgement of the floor’s two-dimensional surface, see E. Kitzinger, ‘Stylistic development in pavement mosaics in the Greek East from the age of Constantine to the age of Justinian’, in La Mosaïque Gréco-Romaine: Actes du Colloque International à Paris. 29 Août–3 Septembre 1963 (Paris, 1965), 341–52, with two Antioch examples of compartments formed of stemless buds or petals, 347–8: a rose-centred grid from the House of the Buffet Supper, fig. 10.12, closely resembling the border pattern of the Mosaic of Ananeosis in his fig. 6; and the Baltimore Striding Lion, fig. 10.13, offering more spatial ambiguity in its varied fillers and the lion’s central interruption. E. Maguire and H. Maguire, ‘The forgotten symbols of God: screening patterns from early Christian and Byzantine worlds’, in Constructing Sacred Space: A Celebration of Robert Ousterhout (forthcoming). See for example Bolman, ‘Monastic wall paintings’, 124, fig. 136. For a mosaic-like grid framework of lined-up petals and floral corner units, adapted to a large wool and linen medallion, Berlin Staatliche Museen 9084, see von Falk, ed., Ägypten Schätze, 335. Fluck, Helmecke and O’Connell, eds., Egypt: Faith, 106, fig. 114, and note 34. A. Stauffer, Textiles of Late Antiquity (New York, 1995), 22, 47. Similar winged busts in linked medallions, based on adaptable prototypes, are per­ haps angels in a monastic dining context, painted on a wall just above dado level in Saqqara refectory, No. 727, J. E. Quibell, Excavations at Saqqara (Cairo, 1908) plate XI, 4. See also the allegorical busts on the linked medallion of golden marriage belts, as in Dumbarton Oaks BZ.1937.33, G. Bühl, ed., Dumbarton Oaks: The Col­ lections (Washington, DC, 2008), 32, pl. p. 33, and online at http://museum.doaks. org/Obj27445?sid=835387&x=1365953&sort=76 (accessed February 21 2020). L. R. Brody and G. Hoffman, eds., Roman in the Provinces: Art on the Periphery of Empire (Chestnut Hill, 2014), 226, fig. 15.6. See W. F. Jashemski, Gardens of Pompeii: Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (2 vols., New Rochelle, 1979–93), vol. 2, 357, fig. 422; A. Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving: AD 400 to AD 1200 (Vienna, 1997), pls. 29A and 29B; Mackie, Symbols of Power, 49. For the Hagia Sophia pier-passage mosaics, the popularity of the pattern type in Pal­ estine and Syria, and the evident relation to textiles, see Teteriatnikov, Justinianic Mosaics, 82–4, 191–2, 212–3, figs. 85, 87, 222. Coffered patterns are reflected in repetitive and light/dark reversible wool textiles of compound weave, see Maguire, Weavings, A23; Rutschowscaya, Coptic Fabrics, 84–5. Interlaced compartments in floor mosaics can also enclose individual quartered roses, as in the Kourion basilica in several locations in A. H. S. Megaw, Kourion: Excavations in the Episcopal Pre­ cinct (Washington, DC, 2007), pl. 1.5 h, 1.9 e, 1.19 b and c. Although without the explicit expression of happiness, a closely similar pavement pattern to that of the

Firm flowers in the artifice of transience

49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57 58 59

187

Gerasa choir-singers broadens the context of use, by surrounding a schematic Torah ark and an inscribed medallion displaying the ceremonial equipment of the syna­ gogue in Jericho perhaps two centuries later. S. Fine, ‘Jews and Judaism’, 104 and fig. 51; cf. the similarly patterned curtain behind the ark at Beth Shean, fig. 48. Niewöhner and Teteriatnikov, ‘The south vestibule’, 125, and figs. 30, 32. Teteriatnikov, Justinianic Mosaics, 161, and figs. 28, 29, 126. Ibid., fig. 96 for detail; cf. figs. 93–5, 99, 104–6; in fig. 200 they are staggered along an arch soffit. See notes 13 and 49; Ch. Bakirtzis, E. Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou and Ch. Mavropou­ lou-Tsioumi, Mosaics of Thessaloniki (Athens, 2012), 55–7, figs. 13, 15, 16; and 120, fig. 76. Stauffer, Textiles, 10, 14, 24, 48; W. B. Denny, How to Read Islamic Carpets (New York, 2014), 56, fig. 42. For the modification of pre-established designs for reli­ gious reasons, see E. D. Maguire, ‘Muslims, Christians, and iconoclasm: a case study of images and erasure on lamps in the Johns Hopkins University archaeological collection’, in C. P. Hourihane, ed., Byzantine Art: Recent Studies (Princeton, 2009), 121–52. A. Denker, G. Yağcı and A. Başak Akay, ‘The Great Palace excavation’, in Gün ışı­ ğında İstanbul’un 8000 yılı: Marmaray, metro, Sultanahmet kazıları (Istanbul, 2007), 139–40, fig. 15. M. Panayotidi, ‘Iconoclasm’, in Drandaki, Papanikola-Bakirtzis and Tourta, et al., eds., Heaven and Earth, 98–101. Maguire, Maguire and Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers, 5, 8, 92 ct. 33. 98 cat. 34, 104 cat. 40, and fig. 7, for the use of potent signs and prayers on seals. Teteriatnikov, Justinianic Mosaics, 72–4, figs. 74–6; see C. Mango and E. Hawkins, ‘The apse mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul: report on work carried out in 1964’, DOP 19 (1965), 113–51; Mango, Hagia Sophia, 34–9. Maguire, Nectar and Illusion, fig. 3.2. DO ms 5, fol. 14r. For the dating of the ms, see N. Kavrus-Hoffmann, ‘A newlyacquired Gospel manuscript at Dumbarton Oaks (DO MS 5): codicological and paleographic description and analysis’, DOP 70 (2016), 293–324; for roses blooming on their stems see fol. 2v, table 4 and fol. 3r, fig. 9, for the contrast between such roses contrast to the more sculptural blue rose at the base of the lunette. In 975, in a Coptic manuscript of Theophilus of Alexandria’s Oration on Mary Theotokos (British Library 6780, fol. 4), a cruciform rosette of four circled dots around a dotted centre, isolated in the upper margin, heads the text, see Fluck, Helmecke and O’Connell, eds., Egypt: Faith, 84, fig. 85.

11 Art and efficacy in an icon of St George* Lisa Mahoney

St George is everywhere within the material culture of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, on coins, seals, maps, columns, walls and icons, outfitted as a soldier and usually mounted.1 This ubiquity may seem unremarkable given our contemporary sense of George’s far-reaching and long-standing significance. Until around the twelfth century, however, it was exclusively eastern Christendom that embraced him with particular fervour, and eastern Christendom that celebrated him as a soldier saint and not simply as an early fourth-century martyr.2 Therefore, the circumstances that led to St George’s appearance everywhere within the material culture of the Latin Kingdom – in other words, the intensification of interest in St George among Latin-rite Christians as they founded and then maintained the Kingdom of Jerusalem – demands its own unique and context-specific explanation. I am not the first to notice St George’s popularity among this particular population in this area of the world, nor the first to attempt to understand it. George is, after all, a holy figure with much to recommend him, as both an officer in the Roman army who was martyred for his faith and a legendary fighter of evil. In the art historical scholarship of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, St George has figured prominently in discussions of Frankish style and iconography, which connect portable objects with this area and complicate scenarios of art’s patronage and manufacture.3 Within such scholarship, explanations for the interest in St George have highlighted contact with this saint via the Byzantine army, which he had long protected, and have emphasized the correspondence between his vocation, strength of faith and talent for combating evil and the aspirations of a crusading population.4 This connection finds support in accounts of St George’s posthumous involvement in critical battles, most famously those at Antioch and Jerusalem, which were recounted by twelfth-century historians of the crusades such as the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum and Raymond of Aguilers.5 In what follows I suggest that a consideration of the ways

* I would like to thank the editors of this volume, whose admiration for Professor Maguire shows not only in their planning of this Festschrift, but also in their concern for its excellence. I would also like to thank Professor Maguire for teaching me to look hard and to situate that looking within the broadest possible world of visual and textual culture.

Art and efficacy in an icon of St George 189 and means by which St George is given physical form in the Latin East offers an additional network of references for understanding him, one that takes us beyond the battlefield, and, thereby, offers an expanded account of his appeal. As such, it is a proposal inspired by Henry Maguire’s work on representations of the holy and, more specifically, on the role of ‘formal values’ in communicating a figure’s perceived strengths and ensuring its efficacy.6

St George and the pillion rider The focus of this re-evaluation is an icon of St George and the boy of Mytilene that is in the British Museum in London today (Figure 11.1). This icon has two things that recommend it particularly for study. It reveals a St George who saves the devout by means of a strikingly combat-free intervention, which in turn suggests an appeal that goes deeper than his military associations. Further, it exhibits a depth of acquaintance with local culture, which in turn suggests an inherent and consequential attachment to the eastern Mediterranean. Although always in a soldier’s dress, George is depicted in one of four ways within the extant material culture of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. He stands frontally; he sits on a walking or galloping horse; he sits on a walking horse and kills a snake-like creature; he sits on a walking horse with a pillion rider. All of these iconographical types belong to devotional and artistic traditions of the eastern Mediterranean, where George was by nature and equipment – with his defensive armour and offensive weaponry, whether spear, sword or bow and arrow – regarded as a particularly hard-working and enthusiastic combatant of evil.7 In addition to equipment specifics, this regard is conveyed visually by the activities in which he engages and the company he keeps, typically other soldier saints. Of these types, that which shows him mounted and with a pillion rider is the least numerous and the most restricted in geographical coverage, appearing during the twelfth and thirteen centuries in territories identified today as Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus and Cappadocia.8 Within this area, the earliest extant examples date to the late twelfth century and are found in Syria and Cyprus. This is not the place to deal in any sophisticated way with the transmission of imagery in the medieval Mediterranean. What matters here is simply that George with the pillion rider is found in discrete areas of the eastern Mediterranean by the late twelfth century. The subject of George and the pillion rider evokes a miracle passed down in three different versions. The texts describing these miracles have been treated thoroughly elsewhere, allowing us to identify the narrative that they all share.9 This narrative involves a boy who lives near a body of water in the East (either in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean or in Paphlagonia on the southern coast of the Black Sea in Anatolia), a youth of strong Christian faith, who has been abducted by an outside aggressor (either an ‘Agarene’ or a Bulgarian) and made to serve in some capacity in that aggressor’s court (as a cupbearer, a servant in the kitchen or a water bearer) until his rescue by St George, which is brought about by prayer (either his or his parents’). The power to liberate that is emphasized in this

Figure 11.1 London, British Museum, icon. St George and the boy of Mytilene. [Source: The Trustees of the British Museum]

Art and efficacy in an icon of St George 191 miracle no matter its particulars has lead scholars to associate its appearance in art in a given region with real oppression or at least dominance, and oppression or dominance by the ‘Muslim infidels’ especially.10 This geographically specific deliverer from ‘infidels’ shows up in Frankish contexts in the thirteenth century. It appeared within a no longer extant ‘baptismal’ chapel just outside Crac des Chevaliers dated around 1202 and appears still upon two icons dated around 1250 (see Figure 11.1).11 The example from Crac des Chevaliers is fragmentary today, containing only horse limbs and fish-infested waters. The icons, however, give us the full picture, at least in broad iconographic strokes. On these panels St George is armed, armoured and astride his white steed; a boy is perched just behind George’s saddle and holds aloft a wine goblet, indicating his rescue at the very moment he was serving his captor.12 The best thinking, indeed, is that all three of these examples contained representations of St George rescuing the boy of Mytilene. Of the available narratives, this is the one wherein a youth of Christian faith is abducted by the ‘Agarinoi’ and made to serve in the court of the Emir of Crete until, in response to the prayers of his mother (made at the local church of St George), he is rescued by the saint.13 The Frankish interest in the performer of this miracle was certainly produced by the same fears or hopes that lead to an interest in him elsewhere both earlier and later. Indeed, the thirteenth-century Latin Kingdom was plagued by the threat of ‘infidel’ domination, not only by the Ayyubids, but also the Mongols, the Khwarazmians and the Mamluks. In the light of these circumstances, picturing a holy figure capable of just the right kind of miraculous intervention in an analogous landscape – a rocky coast – must have been some kind of solace.14 The intimate, necessary and even exclusive relationship between this St George iconographic type and the exigencies of the thirteenth-century Levantine context is suggested by the fact that it never seems to have made its way West, even as the others did.15 The faithful warrior, the faithful mounted warrior and the faithful mounted warrior killing the dragon appealed readily to a burgeoning chivalric ideology, to judge from their quick consumption and rapid distribution.16 But, despite the military garb and equipment, despite reference to a miracle based on rewarded faith and eclipsed evil, all of which should have likewise appealed to this ideology, the mounted warrior with a pillion rider found no non-eastern home. The details of character and context that seem to so sufficiently account for the appeal of George-as-deliverer among a Frankish population appear less wholly determining when features of his portrayal are brought into consideration. Of the four iconographic types encountered within Frankish contexts, three dramatically foreground his martial aspect – he stands or rides dressed as a soldier and with raised sword and he rides dressed as a soldier striking a dragon with a lance.17 In the case of St George with the boy from Mytilene, however, he is far less martial. He remains dressed as a soldier, of course, so that he might be identified, but the depicted miracle involves no combat, no confrontation. What we see in the icon is a St George with his weapons at rest – his shield on his back, his lance held lightly in a right arm

192 Lisa Mahoney that moves only to embrace the boy – with a boy (effectively) serving him wine within a familiar eastern Mediterranean landscape. Therefore, although not utterly overriding the martial aspect of St George, this particular miracle and these particular pictorial components point to the possibility that that military aspect might not have been what was exclusively valued about St George within the Latin states. Something similar is suggested in donor portrait pairings within Frankish visual culture. According to the evidence at hand, at least, knights themselves (including actual crusaders) were more committed to Mary than they were to St George, or to any of the soldier saints like him. A knight appears as a donor, for example, on a twelfth-century column in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, rather than on a nearby St George column (Figure 11.3), where he entreats the Virgin to intervene with Christ on his behalf, as does the knight (Othon de Grandson) on a thirteenth-century antependium today in the Bern Historical Museum.18 In point of fact, it is non-knights who seem specially committed to soldier saints – a Frankish woman in the case of St Sergios and a man named George Parisis in the case of St George himself, not to mention the Frankish non-combatants who show up in Syrian Orthodox contexts, as at the foot of St George in the thirteenth-century wall paintings of the Church of Mar Tadros in Bahdeidat.19 The preceding analysis has assumed that the London icon was a product of the Latin states. Because portable and because made in a context of moving and mingling people and traditions, however, icons are exceedingly difficult objects to localize. And yet, at this point in our understanding of artistic production in the eastern Mediterranean, there can be little doubt that the London icon was made within a Frankish context. The style of its twisting figures and the silvered gesso surface of its background and frame have been connected with Acre via a body of later thirteenth-century works that are themselves tied to a missal now in Perugia (Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 6).20 The modern-day distribution of objects in this group has led to production scenarios involving an itinerant artist, and specific places of creation in Lydda (modern Lod), Sinai and Cyprus (in addition to Acre).21 All of these sites lay at some point within the boundaries of the Latin states or, when not, within easy reach of its residents. Indicators of the artist’s cultural training and of the consumer’s religious persuasion offer additional support for a Frankish context of manufacture. The first of these derives from the scientific analysis of the London icon, which has brought to light unconventional panel treatment and painting practices. The engaged frame, for example, has been artificially constructed by layering parchment around the panel’s perimeter and the main field, for another, consists of both oil and tempera paint. Although the former indicates simply that the artist is creatively working outside of long-established eastern Christian artistic norms, the latter indicates that the artist is working according to specifically ‘western’ or Frankish ones, as Robin Cormack has argued.22 The second of these indicators derives from the iconographic analysis of the larger group to which the London icon belongs. Indeed, certain specimens contain iconography

Art and efficacy in an icon of St George 193 or even whole scenes unacceptable to an eastern Christian viewer, such as the Coronation of the Virgin that appears on the upper left wing of the so-called Acre Triptych.23 Elements of overall design and doctrine thus suggest that a non-eastern-Christian-trained artist had in mind a Latin-rite Christian when making the London icon. A consideration of subject matter makes more specific assignations of culture possible; its absence in the West leaves a Frankish Latinrite Christian market the most likely of those available. Nevertheless, the London icon reveals a remarkable depth of acquaintance with eastern Christian religious and artistic traditions. It does this by picturing the above-discussed eastern Christian miracle of a devout youth who has been abducted from Mytilene by the ‘Agarinoi’ and forced to serve in the court of the Emir of Crete until his rescue by St George. It does this by employing eastern Christian iconographic conventions – of St George in military garb, armed with shield and lance and seated on a white mount together with the boy of Mytilene, who raises a wine goblet to the now-absent Emir, of a band of water filled with fish and of situating this miracle within a landscape of rocky grass-tufted outcroppings, which not only reproduces the surrounding landscape, as mentioned above, but also reproduces in general terms a landscape often found in eastern Christian art. It does this by painting according to an eastern Christian technique, building up the colour of flesh from a base of green paint. And it does this by using the wooden panel format. These are commonly cited equivalences between the London icon and the eastern Christian religious and artistic traditions. But there is more. For it also reveals a remarkable depth of acquaintance with eastern Christian religious and artistic traditions by including a red patriarchal cross on the back of the panel. The cross is abraded today, but the basic cross form can be identified along with the remains of the customary Greek abbreviation for ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God.’24 This composite of deeply informed cultural references might provoke a reconsideration of the icon’s production context despite its Frankish connections, were it not for the precedent of comparable borrowings.25 Instead, then, the composite suggests intentional and evocative cultural references, and explicitly regional cultural references at that.

St George in text Text has long offered essential support for understanding representations of St George within the Latin states.26 On this stage, too, he is a star. His appearances are sufficiently well rehearsed not to repeat them in detail here; it is enough to recall that chroniclers of the First Crusade, for example, marvel at his participation in one of the earliest battles for territory in the East – the fight for Antioch on 28 June 1098.27 On this date, St George, together with some combination of SS Theodore, Demetrios and Merkourios (depending on the teller), rode alongside crusaders to defeat the great Turkish leader Kerbogha.28 And in reporting the most important battle of the First Crusade, the siege of Jerusalem, the chroniclers testify that a knight, who would later be identified as

194 Lisa Mahoney St George, stood atop the Mount of Olives and signalled for the demoralized crusaders to advance; the crusaders obeyed and the city was conquered on 15 July 1099.29 It is exceedingly attractive to imagine that this George – the George who wrested the Holy Land from the infidels as if a proto-crusader or, perhaps better, as if a patron saint of crusaders – is the only George that appears in Frankish material culture.30 Incidents such as these, however, play an important double role within the Latin Kingdom. They belong not only to a literary subset of conquest narratives, which focus on the crusader battles that lead to land acquisition in the eastern Mediterranean, but also to a larger literary set of foundation myths, which situate contemporary actions and actors in relation to previous and potent autochthonous actions and actors. When St George and his co-warriors joined crusaders in battle, they guaranteed success, but perhaps even more importantly they demonstrated God’s will.31 This providential note is a recurring theme in texts related to the Latin Kingdom. A particularly remarkable example is the discovery of a fragment of the True Cross, which happens just as its new rulers are being named.32 In his Historia Hierosolymitana (begun c. 1101), Fulcher of Chartres describes this event, following Helena’s fourth-century discovery of the True Cross as if a template and thus including not only a find-spot near Calvary but also a circumstance of miraculous revelation.33 As it did the first time around under Helena and her son, the emperor Constantine (r. 306–37), the discovery physically marks the conversion of Jerusalem into a Christian city. Moreover, because the two discoveries are described in analogous terms, that of the late eleventh century appears similarly fated and favoured.34 We discern quite clearly from these loaded stories that the establishment of this new kingdom required more than the straightforward taking of land and the subjugation of its population. St George appears in the mountains of Antioch and the hills of Jerusalem and the most important relic of the Passion is disclosed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.35 These are the ingredients of an engineered beginning that bound the Franks to this place directly. Indeed, within medieval culture, which is everywhere and always marked by typological gymnastics, materialistic and positional components distinguish the analogies of the Latin Kingdom.36 In insisting here on the peculiar significance of place within the Latin Kingdom and even within conceptions of George’s relationship to the East, I am making a somewhat nuanced point, for related observations have been made in previous studies.37 And yet, it is a very exact articulation of these dynamics that is necessary for understanding the London icon in particular and George in general. By 1099 crusading armies had captured the city of Lydda, the site of St George’s martyrdom and tomb, which is striking confirmation of the swiftness with which this eastern saint became known to the Franks and, more important, identified with this land.38 The George uncovered by reference to this larger rhetorical project is precisely the figure presented by William of Tyre in his History of Deeds Beyond the Sea; he writes of St George one time only, ‘At Lydda is still shown the glorious tomb of the illustrious martyr

Art and efficacy in an icon of St George 195 George, whose mortal remains are believed to repose therein in the Lord.’39 In other words, in William’s history of the Latin Kingdom, George figures not in the battles that led to its boundaries but rather in the contents of the land that lay within them.

Making St George work The London St George is the pictorial equivalent of this textual enterprise. Because most easily and clearly expressed in language, it is admittedly difficult to imagine this enterprise crossing media and in so doing crossing creators and consumers. In his study of the saint’s image, however, Maguire, has observed similar rhetorical motivations in the literature and art of Byzantium, drawing illuminating correspondences from a significant body of cultural material.40 In the Latin states, survivals are not as abundant and traditions not as long-lived. Nevertheless, the basic observation seems to hold true. Indeed, the broader agenda articulated in text appears to best account for the appeal of George and the boy of Mytilene in the Latin Kingdom. It explains the appeal of a soldier saint whose ‘professional’ abilities are downplayed as such in the selection of miracle and iconography. Moreover, it – the broader agenda that was born of the context-specific exigencies of the Latin Kingdom – explains the appeal of this George type in the Frankish Levant and its lack of appeal among compatriots and co-religionists in the West. Attending to the formal values of the London icon provides additional support for this hypothesis, namely that St George was valued as a figure of tested and rewarded spiritual mettle that was bound to the Levant. In addition, it clarifies the means by which such a figure in turn connected its viewer to this place. We have already observed in various ways that George was immediately and continually identified with the eastern Mediterranean. The Franks initially encountered George following the conquest of Lydda in 1099, which by around 1150 was also the site of a Latin-rite church dedicated to both events.41 They encountered George and the boy of Mytilene later lining the interiors of churches in present-day Syria and Lebanon, and maybe even Cyprus – lands travelled through by Franks – with paintings and painting fragments that are but a suggestion of what was once there. According to Dodd, ‘The riding cavalier is ubiquitous … [T]here must once have been at least one mounted horseman in every one of the churches … . Among the riding saints … St George was the favourite.’42 In the twelfth-century Church of Mar Saba (Eddé al-Batrun), for example, remains of a holy cavalry appear on the church’s right flank and George and the boy of Mytilene appear on the left and in the later Church of Mar Tadros (Bahdeidat), remains of St George and the boy of Mytilene and the warrior St Theodore precede and, again, flank the apse.43 Thus, George was not simply encountered in the eastern Mediterranean, he was encountered precisely within and in the proximate regions of the Latin Kingdom; moreover, not only were a proliferation of mounted St Georges here encountered, but also a proliferation of St Georges rescuing the boy of Mytilene.

196 Lisa Mahoney We have also already observed that the London icon makes manifest George’s presence in the region, situating him and his miracle within a rocky coast that recalls the barren contours of a specifically eastern Mediterranean landscape. The way in which St George is depicted in general seems to double this effort. As a well-modelled figure he appears to project from the central field, the silver paint of which flattens his backdrop despite the raised gesso work. The fact that the tail of his mount is painted beyond the central field, on the icon’s frame, exaggerates this three-dimensional effect. Even the representation of a scene, with actors engaged in actions, rather than of a single static figure, seems part of the same animating project.44 Thus the London St George is the perfect visual counterpart to textual George, highlighting as it does positional and materialistic features. This compelling image of holy presence is augmented by the boy in the miracle, who no longer makes an offering to an emir but to George himself, the new context allowing him to model comportment before the special holy. The London icon’s George, then, would function not in a political register, as do the texts discussed in the previous section, but in a devotional register and would operate, accordingly, at the individual, rather than institutional, level. To understand this difference, we should more fully consider the material and formal characteristics that determine George’s appearance. The walls of churches in Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus provided sites for contact with St George, of course, supplying even actual exemplars for his Frankish instantiation. Here are many strikingly similar components – of iconography in, for example, (the military and mounted) saint-type and physical characteristics such as curly hair and beardlessness and of style in, for example, the stiffly arched red mantel that stands for speed or sudden appearance, not to mention the Greek of his identifying inscription. The well-known Freiburg Leaf (c. 1200; Augustinermuseum, Freiburg im Breisgau, G 23/IC), seemingly a page from the sketchbook of an itinerant artist, may be evidence for just such a transmission of forms in the Levant and, conveniently, includes a drawing of St George (Figure 11.2).45 It is the borrowing of the panel format itself, however, that is particularly revealing, for it perhaps best confirms what has been proposed here, that St George was perceived above all as appealingly and profitably local. This conclusion comes from underscoring the icon as an agent of communication, albeit one activated by the proper iconography and style. Primary sources indicate that the Frankish inhabitants of the Levant became acquainted with icons in eastern Christian contexts, where they were experienced as sites of miracles, as attested axes between the earthly and the heavenly realms, of consistent material and pictorial form. If one wanted to communicate with the holy of this place in this place, best do it with a painted panel. 46 London’s George and the boy of Mytilene observed eastern Mediterranean iconographic, stylistic, and, above all, format conventions because its owner wanted to communicate with St George according to existing and geographically circumscribed language requirements.

Figure 11.2 Freiburg im Breisgau, Augustinermuseum, G 23/IC, fol. 1c recto. St George and St Theodore. [Source: Augustinermuseum, Städtische Museen Freiberg/ Photo: Hans-Peter Vieser]

198 Lisa Mahoney Marking the connection between the icon format and the kind of communication that was possible in and proper to this place makes sense of the London St George as a whole. It affirms the reading of St George that has dominated the preceding paragraphs. Namely, that he figured not only a particularly resonant bellicose piety or a particularly desired predisposition towards protecting the fighting faithful, as suggested by his interventions at places like Antioch and Jerusalem, but also a particularly attractive holy denizen. He was, of course, martyred here and buried here, but he was also a fixture here in pigment and stone. This is the take away from the London icon, which underlines not martial prowess but a miracle of faith strictly bound to the Levant in its hagiographic and artistic tradition. That the medium, iconography and style were recognized as important and coordinating features proper to communicating with the holy in this place is further supported by the fact that St George regularly appears along these lines when depicted in devotional contexts; that is, in contexts of pious invocation. For example, on the twelfth-century columns in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, the presentation of St George in every way abides by icon painting conventions (Figure 11.3).

Figure 11.3 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity, column painting. St George.

[Source: Israel Antiquities Authority/ Photo: Jaroslav Folda Archive, History of Art and Architecture,

DePaul University]

Art and efficacy in an icon of St George 199 Although stylistic assessments are made difficult here by the current state of preservation, a frame is visible, suggesting a wooden panel rather than a marble cylinder, and his curly locks, lack of facial hair and standing frontal pose comply with eastern iconographic conventions.47

Conclusion The appearance of St George in Bethlehem is a good reminder of the ways in which the London George is an outlier within the corpus of Latin Kingdom Georges, where he does indeed appear most often in a militaristic mode, either as the standing soldier, as he does in Bethlehem, as the mounted soldier or as the mounted soldier spearing a foe (Figures 11.1 and 11.3). But the London icon, precisely as an outlier, nevertheless helps us better understand all of these Georges, insisting on the extra-militaristic remainder to which the story of the boy of Mytilene points and with which any interpretation of George must come to terms. In the end, any satisfying account of George in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem must incorporate all of his manifestations. This account claims that St George’s prominence across Frankish visual culture can be explained principally by the fact that he was identified with this place, and not simply because he was a figure with a vocation that enabled him to fight alongside this kingdom’s crusaders (even if the latter certainly increased Frankish enthusiasm for him). George’s place-specific profile resonates with a wide cast of acquired regional saints celebrated throughout the artworks and religious structures of the Latin states and is echoed in a body of literature aiming not at systematic cataloguing of the events surrounding the establishment of the Frankish empire – at least not first and foremost – but rather at binding a Frankish empire to the Levant by co-opting the region’s most potent moments and miracles. Still, it is the London icon that points to the truly complex conception of place that was in play in the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Frankish Levant. On the one hand, in its portrayal of George, the panel announces the desire for a powerful local alliance. On the other hand, in the artistic conventions that define it, the panel registers the extent to which considerations of material and even form (broadly conceived) were also locally specific and, ultimately, locally efficacious. Consequently, the London icon of St George highlights a devotional and artistic programme that was part of a larger agenda dedicated to rooting the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’s recently developed and still developing Christian community to the land of the Levant.

Notes 1 Additional ‘object’ types might include a statue in Safad (A. Cutler, ‘Everywhere and nowhere: the invisible Muslim and self-fashioning in the culture of Outremer’, in D. H. Weiss and L. Mahoney, eds., France and the Holy Land: Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades [Baltimore, 2004], 270 and 280 n.92), a miniature in the

200 Lisa Mahoney

2

3

4 5

6 7 8

9 10

11

thirteenth-century London Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César (British Library, Add. 15268, f. 16), and a graffito (?) in Jerusalem’s Abbey of the Virgin Mary (J. Seligman, ‘A wall painting, a crusader flood diversion facility and other archaeological gleanings from the Abbey of the Virgin Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, Jerusa­ lem’, in L. D. Chupcala, ed., Christ is Here [Milan, 2012], 210–1 and 213, fig. 39). For St George’s appearance in the Frankish Morea, see S. Gerstel, ‘Art and identity in the medieval Morea’, in A. E. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh, eds., The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (Washington, DC, 2001), 263–85. St George on Frankish Cyprus has yet to be published as such. C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens (Stuttgart, 1935), 255–7; D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus (4 vols. Cambridge, 1993–2009), vol. 2, 9–27; C. Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (Aldershot, 2003), 109–44; G. Kühnel, Wall Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Berlin, 1988), 72–7. For icons, see K. Weitzmann, ‘Icon painting in the Crusader Kingdom’, DOP 20 (1966), 71–3 and K. Weitzmann, ‘Crusader icons and maniera greca’, in I. Hutter, ed., Byzanz und der Westen: Studien zur Kunst des europäischen Mittelalters (Vienna, 1984), 143–70; J. Folda, ‘Mounted warrior saints in crusader icons: images of the knighthoods of Christ’, in N. Housley, ed., Knighthoods of Christ: Essays on the History of the Crusades and the Knights Templar, Presented to Malcolm Barber (Aldershot, 2007), 86–107; L.-A. Hunt, ‘A woman’s prayer to St. Sergios in Latin Syria: Interpreting a thirteenth-century icon at Mount Sinai’, BMGS 15 (1991), 96–145; M. Immerzeel, ‘Divine cavalry: mounted saints in middle eastern Christian art’, in K. N. Ciggaar and H. G. B. Teule, eds., East and West in the Crusader States: Context – Contacts – Confrontations (Leuven, 2003), 265–86; M. Immerzeel, ‘Holy horsemen and crusader banners: equestrian saints in wall paintings in Lebanon and Syria’, Eastern Christian Art 1 (2004), 29–60. For wall paintings, see Kühnel, Wall Painting, 72–7 and J. Folda, ‘Crusader frescoes at Crac des Chevaliers and Marqab Castle’, DOP 36 (1982), 194–5. On St George and the Byzantine army, see Erdmann, Entstehung, 255–77. R. Hill, ed. and trans., Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolymitanorum (London, 1962), 69; ‘Raimundi de Alguilers, canoniei Posiensis, historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem’, in Recueil des historiens des Croisades: historiens occiden­ taux (5 vols. Paris, 1844–1895), vol. 3, 299. H. Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, 1996). Ibid., 20–4 and 74–8; Walter, Warrior Saints, esp. 123–44; O. F. A. Meinardus, Two Thou­ sand Years of Coptic Christianity (Cairo, 1999), 95–9; Immerzeel, ‘Holy horsemen.’ The earliest surviving examples of George and the pillion rider are in Georgia; see P. Grotowski, ‘The legend of St. George saving a youth from captivity and its depic­ tion in art’, Series Byzantina 1 (2003), 27–77. On its later appearance in Coptic Egypt, Ethiopia and Armenia, see O. Meinardus, ‘The equestrian deliverer in eastern iconography’, OC 57 (1973), 142–55. On the conflation of this portrayal of George with others on Cyprus, Crete and Rhodes, see T. Raff, ‘Der heilige Georg als Kna­ benretter’, Münchner Zeitschrift für Balkankunde 3 (1980), 113–26. See especially Grotowski, ‘The legend of St. George’, 28–31, with related bibliog­ raphy. Walter’s (Warrior Saints, 120–1) summary is more compressed. Meinardus, ‘The equestrian deliverer’, 148 (the ‘Muslim infidels’ comes from here); E. C. Dodd, ‘The monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi, near Nebek, Syria’, Arte med­ ievale 6 (1992), 87; on Georgia, see Grotowski, ‘The legend of St. George’, 42–3; on Cappadocia, see ibid., 50 and C. Jolivet-Lévy, Les églises byzantines de Cappa­ doce (Paris, 1991), 251–3. For the chapel at Crac des Chevaliers, see Folda, ‘Crusader frescoes’, 187–96 esp. 192 and 194–6; for the icons, see R. Cormack and S. Mihalarias, ‘A crusader painting of

Art and efficacy in an icon of St George 201

12 13 14 15 16

17

18

19

20 21

St. George: “Maniera greca” or “lingua franca”?’, Burlington Magazine 126 (1984), 132–41; Folda, ‘Mounted warrior saints’; B. D. Boehm and M. Holcomb, eds., Jerusa­ lem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven (New York, 2016), 221–3. The main article on this icon type is Cormack and Mihalarias, ‘A crusader painting of St. George’, esp. 137–8. For this miracle, see J. B. Aufhauser, ed., Miracula Sancti Georgii (Bonn, 1913). For a translation, see A. Lymberopoulou, ‘Regional Byzantine monumental art from Venetian Crete’, in A. Lymberopoulou and R. Duits, eds., Byzantine Art and Renais­ sance Europe (Farnham and Burlington, 2013), 96–9. Folda mentions the importance of deliverance in ‘Crusader frescoes’, 193 and in H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture in the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 395. Grotowski, ‘The legend of St. George’, 77. P. Deschamps, ‘La légende de saint Georges et les combats des croisés dans les pein­ tures murales du Moyen Age’, MonPiot 44 (1950), 109–23; J. B. MacGregor, ‘Nego­ tiating knightly piety: the cult of the warrior-saints in the west, ca. 1070–ca.1200’, ChHist 73 (2004), 317–45. St George is associated with chivalric ideology in the Latin states as well; see Grotowski, ‘The legend of St. George’, 49; Gerstel, ‘Art and identity’, 271. Conspicuous examples of these types appear on a twelfth-century map of Jerusalem and a coin minted for Roger of Salerno, prince of Antioch (r. 1112–19), which seem to commemorate St George’s role in a city’s recent capture. On the map, see M. Levy-Rubin, ‘The crusader maps of Jerusalem’, in S. Rozenberg, ed., Knights of the Holy Land: The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem, 1999), 230–7; C. Maier, Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1994), 157. On the coin, see J. Yvon, ‘Les monnaies de Roger d’Antioche au type de S. Georges’, BSFN (March, 1966), 29–30. For the column, see Kühnel, Wall Painting, 17 and plates III–VI. For the antepen­ dium, see M. Martiniani-Reber, ‘An exceptional piece of embroidery held in Switz­ erland: the Grandson antependium’, in M. Campagnolo and M. Martiniani-Reber, eds., From Aphrodite to Melusine: Reflections on the Archaeology and the History of Cyprus (Geneva, 2007), 85–9 and plates VII–VIII; D. Jacoby, ‘Cypriot gold thread in late medieval silk weaving and embroidery’, in S. B. Edgington and H. J. Nicholson, eds., Deeds Done Beyond the Sea (New York, 2016), 106–8. Knights are not exclusively drawn to the Virgin, of course; see the St Nicholas icon in I. Eliades, ‘L’icona grande di san Nicola tis Stégis’, in I. Eliades, ed., Cipro e l’Italia al tempo di Bisanzio: L’Icona Grande di San Nicola tis Stégis del XIII secolo restaurata a Roma (Nicosia, 2009), 90–7. For St Sergios, see Hunt, ‘A woman’s prayer’; H. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557) (New York, 2004), 374; for St George and George Parisis, see Folda, ‘Mounted warrior saints’, 94–5; Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power, 376; for Frankish donors in Syrian Orthodox contexts, see Immerzeel, ‘Holy horse­ men’, 41–3. It is, of course, possible that soldier saints were appealed to for a kind of protection they uniquely offered; see J. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land: From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Cambridge, 2005), 340. Cormack and Mihalarias, ‘A crusader painting of St. George’, 133–7. For a concise discussion of the Perugia Missal’s role in our understanding of Acre as a major site of artistic production, see Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power, 466–7. The most recent in-depth assessment of place of production, with extensive bibliog­ raphy, is provided by R. Corrie, ‘Sinai, Acre, Tripoli, and the “Backwash from the Levant”: where did the icon painters work?’, in S. E. J. Gerstel and R. S. Nelson, eds., Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai (Turnhout, 2010), 415–8. Earlier foundational publications include

202 Lisa Mahoney

22

23 24

25

26 27 28

29 30

31

Cormack and Mihalarias, ‘A crusader painting of St. George’ (Lydda); A. W. Carr, ‘East, west, and icons in twelfth-century Outremer’, in V. P. Goss and C. V. Bornstein, eds., The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the Period of the Crusades (Kalamazoo, 1986), 347–59 (Sinai); K. Weitzmann, ‘Thirteenth century crusader icons on Mount Sinai’, ArtB 45 (1963), 179–203 and D. Jacoby, ‘Christian pilgrimage to Sinai until the late fifteenth cen­ tury’, in R. Nelson and K. Collins, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (Los Angeles, 2007), 84 (Acre); Folda, ‘Mounted warrior saints’, 95–6 (Acre or Sinai); M. S. Frinta, ‘Relief imitation of metallic sheathing of Byzantine icons as an indicator of East-West influence’, in P. C. Mayo, ed., The High Middle Ages (Bin­ ghampton, 1980), 147–67; M. S. Frinta, ‘Raised gilded adornment of the Cypriot icons, and the occurrence of the technique in the west’, Gesta 20.2 (1981), 333–47 (Cyprus). J. T. Wollesen (Acre or Cyprus? A New Approach to Crusader Painting around 1300 [Berlin, 2013]) presents a re-evaluation of Frankish artistic production as a whole. R. Cormack, Icons (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 74, 77; R. Cormack, ‘Crusader art and art­ istic technique: another look at a painting of St. George’, in M. Vassilaki, ed., Byzantine Icons: Art, Technique and Technology (Iraklion, 2002), 163–8; L. Harrison et al., ‘An icon of St. George: Preparation for a portrait of a saint’, in J. H. Townsend et al., eds., Preparation for Painting: The Artist’s Choice and its Consequences (London, 2008), 14–21. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power, 357–8.

S. E. J. Gerstel, ‘An alternate view of the late Byzantine sanctuary screen’, in

S. E. J. Gerstel, ed., Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Litur­ gical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screen, East and West (Washington, DC, 2006), 134–61, esp. 146. The Deesis in Bethlehem, for example (J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 [Cambridge, 1995], 165 and plate 6.15b) and the Koimesis in Abu Ghosh, for another (A. W. Carr, ‘The mural paintings of Abu Ghosh and the patronage of Manuel Comnenus in the Holy Land’, in J. Folda, ed., Crusader Art in the Twelfth Century [Oxford, 1982], 215–44). For example, Cormack and Mihalarias, ‘A crusader painting of St. George’, 133; Kühnel, Wall Painting, 75 n. 448; Immerzeel, ‘Holy horsemen’, 39. See R. Röhricht, Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges (Innsbruck, 1901), 90–4; J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Philadelphia, 2009), 105, 193 n.72. Hill, ed. and trans., Gesta Francorum (written c. 1100–1101), 69; J. H. Hill and L. L. Hill, eds., Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere (Paris, 1977), 111–2 (by 1111); T. D. Hardy, ed., William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum (2 vols., London, 1840), vol. 2, 559 (c. 1125). See also E. Lapina, ‘Demetrius of Thessaloniki: patron saint of crusaders’, Viator 40 (2009), 93–5; E. Lapina, Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade (University Park, 2015); Immerzeel, ‘Holy horsemen’, 39; Immerzeel, Identity Puzzles: Medieval Christian Art in Syria and Lebanon (Leuven, 2005), 147. Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum, vol. 3, 299. On the identification of this knight as St George, see Folda, Art of the Crusaders, 32. St George is perhaps most clearly described as the patron saint of crusaders in Ray­ mond of Aguilers’ Historia Francorum (Recueil des historiens des Croisades, 290): ‘[T]hen the priest said, “Lord, it is said of St. George that he is the standard bearer of this army”’, (translation mine). For example: ‘Then also appeared from the mountains a countless host of men on white horses … they realized that this was the succour sent by Christ and that the leaders were

Art and efficacy in an icon of St George 203

32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45

46 47

St. George, St. Merkourios and St. Demetrius’, in Hill, ed., Gesta Francorum, 69. On this phenomenon, see most recently Lapina, Warfare and the Miraculous, esp. 15–36. A. Frolow, Les reliquaires de la Vraie Croix (Paris, 1965), 286–7. On stories of dis­ covery as arguments for legitimacy, see C. Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 160. H. Hagenmeyer, ed., Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana (1095–1127) (Heidelberg, 1913), 306–10. Kühnel (‘Heracles and the Crusades: tracing the path of a royal motif’, in Weiss and Mahoney, eds., France and the Holy Land, 68) suggests that these stories were aimed at displacing Byzantium as custodians of the True Cross. Or in a nearby abandoned house, as per Albert of Aachen, Historia Ierosolimitana: History of the Journey to Jerusalem, ed. and trans. S. B. Edington (Oxford, 2007), 450–3. On the renewed interest in biblical types during the crusades, see Y. Katzir, ‘The conquests of Jerusalem, 1099 and 1187: historical memory and religious typology’, in V. P. Goss and C. V. Bornstein, eds., The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the Period of the Crusades (Kalamazoo, 1986), 103–13. Folda, Art of the Crusaders, 33; Hunt, ‘A woman’s prayer’, 104; Cormack and Miha­ larias, ‘A crusader painting of St. George’, 132. M. Benvenisti, The Crusaders in the Holy Land (New York, 1972), 167 and Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom, vol. 2, 9–27. R. B. C. Huygens, ed., Willelmi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon (Turnhout, 1986), 373; trans. E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea (2 vols., New York, 1943), vol. 1, 332. Given the aims of this essay, I have in mind especially his Icons of their Bodies. Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom, vol. 2, esp. 25–6. E. C. Dodd, Medieval Painting in the Lebanon (Wiesbaden, 2004), 70 (for the quote) and passim (for eastern Christian churches in the Lebanon). See also N. Hélou, ‘Wall paintings in Lebanese churches’, Essays on Christian Art and Cul­ ture in the Middle East 2 (1999), 13–36; Immerzeel, Identity Puzzles. See Dodd, Medieval Painting, Figure 15.1 and Plates 15.14–15.17 and LXI (for Mar Saba); Figure 19.1 and 19.33–19.35 and 19.37–19.39 (for Mar Tadros). In Syria the earliest known wall painting of St George is at Mar Musa (1058–88) (71–72). Maguire (Icons of their Bodies, 49–51) makes similar observations about the Byzan­ tine St George, concluding that this soldier saint is depicted so in order to underscore his particular strength as a ‘man of action.’ R. W. Scheller, Exemplum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Trans­ mission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900–ca. 1470), trans. M. Hoyle (Amsterdam, 1995), 136–43; J. Folda, ‘The Freiburg Leaf: crusader art and loca sancta around the year 1200’, in P. W. Edbury and J. P. Phillips, eds., The Experience of Crusading, vol. 2, Defining the Crusader Kingdom (Cambridge, 2003), 113–34. Hunt (‘A woman’s prayer’, 111–2) has argued that one of scenes found within these folia demonstrates knowledge of wall painting in the area of Tripoli. L. Mahoney, ‘The Frankish icon: art and devotion in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusa­ lem’, in E. Lapina et al., eds., The Crusades and Visual Culture (Aldershot, 2015), 15–34. Kühnel, Wall Painting, 74–7.

12 Contexts for the Christos Paschon Margaret Mullett

The Christos Paschon is the only surviving Byzantine tragedy, and this has always presented a problem to readers. It comprises 30+2602 iambic lines and three acts (or three plays) that present Christ’s Passion, Burial and Resurrection. Twenty-five manuscripts survive from the middle of the thirteenth century onwards. It is regarded as anonymous, though the manuscript tradition ascribes it to Gregory of Nazianzos.1 Herbert Hunger and Wolfram Hörandner convincingly reassigned it to the twelfth century2 and authorship has been variously ascribed to Constantine Manasses, John Tzetzes and Theodore Prodromos.3 It is a tissue of lines and half-lines from four plays of Euripides: Medea, Hippolytus, Rhesus and Bacchae plus rather fewer from Hecuba, Orestes and Troades; there are some quotations from Prometheus Bound and the Agamemnon.4 But the vast majority of the quoted text is drawn from the four plays and approximately half of the whole (1293 of 2531 lines, omitting the hypothesis and prayers) is spoken by the Theotokos, its protagonist. It is not just a tragedy; it is also a lament,5 and 11 lament passages constitute around one third of the text, 712 lines out of the possible 1905. It has been studied by Byzantinists trying to prove the existence or otherwise of a Byzantine drama,6 by Margaret Alexiou on the Virgin’s Lament,7 by Elizabeth Bolman on the Galaktotrophousa8 and most notably by Henry Maguire in his classic article on the depiction of sorrow.9 Technical aspects of its nature as lament or cento (a poetic compilation of verses from other authors) have been debated, but wider issues of reception, identity, performance and purpose have not, or only very recently, been considered.10 Classicists have been more concerned to use the text to understand the manuscript tradition of Bacchae than to see it as a work in its own right.11 And most scholars, whether students of classics, Byzantine studies or theatre, have been very uneasy with the combination of sacred drama with what appears to be secular cento. No one, it seems, is quite sure how to read it. It belongs neither in one world nor the other, and it is ironic that a text which is regularly classed as secular (it is in Hunger,12 not in Beck) is the most extended mimetic treatment of the Easter story that we have in Byzantium or in the contemporary West.

Contexts for the Christos Paschon 205 It is just this kind of territory that Henry and Eunice Maguire have made their own. Consider this passage from Other Icons: ‘Secular’ may be a misleading term for the works of art discussed in this book because today the concept of secularity often implies a lack of associ­ ation with the supernatural. For the Byzantines however these works were in a very real sense profane icons, with powers as potent as the sacred images themselves.13 I hope to explore elsewhere the question of the potency of paganism in our text;14 here I simply draw attention to the difficulties in using the word ‘secular’ for text as for image or object.

Performance But the problem with our text is not only that of its ambiguous status but also one of performance. Whether or not it was ever performed, the issue has become one of performability, whether it could have been performed, whether it shows enough awareness of ancient tragedy to suggest more than reading on the page. Walter Puchner in a series of studies has made his position clear: ‘an analysis informed by theatre studies could easily show that the poet is unaware of what it means to stage a play.’ He adds the poem is neither a tragedy meant for production in a theatre nor any other form of drama. Rather it is a cento in dialogue form, which uses quotations from tragedy and imitates some of the dramatic conventions of tragedy without fully understanding their implications.15 Puchner is harsh, but he has a great deal on his side, particularly where the last 600 lines of the text are concerned. It can be argued that they show up all the text-critical difficulties of the Gospel accounts of Easter Sunday without offering a master-plot. The comic subplot (lines 2205–2379) of Pilate, guards and priests creates further staging difficulties. But it is at least dynamic with recognitions and reversals, entrances and exits, unlike the middle section (lines 1134–1905) where solid dialogues, monologues and laments are played out in the small space between Golgotha and the tomb with only Deposition and Entombment to advance the plot. But the challenge for the playwright was enormous. The text’s status both as tragedy and lament is subverted by the very nature of the drama which unfolds before us. The lament material (with the exception of lines 2019–30, the Virgin’s preparation for the Resurrection) must be firmly located in the first 2,000 lines, since the rest deals with the Resurrection. As for tragedy, a major difficulty of casting the events of the Easter weekend into the form of a tragedy comes with handling the unities. Events from Maundy Thursday to Easter morning and beyond, and taking place in the sacred geography of Jerusalem

206 Margaret Mullett and outside, fit unhappily in tragic form. Though tragedies according to Aristotle may either begin happily and move to unhappiness or begin unhappy and move to happiness, our text combines both models, over three days not three hours. And the scene changes from a vantage point on the lithostroton, the marble path of the Passion which the play equates with Golgotha, to Golgotha itself to the tomb to the house of John to the tomb again to the house of Mary. The French editor Tuilier has eased matters by suggesting that the text is a trilogy, one play for each day of the weekend to comprise first the Crucifixion (lines 1–1133), second the story from Deposition through Lamentation to Entombment (lines 1134–1905) and third the Resurrection (lines 1906–2531).16 Support for this suggestion comes from the fact that the first (Crucifixion) section ends at lines 1130–33 with the last four lines of the Medea, 1415–18, a marker of closure. Another problem is that it is difficult to recognize tragic form in the homogeneity of the Byzantine 12-syllable metre: choral ode and actors’ parts are all the same: as Psellos pointed out,17 Byzantine metre had moved on. But dramatically it is at least as easy to see as tragedy as many modern versions of Euripidean plays.18 It is set at daybreak on Friday a few paces from a vantage point on the lithostroton. Like the contemporary apse mosaic of the Virgin at Torcello, the Virgin stands majestically centre stage throughout the play, except for 100 lines at the beginning of the second play; unlike at Torcello, she is surrounded by the chorus of women of Galilee. She absorbs shock after shock as three messengers make their way to her one after another, announcing the Betrayal (lines 130–266), the trial before the Sanhedrin (lines 360–418) and (639–81) the road to Golgotha. The scene shifts to the cross, and then in the next plays to the tomb, to the house of John, to the tomb, to the house of Mary, and the Theotokos interacts with John the Theologian, then with Joseph and Nikodemos, and then with the Magdalen. The whole ends satisfyingly with the deus ex machina appearance of Christ to the disciples at the house of Mary for the mission of the apostles before prayers to Pantanax and Theotokos end the trilogy. The cento’s usage of each of the four source plays is neither sporadic nor mechanical.19 Critics object that because it is a cento it cannot be an original piece of work; the opposite criticism is seldom levelled, namely that because quite a small proportion of lines are used, that it is a very unorthodox cento.20 But the way in which quotations are used offers us a Byzantine reading of Euripides which we could not have gained from any other known sources. We know that Euripides was probably more popular in Byzantium than at any time before the last quarter of the twentieth and in the early twenty-first centuries: for Anna Komnene, he was the tragedian as Homer was the poet, it is Euripides that Michael Psellos chooses to compare (oddly to us) with George of Pisidia.21 His plays, or at least those of the selection, were key to the school syllabus.22 It is notable that the parts of the source-texts that are chosen are the passages of highest emotion or horror. Passages of high density of choice are: in Medea the nurse’s opening (1–47), Medea’s speech as suppliant to Aegeus (709–18),

Contexts for the Christos Paschon 207 parts (225–31, 250–9) of the women of Corinth (2214–66), the paidogogos and Medea (at 1002–18), awaiting the messenger, part (1181–1230) of the messenger’s speech (1136–1230), parts (1030–45, 1069–80) of Medea before she kills her children (1021–80) and Jason and Medea after the death of their children (1377–1414). In Hippolytus, the hero’s questioning of his father about the death of his stepmother (902–15), his farewell to his friends and home (1090–1101); in Rhesus the first tense exchange of Hector and the Chorus (34–84), the Driver’s speech (756–803) and Hector blaming the guards (808–19) are densest. In Bacchae, Kadmos’s speeches (178–89, 1216–32, 1259–62, 1352–62), the confrontation between Pentheus and Dionysos (775–846), the two messengers’ speeches (677–774, 1024–1152), as well as everything from Agave’s entrance at 1202, are very dense. We can see through our playwright’s quotation a different Medea from the witch, the feminist, the monster of modern European reception, a Bacchae which focuses on horror rather than liberation or civil disobedience, a Hippolytos who is the protagonist of his own play and a truly Byzantine hero of the wars against porneia, and a Rhesus of light and dark, sleep and wakefulness.23 Taken together his readings tell us a lot about Byzantine motherhood. It is, above all, the Theotokos’s trilogy. So how much of this text was performed, or could be performed? The arguments against performability are threefold: it is argued that the author has no idea of how to stage a tragedy; it is suggested that the play is prohibitively long for performance; in any case, it is argued, there was no full staging in Komnenian Byzantium.24 So how do these criticisms measure up? We have seen that even Puchner allows that the author has some sense of the conventions of tragedy.25 The first 700 lines with the Virgin and her women receiving three messengers one after another, and the satisfying deus ex machina begin and end the trilogy. And the text is arranged always for three actors and chorus, despite the claim of the prooimion to involve only the Theotokos, John and a chorus, and those three actors are different in the three plays: the Theotokos, John the Theologian and Christ in the Crucifixion play, the Theotokos, John the Theologian and Joseph in the Burial play, the Theotokos, the Magdalen and Christ in the Resurrection play. As for length and performability, our text as a whole is no longer than one of the revived Komnenian novels, called in the manuscripts, ‘dramata’: Rhodanthe and Dosikles is 4,614 lines long, Drosilla and Charikles 3,678. And separate plays of Passion (1133 lines), Burial (771 lines) and Resurrection (625 lines), or even a diptych of Passion and Resurrection (1133 and 1396 lines, respectively) makes performance even more possible. Nor is it essential that the whole of any play needed to be performed at any one time, as the later performance history of Euripides makes clear.26 It seems to me easily possible that some or more of this text could have been performed, and indeed, needed to be performed for some of the aural effects to be understood. And it seems equally obvious to me that that performance, whether noetic, rhetorical or theatrical,

208 Margaret Mullett was influenced by performance practice in other genres, both experienced in everyday life and learned through rhetorical training.

Performance practices It was a highly performative culture which pervaded the streets and public places of Constantinople. The churches were the theatres not of passion plays and liturgical drama, but of homilies and hymns which used dialogic forms and played out conflict and development for the faithful; indeed with the faithful, for kontakia were structured with a recurring refrain, and kanons had the possibility of antiphonal choirs.27 Performance spilled out on to the streets with processions: the litai of the Great Church, translating relics, praying for salvation from natural disasters, celebrating annual feasts of saints, carrying icons on regular weekly routes, and also with the pompai of the imperial court which took the emperor out of the Great Palace to important churches or fora of the capital.28 Executions, proclamations, arrivals, departures, triumphs, embassies, freakshows were arranged with a view to spectacle.29 In the law courts we have a little evidence from case law that combative lawyers and pontificating judges took pride in the delivery of their speeches, using the techniques of dikanic rhetoric taught in the schools, though not perhaps the protodramatic space with impersonation, costume and audience participation of Jody Enders’s late medieval French courtrooms.30 Averil Cameron has seen the twelfth century as a period when the dialogue form was used more and more for making an argument.31 Alexios Komnenos held two major theological disputations: in 1112 against Peter Grossolano in Constantinople and in 1114 against the Paulicians in Philippolis, and many of the theological discourses of the period, including one attributed to him, can be linked to performance on these occasions.32 Theophylact of Ochrid’s dialogue on eunuchs is set on a city street in Thessaloniki and connects to major issues of the day.33 There are two special cases. One is the schoolroom. Rhetoric was basic to education: it trained boys through the school exercises, the progymnasmata, to imagine the experiences and express the emotions of grown women, including, in Aphthonios’s model ethopoiia, ‘speech-in-character’, the lament of Niobe.34 As well as enabling the monologues of the tragedian, Komnenian collections of model exercises like that of Nikephoros Basilakes have been seen as enabling one of the other exciting developments of the mid-twelfth century, the revival of the ancient novel.35 They are longer, more elaborate than Late Antique collections, and, as Manfred Kraus has seen, they focus determinedly on the sufferings of women.36 This is where the Paschon’s Theotokos was born. So public spaces offered rich examples of performance to set against the Orthodox distaste for enactment explored by both Andrew Walker White and Przemyslaw Marciniak.37 The other case takes us into the domestic sphere, that of lament. We have evidence for the performance of ritual lament, whether performed by women or men, in the setting of wake and funeral processions,

Contexts for the Christos Paschon 209 prothesis and ekphora; the rhetor’s delivery of the epitaphios at the grave is a public culmination of days of private mourning in the house.38 There is evidence for lamenting at the bier in the Cappadocian fathers, and Alexiou adduces Buondelmonti’s account of lamentation in Crete in 1420. Michael Psellos’s funeral oration for his daughter Styliane included laments by her parents as well as an account of keening (i.e. lamenting loudly) by friends, relatives, slaves, slave women, free men and women, wet nurses and caregivers just after death. The poems of Christopher Mytelenaios for his sister and brother offer contemporary support.39 Add to that the popularity of the Virgin’s lament in extraordinarily different genres, some liturgical, some as secular as Constantine the Rhodian’s ekphrasis of the Holy Apostles, and we can see that as much as a third of the play reproduces a kind of composition regularly performed in the homes of our playwright’s contemporaries.40 If the character of the Theotokos was born in ethopoiia, the everyday environment of lament birthed the Virgin’s laments of our play. Performance in the world was the everyday experience of our playwright. He (I assume he) was also exposed to performance on the page, and on that page every development seemed to point towards the notable features of our text. If we look for possible twelfth-century models for chorus, monologue and dialogue, we do not have to look far. Monologue arises from ethopoiia, Mouzalon’s poem in resignation from his see uses stichomythia, learned in the reading of tragedy at school, and applicable to the horrors of his experiences in Cyprus.41 And dialogue is increasingly visible on the page as well as in public debate; the Life of Cyril Phileotes is a place where a text I believe to be contemporary with ours uses direct speech to create a sense of verisimilitude (the saint is not elsewhere attested) and to voice a progressive ascetic anthology with a very clear message for monks and emperor.42 We need to collect and measure direct speech in the narrative genres – history, hagiography and the novel – of the period to see where the handling of dialogue in the Christos Paschon comes from. Legal dramas we have seen as playing out in the Peira of the eleventh century, and will be more apparent in the thirteenth-century cases of Demetrios Chomatenos,43 but there is another key text: Ruth Macrides published some time ago a poem which deals with a Constantinopolitan ecclesiastical judge’s hearing of a woman’s confession to murder and cannibalism in times of famine. Found with the Katomyomachia in Marc. gr. 524, it is not a drama or dialogue but a narrative poem, in the form of a semeioma. It is narrated by the judge, the protekdikos Andronikos, who sets the scene with vocabulary appropriate to tragedy but conforming to the topoi of tragic lament, then asks questions of the penitent Maria, who responds in lines 123–55, before the protekdikos gives judgment in lines 157–65. It has been considered as parody, seen in the context of the revival of fiction, envisaged as satire on the contemporary canon law system, but it is pertinent to our concerns as well since it evokes the voices of the case in the judge’s narrative.44 We come even closer to what made our author’s work possible when we look at the other remarkable innovation of twelfth-century literature, the revival of

210 Margaret Mullett Lucianic satire.45 These works in dialogue form are very close to our text: they may deal with abstract issues (Friendship in exile) or contemporary complaints like the poverty of the intellectual (Dramation) or join the well-trodden paths to the underworld (Timarion) or engage directly with Lucian’s work (Auction of celebrities), but all allude to ancient works, all fictionalize and dramatize that fiction in dialogue form, a preparation surely for drama of the kind of our text. A final text, like ours, combines cento with tragic form; it could not be more different, in that it brings mock-epic and parody into play as well: Theodore Prodromos’s War of the Cats and Mice is on a different scale, easily seen as a children’s piece, but is as learned and funny as Christos Paschon is learned and inspirational.46 Writing of all these kinds, for schoolroom or theatron, whatever the strict chronological order of composition, made the creation of something like our text possible. They too have performance issues which need to be addressed: how can we be sure that a text was performed as well as read? I think we have come to the point where we need to look at this issue methodologically and systematically. Our text makes sense in terms of other kinds of performance and literary developments of the period. How this works in terms of its own performance is less clear. Very few Byzantinists if any would hold out for full staging of any text by the twelfth century. Many of us, though, would be prepared to accept some kind of performance in the theatra of Komnenian princesses, which was where letters and short rhetorical pieces were read aloud and improvised.47 Other scholars are happier siting this and the other dramatia in the rhetoric-rich schoolroom. All theatron authors would have in any case experienced the schoolroom. I incline to the theatron solution, though I admit that a beardless Theotokos might be more convincing in delivery, at least in the absence of a mask.48 In either case, salon or schoolroom, whatever the reservation about hypokrisis and mimesis,49 we should envisage some kind of oral delivery, in street-dress, maskless, in a minimalist set. Andrew Walker White has recently suggested the radio play as an analogy for what might be a less than a fully materialized performance; other models are oratorios, concert performances of operas and dramatized play-readings.50

Contexts What we can say is that, as with other plays, reading, seeing or hearing our trilogy in different contexts may affect our understanding of the performance, whether it was realized or not. I begin to be sure that only performance can prove performability. If we read a passage or an episode and look at it in different contexts it takes on different appearances. If we look at it as played against the Euripidean source-texts, as was done in Washington with Euripides Resurrected,51 we see its tragic credentials, and can envisage a performance which never happened except in the mind, on an orchestra, in front of a scaenae frons (the two essential features of a Greek theatre) with a chorus and three actors. In Byzantium memory work on the

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source texts in the schoolroom enabled this kind of contextual reception of the Paschon; to reproduce the experience we need to set experiments in train which will determine how much of a source text is recoverable by someone who knows it well by heart and has played it in the theatre. If, on the other hand, we look at our passage or scene against liturgical Virgin’s laments in hymn and sermon,52 we see a different picture. We see how elements, themes and motifs are developed by structuring an imagined emotional journey over three days. We notice what is not there as well as what is, we see why certain elements appear when they do, why there is repetition and how there can also be a Theologian’s lament at the other side of the cross.53 The Cyprus passion cycle, as well as Western mystery and passion plays, offer yet another, very different context.54 No play of the twelfth or thirteenth century has the richness or developed nature of our text, and their closeness to the liturgy, and the overwhelming biblical character of the verbal texture compared with the thinner usage in our text set them apart. Yet to read them together, the Christos Paschon does not look so very different, except in its developed middle part of the story from Deposition to Entombment, the story which was beginning to be told in twelfth-century Byzantine wall painting.55 Byzantinists cannot afford to ignore this sibling performance culture and what it tells us about our play. But most of us already believe that the twelfth-century experimental pieces offer the best context for the Paschon: ethopoiia and Nikephoros Basilakes, mimesis included in diegetic texts (the novel, historiography, lives); parody and poetry, seen in the Cannibal poem, the complex relationship between satire and dialogue in the Lucianic revival; and the Katomyomachia, which, like our play, marries cento and drama but with very different effect and in the content of mock-epic. The extraordinary text of the Christos Paschon takes us into so many worlds, both religious and secular, and into the functions of drama in any society. To answer these wider questions we need to conjure up a broader twelfth-century context of performance in Mediterranean cultures thrown into juxtaposition during the Crusades. What and who travelled and how far? Storytellers? Tumblers? Jongleurs?56 Did a visit to the church of the Anastasis really set off a performative tendency in church decoration, and how did the writing of the resurrection differ in East and West thereafter?57 How similar was entertainment in the court cultures of East and West in the period?58 What verbal clues indicate performance practice, and how comprehensible were complex rhetorical texts in performance, how intercommunicable were gestures and facial expressions?59 These are big questions, but I suspect that until we can answer them, the Christos Paschon will still elude our understanding: we need experiments, performances, collaborative research, a big project, even, before we can get to that point. But it is already possible to see that this text, far from belonging neither in the world of Romanos and George of Nikomedeia nor in that of Theodore Prodromos and Michael Haploucheir, in fact belonged in both. Further, that its religious sensibility was not undermined but enhanced

212 Margaret Mullett by its texture of Euripidean paganism, and a secularity which does not imply a lack of association with the supernatural, but quite the reverse.60

Notes 1 J. G. Brambs, ed., Christus Patiens. Tragoedia quae inscribi solet CHRISTOS PASCHON Gregorio Nazianzeno falso attributa (Leipzig, 1885); A. Tuilier, ed., La Passion du Christ: tragédie. Grégoire de Nazianze. Introd., texte critique, traduction, notes et index (Paris, 1969). For the manuscripts see ibid., 75–116. 2 Since H. Hunger, ‘Die byzantinische Literatur der Komnenenzeit’, Anzeiger der phi­ lologisch-historischen Klasse der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 105.3 (1968), 63–5 the text has been redated to the twelfth century, though Gregory had his adherents through the 1970s and 1980s. Though the contextual argument for the twelfth century may seem overwhelmingly persuasive, revisiting the issue is a desideratum to set a sure foundation for further work and avoid circularity of argument. 3 Respectively, K. Horna, ‘Der Verfasser der Christus patiens’, Hermes 64 (1929), 429–31; F. Dübner, Christus patiens, Ezechieli et christianorum poetarum reliquiae dramaticae (Paris, 1846), iv–v; I. H. Hilberg, ‘Kann Theodoros Prodromos der Ver­ fasser des Χριστός Πάσχων sein?’, WSt 8 (1886), 282–314. 4 The quotations are identified with varying levels of persuasiveness in both Brambs’s and Tuilier’s editions; also quoted are Alcestis, Andromache, Helen, Iphigenia at Aulis and Tauris, Phoenissae and Lycophron’s Cassandra, as well as biblical and apocryphal texts. It is by no means a complete cento. 5 See M. Mullett, ‘Performability, lament, and the tragedy Christos Paschon’, in N. Tsironis and T. Kampianaki, eds., Lament and Performance in Byzantium (London and New York, forthcoming). 6 For a judicious treatment see P. Marciniak, Greek Drama in Byzantine Times (Kato­ wice, 2004), 89–95; See also A. P. Kazhdan and A. W. Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley, 1985), 140–1. 7 M. Alexiou, ‘The lament of the Virgin in Byzantine literature and modern Greek folk-song’, BMGS 1 (1975), 111–40 at 122–4. 8 Elizabeth Bolman quoted it at the Theotokos conference, Oxford, August, 2006, in a paper which will form part of a book on the middle and late Byzantine Galaktotrophousa. 9 H. Maguire, ‘The depiction of sorrow in middle Byzantine art’, DOP 31 (1977), 123–74 at 139. 10 For reception see M. Mullett, ‘Painting and polyphony: the Christos Paschon as commentary’, in P. Marciniak, D. Manolova and B. van den Berg, eds., Preserving, Commenting, Adapting: Commentaries on Ancient Texts in Twelfth-Century Byzan­ tium (forthcoming); for identity M. Mullett, ‘Literary spolia and the Christos Paschon: shaping the identity of twelfth-century literati’, in P. Magdalino, K. Durak and I. Jevtić, eds., Byzantine Identity and the Other in Geographical and Ethnic Imagination (Istanbul, forthcoming), and for performance, M. Mullett, ‘Performabil­ ity, lament, and the tragedy Christos Paschon.’ 11 On the attempt to fill the 50ish-line gap in ms Palatinus 287 after line 1329 see E. R. Dodds, Euripides Bacchae (Oxford, 1944), li–lii, 220–1, 229–31. The issue will be live as long as a performance text is required, see for example the stimulat­ ing study by a student of the reception of Euripides, M. Powers, Athenian Tragedy in Performance: A Guide to Contemporary Studies and Historical Debates (Iowa City, 2014), 62. An early exceptional treatment of the text on its own terms (rather than authorship or the text of Bacchae), was R. Dostálová, ‘Die byzantinische Theo­ rie des Dramas und die Tragödie Christos Paschon’, JÖB 32.3 (1982), 73–82, and

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18

19 20

21

22

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see now R. B. Davies, ‘The figure of Mary Mother of God in Christus patiens: frag­ menting tragic myth and passion narrative in a Byzantine appropriation of Euripi­ dean tragedy’, JHS 137 (2017), 1–25. Twice in fact, under ‘Cento’, H. Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner (2 vols., Munich, 1978), vol. 2, 102–4 and under ‘Dichtungen in drama­ tischer Form’, vol. 2, 145. E. D. Maguire and H. Maguire, Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture (Princeton, 2006), 167. In a chapter for a volume on sacred and secular in honour of Philip Sherrard edited by Niki Tsironis. W. Puchner, ‘Acting in the Byzantine theatre’, in P. Easterling and E. Hall, eds., Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession (Cambridge, 2002), 304–24 at 318. Tuilier, La Passion du Christ, 20 on the trilogy. A. R. Dyck, ed., Michael Psellus: The Essays on Euripides and George of Pisidia and on Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius (Vienna, 1986), 40. On the shift from quanti­ tative to rhythmic, to (predominantly) 12 or 15 syllables rather than the rich variety found in ancient tragedy see M. Lauxterman, The Spring of Rhythm. An Essay on the Political Verse and Other Byzantine Metres (Vienna, 1999); M. Lauxterman, ‘The velocity of pure iambs. Byzantine observations on the metre and rhythm of the dodecasyllable’, JÖB 48 (1998), 9–33. I am thinking for example of Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (New York, 2002, first performance Abbey Theatre Dublin, 7 October–14 November 1998); on it see M. Sihra, ‘Greek myth, Irish reality: Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats’, and S. E. Wilmer, ‘Irish Medeas: revenge or redemption (an Irish solution to an inter­ national problem)’, in J. Dillon and S. Wilmer, eds., Rebel Women: Staging Ancient Greek Drama Today (London, 2005), 115–48. K. Pollmann, ‘Jesus Christus und Dionysius’, JÖB 47(1997), 87–106 at 105–6 notes that there is no facile equivalent transfer of speeches from a character in one play to a character in the other. On cento technique the fundamental locus is Ausonius’s prose letter to Axius Paulus, prefaratory to his Cento nuptialis, R. P. H. Green, ed., The Works of Ausonius (Oxford, 1991), 145–8, given with translation and good discussion in S. McGill, Virgil Recomposed: The Mythological and Secular Centos in Antiquity (Oxford, 2005), 1–30. The popularity of Euripides had increased over the Roman period; see R. Cribiore, ‘Euripides’ Phoenissae in Hellenistic and Roman education’, in Y. L. Too, ed., Edu­ cation in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Leiden, 2001), 241–59 at 244: ‘Euripides was by far the most popular of the tragedians in the Greco-Roman world.’ G. Zuntz, An Inquiry into the Transmission of the Plays of Euripides (Cambridge, 1965), 255. With R. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenis­ tic and Roman Egypt (Princeton and Oxford, 2001) we begin to understand how this might have worked in the schoolroom rather than on the manuscript page. D. Stuttard, ed., Looking at Medea (London, 2014); E. Hall, F. Macintosh and O. Taplin, eds., Medea in Performance 1500–2000 (Oxford, 2000); D. Stuttard, ed., Looking at Bacchae (London, 2016); M. Powers, ‘The reception of Euripides’ Bac­ chae in performance from 1960 to the present’, (3 vols., unpubl. MSt thesis, Univer­ sity of Oxford, 1999); G. Sampatakakis, ‘The reception of Euripides’ Bacchae’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2005); E. Fischer-Lichte, Dionysus Resurrected: Performances of Euripides’ ‘The Bacchae’ in a Globalizing World (Chichester, 2014); S. Mills, Euripides: Hippolytus (London, 2013); T. L. McKee, ‘A rich reward in tears: Hippolytus and Phaedra in drama, dance, opera and film’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Open University, 2017). Opinion appears to be swinging

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32

33

against Euripides as author of the Rhesus, see V. Liapis, A Commentary on the Rhesus Attributed to Euripides (Oxford, 2011); the editors of the Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Euripides declined to include it on the basis of the authenticity issue and minimal evidence for reception independent of the Iliad (our text might fill that gap). W. Puchner, ‘Theaterwissenschaftliche und andere Anmerkungen zum “Christus Patiens”’, AnzWien 129 (1993), 93–143, and most recently W. Puchner, Greek The­ atre between Antiquity and Independence. A History of Reinvention from the Third Century BC to 1830 (Cambridge, 2017), 77–80. Each criticism deserves fuller con­ sideration elsewhere. Puchner, ‘Acting’, 318. A. Brown, ‘Performance and reception of Greek tragedy in the early medieval Mediterranean’, in S. L. Hathaway and D. W. Kim, eds., Intercultural Transmis­ sion in the Medieval Mediterranean (London and New York, 2012), 146–62 at 153. For performance practices of kontakion and kanon see the continuing work of the comparative hymnographies group; for a summary of current thought on kontakion see J. Koder, ‘Imperial propaganda in the kontakia of Romanos the Melode’, DOP 62 (2008), 275–91; for kanon see D. Krueger, Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia, 2014), 166–7. V. Manolopoulou, ‘Processing emotion; litanies in Byzantine Constantinople’, in C. Nesbitt and M. Jackson, eds., Experiencing Byzantium (Farnham and Burlington, 2013), 153–74; L. Brubaker, ‘Topography and the creation of public space in early medieval Constantinople’, in M. de Jong, ed., Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 2001), 31–43. Byzantinists have been slow to respond to the possibilities suggested by D. Handelman, Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events (New York and Oxford, 1990); an exception is B. K. Bjørnholt, ‘The use and por­ trayal of spectacle in the Madrid Skylitzes (Bib.Nac.vitr.26–2)’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Queens University Belfast, 2002). Most recently J. Howard-Johnston, ‘The Peira and legal practices in eleventh-century Byzantium’, in M. Lauxtermann and M. Whittow, eds., Byzantium in the Eleventh Century: Being in Between (London and New York, 2017), 63–76; J. Enders, Rhet­ oric and the Origins of Medieval Drama (Ithaca and London, 1992). A. Cameron, Dialoguing in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 2014); A. Cameron, Arguing it Out: Discussion in Twelfth-Century Byzantium (Budapest, 2016); A. Cameron and N. Gaul, eds., Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium (London and New York, 2017). For the 1112 disputations and associated texts see V. Grumel, ‘Autour du voyage de Pierre Grossolano, archevêque de Milan à Constantinople en 1112’, EO 32 (1933), 22–33; J. Darrouzès, ‘Les conférances de 1112’, REB 23 (1965), 51–9; for 1114, B. Leib, ed., Anne Comnène, Alexiade. Règne de l’empereur Alexis I Comnène, 1081–1118 (3 vols., Paris, 1937–45), vol. 3, 177–85; M. Mullett, Theophylact of Ochrid: Reading the Letters of a Byzantine Archbishop (Birmingham, 1997), 239–43. Theophylact, Apologie de l’eunuchisme, in P. Gautier, ed., Théophylacte d’Achrida, I, Discours, traités, poésies (Thessalonike, 1980), 288–331; M. Spadaro, ‘Un inedito sull’ eunuchia’, RSBN 1 (1981), 3–38; M. Mullett, ‘Theophylact of Ochrid’s “in defence of eunuchs”’, in S. Tougher, ed., Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London, 2002), 177–98; C. Messis, ‘Public hautement affiché et public réellement visé: le cas de l’apologie de l’eunuchisme de Théophylacte d’Achrida’, in P. Odorico, ed., La face cachée de la littérature byzantine: le texte en tant que message immédiat (Paris,

Contexts for the Christos Paschon 215

34 35 36

37

38 39

40

41

42 43 44

2012), 41–85 and C. Messis, Les eunuques à Byzance, entre réalité et imaginaire (Paris, 2014), 321–36. Aphthonios, 11. On Ethopoiia, in H. Rabe, ed., Aphthonii Progymnasmata (Leipzig, 1926), 34–6; G. Kennedy, trans., Progymnasmata. Greek Textbooks of Prose Com­ position and Rhetoric (Atlanta, 2003), 115–17. See J. Beneker and C. A. Gibson, ed. and trans., The Rhetorical Exercises of Nike­ phoros Basilakes: Progymnasmata from Twelfth-Century Byzantium (Cambridge, MA, 2016). M. Kraus, ‘Rehearsing the other sex: impersonation of women in ancient classroom ethopoeia’, in J. A. F. Delgado, F. Pordomino and A. Stramiglia, eds., Escuela y literatura en Grecia Antigua. Acta del Simposio internacional Universidad de Salamanca 17–19 Noviembre de 2004 (Cassino, 2007), 455–68. A. W. White, Performing Orthodox Ritual in Byzantium (Cambridge, 2015); Marci­ niak, Greek Drama in Byzantine Times. H. Maguire (‘Byzantine rhetoric, Latin drama and the portrayal of the New Testament’, in E. Jeffreys, ed., Rhetoric in Byzantium [Aldershot and Burlington, 2003], 215–33) roots this distaste in the theory of the icon. M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge, 1974); N. Tsironis and T. Kampianaki, eds., Lament as Performance (forthcoming). For example, Gregory of Nazianzos, or. 7, on Kaisarios (BHG 286-Oration 7) in M.­ A. Calvert-Sebasti, ed. and trans., Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 6–12 (Paris, 1995), 180–245; Gregory of Nazianzos, or. 8, on Gorgonia (BHG 286-Oration 8), in ibid., 246–99; Gregory of Nazianzos, or. 43 on Basil (BHG 245-Oration 43), in J. Bernardi, ed. and trans., Grégoire de Nazianze, Discours 42–43 (Paris, 1992), 116–307; Gregory of Nyssa, Letter on the Life of Makrina, in P. Maraval, ed. and trans., Grégoire de Nysse. Vie de sainte Macrine (Paris 1971), 136–266. See Alex­ iou, Ritual Lament, 27–35; for Buondelmonti see Alexiou, Ritual Lament, 34. Psel­ los, Or.19, 36–41, in P. Agapitos and D. Polemis, ed. (Leipzig, forthcoming), A. Kaldellis, trans., Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters: The Byzantine Family of Michael Psellos (Notre Dame, 2006), 132–4. See also the poems of Chris­ topher Mytelenaios for his sister and brother (75, 76, 77, 78, 79) in E. Kurtz, ed., Die Gedichte des Christophoros Mitylenaios (Leipzig, 1903), 46–51; for an analysis see F. Bernard, Writing and Reading Byzantine Secular Poetry, 1025–1081 (Oxford, 2014), 84–7. For Constantine Rhodios see L. James, ed., Constantine of Rhodes, On Constantin­ ople and the Church of the Holy Apostles: With a New Edition of the Greek Text by Ioannis Vassis (Farnham and Burlington, 2012) and the papers in M. Mullett and R. Ousterhout, eds., The Holy Apostles: A Lost Monument, a Forgotten Project, and the Presentness of the Past (Washington, DC, 2020); for this lament see L. James, in Tsironis and Kampianaki, eds., Lament as Performance (forthcoming). Lines 857–919, S. I. Doanidou, ed., ‘Ἡ παραίτησις Νικολάου τοῦ Μουζάλωνος ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχιεπισκοπῆς Κύπρου’, Ελληνικά 7 (1934), 109–50 at 135–7; G. Strano, ed. and trans., Nicola Muzalone, Carme Apologetico (Rome, 2012), 142–6; M. Mullett, ‘The poetics of paraitesis: the resignation poems of Nicholas of Kerkyra and Nich­ olas Mouzalon’, in P. Odorico, P. Agapitos and M. Hinterberger, eds., ‘Doux Remède … ’ Poésie et poétique à Byzance (Paris, 2009), 157–78. E. Sargologos, ed. and trans., La vie de saint Cyrille le Philéote, moine byzantine (+1110) (Brussels, 1964). G. Prinzing, ed., Demetrii Chomateni ponemata diaphora (Berlin and New York, 2002). R. Macrides, ‘Poetic justice in the Patriarchate: murder and cannibalism in the prov­ inces’, in L. Burgmann, M. T. Fögen and A. Schminck, eds., Cupido Legum (Frank­ furt am Main, 1985), 137–68.

216 Margaret Mullett 45 P. Marciniak, ‘Reinventing Lucian in Byzantium’, DOP 70 (2016), 209–24. 46 H. Hunger, ed., Der byzantinische Katz-Mäuse-Krieg (Graz, Vienna and Cologne, 1968). See also K. Warcawa, ‘Bizantyński epos dla średniozaawansowanych. Kato­ myomachia Teodora Prodromosa jako tekst trzeciego stopnia’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Silesia in Katowice, 2016). 47 On theatra see M. Mullett, ‘Aristocracy and patronage in the literary circles of Com­ nenian Constantinople’, in M. J. Angold, ed., The Byzantine Aristocracy from IX to XII Centuries (Oxford, 1984), 173–201; P. Marciniak, ‘Byzantine theatron: a place for performance?’, in M. Grünbart, ed., Theatron: rhetorische Kultur im Spätantike und Mittelalter (Berlin and New York, 2007), 277–85; N. Gaul, ‘The letter and its audience: epistolography in the theatron’, in A. Riehle, ed., Companion to Byzantine Epistolography (Leiden, forthcoming); N. Gaul, ‘Performative reading in the late Byzantine theatron’, in I. Toth and T. Shawcross, eds., Reading in the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, 2018), 215–34. 48 It seems that the last Byzantines who experienced tragedy performed in a mask were the Late Antique audiences who saw tragoidoi perform tragic arias in gaping-mouth mask and kothornoi (or the young Augustine, Conf. 4.2, who per­ formed The flying Medea in competitions); this kind of entertainment seems to have been outpaced by mimes and pantomimes by the early sixth century. See E. Hall, ‘The singing actors of antiquity’ and Puchner, ‘Acting’, in Easterling and Hall, eds., Greek and Roman Actors, 3–38, 304–26; P. Easterling and R. Miles, ‘Dramatic identities: tragedy in late antiquity’, in R. Miles, ed., Con­ structing Identities in Late Antiquity (London and New York, 1999), 95–111; T. Barnes, ‘Christians and the theater’, in I. Gildenhard and M. Revermann, eds., Beyond the Fifth Century: Interactions with Greek Tragedy from the Fourth Century BCE to the Middle Ages (Berlin and New York, 2010), 315–34; Brown, ‘Performance and reception’ inclines to a later date. D. Wiles (Mask and Performance in Greek Tragedy. From Ancient Festival to Modern Experimenta­ tion [Cambridge, 2007]) offers no end-date for mask-wearing. That twelfthcentury Byzantines were aware of tragic, comic and satyr masks is clear from Theodore Balsamon, Comm. on canon 62 In Troullo, in G. Rhalles and M. Potles, eds., Syntagma ton theion kai ieron kanonon tes orthodoxou anato­ likes ekklesias (6 vols., Athens, 1852–56), vol. 2, 449–50, but I have seen no evidence for revival. 49 P. Marciniak, ‘Byzantine performative society’ (forthcoming). 50 A. W. White, ‘The dance of medium and genre: a new approach to Greek theatre from Antiquity to the Renaissance’, unpublished paper, cited with many thanks to the author; see also his ‘Adventures in recording technology: the drama-as­ performance in the Greek East’, in Gildenhard and Revermann, eds., Beyond the Fifth Century, 371–96. 51 Dumbarton Oaks and the Arts Club of Washington 2015–16. 52 As in Tsironis and Kampianaki, eds., Lament as Performance. 53 On male lament see M. Mullett, ‘Do brothers weep?’, in M. Alexiou and D. Cairns, eds., Greek Laughter and Tears (Edinburgh, 2017), 312–37. 54 A. C. Mahr, The Cyprus Passion Cycle (Notre Dame, 1946), 126–216, expands with biblical dialogue the scenario for ten episodes of Holy Week and Easter (1. Raising of Lazaros, 2. Palm Sunday, 3. The Supper in the House of Simon, 4. The Washing of the Feet, 5. The Betrayal, 6. The Questioning, 7. The Mockery, 8. The Crucifix­ ion, 9. The Resurrection, 10. Doubting Thomas) first published by S. Lampros, ‘Βυζαντινὴ σκηνοθετικὴ διάταξις τῶν παθῶν τοῦ Χριστοῦ’, NE 13 (1916), 381–408; for contemporary Latin plays of the period see K. Young, The Drama of the Medi­ eval Church (2 vols., Oxford, 1933), vol. 1 for overall development; for specific twelfth-century plays see P. Dronke, trans. and ed., Nine Medieval Latin Plays

Contexts for the Christos Paschon 217

55

56

57 58

59

60

(Cambridge, 1994), 83–100 (Verses pascales de tres Maries), 100–5 (Versus de pele­ grino), both from Vic, and 198–235 (Ludus de Passione) from the Carmina Burana. The episodes in the burial play of Christos Paschon are very clear: Deposition 1247–1308, Threnos 1309–1426, Entombment 1434–88 and Teleutaios Aspasmos 1489–1619, framed by an introduction 1134–46 and departures 1620–1857 with mes­ senger 1860–1905. In art of the period there is less certainty. Most attention has been paid to the development of the Threnos scene in a participatory mode of narra­ tion, see Maguire, ‘The depiction of sorrow’; Maguire, ‘Two modes of narration in Byzantine art’, in D. Mouriki, C. F. Moss and K. Kiefer, eds., Byzantine East, Latin West: Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton, 1995), 385–91, building on K. Weitzmann, ‘The origin of the Threnos’, in M. Meiss, ed., De Artibus Opuscula XL. Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky (2 vols., New York, 1961), vol. 1, 476–90; more recently the whole sequence has begun to be rethought in the light of tomb architecture and liturgy and the arrival of the lithos in Constantinople under Manuel I: N. Ševčenko, ‘The tomb of Manuel I Komnenos again’, in Change in the Byzantine World in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Proceedings of the First Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium (Istanbul, 2010), 609–16; N. Ševčenko, ‘The service of the Virgin’s lament revisited’, in L. Brubaker and M. Cunningham, eds., The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and Images (Farnham and Burlington, 2011), 247–77. Sadly, it is not yet clear to me whether at the time the Christos Paschon was written it was normal to represent as separate scenes in a single cycle the three processes that are so clear in the play; it is potentially an important pointer to the development of the relationship between written and visual sources in the twelfth century. P. Marciniak, ‘How to entertain the Byzantines? Mimes and jesters in Byzantium’, in E. Vitz and A. Ötürkmen, eds., Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean (Turnhout, 2014), 125–49; Maguire and Maguire, Other Icons, esp. 29–40, 109–20, 145–56. R. Ousterhout, ‘Women at tombs: narrative, theatricality and the contemplative mode’, in A. Eastmond and L. James, eds., Wonderful Things: Byzantium through its Art (Farnham and Burlington, 2013), 229–46. The foundation text for Byzantinists is H. Maguire, ed., Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204 (Washington, DC, 1998). For the comparative aspect see M. A. Pomerantz and E. Birge Vitz, eds., In the Presence of Power: Court and Per­ formance in the Pre-Modern Middle East (New York, 2017). For performance indicators see A. F. Stone, ‘Aurality in the panegyrics of Eustathios of Thessaloniki’, in M. Grünbart, ed., Theatron: rhetorische Kultur im Spätantike und Mittelalter (Berlin and New York, 2007), 419–28; for a first step towards work­ ing on Byzantine gesture see L. Brubaker, ‘Gesture in Byzantium’, in M. Braddick, ed., The Politics of Gesture: Historical Perspectives (Oxford, 2009), 36–56, eadem, ‘Gender and gesture in Byzantine images’ in eds. A. Olsen Lam and R. Schroeder, The Eloquence of Art: Essays in Honour of Henry Maguire (Birmingham, 2020), 47–70. and for an experimental approach to comprehensibility see Niki Tsironis’s new project, ‘Orality and Performance’, at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation Athens. Maguire and Maguire, Other Icons, 167.

13 The calendar of saints in Hodegon lectionaries Robert S. Nelson

During his distinguished career, Henry Maguire has illumined us about many aspects of Byzantine culture, including art and text, as well as saints and their portraits.1 Taking those interests in a different direction, my contribution to this volume examines church calendars in five fourteenth-century Gospel lectionaries, as denoted in their menologia, generally the concluding section of a lectionary. An ultimate goal of such research is to understand local traditions and changes over time in calendars of saints and thereby to date and localize lectionaries and other manuscript that can be associated with them. Such research, however, is only beginning, and the state of inquiry is primitive compared to the study of calendars in Latin Psalters and especially Books of Hours.2 Some day we may have a computerized inventory of the calendars of the 2,000 surviving Greek Gospel lectionaries, and then their heuristic potential can be evaluated.3 Before then, a logical place to begin the investigation is with well-documented manuscripts; hence my focus on lectionaries made by scribes of the Constantinopolitan monastery ton Hodegon or ‘of the guides.’ The monastery’s name refers to the tradition that the resident monks guided the blind to a miraculous spring to restore their sight,4 even though the monastery was better known for its famous wonder-working icon of the Virgin Hodegetria believed to have been painted by St Luke. Located east and north of Hagia Sophia, the monastery occupied an artificial terrace overlooking the sea walls of Constantinople and the meeting of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. During the Palaiologan period, the monastery’s church became a site for imperial burials.5 To manuscript scholars, the monastery is just as renowned for generations of the finest scribes of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Constantinople. Some, like the monk Chariton, a central figure in what follows, had been identified as early as Montfaucon’s Palaeographia Graeca of 1708,6 but only with Linos Politis’s seminal, two-part article of 1958 did the import and influence of the monastery’s scriptorium became generally recognized.7 That study plus another by the same author remains fundamental, although since then, Hugo Buchthal and Annemarie Weyl Carr have examined Hodegon illuminated manuscripts, and I. Pérez Martín has considered the

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writing style of its scribes. Finally, recent articles by Erich Lamberz and Irmgard Hutter10 have looked more closely at the 26 manuscripts donated to the Vatopedi monastery on Mt. Athos between 1347 and 1354 by emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (r. 1347–54). Their work is relevant because two of the five Hodegon lectionaries were part of that imperial bequest and now reside at the Vatopedi. For convenience, I list in chronological order the five manuscripts together with their Gregory-Aland (GA) number, a system of denoting New Testament manuscripts,11 as well the identifications that Lamberz and Hutter have proposed for some of the scribes and illuminators: Paris, BnF gr. 311 (GA l 86), July 1336 (hereafter P). Copied by Chariton and illuminated by Painter C.12 Mt. Athos, Vatopedi 908. (GA l 1135) (hereafter V). Not dated. Gift of John VI Kantakouzenos. Copied by Joasaph I and illuminated by Painter D.13 Mt. Athos, Vatopedi Skevophylakion 16 (GA l 2429), 1340/1 (hereafter Vsk). Gift of John VI Kantakouzenos. Copied by Chariton and illuminated by Painter D.14 Mt. Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, gr. 239 (GA l 1756), 24 November 1373 (hereafter Si). Copied by Joasaph II. Simple pen and ink decoration.15 Sofia, Centre ‘Ivan Dujčev’ 212 (GA l 2388), 17 June 1378 (hereafter So). Copied by Joasaph II. Illuminated ornament.16 Three scribes, Chariton, Joasaph I and II and two illuminators, C and D, and other unidentified artists produced the five lectionaries. Chariton and Joasaph II each copied two lectionaries. A generation apart in their period of activity, they were the principal copyists at the monastery in the first and second half of the fourteenth century, respectively. All five manuscripts are approximately the same size and resemble in this respect deluxe middle Byzantine lectionaries.17 Of the five, the most significant art historically is Vatopedi Skevophylakion 16, a large and impressive manuscript written by Chariton in 1340/1. It and the other manuscripts in the monastery’s treasury – many richly decorated – have become known to scholarly world only in recent decades.18 The evangelist portraits of Skevophylakion 16 have the pneumatic drapery of the period, as if someone had pumped them full of air. They correspond to evangelists in a contemporary lectionary at the Koutloumousiou Monastery on Mt Athos (cod. 62, GA l 698) and a gospel book at the Vatican Library (gr. 1160, GA 141).19 Hutter attributed to Painter D the two lectionaries in John VI’s donation, V and Vsk. While the same artist worked on both manuscripts, they were written by two different but contemporary scribes, Joasaph I and Chariton. This differing affiliation of scribes and illuminators is well attested in the Palaiologan period.20

220 Robert S. Nelson Chariton wrote ten other surviving manuscripts between 1319 and his latest dated book, a splendid Psalter of 1349 for empress Anna of Savoy, the wife of emperor Andronikos III (r. 1328–41).21 He is better documented than Joasaph I, but the two scribes were contemporaries, for Joasaph I completed another manuscript, Vatopedi 327, in 1335, the year before Chariton copied the Paris lectionary.22 In his pioneering study of illumination of this period, Buchthal associated the ornament of Paris volume with other deluxe manuscripts,23 and Hutter attributed it to Painter C.24 On f. 382v, Chariton concluded the manuscript with a date and his typical colophon: ‘the gift of God, and the labour of Chariton’ (θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον καὶ Χαρίτωνος πόνος). Joasaph II and other later Hodegon scribes repeated this formula, substituting their own names. Below these entries, a note in a more informal, cursive style states that Ignatios, the abbot of the Hodegon, commissioned the lectionary for the altar of monastery’s church.25 Of the five volumes studied, only P specifies its patron and the institution for which it was made. Vatopedi 908 was studied from a faint, blurred microfilm at the Institut für Neutestamentliche Forschungen (INTF). Copied by Joasaph I most likely in the 1330s, it denotes textual divisions by pi-shaped or horizontal headpieces filled with illuminated ornament in a manner similar to Paris 311. Its several pages of blank parchment suggest that the manuscript was intended to have evangelist portraits, which were never completed. The half-filled text columns at the end of divisions in V waste valuable parchment and indicate that this volume, while not as impressive as P, is also not as modest and utilitarian as the fourth lectionary, Mt. Sinai 239. Completed by Joasaph II in 1373, Si has only pen and ink ornament, the work either of the copyist or more likely a separate artist. While both Joasaphs were monks at Hodgeon, only the later copyist became abbot of the monastery.26 Five years after Joasaph II completed his first surviving lectionary, he produced the manuscript formerly in the monastery of Kozinitza and today in Sofia at the Centre ‘Ivan Dujčev.’27 Because I also know this manuscript only from a microfilm at the INTF, I cannot comment in detail on the codicology of the volume, but it appears complex. From an eleventh-century Gospel book either Joasaph II or his illuminator took cross pages, columns and arches for canon tables but without numbers, and evangelist portraits and arranged them at the beginning of the four standard sections of a lectionary, devoted to readings from John, Matthew, Luke and Mark in that order. The result is a more luxurious manuscript than Si.28 The table appended to this chapter lays out the calendars of the five Hodegon lectionaries in chronological order from P of 1336 to So of 1378. In order to assess the singularity of Hodegon calendars, notes in the appendix compare the Hodegon manuscripts to four published calendars: the saints’ lives recorded in the Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae, compiled in the tenth century with later variants (hereafter Synaxarium CP);29 the Metropolitan Museum’s Jaharis manuscript, an eleventh-century

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patriarchal lectionary (hereafter J); the calendar distilled by C. R. Gregory (hereafter G) from many manuscripts and published in his fundamental investigations of New Testament manuscripts;31 and finally the saints noted in the Menaion (hereafter M), the modern Orthodox service book that contains the propers for the year.32 An entry without annotation means that the saints listed agree with the four comparative sources entirely or substantially (three out of four sources). Glancing at the appendix, it is immediately apparent that only the most luxurious lectionary (Vsk) has a complete calendar, while the others record only the more significant feast days. For example, the abridged calendar in P of 1336, the earliest dated lectionary, has entries for only 156 days or 43% of the year. Moreover, its listings are not spread evenly over the 12 months but range from a high of 26 days in January to five in both March and April. None of the five Hodegon lectionaries follows the eleventh-century calendars of the patriarchal manuscripts made for use in Hagia Sophia, and in this respect, they agree with the more numerous lectionaries of the late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century copying centre in Constantinople, the ill-named the Atelier of the Palaiologina.33 The Hodegon calendars recognize feasts for Constantinopolitan relics, such as the Mandylion (16 August) and the girdle of the Virgin (31 August), but ignore secular events in the city, such as the special service at the Forum of Constantine on 1 September or the Birthday of Constantinople celebrated at the same location on 11 May. All five manuscripts agree with each other and the published calendars for major commemorations, such as the Marian feasts. Variations appear on days with minor saints. For 16 July, the five Hodegon lectionaries list the church fathers of the sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople, an entry that is not attested in the comparative sources and thus may tentatively be regarded as a hallmark of Hodegon calendars. In Vsk, the most frequent deviations from the norm occur in the months from March to May but are also scattered throughout the year. For example, Thomas, patriarch of Constantinople, appears on 24 March, even though he is unattested on this day in the comparanda, which assign him to several nearby days. The same applies to Martin of Rome on 12 April, Artemon on 14 April, the three saints of 15 April and the saints on 3–4 November. While Vsk generally agrees with the four abridged calendars on the days they have in common, the imperial lectionary often adds more saints to an entry.34 Listings in Vsk correspond to different sources, but one pattern does emerge. In a number of cases, the modern Menaion is the best match for Vsk.35 Of the other four, V is the outlier. Its calendar is similar to but not the same as those in P, Si and So. Most of the entries in V match the other manuscripts, but on four days, V mentions different saints or has a different form of saints’ names.36 Several times, V agrees with P, Si and So but not Vsk, including four days in September (10–13), where all the abridged calendars emphasize the

222 Robert S. Nelson veneration of the Holy Wood or True Cross.37 In one instance, V skips a day on which the other manuscripts recorded saints, and in another place, it puts a saint on the preceding day.38 Perhaps the most important omission in V is on 16 August, where it does not cite the Mandylion, a major relic in Constantinople, although its history after the Fourth Crusade is obscure.39 Twice V and Vsk correspond only to each other. In the first instance, 25 January, the differences are small, involving the precise name of the Gregory of Nazianzos. The second is more interesting for what it says about V but also P, Si and So. On 23 January, both V and Vsk record a saint Clement with no further identification, while P and Si specify Clement of Rome. More detailed calendars than these distinguish the two Clements, noting that the saint on 23 January is Clement of Ankyra, not Clement of Rome. P, Si and So had previously recorded Clement of Rome on 25 November. Because the Roman pontiff was not sufficiently important to warrant two feast days in the Orthodox calendar, the entries in P and Si are likely mistakes of Chariton or his model. This agreement in an error is the first of many examples, demonstrating that Si copies P. In this detail, So might appear unrelated to P and Si, because it records Clement of Rome on the preceding 22 January, yet again this entry is better regarded as a scribal error. Normally Joasaph II began an entry with a majuscule T for the declined article τοῦ. Accordingly, the entry for 22 January begins in this manner but after the name of the second saint, Joasaph II wrote Τοῦ again before the name of Clement of Rome. Thus, he most likely meant to start a new entry with Clement, but neglected to add the number 23. Thus, So also shares the error of P. In other places as well, Joasaph’s two lectionaries closely follow P. Si and P agree in every entry except two: 30/31 July and 7 August. Only Si records St Eudokomos on 30 instead of 31 July, as specified in the other manuscripts and the comparative sources. Rather than following a different tradition, this entry again is more likely yet another scribal error. Joasaph may simply have omitted the second digit of the Greek number 31, thus making it 30 (Greek and Latin numbers lack the Arabic zero). Si and V share the addition of the word metheorton to the entry for 7 August. Was Joasaph II following a model similar to V, or did the scribe himself add something? I favour the latter alternative, because in no other instances does So agree with V instead of P. A similar relationship pertains to So and P, but the calendar in So is more error ridden. Consecutive lections for 7–8 September lack numerals, putting all on 6 September, even though there is lection not a reference to a lection for what should be 8 September. That day commemorates the birth of the Theotokos, a major feast unlike the preceding day for the minor saint Sozon. A comparison of the relevant pages in So and P shows that Joasaph II copied P rather closely.40 In both, the mention of Sozon comes in the middle of a line contrary to the usual custom of beginning a new day on a separate line.

Saints in Hodegon lectionaries

223

The larger initial article Ἡ in the margin of the next lection is the same in the two manuscripts, as well as the changing letter sizes of the next word γέννησις (birth). Thus, Joasaph II copied all details of the entries in P except the marginal numbers. He also neglected to number the entry for Mary of Egypt on 1 April, although its lection agrees with the other manuscripts. The final error is the listing for the death of John the Evangelist on 25 September instead of the next day as in the other four manuscripts and the comparative sources. Nonetheless, the scripts of So and P here are identical,41 as are page after page in all three manuscripts. Such visual fidelity to the exemplar explains how Joasaph II and other Hodegon scribes replicated Chariton’s elegant liturgical script and made it the model for the monastery’s manuscripts. It follows that if Joasaph’s two lectionaries, Si and So, are closely related to P, then they would also have affinities with each other. For that reason, the small differences between them in text and decoration are revealing. Their calendars do not agree on seven occasions, most of which have already been discussed as errors of one sort or another.42 The most significant is 7 August. As noted previously, Si adds the word metheorton here. By omitting that word, So thus follows P, implying that So copied P directly without reference to Si. Visually the two lectionaries are different as well. The additions to So from an earlier Gospel book embellish it to a degree not matched by the simple ornament in Si. Small differences in script show the same. The headings for August in P and So are written in ornate majuscules two lines tall and share the same letter forms and ligatures. In contrast, Si renders the name of the month in plain minuscules once more demonstrating that Si and So copied P separately. That deduction leads to another about the intended recipients of the two lectionaries. Because both are near duplicates of P, the Hodegon monastery would have had no need for them, so that Joasaph II most likely made them for patrons outside the monastery. Of course, this inference might suggest that the divergences of the two manuscripts from P and from each other are due to the wishes of those unnamed patrons and the calendars of their monasteries or churches. However, to entertain, much less demonstrate this alternative requires a wider knowledge of Palaiologan calendars than presently exists. Until proven otherwise, the preferred hypothesis thus remains that the variations in Si and So are the result of scribal errors. If So copied P, then the Hodegon maintained possession of P until at least the 1378 date of So, and probably longer. The monastery, although not its wonder-working icon, survived the Ottoman conquest by a decade or so until Mehmed II razed it about 1467 to construct the new Topkapi palace.43 A century later, the Paris manuscript belonged to Jean Hurault de Boistaillé (d. 1572), the French ambassador to Venice and Constantinople and an avid collector of Greek manuscripts. A Latin note on the first page of P establishes Hurault’s ownership and further states the manuscript had been purchased in Constantinople for 30 gold coins.44 Hurault’s agent

224 Robert S. Nelson prepared an inventory of his Greek manuscripts in which he presciently but incorrectly referred to P as the imperial lectionary.45 He had the right idea but the wrong manuscript of Chariton. It would be centuries before Kantakuzenos’s gift lectionary (Vsk) became known to western scholars. Yet within the monastery, the manuscript’s significance was not forgotten. Its connection with John VI Kantakouzenos, regarded as a second founder of Vatopedi, insured its local prominence; hence its location in the skevophylakion and its nineteenth-century rebinding that inscribed the emperor’s name on the cover.46 Regrettably, the subsequent history of Joasaph II’s two lectionaries is not known. If the affiliations of three of the five Hodegon lectionaries, P, Si and So, are clearer, many questions remain. Does V represent another tradition or a unique anomaly? And what was the model for P? Vsk, completed in the Byzantine year 1340/1 (1 September–31 August), remains the most intriguing of the group. Seven lines of ornate majuscules on one page (f. 5v) accord John VI Kantakouzenos the traditional titles of an emperor, and imperial and personal emblems decorate a later headpiece (f. 52r). The only problem is that when Chariton completed the manuscript, Kantakouzenos did not yet have control of the empire. In June 1341, the previous emperor Andronikos III died at the Hodegon monastery, it has been argued, of malaria from which he had suffered for years.47 He had gone to the Hodegon seeking either a cure or solace in his last days.48 Andronikos left no clear regent for his young son, resulting in considerable turmoil from different factions vying for power. Kantakouzenos’s troops proclaimed him emperor only in the fall of 1341, which was in the Byzantine year following the one Chariton inscribed in his colophon.49 Perhaps f. 5 was later added to the manuscript – I can’t judge since I have worked from the facsimile – but the insignia on f. 52 decorate the beginning of a section of the manuscript integral to the volume. At the very least, these details point to the involvement of Kantakouzenos or his agents in the creation of the lectionary either before or after he became emperor. But for whose liturgy was the calendar of Vsk devised? Did Chariton copy an older complete Hodegon calendar, or did ecclesiastical authorities loyal to Kantakouzenos, which did not include the Patriarch of Constantinople, provide the exemplar? Finally, what might have been the impact of Vsk on calendars and lectionaries of the Vatopedi monastery to which it was later donated?50 Questions come easier than answers. In the end, however, the myriad details of these calendars should not obscure their religious function. By sanctifying time, the Hodegon calendars structured the devotions of its monks and joined heaven and earth in late Byzantine Constantinople.

Paris 311

13

12

11

10

Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Sat before Elevation of Holy Wood

September 1 Symeon of Mandra51 2 Mamas, John of Nesteuton52 3 Anthimos 4 Babylas 5 Zacharias 6 Archangel Michael at Chonai 7 Sozon 8 Birth of Theotokos 9 Joachim, Anna

Appendix

Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Sat before Elevation of Holy Wood

Birth of Theotokos Joachim, Anna

Symeon Stylites Mamas, John of Nesteuton Anthimos Babylas Zacharias Archangel Michael at Chonai

Vatopedi 908

Dedication of church of Resurrection, Kornelios the centurion

Autonomos

Theodora of Alexandria

Sozon Birth of Theotokos Joachim, Anna Sat before Elevation of Cross Sun before Elevation of Cross Menodor, Metrodora, Nymphodora

Anthimos Babylas Zacharias Archangel Michael at Chonai

Symeon of Mandra Mamas, John of Nesteuton

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Sat before Elevation of Holy Wood

Symeon of Mandra Mamas, John of Nesteuton Anthimos Babylas Zacharias Archangel Michael at Chonai Sozon Birth of Theotokos Joachim, Anna

Sinai 239

(Continued )

Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Veneration of Holy Wood Sat before Elevation Sun before Elevation

Symeon of Mandra Mamas, John of Nesteuton Anthimos Babylas Zacharias Archangel Michael at Chonai Sozon53 Birth of Theotokos54 Joachim, Anna

Sofia 212

27

26

24 25

21 22 23

19 20

18

15 16 17

14

(Cont.)

Death of John the Evangelist

Conception of John the Baptist Thekla

Death of John the Evangelist

Conception of John the Baptist Thekla

Eustathios

Sun before Elevation of Holy Wood Elevation of Holy & Life-Giving Cross Sat after Elevation Sun after Elevation Niketas Euphemia

Sun before Elevation of Holy Wood Elevation of Holy & Life-Giving Cross Sat after Elevation Sun after Elevation Niketas Euphemia

Eustathios

Vatopedi 908

Paris 311

Kallistratos & Companions

Death of John the Evangelist

Thekla Euphrosyne

Niketas Euphemia Sophia & three daughters, Faith, Hope, Love Eumenios of Gortyna Trophimos, Sabbatios, Dorymedon Eustathios, Theopiste & their children Kodratos Phokas Conception of John the Baptist

Elevation of Cross Sat after Elevation Sun after Elevation

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Death of John the Evangelist

Conception of John the Baptist Thekla

Eustathios

Sun before Elevation of Holy Wood Elevation of Holy & Life-Giving Cross Sat after Elevation Sun after Elevation Niketas Euphemia

Sinai 239

Conception of John the Baptist Thekla Death of John the Evangelist55

Eustathios

Elevation of Holy & Life-Giving Cross Sat after Elevation Sun after Elevation Niketas Euphemia

Sofia 212

17

15 16

13 14

12

October 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

28 29 30

Longinos Centurion

Longinos Centurion

Probos, Tarachos, Andronikos Karpos, Papylos

Thomas Sergios, Bakchos

Thomas Sergios, Bakchos

Probos, Tarachos, Andronikos Karpos, Papylos

Ananias Cyprian Dionysios Areopagite

Gregory of Greater Armenia

Gregory of Greater Armenia

Ananias Cyprian Dionysios Areopagite

Chariton

Chariton

Ananias, Romanos Melodos Cyprian Dionysios Areopagite Hierotheos Charitime Thomas Sergios, Bakchos Pelagia James Alphaios Eulampios, Eulampia Philip, one of seven deacons, Theo­ phanes confessor Probos, Tarachos, Andronikos Karpos, Papylos Nazarios, Gervasios, Protasios, Kel­ sios, Cosmas the hymnographer56 Loukianos Longinos Centurion Hosea, Andrew in Krisis

Chariton Kyriakos the anchorite Gregory of Greater Armenia

Longinos Centurion

Probos, Tarachos, Andronikos Karpos, Papylos

Thomas Sergios, Bakchos

Ananias Cyprian Dionysios Areopagite

Gregory of Greater Armenia

Chariton

Longinos Centurion

(Continued )

Probos, Tarachos, Andronikos Karpos, Papylos

Thomas Sergios, Bakchos

Ananias Cyprian Dionysios Areopagite

Gregory of Greater Armenia

Chariton

Kosmas, Damian Akindynos & Companions Akepsimas, Joseph, Aeithalas

James brother of the Lord Arethas & Arethas & Companions Companions Markianos, Martyrios Markianos, Martyrios Demetrios, Earthquake Demetrios, Earthquake

James brother of the Lord Arethas & Companions Markianos, Martyrios Demetrios, Earthquake

Ioannikos the Great57

Kosmas, Damian Akindynos & Companions

Nestor Terentios & Neonilla Anastasia of Rome, Abramios Zenobios, Zenobia Stachys, Amplios & the rest, Epimachos

Hilarion

Hilarion

Luke Joel, Ouaros Artemios Hilarion Aberkios James brother of the Lord

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Luke

Vatopedi 908

Luke

Paris 311

November 1 Kosmas, Damian 2 Akindynos & Companions 3 Akepsimas, Joseph, Aeithalas

27 28 29 30 31

25 26

24

18 19 20 21 22 23

(Cont.)

Kosmas, Damian Akindynos & Companions Akepsimas, Joseph, Aeithalas

James brother of the Lord Arethas & Companions Markianos, Martyrios Demetrios, Earthquake

Hilarion

Luke

Sinai 239

Kosmas, Damian Akindynos & Companions Akepsimas, Joseph, Aeithalas

Markianos, Martyrios Demetrios, Earthquake

James brother of the Lord Arethas & Companions

Hilarion

Luke

Sofia 212

Celebration of Archangels

Celebration of Archangels59

21

John Chrysostomos Philip Gourias, Samonas, Abibos Matthew Gregory Thaumatourgos

(Continued )

Platon, Romanos Obadiah, Barlaam Proklos of Constantinople, Gregory of Dekapolis Entrance of Theotokos Entrance of Theotokos Entrance of Theotokos to Temple Entrance of Theotokos Entrance of Theotokos to Temple to Temple to Temple to Temple

Matthew Gregory Thaumatourgos

John Chrysostomos Philip Gourias, Samonas, Abibos

18 19 20

16 17

John Chrysostomos Philip Gourias, Samonas, Abibos Matthew Gregory Thaumatourgos

John Chrysostomos Philip Gourias, Samonas, Abibos Matthew Gregory Thaumatourgos

John archbishop of Alexandria the Almsgiver John Chrysostomos Philip Gourias, Samonas, Abibos Matthew Gregory Thaumatourgos

Celebration of Archangels

Paul the Confessor

13 14 15

John the Alms-giver

Celebration of Archangels

Paul the Confessor

John the Alms-giver

John the Alms-giver

Paul the Confessor

Paul the Confessor

Akepsimas, Joseph, Aeithalas58 Galaktion, Episteme Paul the Confessor 33 Martyrs of Melitene Celebration of Archistrategos Michael Onesiphoros, Porphyrios, Matrona, Theoktiste Erastos, Olympas & Companions Menas, Victor, Vikentios, Theodore of Stoudios John the Alms-giver

12

10 11

9

5 6 7 8

4

December 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

26 27 28 29 30

24 25

22 23

(Cont.)

Barbara Sabas Nicholas

Conception of Anna

Conception of Anna

Andrew

Clement of Rome, Peter of Alexandria

Vatopedi 908

Barbara Sabas Nicholas

Andrew

Clement of Rome, Peter of Alexandria

Paris 311

Naum Habbakuk Sophonios Barbara, John of Damascus Sabas Nicholas Ambrose of Milan Patapios Conception of Anna Menas, Hermogenes, Eugraphos

Philemon & Companions Amphilochios of Iconium, Gregory of Agrigentum60 Katherine & Merkourios61 Clement of Rome, Peter of Alexandria Alypios James the Persian Stephen the Younger Paramonos Andrew

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Conception of Anna

Barbara Sabas Nicholas

Andrew

Clement of Rome, Peter of Alexandria

Sinai 239

Conception of Anna

Barbara Sabas Nicholas

Andrew

Clement of Rome, Peter of Alexandria

Sofia 212

23 24

21 22

20

18 19

14 15 16 17

11 12 13

Vigil of Nativity

Ignatios Theophoros Sun of Ancestors of Christ Sat before Nativity Sun before Nativity

Three Children & Daniel

Spyridon Eustratios & Companions

Vigil of Nativity

Ignatios Theophoros Sun of Ancestors of Christ Sat before Nativity Sun before Nativity

Three Children & Daniel

Spyridon Eustratios & Companions

Iouliane Anastasia the dispeller [of magical agents] 10 Martyrs of Crete Eugenia, Vigil of Nativity

Sebastian & Companions Boniface Sat before Nativity Sun before Nativity Ignatios Theophoros

Daniel the Stylite Spyridon Eustratios, Auxentios, Eugenios, Mardarios, Orestes Sun οf Ancestors of Christ Thyrsos, Leukios & Companions Eleutherios Haggai Three Children & Daniel

Vigil of Nativity

Ignatios Theophoros Sun of Ancestors of Christ Sat before Nativity Sun before Nativity

Three Children & Daniel

Spyridon Eustratios & Companions

(Continued )

Vigil of Nativity

Ignatios Theophoros Sun of Ancestors of Christ Sat before Nativity Sun before Nativity

Three Children & Daniel

Spyridon Eustratios & Companions

5

3 4

2

January 1

31

Circumcision, Basil the Great Sylvester, Proeortion of Lights Malachai, Proeortion Celebration of 70, Proeortion Vigil of Lights

20,000 Martyrs Holy Innocents Anysia Sat after Nativity Sun after Nativity Sat before Lights Sun before Lights

28 29 30

27

Nativity Celebration of Theotokos Stephen

Paris 311

25 26

(Cont.)

Circumcision, Basil the Great Sylvester, Proeortion of Lights Malachai, Proeortion Celebration of 70, Proeortion Vigil of Lights

20,000 Martyrs Holy Innocents Anysia Sat after Nativity Sun after Nativity Sat before Lights Sun before Lights

Nativity Celebration of Theotokos Stephen

Vatopedi 908

Theopemptos, Theonas, Synkletike,64 Vigil of Lights

Malachai, Gordios, Proeortion Celebration of 70, Proeortion

Sylvester, Proeortion of Lights

Circumcision, Basil the Great

Melene of Rome Sat after Nativity Sun after Nativity Sat before Lights Sun before Lights

Stephen, Theodore & Theophanes Grapti62 20,000 Martyrs Holy Innocents, Markellos Anysia, Zotikos63

Nativity Celebration of Theotokos

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Circumcision, Basil the Great Sylvester, Proeortion of Lights Malachai, Proeortion Celebration of 70, Proeortion Vigil of Lights

20,000 Martyrs Holy Innocents Anysia Sat after Nativity Sun after Nativity Sat before Lights Sun before Lights

Nativity Celebration of Theotokos Stephen

Sinai 239

Malachai, Proeortion Celebration of 70, Proeortion Vigil of Lights

Circumcision, Basil the Great Sylvester, Proeortion

20,000 Martyrs Holy Innocents Anysia Sat after Nativity Sun after Nativity Sat before Lights Sun before Lights

Nativity Celebration of Theotokos Stephen

Sofia 212

19 20 21 22

17 18

16

12 13 14 15

11

Euthymios Maximos confessor Timothy, Anastaios of Persia

Metheorton, Gregory of Nyssa Sat after Lights Sun after Lights Metheorton of Lights, Theodosios abbot Metheorton of Lights Metheorton of Lights Abbots Paul of Thebes, John of cell Veneration of chain of Peter Anthony Athanasios & Cyril of Alexandria

10

8 9

Theophany Celebration of John the Baptist Metheorton of Lights Polyeuktos, Metheorton

6 7

Euthymios Maximos confessor Timothy, Anastaios of Persia

Metheorton, Gregory of Nyssa Sat after Lights Sun after Lights Metheorton of Lights, Theodosios abbot Metheorton of Lights Metheorton of Lights Abbots Paul of Thebes, John of cell Veneration of chain of Peter Anthony Athanasios & Cyril of Alexandria

Theophany Celebration of John the Baptist Metheorton of Lights Polyeuktos, Metheorton

Makarios of Egypt Euthymios Maximos confessor Timothy, Anastaios of Persia

Veneration of chain of Peter Anthony Athanasios & Cyril of Alexandria

Tatiana, Metheorton Hermylos, Stratonikos Abbots of Sinai & Raithu Paul of Thebes, John of cell

Theodosios abbot

Domnika; Metheorton of Lights Polyeuktos, Metheorton Sat after Lights Sun after Lights Gregory of Nyssa

Theophany Celebration of John the Baptist

Euthymios Maximos confessor Timothy, Anastaios of Persia

Metheorton, Gregory of Nyssa Sat after Lights Sun after Lights Metheorton of Lights, Theodosios abbot Metheorton of Lights Metheorton of Lights Abbots Paul of Thebes, John of cell Veneration of chain of Peter Anthony Athanasios & Cyril of Alexandria65

Theophany Celebration of John the Baptist Metheorton of Lights Polyeuktos, Metheorton

(Continued )

Euthymios Maximos confessor Timothy, Anastaios of Persia,

Metheorton, Gregory of Nyssa Sat after Lights Sun after Lights Metheorton of Lights, Theodosios abbot Metheorton of Lights Metheorton of Lights Abbots Paul of Thebes, John of cell Veneration of chain of Peter Anthony Athanasios & Cyril of Alexandria

Theophany Synaxis of John the Baptist Metheorton of Lights Polyeuktos, Metheorton

8

February 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

31

30

28 29

27

26

23 24 25

(Cont.)

67

Gregory Theologos

Clement

Vatopedi 908

Clement, Agathangelos Xene Gregory Theologos

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Theodore Stratelates68

Tryphon Presentation of Christ Symeon

Tryphon Tryphon Presentation of Christ Presentation of Christ Symeon Symeon Isidore of Pelousios Agatha Boukolos of Smyrna Parthenios of Lampsakos Theodore Stratelates Theodore Stratelates

Zenophon & Companions Deposition of relics of Deposition of relics of Deposition of relics of John John Chrysostom John Chrysostom Chrysostom Ephraim of Syria Deposition of relics of Deposition of relics of Deposition of relics of Ignatios Ignatios Theophoros Ignatios Theophoros Theophoros Hippolytos, Basil, Gregory Theolo­ gos, John Chrysostom Kyros, John Kyros, John Kyros, John

Gregory of Constantinople & Theologos

Clement of Rome

Paris 311

Gregory of Constantin­ ople & Theologos

Clement of Rome66

Sofia 212

Theodore Stratelates

Tryphon Presentation of Christ Symeon

Kyros, John

Theodore Stratelates

Tryphon Presentation of Christ Symeon

Kyros, John

Deposition of relics of Deposition of relics of Ignatios Theophoros Ignatios Theophoros

Deposition of relics of Deposition of relics of John Chrysostom John Chrysostom

Gregory of Constantinople & Theologos

Clement of Rome

Sinai 239

28

26 27

25

22 23 24

19 20 21

17 18

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Polykarpos Discovery of head of John the Baptist

Polykarpos Discovery of head of John the Baptist

Theodore Tyro

Blasios

Blasios

Theodore Tyro

Nikephoros

Nikephoros

Nikephoros Charalampos Blasios Meletios of Antioch Martinianos Auzentios Philemon69 Pamphilos & Companions Theodore Tyro Leon Pope of Rome Archippos Leon of Catania Eustathios of Antioch Discovery of Relics of Eugennios Polykarpos Discovery of head of John the Baptist Tarasios of Constantinople Porphyrios Prokopios of Dekapolis Basil confessor Polykarpos Discovery of head of John the Baptist

Theodore Tyro

Blasios

Nikephoros

(Continued )

Polykarpos Discovery of head of John the Baptist

Theodore Tyro

Blasios

Nikephoros

14 15 16 17

8 9 10 11 12 13

7

4 5 6

3

March 1 2

29

(Cont.)

Alexios man of the Lord

40 Martyrs

42 Martyrs of Amorium

Paris 311

Alexios man of the Lord

40 Martyrs

42 Martyrs of Amorium

Vatopedi 908

42 Martyrs of Amorium

Sinai 239

Bishops of Cherson, Basil, Ephraim and the rest Theophylakt of Nikomedia 40 Martyrs of Sebasteia 40 Martyrs Kodratos & Companions Sophronios of Jerusalem Theophanes confessor Deposition of relics of Nikephoros of Constantinople Benedict71 Agapios & Companions Sabinos72 Alexios man of the Lord Alexios man of the Lord

Eudokia Theodotos of Kyrenia Eutropos, Kleonikos, Basilikos Gerasimos of Jordan70 Konon 42 Martyrs of Amorium

[John] Cassian the Roman

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Alexios man of the Lord

40 Martyrs

42 Martyrs of Amorium

Sofia 212

5

April 1 2 3 4

29 30 31

28

26 27

21 22 23 24 25

18 19 20

Mary of Egypt

Mary of Egypt

Mary of Egypt Titos wonderworker Niketas of Medikion Joseph hymnographer, George of Maleon78 Theodoulos, Agathapous79

Annunciation to Annunciation to Theotokos Theotokos Celebration of Gabriel Celebration of Gabriel Celebration of Gabriel Matrona of Thessaloniki Stephen the Wonder­ worker74 Markos of Arethusa75 John Klimakos John Klimakos John Klimakos Hypatios Agkurias76

Cyril of Jerusalem Chrysanthos, Dareia Slain fathers of the monastery of Sabbas James confessor Basil martyr Nikon & disciples Thomas of Constantinople73 Annunciation to Theotokos

Mary of Egypt

John Klimakos

(Continued )

Mary of Egypt77

John Klimakos

Annunciation to Annunciation to Theotokos Theotokos Celebration of Gabriel Synaxis of Gabriel

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

6 7 8 9 10

(Cont.)

Theodore of Sykeon George

Mark

Mark

Vatopedi 908

Theodore of Sykeon George

Paris 311 Eutychios of Constantinople George of Mitylene Herodion, Agabos & Companions Eupsychios Terence & the rest Antipas Martin of Rome80 Basileios of Pareion81 Artemon82 Aristarchos, Poudes, Trophimos83 Eirene, Agape, Chionia Symeon of Persia John, student of Gregory of Dekapolis84 John Palaiolabritos Theodore Trichinas85 Iannouarios,86 Theodore Theodore of Sykeon George Sabbas Stratelates Mark Basil of Amaseia Symeon, relative of the Lord Iason, Sosipater87 9 Martyrs of Kyzikos

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Mark

Theodore of Sykeon George

Sinai 239

Mark

Theodore of Sykeon George

Sofia 212

19 20 21

17 18

13 14 15 16

May 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

30

Constantine, Helena

Constantine, Helena

Pachomios

John, Arsenios

John, Arsenios

Pachomios

Jeremiah Athanasios, Cyril

James son of Zebedaios

Jeremiah Athanasios, Cyril

James son of Zebedaios Jeremiah Athanasios the Great Timothy, Maura Pelagia88 Eirene89 Job Appearance of Heavenly Cross John, Arsenios Isaiah, Christopher Simon Zelotes Mokios Epiphanios of Cyprus, Germanos of Constantinople Glykeria Isidoros Pachomios Theodore the Sanctified90 Andronikos Theodotos of Ankyra91 Patrikios of Prousa Thalelaios Constantine, Helena

James son of Zebedaios

Constantine, Helena

Pachomios

John, Arsenios

Jeremiah Athanasios, Cyril

James son of Zebedaios

(Continued )

Constantine, Helena

Pachomios

John, Arsenios

Jeremiah Athanasios, Cyril

James son of Zebedaios

5

3 4

2

June 1

26 27 28 29 30 31

25

22 23 24

(Cont.)

Metrophanes of Constantinople

Nikephoros of Constantinople

Jude

Symeon of wondrous mountain Third discovery of head of John the Baptist

Paris 311

Metrophanes of Constantinople

Nikephoros of Constantinople

Symeon of wondrous mountain Third discovery of head of John the Baptist. Jude92

Vatopedi 908

Dorotheos of Tyre

Loukianos Metrophanes of Constantinople

Justin [martyr] the Philosopher Nikephoros of Constantinople

Karpos93 Therapon Niketas of Chalcedon Theodosia Isaak of Dalmatos Hermios

Third discovery of head of John the Baptist

Basiliskos Michael of Synada Symeon of wondrous mountain

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Metrophanes of Constantinople

Nikephoros of Constantinople

Jude

Symeon of wondrous mountain Third discovery of head of John the Baptist

Sinai 239

Metrophanes of Constantinople

Nikephoros of Constantinople

Jude

Symeon of wondrous mountain Third discovery of head of John the Baptist

Sofia 212

20 21 22 23 24

17 18 19

15 16

14

12 13

7 8 9 10 11

6

Birth of John the Baptist

Jude brother of the Lord

Birth of John the Baptist

Jude brother of the Lord

Elisha

Bartholomew, Barnabas

Bartholomew, Barnabas

Elisha

Theodore Stratelates Cyril of Alexandria

Theodore Stratelates Cyril of Alexandria

Methodios of Patara Julian of Tarsos Eusebios of Samosata Agripine [sic]95 Birth of John the Baptist

Onouphrios Akylina, Triphyllos Elisha, Methodios of Constantinople Amos Tychon the wonderworker of Amathouτα Manuel, Sabel, Ismael Leontios Jude brother of God

Bisarion,94 Hilarion Dalmatos Theodotos of Ancyra Theodore Stratelates Cyril of Alexandria Timothy of Prousa Bartholomew, Barnabas

Birth of John the Baptist

Jude, brother of the Lord

Elisha

Bartholomew, Barnabas

Theodore Stratelates Cyril of Alexandria

(Continued )

Birth of John the Baptist

Jude, brother of the Lord

Elisha

Bartholomew, Barnabas

Theodore Stratelates Cyril of Alexandria

10

8 9

6 7

July 1 2 3 4 5

28 29 30

25 26 27

(Cont.)

Prokopios

Cosmas, Damian Deposition of mantel

Samson the Hospitable Kyros, John Peter, Paul 12 Apostles

Paris 311

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Prokopios

Cosmas, Damian Deposition of mantel

Kyros, John Peter, Paul 12 Apostles

Cosmas, Damian Deposition of mantel of Theotokos Hyakinthos Andrew of Crete Martha mother of Symeon Stylites96 Sison the Great97 Thomas of Malea, Akakios of the Ladder98 Prokopios Pankratios of Tauromena 45 martyrs of Nikopolis

Kyros, John Peter, Paul 12 Apostles

Phevronia David of Thessaloniki Samson the Hospitable Samson the Hospitable

Vatopedi 908

Prokopios

Cosmas, Damian Deposition of mantel

Samson the Hospitable Kyros, John Peter, Paul 12 Apostles

Sinai 239

Prokopios

Cosmas, Damian Deposition of mantel

Kyros, John Peter, Paul 12 Apostles

Samson the Hospitable

Sofia 212

29 30 31

27 28

Eudokimos

Panteleimon

Anna, mother of Theotokos

Anna, mother of Theotokos

26

Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene

22 23 24 25

Eudokimos

Panteleimon

Elijah

Elijah

20 21

Marina

Kerykos, Ioulitta Fathers of 6th Synod

Kerykos, Ioulitta Fathers of 6th Synod

Marina

Euphemia

Euphemia

17 18 19

11 12 13 14 15 16

Euphemia Proklos, Hilarios Celebration of Gabriel99 Akyla Kerykos, Ioulitta Athenogenes & Fathers of 6th Synod100 Marina Aimilianos Makrina, sister of Basil, Theodosia101 Elijah John, Symeon, fools for Christ, & Ezekiel Mary Magdalene Trophimos & Companions Christina Death of Anna, mother of Theotokos Hermolaos & Companions Panteleimon Prochoros & the rest Kallinikos Silas, Silouanos Eudokimos Eudokimos102

Panteleimon

Anna, mother of Theotokos

Mary Magdalene

Elijah

Marina

Kerykos, Ioulitta Fathers of 6th Synod

Euphemia

Eudokimos (Continued )

Panteleimon

Anna, mother of Theotokos

Mary Magdalene

Elijah

Marina

Kerykos, Ioulitta Fathers of 6th Synod

Euphemia

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

2

August 1

(Cont.)

Thaddaios

Death of Theotokos Diomedes

Death of Theotokos Diomedes, deposition of Mandylion

Thaddaios

Maximos confessor

Maximos confessor

Phloros, Lauros

Matthias

Matthias

Phloros, Lauros

Transfiguration Metheorton

Deposition of Stephen’s relics

Maccabees

Vatopedi 908

Transfiguration Dometios

Deposition of Stephen’s relics

Maccabees

Paris 311

Myron Phloros, Lauros Andrew Stratelates Samuel Thaddaios Agathonikos Louppos

Isaakios, Dalmatos, Phaustos 7 children of Ephesos103 Eusignios Transfiguration Dometios Aimilianos of Kyzikos Matthias Laurentios Euplos Photios, Aniketos Maximos confessor Micah Death of Theotokos Diomedes, deposition of Mandylion

Maccabees, mother Solomone, Eleazar Deposition of Stephen’s relics

Vatopedi Sk. 16

Deposition of Stephen’s relics

Maccabees

Sofia 212

Thaddaios

Phloros, Lauros

Death of Theotokos Diomedes, deposition of Mandylion

Maximos confessor

Matthias

Thaddaios

Phloros, Lauros

Death of Theotokos Diomedes, deposition of Mandylion

Maximos confessor

Matthias

Transfiguration Transfiguration Dometios, Metheorton Dometios

Deposition of Stephen’s relics

Maccabees

Sinai 239

31

30

24 25 26 27 28 29

Beheading of John the Baptist Metheorton of John the Baptist Deposition of girdle

Eutyches Bartholomew, Titos Adrianos, Natalia Moses of Ethiopia105 Poimen106 Beheading of John the Beheading of John the Baptist Baptist Metheorton of John Patriarchs Alexander, John, Paul the Baptist the Younger Deposition of girdle Deposition of girdle of Theotokos

Bartholomew, Titos104 Bartholomew, Titos

Beheading of John the Baptist Metheorton of John the Baptist Deposition of girdle

Bartholomew, Titos

Beheading of John the Baptist Metheorton of John the Baptist Deposition of girdle

Bartholomew, Titos

246 Robert S. Nelson

Notes 1 H. Maguire, Art and Eloquence in Byzantium (Princeton, 1981); H. Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, 1996). 2 For Latin manuscripts see R. S. Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medi­ eval Art and Life (New York, 1988), 149–52; R. S. Wieck, The Medieval Calendar: Locating Time in the Middle Ages (New York, 2017) with further literature. One of the important early scholars of textual aspects of Book of Hours is V. Leroquais, Les livres d’heures manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1927). 3 The more detailed indexing of lectionaries is beginning at the Institut für Neutesta­ mentliche Textforschung (INTF) of the University of Münster. As befits such a research centre, initially it will record the lections read or referenced, but some day, hopefully, the saints of the menologion will also be tabulated. See the blog of G. Paulson: http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/intfblog/-/blogs/how-to-index-lec tionaries-on-the-nt-vmr (accessed 7 December 2018). I thank Prof. Klaus Wachtel of the INTF for this reference. 4 A.-M. Talbot, ‘Hodegon monastery’, in A. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot, eds., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (3 vols., Oxford, 1991), vol. 2, 939. 5 P. L. Grotowski, ‘The Hodegon. Considerations on the location of the Hodegetria sanctuary in Constantinople’, Βυζαντινά Σύμμεικτα 27 (2017), 1–75. 6 B. de Montfaucon, Palaeographia Graeca (Paris, 1708), 326. 7 L. Politis, ‘Eine Schreiberschule im Kloster ΤΩΝ ΟΔΗΓΩΝ’, BZ 51 (1958), 17–36, 261–87. 8 H. Buchthal, ‘Towards a history of Palaeologan illumination’, in The Place of Book Illumination in Byzantine Art (Princeton, 1975), 157–77; A. W. Carr, ‘Two manuscripts by Joasaph in the United States’, ArtB 63 (1981), 182–90; I. P. Martín, ‘El “Estilo Hodegos” y su proyección en las escrituras constantinopolitanas’, in B. Atsalos and N. Tsironi, eds., Actes du VIe Colloque international de paléographie grecque (Drama, 21–27 septembre 2003) (3 vols., Athens, 2008), vol. 1, 71–130. 9 E. Lamberz, ‘Johannes Kantakuzenos und de Produktion von Luxushandschriften in Konstantinopel in der frühren Palaiologenzeit’, in Atsalos and Tsironi, eds., Actes du VIe Colloque international, vol. 1, 133–57. 10 I. Hutter, ‘Schreiber und Maler der Palaiologenzeit in Konstantinopel’, in Atsalos and Tsironi, eds., Actes du VIe Colloque international, vol. 1, 159–90. 11 The latest accounting is online at the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (hereafter INTF): http://egora.uni-muen ster.de/intf/ (accessed 1 November 2018). 12 Lamberz, ‘Johannes Kantakuzenos und de Produktion’, 148; Hutter, ‘Schreiber und Maler’, 181, with further literature. I have worked from the actual manuscript and the microfilm online through Gallica: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/ btv1b10721805t/f3.image (accessed 1 November 2019). 13 Lamberz, ‘Johannes Kantakuzenos und de Produktion’, 150, 155; Hutter, ‘Schreiber und Maler’, 186. I have worked from the online microfilm at the INTF. 14 Lamberz, ‘Johannes Kantakuzenos und de Produktion’, 135–40, 142, 149–50, 155–6; Hutter, ‘Schreiber und Maler’, 184, 186–7. I have worked from the pub­ lished facsimile of the manuscript: S. N. Kadas, The Illuminated Lectionary of John VI Cantacuzenus. Facsimile edition of Codex Vatopediou Skeuophylakion 16 (Thes­ saloniki, 2001). 15 Politis, ‘Schreiberschule I’, 28; V. Gardthausen, Catalogus codicum graecorum sinaiticorum (Oxford, 1886), 50; V. N. Beneshevich, Opisanie grecheskikh rukopi­ sei monastyria sviatoi Ekateriny na Sinae (St. Petersburg, 1911), 118. I have worked from the online microfilm at the Library of Congress: www.loc.gov/item/ 00271079072-ms/ (accessed 1 November 2018).

Saints in Hodegon lectionaries

247

16 A. Dzhurova, V. Atsalos, K. Stanchev and V. Katsaros, ‘Checklist’ de la collection de manuscrits grecs conservée au Centre de recherches slavo-byzantines ‘Ivan Dujčev’ auprès de l’Université ‘St. Clement d’Ohrid’ de Sofia (Thessaloniki, 1994), 33; A. Dzhurova, Slavyanski, grutski i orientalski rukopisi ot sbirkata na tsentura za slavyano-vizantiiski prouchvaniya ‘Ivan Douichev’ (Sofia 1988), 14, pls. XXIII– XXIV. I have worked from the online microfilm. 17 P 340 x 255 mm; V 320 x 230; Vsk 350 x 280; Si 320 x 245; So 360 x 280. Cf. the eleventh-century lectionaries in the Metropolitan Museum, the Jaharis lectionary (355 x 268) and in the Morgan Library, New York, M 639 (333 x 245). 18 E. Lamberz, ‘The library’, in The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopaidi: Trad­ ition History Art (2 vols., Mount Athos, 1998) vol. 2, 564. 19 These manuscripts are discussed in Buchthal, ‘Toward a history’, 166–7. Both are digitized at the INTF. 20 The case of the scribe Theodore Hagiopetrites comes to mind. He did the ornament in his manuscripts, but relied on different painters for the figural miniatures. See R. S. Nelson, Theodore Hagiopetrites: A Late Byzantine Scribe and Illuminator (Vienna, 1991). 21 Politis, ‘Schreiberschule II’, 261–5; Buchthal, ‘Towards a history’, 159; S. M. Pelekanides, P. C. Chrestou, Ch. Mauropulu-Tsiume and S. N. Kadas, Οἱ θησαυροὶ τοῦ Ἁγíου Ὄρους (4 vols., Athens, 1975), vol. 3, 328–9, figs. 147–8. 22 Politis, ‘Schreiberschule II’, 26; Lamberz, ‘Johannes Kantakuzenos und de Produk­ tion’, 155. 23 Buchthal, ‘Towards a history’, 158–61. 24 Hutter, ‘Schreiber und Maler’, 181. 25 Montfaucon, Palaeographia graeca, 326; Politis, ‘Schreiberschule II’, 263; Martín, ‘Estilo Hodegos’, 75 n. 17. 26 H. Hunger and O. Kresten, ‘Archaisierende Minuskel und Hodegonstil im 14. Jahr­ hundert: Der Schreiber Theoktistos und die κρáλαινα τῶν Τριβαλῶν’, JÖB 29 (1980), 202, 204. 27 Politis (‘Schreiberschule I’, 29) lists the manuscript at Kosinitza; see also: B. Atsalos, Τα χειρóγρφα της ιερáς μονἠς της Κοσíνιτσας (Drama, 1990), 100–1. 28 A page with an illuminated headpiece and initial is illustrated in colour in A. Dzhurova, Byzantinische Miniaturen: Schätze de Buchmalerei vom 4. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Regensburg, 2002), fig. 152. 29 H. Delehaye, ed., Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae: Propylaeum ad Acta sanctorum Novembris (Brussels, 1902). 30 J. Lowden, The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary (New York, 2009). 31 C. R. Gregory, Textkritik des Neuen Testamentes (3 vols., Leipzig, 1900), vol. 1, 365–84. 32 Μηναῖον (12 vols., Athens, 1960). The textual history of the Menaion is complex and understudied. It was first printed in Venice in 1526–33 based on manuscript sources; see S. Alexopoulos and D. B. Anatolikiotes, ‘Towards a history of printed liturgical books in the modern Greek state: an initial survey’, Ecclesia Orans 34 (2017), 452–6. I thank Prof. Alexopoulos for this reference and other advice. 33 R. S. Nelson, ‘Patriarchal lectionaries of Constantinople: history, attributions, and prospects’, in D. Krueger and R. S. Nelson, eds., The New Testament in Byzantium (Washington, DC, 2016), 113–14. 34 E.g. 20 September, 4 December, 13 December, 24 December, 27 December, 29 December, 30 December, 3 January, 8 January, 12 January, 14 January, 23 Jan­ uary, 14 June, 16 July. 35 14 October, 23 November, 27 December, 29 March, 31 March, 4 April, 16 May; 6 June, 13 July, 25 August. In addition, Stephen the Wonderworker of 28 March appears in other modern saints calendars, but not in the four comparative sources. See note to 28 March.

248 Robert S. Nelson 36 1 September, 25 May, 25 January, 16 August. 37 10–13 September. J, G have the same entries for 10–13 September, but not M. Synaxarium CP lists the Veneration of the Wood on these days as variants found in several manuscripts. 38 7 September, 26 May. 39 Did Joasaph remove it from the calendar of V, because, as seems likely, it was no longer in Byzantine possession? On the later history of the Mandylion, see A. Cameron, ‘The history of the image of Edessa: the telling of a story’, HUkSt 7 (1983), 93. 40 P: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10721805t/f354.item.zoom (accessed 15 Novem­ ber 2018); So: INTF microfilm, frame 7630. 41 P: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10721805t/f361.item.zoom; So: INTF microfilm frame 7780. 42 24–25 September, 12 November, 2 January, 22–23 January, 1 April, 30–31 July, 7 August. 43 For the date of destruction, I am inclined to follow R. Janin, La géographie ecclé­ siastique de l’Empire Byzantin (3 vols., Paris, 1953–81), vol. 3, 212, instead of Grotowski, ‘Hodegon’, 11–14. 44 This page is illustrated in I. Spatharakis, Corpus of Dated Illuminated Greek Manu­ scripts to the Year 1453 (Leiden, 1981), fig. 447. On Jean Hurault de Boistaillé, see H. Omont, Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1898), xix. The Latin note is transcribed in H. Bordier, Description des pein­ tures et autres ornements contenus dans les manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1883), 233. 45 D. F. Jackson, ‘The Greek manuscripts of Jean Hurault de Boistaillé’, StItalFCl 97 (2004), 226. 46 Lamberz, ‘Johannes Kantakuzenos und de Produktion’, 135, n. 10. 47 J. Lascaratos and S. Marketos, ‘The fatal disease of the Byzantine emperor Andro­ nicus III Palaeologus (1328–1341 AD)’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 90 (1997), 106–9. 48 Janin, Géographie ecclésiastique, vol. 3, 210. 49 On these events, see D. M. Nicol, The Reluctant Emperor: John Cantacuzene, Emperor and Monk, c. 1295–1383 (Cambridge, 1996), 44–56. 50 On the copying of manuscripts at Vatopedi in the period and later, see Lamberz, ‘The library’, 566 with further references. 51 Symeon’s name strangely appears at the end of the lection in all five lectionaries. 52 John’s name also appears at the end of the lection in all five manuscripts, again not a common arrangement. 53 The manuscript mentions Sozon, but Joasaph II neglected to add the date beside the entry, so it appears as if Sozon is celebrated on the previous day. 54 As before, Joasaph II did not number this entry and its lection. The latter agrees with the other four manuscripts. 55 The comparative sources list this feast on the next day. 56 The first four saints are standard. Cosmas the hymnographer is only mentioned in M. 57 Not in M. Ionnikios the Great is celebrated on the next day in Synaxarium CP and as a manuscript variant in Synaxarium CP, G for 3 November. J includes the saint on 3 November. 58 These saints are only listed on 3 November in J, G, Synaxarium CP, M. 59 As in J, G, Synaxarium CP and M, although with different terms in last two. 60 Gregory is celebrated on 23 November in M, but on the next day 24 November in J, G, Synaxarium CP. 61 There is considerable variation regarding the saints celebrated on 24–25 November. Like Vsk, G, Synaxarium CP record Katherine on 24 November J, M put her on

Saints in Hodegon lectionaries

62

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

249

the next day. Only Vsk lists Merkourios on 24 November. J, G, M, place him on 25 November, and Synaxarium CP on 26 November, but a variant puts him on 25 November. The saints for 25 November in Vsk, Clement and Peter, are found on this day in J, G, but not M, which puts them on the preceding day. The entry for the Grapti, Theodore and Theophanes, appears after the conclusion of the lection. The Grapti are not celebrated on 27 December in J, G. Some manu­ scripts of Synaxarium CP list both on this day, but their main entry in Synaxarium CP is on 11 October. J, G record Theophanes on 11 October as does BHG, p. 24 In Vsk, Theophanes appears on 12 October, but not Theodore. Finally, M records Ste­ phen, Theodore and Theophanes on 27 December as in Vsk. Zotikos not cited in G, J, M for this day. Synaxarium CP lists him as a variant. He is noted on 31 December in J, G, Synaxarium CP. The three saints are listed in M, but not J, G and the main entry in Synaxarium CP. The latter records Theopemtos and Theonas as a variant on this day and lists them in the main text on the preceding day. The marginal number beside this entry has been partially erased, to put these saints on the previous day. Joasaph II neglected to put a number beside Clement’s name, so that he is listed on 22 not 23 January. On this day Synaxarium CP, J, G, M cite Clement of Ankyra, not Clement of Rome. Theodore Stratelates cited in Synaxarium CP, M, but not J, G. Philemon cited in Synaxarium CP, but not J, G, M. Synaxarium CP and M, but not cited in J, G on this day. G, Synaxarium CP M list Benedict on March 14; J on 15 March. As in G, M but not J, Synaxarium CP. On this day, neither J, G nor M cite Thomas, a seventh-century patriarch of Con­ stantinople. Various versions of Synaxarium CP put him on 18 February, 19– 22 March. G lists him on 22 March, and J on 22 February. Not cited in Synaxarium CP, J, G or M. However, a modern Orthodox calendar online records a Stephanos the Wonderworker from Russia among the saints listed for this day: www.synaxarion.gr/gr/m/3/d/28/sxsaintlist.aspx (accessed 15 Novem­ ber 2018). Another online Orthodox calendar lists for this day Stephen the Wonderworker, abbot of Triglia: https://oca.org/saints/lives/2001/03/28/100920-venerable­ stephen-the-wonderworker-the-abbot-of-triglia. Both sites illustrate their saints with the same icon, implying that the saints are the same. Presumably, this is the intended referent of the entry in Vsk. On this day in M, but not J, G, or Synaxarium CP. Not cited in J, G. On this day, M celebrates Hypatios, bishop of Gangra, today Çan­ kırı in Turkey. A variant of Synaxarium CP puts him on 30 March. In So, the first entry of April is Mary of Egypt. Evidently, Joasaph II failed to number the entry. Joseph, the hymnographer, is listed on this date in J, G, but not M. Synaxarium CP puts him on 3 April. M lists George of Maleon on this day; J, G, Synaxarium CP on 5 April. J, Synaxarium CP, G list these saints on 4 April. M does not cite them on either 4 or 5 April. Not cited on this day in J, G, Synaxarium CP, M, although a variant of Synaxarium CP does list him on 12 April. Synaxarium CP (main text), M cite Martin on 13 April. Celebrated on the previous day, 12 April, in J, G, Synaxarium CP and M. Not cited on this day in J, G, Synaxarium CP and M.

250 Robert S. Nelson 83 These saints are venerated on 14 April in G, Synaxarium CP, M. They appear on the preceding day in J. 84 Cited in G and M on this day, but not J. This saint is venerated on 19 April in Synaxarium CP. 85 Synaxarium CP and M record Theodore on this day. J lists him on 19 April and G on 21 April. 86 Synaxarium CP and M record Ianouarios on this day but not G. J lists him on April 19. 87 On this day, Iason and Sosipater are listed in SEC, Iason in J, and neither in G. M puts them on the next day, 29 April. 88 Cited on this day in M. J, G, Synaxarium CP list Pelagia on 5 April. 89 J, G, Synaxarium CP record her on 4 May; M on 5 May. 90 Mentioned on this day in M. J, G, Synaxarium CP record him on the previous day, 15 May. 91 Cited in Synaxarium CP, but not J, G, M. 92 In Synaxarium CP, M, G, the apostle Jude is recorded on 19 June; J on 26 May as P, Si, So. V may also have been intended Jude to be on 26 May, because the letter τ of the article τοῦ has been omitted. The lection that follows in V is the same as in P, Si, So and is not the lection for 25 May. Joasaph I must have neglected to include the day of the month and the letter τ. 93 Cited in Synaxarium CP and M on this date, but not in J and G, which record the saint on the next day 27 May. 94 Bisarion [sic] does not appear on this day or nearby days in Synaxarium CP, J, or G. M lists him as a secondary saint this day. 95 Agrippine in J, G, Synaxarium CP, M. 96 J records Martha on this day, as does Synaxarium CP in a variant. Not mentioned in G, M on this day. 97 Synaxarium CP, M record the saint on this date. J, G place him on 7 July. 98 Not in J. Synaxarium CP, G has Thomas, but not Akakios. M lists Thomas, but not Akakios, although in a note, it reports that Akakios is mentioned in manuscripts. 99 In M, but not J, G, Synaxarium CP (main text), but the latter lists in a variant the celebration of Gabriel on this day. 100 Athenogenes is cited in J, G, M but not Synaxarium CP. A variant of Synaxarium CP mentions the church council. 101 The four comparative sources and Vsk record Theodosia on 29 May. None lists her on 19 July. 102 Listing Eudokimos on 30 not 31 July, may be a scribal slip on the part of Joasaph II, the number one (α) being omitted. 103 As in Synaxarium CP, M. On this date, J and G cite Eudokia. 104 Both saints and in this order only in M. J, G, Synaxarium CP (main text) list only Titos for this day, although Synaxarium CP mentions Bartholomew as a variant. G puts Bartholomew on 23 August; J, Synaxarium CP on 24 August. 105 J, Synaxarium CP, G, M put Moses of Ethiopia on 28 August. 106 As in J, G, but Synaxarium CP, M list Poimon on 27 August.

14 Multiple phase churches in Cappadocia Robert Ousterhout

Buildings are forever in the process of becoming.1 Most Byzantine ecclesiastical foundations have long histories and isolating them at a single point in time is not only difficult but also limits what we might learn from them.2 Changes in design, additions and expansions may reflect many things: new functional considerations, patrons’ desires, demographic shifts or even changes in aesthetic sensibilities. For a few Byzantine buildings, we are lucky to have foundation documents, or at the very least, enough historical references to establish a chronology with some certainty. At the Chora in Constantinople (the Kariye Camii in Istanbul), for example, the archaeological examination of the building could identify significant phases of the sixth, ninth, eleventh, twelfth and fourteenth centuries, and each could be associated with recorded historical events and personages – the last most famously with the patronage of Theodore Metochites.3 While the early phases are incompletely known and their chronological placement somewhat hypothetical, for the later phases, we have a sense of what may have motivated the growth and transformations: the response to earthquake damage and neglect, the creation of appropriate spaces for privileged burials, and – clearly for the last phase – the personal desires of an ambitious patron and his talented master builder.4 In contrast, at the Pantokrator monastery in Constantinople (the Zeyrek Camii in Istanbul), we have the surviving text of its foundational document or typikon, which indicates that all surviving parts of the complex were completed by 1136, when the typikon was written.5 The project could not have begun before 1118, when its patron John II Komnenos (r. 1118–43) came to the throne. Thus, in spite of the building’s complexity, all parts must have been constructed within a brief period of 18 years at the most. Close analysis of the many sutures in the building’s fabric indicate that the south church was fully completed before the north church was constructed, the central funerary chapel was begun while the north church was underway, and the two were completed simultaneously. The exonarthex, added in this phase, dramatically altered the outward appearance of the building, as did the addition of minor domes above the bema of the funerary chapel and the south narthex gallery.6 Within a brief period, we witness a dramatic change in style, in which the significance of the building initially expressed by

252 Robert Ousterhout monumentality is instead expressed by visual complexity. Without the typikon, we might be tempted to spread the construction over a longer period, perhaps extending into the reign of Manuel (r. 1143–80), who added his own tomb monument to the chapel, with additional modifications.7 The latter, however, were minimal, clearly interjected into a fully completed building complex. Hints in the typikon also give us some idea of the motivations behind the expansion, notably the attention given to the commemoration of the founders and their family, with elaborate ceremonies.8 None of this would be clear without the evidence provided by the typikon. When we shift our focus from the capital to the provinces, the analysis of multiple-phase buildings becomes more challenging, for we are often without the necessary documentary evidence to ascertain either the chronology – that is, beyond a relative chronology – or the motivations for changes. At the Çanlı Kilise, for example, the three-phase history of the church is evident from joints, sutures and differences in construction techniques.9 It was probably begun in the early eleventh century as a freestanding naos, perhaps replacing an older rock-cut chapel, whose remains are preserved in the north narthex. The long, two-storey, two-part narthex was added shortly thereafter, connecting the church to a pre-existing (and now collapsed) rock-cut complex to the north. The parekklesion followed, probably in the thirteenth century, along with modifications to the naos, as well as additional burials. The continued investment in the church perhaps two centuries after its foundation provides a chronological framework that helps to interpret the history of the settlement around it as well. Nevertheless, we are left without a dedication for the monument, a name for the settlement, an identity for the patron, or a provenance for the artisans who built and decorated the church – something not uncommon in provincial settings. Moreover, our dating of Çanlı Kilise is a best guess, based on stylistic evidence provided by the wall painting and architecture, while the motivations behind the growth and transformation remain necessarily speculative. That said, chronologies, relative and otherwise, are more easily established in masonry buildings than they are in their rock-cut counterparts.10 In a rockcarved environment, an addition is actually a subtraction. Expansion means destruction and removal, often including the elimination of tell-tale details that might clarify the transformation. And when interventions are evident, situating them with any chronological precision may be impossible. Thus, for example, the northern chapel at the Barbara Kilisesi in the Soğanlı Valley is clearly later than the south: it disrupts the painted programme and remained unpainted itself. Its narthex is coordinated with that of the south church but asymmetrical to its own naos; and although copying details from the south church, its templon design differs.11 While clearly later, it remains uncertain how much later the north chapel was added. The south church may be dated by its inscription to either 1006 or 1021; the north chapel could have been added any time in the subsequent century.

Multiple phase churches in Cappadocia 253 While the two phases of the Barbara Kilisesi are easily distinguished, the chronologies of other sites are more difficult to ascertain. For example, the katholikon of the Timios Stavros Monastery, located on the edge of a ravine near Sinasos, is considerably more problematic in its development, with occupation as early as the tenth century and as late as the twentieth, and with a curious admixture of both rock-cut and masonry elements (Figures 14.1 and 14.2).12 The main nave is of masonry, incorporating rock-carved elements at the east and west ends, and covered by a banded barrel vault, which survives in part (Figure 14.3). The south aisle is of masonry but appears to have been rebuilt in the nineteenth century: the chamfered corner on the southwest exterior is a typical Ottoman feature. The rock-cut third aisle is composed of three dissimilar bays (Figures 14.4 and 14.5). The east bay has a low, flat ceiling, painted with an Ascension, and terminates in a rock-cut loculus rather than an apse, but it has a semi-circular niche in its north wall. The central bay is tall and covered by a rock-cut transverse barrel vault with rising walls of masonry, probably with a window opening to a rock-cut cell behind its upper north wall. A burial was set into the floor immediately below. The west bay also has a flat ceiling but set at a higher level than its eastern counterpart. The fourth aisle is comprised of two bays; that to the east terminates in an elevated sanctuary and has a burial in the northwest corner (Figure 14.6).

Figure 14.1 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery. General view looking south. [Source: Author]

254 Robert Ousterhout

Figure 14.2 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery. Ground plan, showing phases. [Source: Author]

Originally it seems to have had a flat ceiling, but this was later recarved into a shallow barrel vault, as the irregularities around its perimeter indicate. The west bay has an arcosolium in its north wall and is covered by a transverse barrel vault. A second loculus appears on the east wall between the third and fourth aisle, and a basin (perhaps of a later date) is cut into the west wall, next to the arcosolium. A tiny funeral chapel extends further to the north at a raised floor level, with a small bema. An arcosolium fills its north wall, and a second tomb fills much of the floor area. In the first assessment of the site, Guillaume de Jerphanion assumed the rock-cut elements were older, and that they were subsequently enlarged with the masonry constructions to the south. More recently, however, Nicole Lemaigre Demesnil reverses this chronology, suggesting that the southern three aisles actually formed the core of the complex, with the fourth aisle carved at the same time to function as a burial parekklesion.13 She proposes that the small chapel to the north was added slightly later, followed by much recarving and modification, not to mention a restoration when the monastery was re­ established in the latter part of the nineteenth century. As she indicates, much

Multiple phase churches in Cappadocia 255

Figure 14.3 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, nave. Looking northeast, into the apse and through the arch into the north aisle. [Source: Author]

of the ashlar masonry is in second use, including the mismatched mouldings and friezes, which find better parallels in the sixth century. None of this is obvious, of course. It would make more sense to conclude, as Jerphanion had done, that the complex developed outward, from cave to masonry; indeed, many buildings – both Byzantine and nineteenth-century – were constructed over pre-existing caves. When I first visited Timios Stavros, I suspected all of the masonry construction to be nineteenth-century, but, in fact, tenth-century painting survives on the intrados of the arcades of the nave. The spoliated pieces must be earlier, although there is no clear evidence for sixth-century construction at the site. Curiously, rock-cut elements are preserved throughout the complex, and there seems to have been a concerted effort to preserve as much of the standing rock as possible, with some rather odd junctures throughout the elevation of the complex. Within the apse, for example, the line of the rock is irregular as it rises, with ashlar blocks cut to fit directly against it. This fact, plus the marked irregularity from one vessel to the next, argues against Lemaigre Demesnil’s chronology. The desire to preserve as much of the rock outcropping as possible and the care with which this was done suggest some special association with the site – that is, that there was some sort of pre­ existing sacred presence, as I shall discuss below. As may be seen in Figure

256 Robert Ousterhout

Figure 14.4 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, north aisle. Looking east, with loculus in the east wall and the remains of a cell above. [Source: Author]

14.3, for example, the apse rises from a rock-cut pier to the south and a masonry pier to the north, while the lower north side of the apse is rock-cut and the lower south side is masonry, with an irregular joint between them. The full height of the western nave wall is rock-carved as well. Throughout the nave, the masonry construction appears to have been sandwiched between the standing rock. It seems more likely that the oldest element at the site is the fourth aisle, now divided into two parts, with the eastern half barrel-vaulted and the western half covered by a transverse barrel vault. This unit may have originally stood in isolation as a small church, its narthex entered from the south. The flat ceiling of the naos was subsequently recut as a shallow barrel vault, perhaps to conform as more vaulted elements were added to the complex. The importance of this part of the complex evidently led to the expansion southward and northward, which took place in a haphazard manner. The eastern portion of the third aisle might also be a part of the early development, with a flat ceiling and

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Figure 14.5 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, east bay of the north aisle, fresco. Ascension. [Source: Author]

a loculus in its eastern wall. A similar loculus appears in the wall between the third and fourth aisles, suggesting the two might have been connected. If these were special depositories of relics, they seem to have been significant enough to disrupt conventional architectural planning. Medieval graffiti throughout the complex invoke the Cross, and this both substantiates the proposed dedication and perhaps suggests that one of the loculi contained a relic of the Cross.14 The tall, transversally vaulted central bay of the third aisle rises to connect to rock-cut chambers on an upper level, which were partially enclosed by a masonry wall. Now in a ruinous state, this irregular upper space extended above the oldest portions of the complex. Could this have been the cell of a solitary, originally set in isolation above the first church? As the complex extended to the south, the spaces achieve a greater degree of regularity, although the arcades of the main nave are asymmetrical. To the north, of the fourth aisle the extension is funerary, allowing burial close to the old core of the complex. From the surviving painting, all of the major spaces likely date from the tenth century.15 That is to say, while haphazard in its appearance, much of the site development must have occurred rapidly, within a relatively brief period. But how do we account for such a jumble of disparate components? In passing, Jerphanion compared Timios Stavros to the monastic church complexes

258 Robert Ousterhout

Figure 14.6 Sinasos (near), Timios Stavros Monastery, norther chapels. Looking northeast. [Source: Author]

of Constantinople, all of which are several centuries later in date.16 A more likely explanation is that a special association encouraged building on a difficult site, and it also encouraged the often illogical but careful incorporation of rockcut elements within the masonry walls when the main nave was added – indeed, unless there was a special association with the site that extended into its very fabric, the latter makes no sense at all. The special setting of the burials, the loculi in the east walls, possibly the font, and a hermit’s cell above might encourage this reading. Here and elsewhere, there were more than purely architectural considerations at play. Convenience, popularity, longevity, or sanctity might have motivated the expansion – perhaps a combination of all of them. The connection to the cell on an upper level is not without significance, and the presence of a revered hermit may lie behind the growth of the site, which we conjecture expanded from a rough, rock-carved hermitage to a monastery with a large and complex katholikon. A similarly complex rock-cut ensemble is found in the Sarıca (or Kepez) Valley, between Ürgüp and Sinasos, known either as Sarıca Church 2 or Kepez Church 2 (Figures 14.7–14.9).17 The church is carefully carved, with crisp detailing, although partially collapsed (and impossible to reconstruct) at the southwest (Figure 14.10). To the northwest, a cruciform, domed room

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Figure 14.7 Sarıca (or Kepez) Valley, looking east. Church 1 in the cone to the right and Church 2 in the outcropping to the left. [Source: Author]

functioned as the narthex (Figure 14.11). It sits at a slightly lower level than the nave and at a slight angle to it. The nave itself is oblong, built on a trapezoidal plan, covered by a transverse barrel vault. A flat ceiling extends along its eastern portion, immediately before the tripartite sanctuary. The walls are lined with blind arcades, all carefully carved. The three prominent sanctuaries all have similar arched entrances, which lie on the same floor level, two steps above that of the nave. The unusual, asymmetrical plan, with the transverse nave, might recommend the Tokalı Kilise at Göreme as a model, as Annabel Wharton once suggested.18 On the other hand, a close examination of Kepez 2 indicates that the unusual plan was determined by pre-existing elements. On the lower level, the space that now functions as the narthex was originally a diminutive domed, cruciform chapel. This is clearly indicated by the surviving traces of its templon and the step upward into the transverse nave. The apse of the diminutive chapel was removed when the new nave was added (see plan, Figure 14.8), but its other features were left intact. It was originally entered from the south, through a narthex of its own, with a flat ceiling and blind arcades on its walls, now much destroyed. A second tiny domed chapel appears on the upper level, above the south sanctuary, connected to a burial chamber to its north (Figure 14.12), and another space, now much damaged, to its west. Details of the two chapels are remarkably similar, and

260 Robert Ousterhout

Figure 14.8 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2. Ground plan. [Source: Author]

although both are not aligned on the same axis as the transverse nave, the two are very close to the same alignment. In addition, the details of the domes match, including the unusual notches in the drum and the raised triangular shields within the pendentives (Figure 14.13). Red painted highlighting appears at the complex only in these two chapels, but not in the transverse nave, indicating that the chapel were carved in the same phase, distinct from the nave. In its initial form, then, with a simple chapel on the lower level and a series of spaces on an upper level, I suggest that this was a hermitage, with the cell of the monk on the upper level, complete with a diminutive chapel and tomb chamber. The chapel on the ground level was perhaps intended the devotions of his followers or pilgrims. Similar combinations of carved spaces may be found at other hermitages, such as the cone of St Simeon at Paşabağı or the cone of the Stylite Niketas in the Kızıl Çukur, both of which were equipped (apparently from their inception) with ground-level chapels, separated from an eremitical residence at an upper level.19

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Figure 14.9 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2. Looking east, with the entrance to the narthex to the left and features of the hermitage on the upper right. [Source: Author]

The transverse nave seems to have been carved to connect these two features together in a meaningful way. In addition to uniting disparate elements, the unusual features of the vault may be explained by pre-existing spaces carved on the upper level. The flattened eastern segment of the ceiling was necessary for the nave to tuck under these spaces, while the transverse vault was necessary to broaden the nave appropriately. Notably, the nave was carved so that the burial chamber would be positioned directly above the main sanctuary – that is, the liturgical focus of the complex was situated in direct relationship to a sacred presence, the mortal remains of the venerable hermit buried there. Because of the collapse on the south and southwest parts of the complex, a few details must be left to conjecture: how were the upper spaces accessed? Was there a visual or audial connection between the two levels? Was the hermitage occupied after the expansion of the complex? Here and elsewhere we are reminded of the eccentric late twelfth-century hermit Neophytos on Cyprus, whose surviving Enkleistra, a hermitage-turned-monastery, is brought to life by his typikon and other autobiographical writings.20 The church had been carved and painted ca. 1183, and Neophytos subsequently added an isolated cell above the naos around 1197, to which he could ‘ascend’ and withdraw. In his typikon, the cell is called the New Sion, with a small chamber below it, called the Hagiosterion. The latter had a window that opened from the floor of the

Figure 14.10 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, nave. Looking north. [Source: Author]

Figure 14.11 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, narthex. Looking north into the dome. [Source: Author]

Figure 14.12 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, hermitage chapel. Dome. [Source: Author]

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Figure 14.13 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, hermitage burial chamber. Looking east. [Source: Author]

cell into the irregular dome of the church below. This allowed Neophytos to hear and oversee the services from his place of isolation – and to be seen by the monks worshipping below.21 A similar window appears at the entrance to the upper chapel at Kepez, opening into the south sanctuary below, although from its awkward position, it is unclear if it is original (Figure 14.14). As I have discussed elsewhere, similar situations may be noted elsewhere in Cappadocia: special visual or audial connections between the church proper and an isolated cell are found at the monastery of the Archangelos near Cemil, at the Karabaş Kilise in the Soğanlı Valley and at the Tokalı Kilise in Göreme.22 At the Karabaş and Tokalı examples, the cell was likely that of a revered hermit whose presence led to the expansion of the site – either into a small monastery or similar establishment, enlarged and equipped for pious visitors. More important for our discussion is that these sites provide some understanding of the motivations behind the architectural transformations. In the two examples discussed here, a sacred presence at the site seems to have motivated the expansion. In both, the transformation may be from an isolated hermitage to a more accessible monastery or church complex. It remains unclear if the Kepez site functioned as a monastery, although this seems likely: another chapel with a cross-in-square plan was added at the lower level, and the rock outcropping is honeycombed with carved spaces.

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Figure 14.14 Sarıca Valley, Kepez Church 2, view from the hermitage chapel entrance. Looking down and to the west. [Source: Author]

To conclude, buildings – even complex, rock-carved ones – are created by intention, not lack of intention. In many of the Cappadocian examples, the process of expansion may seem haphazard on first view, but it reflects the decision-making process of patrons and artisans over a period of time, as the exigencies of the site developed and changed. In the final analysis, the rock-carved sites of Cappadocia may be lacking the personalizing anecdotes that a saint’s vita or a typikon might provide, but a careful analysis of the extensive physical remains can challenge us to construct a different sort of narrative.

Notes 1 A point emphasized by V. Marinis, Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Con­ stantinople: Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 2013). 2 See my comments in R. Ousterhout, ‘Reading difficult buildings’, in H. Klein, R. Ousterhout and B. Pitarakis, eds., Kariye Camii Yeni’den/The Kariye Camii Reconsidered (Istanbul, 2011), 95–105; R. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, 1999), 86–127. 3 D. Oates, ‘A summary report on the excavations in the Kariye Camii: 1957 and 1958’, DOP 14 (1960), 223–31; R. Ousterhout, The Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul (Washington, DC, 1987), 11–36. 4 See most recently R. Ousterhout, Finding a Place in History: The Chora Monastery and Its Patrons (Nicosia, 2017).

266 Robert Ousterhout 5 P. Gautier, ‘Le typikon du Christ Sauveur Pantocrator’, REB 32 (1974), 1–145; Eng­ lish translation in R. Jordan in J. Thomas and A. Hero, eds., Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents (5 vols., Washington, DC, 2000), vol. 2, 725–81, with notes and commentary. 6 R. Ousterhout, Z. Ahunbay and M. Ahunbay, ‘Study and restoration of the Zeyrek Camii in Istanbul: first report, 1997–98’, DOP 54 (2000), 265–70; ‘Study and restor­ ation of the Zeyrek Camii in Istanbul: second report, 2001–05’, DOP 63 (2010), 235–56. 7 For clarification, see A. H. S. Megaw, ‘Notes on the recent work of the Byzantine institute in Istanbul’, DOP 17 (1963), 333–64. 8 S. Kotzabassi, ‘Feasts at the monastery of Pantokrator’, in S. Kotzabassi, ed., The Pantokrator Monastery in Constantinople (Berlin, 2013), 153–90. 9 R. Ousterhout, A Byzantine Settlement in Cappadocia (Washington, DC, 2nd rev. ed., 2011), esp. 73–4, for a nine-stage relative chronology. 10 What follows expands upon the discussion in R. Ousterhout, Visualizing Community: Art, Material Culture, and Settlement in Byzantine Cappadocia (Washington, DC, 2017). 11 L. Rodley, Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia (Cambridge, 1985), 203–7; Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 115. 12 G. de Jerphanion, Une nouvelle province de l’art byzantin: les églises rupestres de Cappadoce (2 vols., Paris, 1925–1942), vol. 2, 100–4; C. Jolivet-Lévy, Les églises byzantines de Cappadoce: le programme iconographique de l’apside et de ses abords (Paris, 1991), 187; N. Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre et décor sculpté en Cappadoce (Ve–IXe siècle) (Oxford, 2010), 114–18; C. Jolivet-Lévy with N. Lemaigre Demesnil, La Cappadoce un siècle après G. de Jerphanion (2 vols., Paris, 2016), vol. 1, 393–5; Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 122–3. 13 Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre, 117 and pl. 72. 14 Jolivet-Lévy, Cappadoce, vol. 1, 195. 15 Jolivet-Lévy, Églises byzantines, 187. 16 Jerphanion, Églises, vol. 2, 101. 17 Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 140–5; and note comments by R. Warland, Byzantinisches Kappadokien (Darmstadt-Mainz, 2013), 72–6. 18 A. W. Epstein, Tokalı Kilise: Tenth-Century Metropolitan Art in Byzantine Cappado­ cia (Washington, DC, 1986), 12. 19 Rodley, Cave Monasteries, 184–93; Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 140–5; 402–7. 20 C. Mango and E. J. W. Hawkins, ‘The hermitage of St. Neophytos and its wall paintings’, DOP 20 (1966), 119–206; R. Cormack, Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and Its Icons (London, 1985), 215–51; C. Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint: the Life, Times and Sanctification of Neophytos the Recluse (Cambridge, 1991). 21 Mango and Hawkins, ‘Hermitage’, passim. 22 Ousterhout, Visualizing Community; further developed in Ousterhout, ‘Sightlines, hagioscopes, and church planning in Byzantine Cappadocia’, AH 39 (2016), 848–67. Note also C. Jolivet-Lévy and N. Lemaigre Demesnil, ‘Recherches récentes sur le monastère rupestre de l’Archangélos près de Cemil (Cappadoce)’, in Z. Skhirtladze, ed., Desert Monasticism: David Gareja and the Christian East (Tbilisi, 2001), 167–89, esp. 174–5; Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre, 130–1; Jerphanion, Églises, vol. 1, 262–376; Rodley, Cave Monasteries, 193–202, 213–22; Epstein, Tokalı Kilise; N. Thierry, La Cappadoce de l’Antiquité au Moyen Age (Turnhout, 2002), fiche 26 and 47.

15 Visions of the Passion imagined through the agency of voice and icon Bissera Pentcheva

With Art and Eloquence, Henry Maguire established a new path in Byzantine art history, uncovering the symbiotic relationship between rhetoric and the visual arts.1 Figures of speech such as comparison (synkresis) and contrast (antithesis), employed in the writings of the literate elite and encountered at large in the sermons performed during the liturgical celebrations, structured the composition of images and the spatial relationship between scenes in monumental programmes. The resultant programmes enveloped their audiences in the rhetorical figures of the performed poetry and prose. Synkresis and antithesis, in turn, could feature in the more extensive forms of writing such as ekphrasis (the art of vivid writing about events or work of art) and threnos (lament), both of which target vividness, transforming the readers/listeners into spectators. In the case of ekphrasis, liveliness was achieved in the manner of narrating the actions in the description of an event or in the recognition of animacy in the encounter with a building or an image.2 Lament, too, aimed to transform the listener into an empathetic witness to the traumatic change, frequently mixing temporalities to express the rupture. At every turn of the analysis, Art and Eloquence manifests a deep engagement with Byzantine literature and an admirable proficiency in Greek. At the time the book was written, no other art historian had dared to penetrate so deeply the territory of philology and literature. This is probably one of the reasons Maguire’s approach outlined in this book has not been emulated. With this modest article, I pay homage to Art and Eloquence and endeavour to expand our understanding of the symbiosis of art and text by engaging the evidence of the chanted liturgical poetry. My focus is the liturgy for Holy Friday and, more specifically, the climactic moments when human speech fails to narrate and how this sonic image compares to the visual expression. The analysis includes two segments: a chanted hymn or sticheron, ‘ἐπὶ ξύλῳ βλέπουσα κρεμάμενον, Χριστέ’, written by Emperor Leo VI (r. 886–912) and performed on Holy Friday,3 and a wing of a diptych showing the Crucifixion and Deposition (Hannover, August Kestner Museum) (Figures 15.1, 15.2a and 15.2b).4 Bringing chant and icon together, I explore the nuances of expression and affective power of the transcendent visions to which they give rise.

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Figure 15.1 Sticheron on Leo VI ἐπὶ ξύλῳ βλέπουσα κρεμάμενον, Χριστέ, transcribed by Alexander Lingas from Vienna, National Library, Theol. MS Gr. 181, fol. 238, laid out with stemless notes by Laura Steenberge.

The immense interior of the Justinianic Hagia Sophia originally had no narrative programmes or monumental images; its mosaics were strictly vegetal and geometric (Figure 15.3). In this aniconic interior, sound played a leading role in stirring the Byzantine imagination.5 The chanted service produced what the visual programme lacked: icons of sound that gripped the imagination and emotions of the faithful.6 Already Paul Silentiarios speaks of the elite singers at the ambo as aurally presenting the Incarnation of Christ in the flesh when their voices resounded and became embodied in space.7 During liturgical services some texts were read, others sung. In addition to the Old and New Testament passages, famous sermons also acquired a regular presence in these liturgical performances. For instance, the ninth-century homily of George of Nikomedeia’s ‘Theotokos at the Cross’ became part of the repertoire performed during the Third of the Royal hours on Holy Friday, probably around noon.8 This lengthy homily (17 pages in the Migne edition), written in an erudite style, takes at least two hours to read today. Its ornate language and syntax makes it hard to understand. When performed in Hagia Sophia, this challenge of comprehension would have been even greater. With reverberation exceeding ten

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Figure 15.2a Hannover, Kestner Museum, ivory leaf from a diptych (inv. no. WM XXIa 044b). Crucifixion and Deposition (obverse). [Source: Long-term loan of the Lower Saxony State Museum Hannover in the Museum August Kestner, Hanover/photo by author]

seconds, even a chant-like reading of this sermon could not have escaped the dissolution of intelligibility caused by the resonant acoustics. The length of the sermon would have further strained the attention of its audience. So, how was the emotional power of the dramatic events of Crucifixion and Deposition conveyed in a way that can overcome the problems of intelligibility

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Figure 15.2b Hannover, Kestner Museum, ivory leaf from a diptych (inv. no. WM XXIa 044b). Cross (reverse). [Source: Long-term loan of the Lower Saxony State Museum Hannover in the Museum August Kestner, Hanover/photo by author]

and comprehensibility that beset the performance of the sermons? This chapter argues that it was the sung poetry – with its brevity and emotional poignancy – that was able to work effectively in this resonant interior to grip the attention and emotions of the participants in the service. Already the kontakion, a genre of sung sermon introduced in Constantinople in the sixth-century, adapted to the reverberant interior of Hagia Sophia; relying on chant, brief stanzas, dialogue and refrains, the kontakion could effectively communicate its message.9 The poems in this genre of Romanos the Melode used speech-in-character (ethopoeia) to plumb the character of biblical and New Testament figures.10 Traditionally, these sung sermons were performed from the ambo of the Great Church at vigils on the eves of great feasts.11 Thus the congregation experienced the chanted poetry at night, in the darkness of the vast interior of the Great Church; this veil of night was only partially broken by the myriad oil-lamps or polykandelia. As forms dissolved in the darkness enveloping the ecclesiastical space, this atmosphere of sensorial

Figure 15.3 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia. Interior view of the nave. [Source: The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC]

272 Bissera Pentcheva deprivation stirred the imagination of the participants to follow the inspiration of the sung words and envision the biblical events. After Iconoclasm, the liturgy of the Great Church gradually incorporated the new hymnody written for the kanon. This poetry was initially composed at the St Sabas monastery outside Jerusalem. When imported to Constantinople, it developed further in the Studios monastery and the imperial palace.12 This creative process involved monastic and aristocratic participation and even included imperial contributions. The emperor Leo VI (886–912) wrote both poetry and music for such hymns.13 Some of these texts were immediately performed in the imperial chapels and eventually found their place in the ritual of the Great Church and the monasteries.14 They echoed the ideas and emotions invested in the sermons but conveyed them more directly and succinctly and more frequently. For example, the stavrotheotokia (Mary’s lament at the Cross) prescribed by the Octōēchos (a book of hymns grouped in cycles of eight weeks with each week corresponding to one of the eight tones/modes) shaped the perception of the Virgin’s lament that left a much deeper mark on Byzantine spiritual experience than any of the sermons. Roughly 32 stavrotheotokia were performed per week; this is an overwhelming statistic when compared to the once-a-year reading of George of Nikomedeia’s sermon.15 As an art historian stepping into the territory of liturgy and music, I am well aware of the challenges of working in these two very specialized fields. I have a rudimentary understanding of Byzantine pneumatic notations and use modern transcriptions in order to access the melodic structures. As for the liturgy, I rely on published editions of the primary sources and liturgical scholars’ analysis of them.16 But I recognize the potential benefits art history stands to gain from an engagement with the liturgy since this was the semantic content poured into the architectural interior and proceeded to envelop the images with music.17 The services framed the perception and imagination of the enacted past events and triggered an affective response in the faithful. Ultimately, accessing the liturgy, more specifically the hymns sung, which have rarely featured in the art historical analysis, can give us insight into the emotions and visions coaxed into presence by the combined power of the performed poetry and the multi­ sensorial environment in which they unrolled.18 The sticheron, ‘ἐπὶ ξύλῳ βλέπουσα κρεμάμενον, Χριστέ’, portrays Mary’s lament at the Cross.19 The modern typikon places it at vespers on Holy Friday (tone two).20 But it is attested in the twelfth-century typikon of the Anastasis church in Jerusalem, where it is performed twice, first intercalated in the singing of lauds (ainoi) at orthros (morning office) and a second time at vespers.21 The Stoudite typikon of the Southern Italian monasteries, as for instance, the typikon of the Monastery of Christ the Saviour at Messina, includes this sticheron only in the vespers service.22 Since these institutions performed great feasts according to the model of Hagia Sophia, they offer us evidence, which together with the typikon of the Anastasis, suggests that this hymn was performed at the vespers and/or orthros in the Great Church starting in the tenth century.

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Further evidence supporting the conclusion that this sticheron was sung in the cathedral of Constantinople is connected to the emperor Leo and his involvement with the choirs of Hagia Sophia. We know that he instituted a ceremony in the Palace for Epiphany, inviting the clergy, the psaltai and children’s choirs of Hagia Sophia, which he then directed in chant (these were approximately 216 guests, including the ecclesiastic staff of the Nea Ekklesia, which partook in the service): At the nod and blessing of our most holy patriarch, it is necessary for them to begin the hymn of praise [Leo’s hymn for Epiphany, which has not sur­ vived], precious and pleasing to God, and composed from the very lips of our most wise and God-appointed emperor Leo. Then together with its pro­ nouncement and skilful movement of the hand conducting, it is necessary for all those seated at the table with one accord to chant and sing together the said sacred hymn which poured from his honeyed lips for all his faith­ ful subjects.23 The Book of Ceremonies attests to Leo’s active role in writing religious hymns and composing melodies that he exacted to be performed by the elite choir of the Great Church under his conducting and singing. We cannot prove that the melodies he designed have survived unchanged to the present, but musicologists have suggested that there is a good correspondence between what is recorded (in this case, Leo’s resurrection hymns or aposticha sung at the end of orthros on Sundays) in Paleo-Byzantine (the term used by musicologist to denote the earlier non-diastematic notation) and Middle-Byzantine diastematic notation.24 This analysis focuses on the melodic structure of the sticheron, ‘ἐπὶ ξύλῳ βλέπουσα κρεμάμενον, Χριστέ’, sung by Cappella Romana during their concert in Memorial Church at Stanford University, 2013, which they later recorded on their album, Holy Friday in Jerusalem.25 The melody is transcribed from Vienna, National Library, Theol. MS Gr. 181, copied in 1221 by John Dalassenos.26 The choir and soloist share in the singing. The version performed by Cappella Romana follows the practice recorded in the typikon of the Anastasis church in Jerusalem, which reflects a tenth-century state of the liturgy in the Holy City. Cappella Romana sings the sticheron intercalated in Ps 150:3 (part of the ainoi, Pss 148–50 traditionally performed at the end of the orthros service).27 Most of this sticheron’s singing is syllabic, which refers to the singing of one note per syllable. Yet, there are three notable melismas (the chanting of several notes to a syllable). The first appears in the address ‘Christ’, performed by the choir; the second on ‘my son’ sung by the soloist; and the third melisma – by the choir on ‘the dead’ (Figure 15.1). The choristers start narrating the event ‘When she saw you, O Christ, the Creator and God of all, hanging on the Cross, she who bore you without seed cried bitterly.’ Then the soloist, stepping into the role of Mary, begins to chant her lament: ‘My son, where has the beauty of your form departed? I cannot bear to see you unjustly crucified.’ The choir resumes the rest of Mary’s words, ‘hasten then,

274 Bissera Pentcheva arise, that I too may see your resurrection from the dead on the third day.’28 This division between choir and soloist heightens the emotional intensity of the event performed. The mother is given her own voice that soars and reaches the highest (upper E) and the lowest (D) notes. It is also this solo segment that decisively breaks with the preceding syllabic style and enters with the extraordinarily long melisma: ‘υἱέ’ (‘son’) in Greek sounding as ‘ye’ stretches across 12 notes as the sound of ‘υι’ flows into ‘ε.’ The intelligibility of the word dissolves in the sonority of the two concatenated vowels. The result resembles a cry of pain and grief. The intensity of motherly co-suffering and sorrow at seeing her son crucified on the Cross pushes Mary to transcend the register of human speech. Her emotions could no longer be conveyed in structured words and neat sentences. Having severed links with the earthly, this mother’s grief has lifted to a realm in between heaven and earth. The lonely voice disembodied, uprooted, wounded, dispossessed, seeks and searches against hope. The performance of Mary’s lament with its long melisma transforms raw emotion into an aesthetic act. The soaring voice of ‘υι’, opening the lament quickly ascends to the highest note in the piece, an upper E, then in two parallel waves in drops down to B with the sound ‘ε.’ This melisma on ‘υἱέ μου’ (‘my son’) mirrors the earlier one used by the choir to frame the address ‘Χριστέ’ (‘Christ’), but Mary’s lament transposes it by a third and elongates it. And this amplification already captures the intensification of emotion. The soloist continues the melismas after ‘υἱέ μου’ (‘my son’) all the way to ‘κάλλος ἔδυ’ (‘beauty departed’), but the number of notes in the melismatic syllables decreases until the Virgin returns to a syllabic mode. This in turn invites the re-entry of the choir to step in and complete the sticheron. They sing the third melisma on ‘νεκρῶν’ (‘from the dead’), and as mentioned above, mirroring the pattern of the earlier one on ‘Χριστέ’ (‘Christ’). The melodic shape of the sticheron, which draws attention to Mary’s cry by centring this soloist’s melisma between the two mirroring ones performed by the choir, gives us a new perception of the intensity of Mary’s threnos at the Cross. In a certain way, it reflects the affective power of George of Nikomedeia’s sermon, but unlike its lengthy shape, difficult language and semantics, the short sticheron conveys this poignancy with one extended breath.29 It is here at this juncture between music and visual art that I would like to dwell, because the brevity of the sonorous performance matches the economy of the visual. But the visions produced by music and art are quite different: the music conveys inconsolable suffering, while the images tame the sorrow, controlling the motherly lament. Like inverted magnitudes Mary’s melismatic cry, ‘my son’, challenges the stilled phrase of ‘your son’ appearing on icons of the Crucifixion. In the visual arts, the words, ‘Mother, this is your son’ (John 19:26–27) are carved under Christ’s arms stretched on the Cross common in post-Iconoclastic representations, one example of which is shown in the Hannover ivory (Figure 15.2a). Christ asks Mary to accept John as her son, thus to agree to a succession. Mary’s lament in the sticheron combats this solution, breaking away in inconsolable grief, resisting the acceptance of succession.

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This contrast between the visual and the melodic stimulate the imagination. In engaging them together, chant and icon open depths of meaning and emotion. The ivory, today at the Kestner Museum, comes closer to illustrating the second solo line of the lament: ‘I cannot bear to see you unjustly crucified.’ On the ivory Mary is contained like a column of sorrow; her body in a statuesque upright position, one palm covered and slightly raised, the other kept closer to the body; both silently beseech Christ. Her gaze descends; she cannot bear the sight of her crucified son. When we turn to the structure of the melody of these words in the sticheron, we find further nuances of expression; ‘φέ-ρω’ (‘bear’) rises in three consecutive notes only to descend abruptly with a jump of a fourth. Then ‘καθορᾶν σε’ (‘to see you’) keeps going down, just like Mary’s gaze on the ivory searching the depth, the voice sheds tears descending to D. A new wave of pain overtakes the Theotokos with ‘ἀδίκως’ (‘unjustly’) expressed as two jumps of a fourth, which again push the melody to ascend to an upper C. ‘σταυροῦμενος’ (‘crucified’) reverses the direction, bringing the voice to descend back to G. The dramatic descent at ‘to see you’ with the swift ascent at ‘unjustly’ sings of the emotional struggle as waves of grief overtake the Theotokos. The drama of the voice is silenced in the ivory. But here Mary is given her own space to mourn. This is achieved in the way her gaze is rendered. Turning away from both Christ and viewer, she envelops herself in her co-passion. Thus enwrapped in her emotions, she becomes both a model of contemplation and inner vision and a repository for the viewer to project his/her own meditation. Mary visually sustains this role in the Deposition below; again her gaze persists in eliding Christ and descends into an imagined, bottomless abyss. The sustained choreography of her gaze can be contrasted to the other figures on this plaque.30 At the Crucifixion John’s eyes seek to address the viewer, the archangels direct their gaze to Christ. At the Deposition Joseph of Arimathea looks at Christ as he embraces the weight of his body slumping from the Cross. John the Evangelist standing across mirrors Joseph’s gaze as he, too, focuses on his teacher. Nicodemus is busy removing the nails. But Mary has abstracted herself, she is both in and out of this narrative event. In this descending unfocused gaze, she renders visually the antithesis used to portray her lament in the homilies, contrasting present sorrow with past happiness.31 She is in and out of time. Paradoxically, the very figure who does not lock eyes with the viewer, becomes the figure that channels a visionary experience. Roland Betancourt has argued against the recent art historical tendency to ascribe haptic visuality to Byzantium.32 He gives convincing evidence that the pairing of sight and touch in the Greek texts is expressive of the ritual realities of veneration rather than a perception of sight having a tactile dimension. As Byzantine image theory develops during Iconoclasm there is concerted effort to separate the ontology of representation from that of the prototype. The icon is not itself the object of devotion but leads to the cognition of the absent prototype. Drawing on the writings of Patriarch Nikephoros, Charles Barber has underscored how the ‘artefact-ness’ of the icon expresses its mediating function

276 Bissera Pentcheva between the man-made object and the divine prototype.33 In the process, Byzantine image theory insists on the role of art to produce visions, thus the divine realities are grasped in the inner eye of imagination and contemplation. Rather than reproducing the material world, the icon becomes a site of visions (Figures 15.4 and 15.5). When the subject is metaphysical, only

Figure 15.4 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia. View of the sanctuary.

[Source: The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late

1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC]

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Figure 15.5 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia. Apse mosaic. [Source: The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC]

a visionary experience can connect to the metaphysical. Photios’s homily responding to the mosaic of the Mother and Child in the apse of Hagia Sophia outlines this tension: that the physical eyes just see the form, while the metaphysical realities can only be grasped through inner vision.34 Thus Mary assumes one appearance in the physical visual field and another in the inner eye of contemplation. Photios privileges the visionary experience; he starts with the visionary and then describes the actual representation: For, as it were, she fondly turns her eyes on her begotten child with the affection of her heart. Yet assumes the expression of a detached and imper­ turbable mood at the passionless and wondrous nature of her offspring, and composes her gaze accordingly.35 The beginning composes an internal vision, not what the pictorial represents (Figure 15.6). It already starts with the disclaimer, ‘as it were’, and finishes ‘affection of her heart.’ Once this internal vision is formed, Photios briefly

278 Bissera Pentcheva

Figure 15.6 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, apse mosaic. Close-up of the Virgin and Child. [Source: The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC]

addresses the Virgin’s artistic representation frozen in a ‘detached and imperturbable mood.’ Mary’s internal vision of her divinely human offspring is what Photios asks the viewer to imagine for him/herself. The icon after Iconoclasm becomes the material field mediating such internal visions. This dreamlike state engages further the materiality of ivory. In Homer’s Odyssey (19.565), Penelope’s nights are wrought in shadowy dreams that can pass through one of two gates: of ivory and of horn. The one of ivory ‘cheats’ (ἐλεφαίροται), producing dreams that will come to no fulfilment.36 ‘ἐλεφαιρόμαι’ ‘to cheat with empty hopes’ and ‘ἐλεφάντινος’ ‘ivory’ are phonetically close, making the perception of ivory in Byzantium as the substance of dreams. The milky surface from which these figures emerge into presence, the avoidance of colour with the exception of the gilding in the rim of the haloes sustains the impression of a monochromatic dream vision. Dream visions frequently insist on the white clothing (λευκός) of the saintly figures appearing in them.37 The reflective white surface of the ivory mirrors the saintly oneiric presence. On the Hannover plaque Mary is both physically present at the events and absent, wrapped in an emotional state that carries her elsewhere (Figure 15.2a). She forms a visual chiasm, connecting the past with the present not just in her own life, but pulling the viewer to connect his/her present with the past – the historic moment of the Crucifixion and Deposition – visualized on the plaque. This out-of-time, dream state envelops both Mary and Christ. His closed eyes

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link dream and death: ὕπνος (‘dream’) with ἄπνους (‘without breath’). The pairing of Mary’s seeing eyes evading the viewer and Christ’s closed ones, sharpens the contrast between the two: of dream and of death. The tactility, warmth and translucency of ivory drew the viewer’s attention to a miniature interior space for the imagination of the mysteries. I suggest that, like inverted magnitudes, these portable ivory icons counterbalanced the nonintimate, but enveloping soundfield of the Great Church. That ivories resonated with the sung poetry is further ascertained by a plaque of the Crucifixion today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The text inscribed next to Hades pierced by the Cross is a quote from the kontakion of Romanos the Melode.39 Access to this medium was determined by wealth and status.40 Anthony Cutler has shown that in the case of the Hannover/Dresden diptych, it formed part of a micro-group of objects produced by the same craftsman who carved the Romanos ivory and the Crucifixion diptych today at the Musée des medailles in Paris.41 This suggests that the Hannover wing circulated in the palace and was associated with the imperial family, whose scion, Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos (r. 945–59) and son of Leo VI continually extolled the literary and musical genius of his father. Carved in the mid-950s, this plaque could well have visualized the ideas circulating in the Leonine hymnography and music. 38

Conclusion Jeffrey Hamburger defended how the proliferation of art of the Late Medieval West, rather than profaning mystical experience was, in fact, one of the stimulants producing and sustaining this visionary spirituality.42 While the western examples frequently show the pictorialization of metaphors identifying spiritual experience, the Byzantine images after Iconoclasm frame the visual field with figure that channel the act of contemplation. The sticheron and the ivory of the Crucifixion present variant encounters of the Crucifixion, drawing attention to the importance of the imagination in envisioning the divine. The music is expressive of the Virgin’s inconsolable grief, while the visual – of her state of contemplation. The sticheron helps us recognize in the ivory icon how Mary mediates the divine theōria. The Hannover ivory viewed together with the music of the sticheron presents a case where the image is conceived as visionary, rather than representational, seeking to express and induce a state of contemplation.

Notes 1 H. Maguire, Art and Eloquence in Byzantium (Princeton, 1981). 2 See further R. Webb, Ekphrasis: Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Farnham, 2009); R. Webb, ‘Spatiality, embodiment, and agency in ekphraseis of church buildings’, in B. V. Pentcheva, ed., Aural Architec­ ture in Byzantium: Music, Acoustics, and Ritual (Aldershot, 2017), 163–75. 3 E. Follieri, Initia hymnorum ecclesiae graecae (5 vols., Vatican City, 1960), vol. 1, 512.

280 Bissera Pentcheva 4 A. Goldschmidt and K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X.–XIII. Jahrhunderts (2 vols., Berlin, 1930–34), vol. 1, 37, no. 40, vol. 2, Pl. 17, no. 40; A. Cutler, The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory, and Society in Byzantium, 9th– 11th centuries (Princeton, 1994), 104–5, 205–7; H. Evans and W. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 146–7; C. Stiegemann, ed., Byzanz. Das Licht aus dem Osten. Kult und Alltag in Byzantinischen Reich vom 4. Bis 15. Jahrhundert (Mainz, 2002), 115–17. 5 B. Pentcheva, Hagia Sophia: Sound, Space, and Spirit in Byzantium (University Park, 2017); B. Pentcheva, ‘Performing the sacred in Byzantium: image, breath, and sound’, PRI Performance Research International 19.3 (2014), 120–8. The burning of incense would have also filled in the liturgical performance space, on the latter, see B. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual and the Senses in Byzantium (Univer­ sity Park, 2010), 45–56; S. Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 2006). 6 On the leading role of liturgical poetry in stirring emotion and how art was a late­ comer to this development, see Fr. M. Constas, ‘Poetry and painting in the middle Byzantine period. A bilateral icon from Kastoria and the stavrotheotokia of Joseph the Hymnographer’, in S. E. J. Gerstel, ed., Viewing Greece: Cultural and Political Agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean (Turnhout, 2016), 13–32. 7 Paul Silentiarios, Descriptio ambonis, vv. 26–32 in P. Friedländer, ed., Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius: Kunstbeschreibungen Justinianischer Zeit (Leipzig, 1912) and further discussion in Pentcheva, Hagia Sophia, ch. 5. 8 As attested in the typikon of Christ the Saviour at Messina, which reflected cathedral liturgy of Constantinople on Great Feasts; see M. Arranz, ed., Le typicon du Monastère du Saint-Sauveur à Messine, Codex Messinensia gr 115, A.D. 1131 (Rome, 1969), 239. 9 J. Grosdidier de Matons, ed., Romanos le Mélode. Hymnes (5 vols., Paris, 1964–1981); Grosdidier de Matons, Romanos le Mélode et les origines de la poésie religieuse à Byzance (Paris, 1977). 10 D. Krueger, Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative and the Forma­ tion of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia, 2014), 29–66. 11 On the singing of kontakia on the paramonē (eves of great feasts), see A. Lingas, ‘The liturgical place of the kontakion in Constantinople’, in C. Akentiev, ed., Lit­ urgy, Architecture, and Art in the Byzantine World: Papers of the XVIII International Byzantine Congress (Moscow, 8–10 August 1991) and Other Essays Dedicated to the Memory of Fr. John Meyendorff (St. Petersburg, 1995), 50–7. 12 Krueger, Liturgical Subjects, 130–214. On the monastic reform at the Studious, see T. Pott, La réforme liturgique byzantine: Étude du phénomène de évolution non­ spontanée de la liturgie byzantine (Rome, 2000), P. Meyendorff, trans., Byzantine Liturgical Reform: A Study of Liturgical Change in the Byzantine Tradition (Crest­ wood, 2010). 13 H. J. M. Tillyard, ‘Ἐώθινα Ἀναστάσιμα: the morning hymns of the Emperor Leo’, BSA 30 (1928/1929–1929/1930), 86–108 and 31(1930–31), 115–47; C. Emereau, ‘Hymnographi byzantine – Quorum nomina in litteras digessit notulisque adornavit’, EO 135 (1924), 275–85, esp. 285; T. Detorakis, ‘Ἄγνωστοι Ὕμνοι Λέοντος ç´ τοῦ Σοφοῦ’, in T. Antonopoulou, S. Kotzabassi and M. Loukaki, eds., Myriobiblos: Essay on Byzantine Literature and Culture (Berlin, 2015), 131–41. On Leo’s literary work, see further, T. Antonopoulou, The Homilies of Emperor Leo VI (Leiden and New York, 1997); T. Antonopoulou, ed., Leo VI Sapientis Imperatoris Byzantini Homiliae (Turnhout, 2008). 14 The best example are the hymns of Leo for Epiphany that he made the choir of Hagia Sophia perform in the Palace, J. J. Reiske, ed., Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De Ceremoniis aulae byzantinae (2 vols., Bonn, 1829) vol. 2, 754–5. 15 Constas, ‘Poetry and painting in the middle Byzantine period’, 13–32.

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16 J. Mateos, Le Typicon de la Grande Église. Ms. Saint-Croix n. 40, X siècle. Introduc­ tion, texte critique, traduction et notes (2 vols., Rome, 1963); Arranz, ed., Le typicon du Monastère du Saint-Sauveur à Messine; A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Ανάλεκτα Ιεροσο­ λυμιτικής σταχυολογίας (5 vols., St. Petersburg, 1891–1895, rpt. Bruxelles, 1963) for the typikon of the Anastasis; Τριώδιον Κατανυκτικόν: περιέχον άπασαν την ανήκουσαν αυτώ Ακολουθίαν της Αγίας και Μεγάλης Τεσσαρακοστής (Rome, 1879); Mother Mary and K. Ware, trans., The Lenten Triodion (London, 1984) based on Τριώδιον Κατανυκτικόν (Athens, 1960); T. Sakellariu, ed., Mεγάλη Eβδομάς (Thessaloniki, 1955). For the study of the liturgy, see G. Bertonière, The Historical Development of the Easter Vigil and Related Services in the Greek Church (Rome, 1972); S. Janeras, Le Vendredi-Saint das las tradition liturgique byzantine (Rome, 1988). 17 Among the few examples of art history relying on liturgy are D. Pallas, Die Passion und Bestattung Christi. Der Ritus – das Bild (Munich, 1965); H. Belting, ‘An image and its function in the liturgy: the Man of Sorrows in Byzantium’, DOP 34–35 (1980–81), 1–16; N. Ševčenko, ‘Icons in the liturgy’, DOP 45 (1991), 45–57. M. Evangelatou, ‘Liturgy and the illustration of the ninth-century marginal psalters’, DOP 63 (2011), 59–116. 18 Pallas, Die Passion und Bestattung Christi; Constas, ‘Poetry and painting in the middle Byzantine period’, 13–32. 19 Follieri, Initia hymnorum ecclesiae graecae, vol. 1, 512. 20 Mother Mary and K. Ware, trans., Lenten Triodion, 612. 21 Janeras, Le Venredi-Saint, 360. On the typikon of the Anastasis (Jerusalem, Hagios Stavros, MS Gr. 43, dated to 1122), see Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Ανάλεκτα Ιεροσολυ­ μιτικής σταχυολογίας, vol. 2, 1–254; Bertonière, Historical Development, 12–8. 22 Arranz, ed., Le typicon du Monastère du Saint-Sauveur à Messine, vespers on Holy Friday, 241. Leo’s sticheron is not recorded in the tenth-century typikon of Constan­ tinople (Mateos, Le Typicon de la Grande Église, vol. 2, 80–1), but it is present in the twelfth-century typikon of the Anastasis and in the Triodion; see Janeras, Le Ven­ redi-Saint, 355–69, esp. 360–2. 23 Reiske, ed., Constantine Porphyrogennetos, De Ceremoniis, vol. 2, 754–7, A. Moffat and M. Tall, trans., Constantine Porphyrogennetos. Book of Ceremonies (2 vols., Canberra, 2012), vol. 2, 754–7. 24 Tillyard, ‘The morning hymns of the Emperor Leo’, 89–90, 107–8. 25 © 2015 Cappella Romana, Good Friday in Jerusalem, Track 14. 26 Carsten Høeg, ed., Codex vindobonensis theol. graec. 181 phototypice depictus (Copenhagen, 1935). I thank Spyridon Antonopoulos for this reference. 27 Janeras, Le Vendredi-Saint, 355–67, esp. 360. 28 ἐπὶ ξύλου βλέπουσα κρεμάμενον, Χριστέ, σὲ τὸν πάντων κτίστην καὶ Θεὸν ἡ σὲ ἀσπόρως τεκοῦσα, ἐβόα πικρῶς ‘Υἱέ μου, ποῦ τὸ κάλλος ἒδυ τῆς μορφῆς σου; οὐ φέρω καθορᾶν σε ἀδίκως σταυρούμενον σπεῦσον οὖν ἀνάστηθι, ὅπως ἲδω κἀγὼ σοῦ τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν τριήμερον ἐξανάστασιν.’ 29 George of Nikomedeia, Oratio in illud: Stabant autem juxta crucem Jesu, PG 100, cols. 1457–90, esp. 1488, discussed by Maguire, Art and Eloquence, 97–100; N. Tsironis, ‘The lament of the Virgin Mary from Romanos the Melode to George of Nikomedeia’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1998); N. Tsironis, ‘From poetry to lit­ urgy: the cult of the Virgin in the middle Byzantine period’, in M. Vassilaki, ed., Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium (Aldershot, 2005), 91–102. S. Shoemaker (‘A mother’s passion: Mary at the Cross and reflection in the earliest life of the Virgin and its influence on George of Nikomedeia’s passion homilies’, in L. Brubaker and M. B. Cunningham, eds., The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzan­ tium [Farnham, 2011], 53–68) has argued that George of Nikomedeia borrowed the structure and content from an earlier Life of Mary written by Maximus the Confessor and reserved only in a Georgian recension.

282 Bissera Pentcheva 30 Robin Cormack (‘The eyes of the Mother of God’, in Vassilaki, ed., Images of the Mother of God, 167–73) has drawn attention to the gaze of the Virgin evading the viewer on the Sinai Icon of the enthroned Theotokos with saints. 31 George of Nikomedeia, Oratio in illud, PG 100, col. 1488. 32 R. Betancourt, ‘Tempted to touch: tactility, ritual, and mediation in Byzantine visual­ ity’, Speculum 91.3 (2016), 660–90, addressing the earlier study of R. Nelson, ‘To say and to see: ekphrasis and vision in Byzantium’ in R. Nelson, ed., Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (Cambridge and New York, 2000), 143–68. 33 Nikephoros, Antirrhetici, PG 100, cols. 277A, 357B-D. C. Barber, Figure and Like­ ness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton, 2002), 107–39; C. Barber, ‘From transformation to desire: art and worship after Byzantine iconoclasm’, ArtB 75 (1993), 7–16. 34 On spiritual seeing, see H. Kessler, ‘Facies bibliothecae revelata. Carolingian art as spiritual seeing’, in Testo e immagine nell’Alto medioevo (Spoleto, 1994), 533–84. 35 Photios, Homily X, in V. Laourdas, ed., Photiou Homiliai (Thessaloniki, 1959), 154–72, esp. 167, C. Mango, trans., The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453 (Toronto, 1993), 187. 36 On dreams in Byzantium, see G. T. Calofonos and C. Angelidi, Dreaming in Byzan­ tium and Beyond (Farnham and Burlington, 2014). 37 M. Mullett, ‘Dreaming in the life of Cyril Phileotes’, in Calofonos and Angelidi, eds., Dreaming in Byzantium, 1–19, esp. 4–5, 8, 10. 38 The apnous and afōnos feature in another hymn written by Leo, a doxastikon, per­ formed during the Third Hour of Holy Friday, Detorkais, ‘Ἄγνωστοι Ὕμνοι’, 139. Also during the Third Hour is when George of Nikomedeia’s Lament of Mary is read and it, too, features the same words to describe the view of Christ that stirs his mother’s grief, George of Nikomedeia, Oratio in illud, PG 100, col. 1488. 39 M. Frazer, ‘Hades stabbed by the Cross of Christ’, The Metropolitan Museum Jour­ nal 9 (1974), 153–61; Evans and Wixom, eds., Glory of Byzantium, 151–2. 40 Cutler, Hand of the Master, 206–7. 41 Ibid., 237–46. 42 J. Hamburger, ‘Visual and the visionary: the image in late Medieval monastic devo­ tion’, Viator 20 (1989), 161–82; J. Hamburger, ‘Speculations on speculation: vision and perception in the theory and practice of mystical devotion’, in W. Haug and W. Schneider-Lastin, eds., Deutsche Mystik im abendländischen Zusammenhang. Neue erschlossene Texte, neue methodische Ansätze, neue theoretische Konzepte. Kolloquium Kloster Fischungen 1998 (Tübingen, 2000), 353–408.

16 The season of salvation Images and texts at Li Monaci in Apulia Linda Safran

‘Li Monaci’ is now the name of a winery about 4 km southeast of Copertino in the heel of the Italian boot, but this erstwhile fortified farmstead contains a non­ oenophilic surprise: a subterranean church dedicated to the archangel Michael that is nowhere mentioned in the historical record. A long dedicatory text in Greek names the patron and artists and provides the date 1314/15. Most of the paintings have disappeared, but those on the east wall are well preserved and include saints and narrative scenes with Latin or bilingual Latin and Greek inscriptions. The ceiling is frescoed with paradisiacal imagery and a unique embracing couple. The church reveals an effective interweaving of Byzantinizing and ‘Western’ pictorial and textual cultures, and the interpretation proposed here touches on Henry Maguire’s scholarly interest in texts and images, the efficacy of images and the natural world.1 The sole entrance to the rock-cut church is via a stairway from the northwest. The entrance – literally a hole in the ground – is marked above by an incised cross. The stairs descend to a rectangular space about 5 m deep, 9 m across and about 2.5 m high (Figure 16.1).2 On the left half of the southeast wall (henceforth called the east wall), opposite the stairs, are two shallow rectangular apses, each containing an altar (Figures 16.1(c), (f), and 16.2). The space is interrupted by two roughly square floor-to-ceiling piers that serve no structural function, and there is a low bench around the whole interior. Sometime after the single decorative campaign was completed, a sizable hole (0.75 m) was made in the ceiling. This is now plugged, and the church is and must always have been very dark. On the entry wall, to the right of the stairs as viewed from inside, are the remains of a painted stepped-cross frame for an unknown figure or scene (Figure 16.1(a)). Nearby, on the north wall, is a figure identified in Greek as Onouphrios (ΝΟΥΦ); the saint’s white hair and beard cover what remains of his whole body (Figures 16.1 (b) and 16.3). A prominent feature of the Greek vitae of the hermit-monk Onouphrios, which were composed in southern Italy, is that he had a guardian angel.3 This may have been relevant to the patron, given the angelic dedication of the church and the inclusion of several angels in its preserved decoration. The ‘portrait’ of St Onouphrios has a simple red frame, and traces of such frames on every wall show that the whole interior was painted, although only

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Figure 16.1 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, 1314/15. Ground plan with fresco sites a -i. [Source: Navid Jamali]

the east wall retains multiple figures. There, in the small left apse, a half-length figure of St John, who looks down toward his Gospel book (Figures 16.1(c) and 16.4); incised around its edge is the beginning of his Gospel in Greek, ‘In the beginning was the Word’ (Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος). He is labelled on the left in Latin as ‘St John the Evangelist’ (S̅ I̅ O̅ EUA̅ GELISTA) and on the right in Greek as ‘St John the Theologian’ (Ο ΑΓ´ Ι̅ Ω̅ Ο ΘΕΟΛΟΓ[OC]) (Figure 16.5). My palaeographic analysis confirms that the artist who painted the Greek also did the Latin; he must have copied a Latin model, but he reveals that his native language was Greek in such details as the minuscule A at the end of ‘Evangelista.’ This is the elderly John preferred in Byzantium, not the youthful evangelist favoured in Western medieval art. A good iconographic comparison is a small steatite icon of St John in the Louvre, similarly inscribed and dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century.4 Below John’s image is a fictive textile, detailed with colourful stripes and fringes. It may represent either an altar cloth or a podea, which typically hangs below an icon (Figure 16.4). The sides of the niche are painted with the same rinceau ornament that outlines the ceiling, confirming the unity and contemporaneity of the whole interior. Above the saint is a fragment that I have

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Figure 16.2 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, view to east wall. [Source: Author]

identified as the fish that swallowed the prophet Jonah (Figures 16.1(d) and 16.5).5 Not only are the back end of the fish and the blue water in the lower left corner clearly recognizable but the remaining letters, omicron plus a superimposed pi and rho, are also the beginning of ὁ προφήτης (the prophet) in Greek. If there was a corresponding Latin inscription, it has not survived. As is well known, Jonah was one of the earliest types for Christ, although his miraculous emergence after three days in the great fish was less popular in art after the early Christian centuries.6 Nevertheless, manuscripts and wall paintings reveal the longevity of the image in the Orthodox world,7 and it was also common in Western medieval art. The connection between Jonah and John is both liturgical and textual. Jonah begins, ‘The Word of the Lord came to Jonah’ and John’s Gospel begins ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ In the Orthodox rite, the complete book of Jonah was read at Vespers on Holy Saturday and John 1:1 was read on the Saturday before Easter and on Easter Sunday.8 The Roman liturgy offers no comparable connection: John 1 was read at the Christmas vigil, but Jonah was absent from the annual cycle of readings.9 The juxtaposition of the evangelist and the prophet at the left altar therefore provides important evidence for the practice of the Orthodox liturgy at Li Monaci.

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Figure 16.3 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, west end of north wall. St Onouphrios. [Source: Author]

Immediately to the right of John and Jonah, separating them from the larger altar niche, is a depiction of the Annunciation (Figures 16.1(e), 16.2 and 16.4). Gabriel and the Virgin are here identified exclusively in Latin, in a mix of capital and minuscule letters (‘AGLS GABRI’, ‘MAT DNI’). The macrons over the Virgin’s epithet match the ornate finial of the angel’s staff, and the script is more ornamental than the one used to label John the Evangelist; a different artist definitely executed these tituli. The Annunciation is the scene most commonly depicted in Apulia’s rock-cut churches; in contrast to Cappadocia, it is often the sole narrative image among a series of standing saints. At Li Monaci the scene features the dove of the Holy Spirit emerging from a tower to impregnate the Mother of God through the ear while she holds a large closed book, presumably Prophets or Psalms. These pictorial details are drawn from Western iconography,10 as is the designation ‘Angel’ rather than ‘Archangel.’ The main apse to the right of the Annunciation has its altar adorned with a painted white cloth (Figure 16.2). Above it is a six-line dedicatory inscription in Greek that reads:

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This most venerable church of the archistrategos Michael was built and decorated with paintings with the cooperation and effort of the soldier Souré and his wife and child[ren?] during the reign of Robert, third [son] of Charles, in 6823 [1314/15], thirteenth indiction; it was painted by the hand of Nicholas and his son Demetrius of Soleto. You who read this, pray to the Lord for them. Amen11 (Figures 16.1(f) and 16.6). The reference to two artists confirms my observation about two different hands responsible for the inscriptions.12 Robert, known as ‘the Wise’, was the third son of Charles II of Anjou, the brother of the future saint Louis of Toulouse and the ruler of the Kingdom of Naples for

Figure 16.4 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, left apse seen from north aisle. John, Jonah, Annunciation. [Source: Author]

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Figure 16.5 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, left apse, detail. Prophet Jonah over John the Evangelist. [Source: Author]

much of the early fourteenth century (r. 1309–43), but the patron, with the Frenchsounding name Souré – complete with accent – is unknown from other sources.13 The text is unusual in the region in not placing the patron’s name prominently at the end of a line of inscription; rather, it is his title, ‘soldier’ (στρατιώτης),14 that is emphasized visually at the right end of the second line. This was certainly deliberate: στρατιώτης echoes Michael’s title at the left end of the same line, αρχιστράτηγος, general-in-chief, instead of his more usual title in Greek, ‘archangel’ (ἀρχάγγελος).15 This choice was doubtless made to highlight Souré’s closeness to his patron saint, who is depicted just to the right of the dedicatory inscription. Below the inscription, the niche itself contains a representation of the Crucifixion, flanked by the sorrowful (but not swooning) Virgin, the poorly preserved young St John and a small angel in each lower corner (Figure 16.2). The three protagonists are identified only in Latin, either with abbreviated nomina sacra or spelled out, in the case of John; the Gothic capitals are quite unlike the flowery minuscule of the Annunciation tituli. Below the cross is the traditional skull of Adam (said to have been buried at Golgotha, lit. ‘place of the skull’),16 tiny but with huge eye holes (Figure 16.7). The slumping body of Christ accords with Western iconography in which a single nail is used to pierce both feet.17

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Figure 16.6 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, detail of main apse (1997). Crucifixion and dedicatory inscription. [Source: Author]

Most unexpected, given the Greek dedicatory text immediately above, is the titulus over the cross: it says ‘Victor mortis’, referring explicitly to Christ’s victory over death, instead of ‘Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews’, the version indicated in John 19:19 and on the alleged titulus relic displayed in Rome.18 It was visible in 1997 (Figure 16.6) but not in 2006 (Figure 16.2).19 The phrase Victor mortis was not unknown in Western art, as it appears on a standard held by the risen Christ in Giotto’s Noli me tangere in the Arena Chapel in Padua (1303–5) and on the cross-bar of a mid-fourteenth-century painted crucifix in Messina,20 but it was not used, as far as I know, as the titulus of the cross. Victor mortis was, however, an epithet used for John the Evangelist, who was thought to have escaped death.21 John, present at the Crucifixion and the ‘adopted’ son of Mary (Jn 19:26), was, like her, a virgin and a powerful intercessor with Christ. The explicitly salvific title on the cross at Li Monaci thus reinforces the emphasis on Easter announced by the Jonah and John images and also suggests a funerary function for the church that is reinforced by its dedication to the angel associated with souls at the Last Judgment. The depiction of Christ’s Crucifixion in an apse is unusual in both Byzantine and Western medieval art.22 The patron or artists in Apulia are unlikely to have known

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Figure 16.7 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, detail of central apse. Crucifixion. [Source: Author]

about the tenth-century New Tokalı Kilise in Cappadocia, and the early twelfthcentury mosaic at San Clemente in Rome is quite different.23 Both of these, and indeed all the Crucifixions I know from early fourteenth-century Italy, contain many more characters and details than the minimalist scene at Li Monaci. With just five figures, it most resembles some middle Byzantine images, such as those at Hosios Loukas, Daphni, or an icon at Mount Sinai of about 1200.24 To the right of the Crucifixion is a representation of Michael (Figures 16.1(g) and 16.2), not labelled ‘archistrategos’, as in the dedicatory inscription, but in both Greek and Latin as ‘the archangel’ (Ο ΑΡΧΑΓΓΕΛ(ΟC) ΜHΧΑΗΛ, ARCHAGELUS MICHAEL). Michael was among the most important heavenly intercessors because of his traditional role as psychopompos, and his cult was especially important in southern Italy because of the venerable Monte Gargano

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pilgrimage site. At Li Monaci, the image of the arch-protector abuts the apse, as it does elsewhere in the region and beyond.26 As befits his role as the dedicatee of the church, he is represented directly opposite the entry, framed in an elaborate border of stepped crosses. Traces of another such frame survive on the entrance wall (Figure 16.1(a)), but is impossible to know whether that panel enclosed a second image of the archangel.27 To Michael’s right is a very fragmentary panel, preserved mostly at the top (Figure 16.1(h)). A yellow ground outlines the curves of a wide trefoil and contains, in the upper left corner, a dark roundel. It may originally have resembled the ‘gemmed’, pseudo-gold frame of St Lucy in the fourteenthcentury Buona Nuova church at Massafra.28 About halfway down the right edge of the panel at Li Monaci, the usual red frame is overlapped by a tiny figure.29 Half of the face and part of the bust of a beardless man are visible; his light­ coloured hair is tucked behind his ear, and he wears a reddish-brown garment with a draped neckline. The scale and liminal position of this figure indicate that he is a supplicant venerating the original occupant of the panel. The ceiling at Li Monaci was completely painted, but it has suffered significant losses. Around the edge is a border strip of continuous blue and red vine scrolls that terminate in three-petal flowers (Figures 16.3, 16.4 and 16.5). This border encloses a white ground adorned with small red flowers (six rounded petals and a central dot), larger red flowers or stars (eight long, pointed petals or rays) and large blue stars (eight straight rays and a central dot or stroke). At the centre of the ceiling, mostly destroyed by the later hole, are the remains of a large red cross with circular finials. A simpler version of the Li Monaci ceiling, decorated with a large red cross and red flowers on a white ground, is found in the rock-cut church of Sant’Antonio at San Pancrazio Salentino (less than 30 km away).30 The only other painted ceiling in the region, a bit farther away in the Crocefisso church at Ugento, is much more crowded: it depicts comparable eight-pointed stars, but also numerous fictive shields and a bestiary’s worth of real and imaginary creatures (Figure 16.8).31 The figures on the Ugento ceiling are relevant to Li Monaci because it, too, has figural imagery, albeit much more limited in extent. In front of the angel of the Annunciation and Jonah, a painted couple is shown embracing among the stars and flowers (Figures 16.1(i) and 16.4). A worshipper facing the east wall from the north aisle sees them upside-down; they can only be viewed properly by someone standing with his back to the east wall and looking up (Figure 16.9). The celestial and floral motifs that surround the couple are consistent with those on the rest of the ceiling, and the man’s hat, a soft chaperon, and the woman’s tight-sleeve, twotone belted gown accord well with the date given in the dedication.32 But why are these obviously secular-looking people shown canoodling on the ceiling of a church whose wall paintings focus on Easter?33 Maria Stella Calò Mariani, followed by Gaetano Curzi, asserts that the pair represents the patron and his wife: ‘Here the knight Souré and his wife, entwined in an embrace, are depicted with naïve courtly grace.’34 The couple is not adjacent to the dedicatory inscription, however, and cannot readily be seen by someone

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Figure 16.8 Ugento, Cripta del Crocefisso, detail of ceiling. [Source: Author]

reading it. To the best of my knowledge, no medieval patrons are represented pictorially on church ceilings, and there are no precedents for showing them in anything but a devotional pose. The assumption that these are donor portraits is simply not tenable. Calò Mariani views the painted couple as a representation of courtly love. She compares them to figures on a box made in Limoges in the second half of the thirteenth century,35 on which an embracing couple represents one stage in the ritual of amorous conquest codified in contemporary Western literature and often represented on portable secular artwork.36 Even though the ceiling at Li Monaci is not perfectly preserved, I am sceptical that the couple was painted merely to provide a hint of courtly ambience. I have therefore investigated other possible motives for their inclusion. The specific pose of the couple may have evoked for some viewers a verse that occurs twice in the Song of Songs (2:6, 8:3): ‘His left hand is under my head, his right hand embraces me.’ These passages, like the rest of the book, had long inspired allegorical interpretation, but by the twelfth century Christian commentators had begun to interpret the bridegroom of the Song as Christ and the bride as the Virgin Mary and the Church.37 In Roman-rite churches, the Song of Songs had been read for centuries on the feasts of the Virgin’s birth (8 September) and Assumption

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Figure 16.9 Li Monaci, San Michele Arcangelo, detail of ceiling. Embracing couple. [Source: Author]

(15 August), but it was never part of the Orthodox rite. Nevertheless, the text, or at least Gregory of Nyssa’s 15 homilies on it, was available in southernmost Apulia; two manuscripts of the homilies were copied there in the fourteenth century alone.38 Yet the couple at Li Monaci lacks haloes, crowns, classical clothing or the signs of sanctity usually associated with Song of Songs imagery. In fact, they more closely resemble the vice of Lust as depicted in numerous manuscripts and on the west facade at Amiens Cathedral (Figure 16.10).39 A viewer who knew the scriptural verse was therefore likely to recognize the eminently secular embrace as an antitype – an image of romantic or erotic love that parodies the sacred and spiritual love exalted in the Song of Songs and implicit in the figures of Mary, John and Christ in the nearby Crucifixion scene. Shocking and humorous figures can be found in Byzantine art, as Henry and Eunice Maguire showed in Other Icons, but they do not resemble the couple at Li Monaci. These look like Western medieval secular figures, and their relegation to the ceiling puts them in the category of ‘marginalia.’40 Marginal figures were very common in Western religious manuscripts and churches (on carved corbels, capitals, misericords and fonts), and many scholars now think that they interacted

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Figure 16.10 Amiens Cathedral, west facade. Lust [Source: © Dr. Stuart Whatling]

in some way with the rest of the work in which they appear.41 While some marginalia served as suggestive oppositions, others may have facilitated viewers’ understanding of the church or book (or folio) through the kind of associative and ‘recollective chain-making’ described by Mary Carruthers.42 While I do not wish to deny a learned individual viewer’s potential reading of the painted couple as parodic antitypes, I want to propose an additional interpretation that unites the pair with the rest of the paintings rather than opposes them. The couple is surrounded by flowers and stars, which were widely known metaphors for the Virgin, gardens and paradise (in part because of the Song of Songs).43 According to long-standing medieval tradition, both the Annunciation and the Crucifixion occurred on 25 March, and that date marked the start of spring in East and West;44 Jonah and John were also readings for spring (Orthodox Easter). The embracing couple fits into this seasonal context if we recognize in them the astrological sign for Gemini or the emblem of the month of May. Both are later than Easter, admittedly, but they were nevertheless well-known metaphors for springtime, love and rebirth, especially but not exclusively in Western art and

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literature. Gemini was often represented in medieval Europe not as the male twins of Antiquity but as a heterosexual couple.46 Examples include the thirteenthcentury zodiac on the west facade of Amiens Cathedral47 and an image in a sacramentary (equivalent to a euchologion) from Austria labelled ‘Sol in geminos’ (Sun in Gemini)48; the pose in the latter is identical to that at Li Monaci (Figure 16.11). I am not suggesting that either of these specific comparisons was known in Apulia, but they indicate the wide range of this calendrical-seasonal imagery. If the painted lovers connoted springtime, the implication of rebirth accords perfectly with the Annunciation and Crucifixion scenes and the liturgy for Easter, and it also establishes a larger context: the zodiac and seasons are part of God’s plan, just like the life and death of Christ and the human potential for Victor mortis. Humans’ beginnings in paradise are referenced in the text on the book held by John (Figure 16.4), since ‘In the beginning’ (Gen 1:1) took place in Eden.49 A return to paradise was the goal of all Christians. Who was the intended audience for this aspirational pictorial programme? It could have been a mix of Greek and (vulgar) Latin speakers, given the bilingual tituli and Greek dedicatory text, but it is also possible that the second language – whichever that was – was included mainly for reasons of prestige.50 The presence of two altars may indicate that each was used by a different Christian denomination, a practice for which there is evidence elsewhere in the region.51 The liturgical logic of juxtaposing John and Jonah would then suggest that the left altar was for the Orthodox rite, whereas the Victor mortis in the central apse implies that the Latin rite was celebrated there. Depiction of the

Figure 16.11 Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Kärntner Landesarchiv, GV-Hs. 6/35 (Millstatt Sacramentary), fol. 86v. Gemini as embracing couple. [Source: Kärntner Landesarchiv]

296 Linda Safran monastic saint Onouphrios and the modern name of the site, Li Monaci (‘the monks’), provide only weak support for an association with monks. All of the Italian rock-cut churches have been wrongly associated with ‘Basilian monks’, so one must be sceptical, but it is possible that Souré established a small monastic foundation to offer perpetual prayers for his soul; this was common practice in the Byzantine world and in southern Italy. The patron’s family members were almost certainly buried above and around the church. Before that happened, though, they presumably drew hope from the painted images and liturgical actions in the church of the Archangel. With proper veneration, they, too, could hope for an eventual springtime of victory over death.

Notes 1 A quarter-century ago Henry Maguire wrote the presentation to my first book, and he has been a profound inspiration throughout my career. Parts of this paper were presented at the 3rd Annual IMAGO conference in Jerusalem; the 38th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference in Brookline, MA; and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. I am grateful to questioners at all three venues and especially thank Yudong Wang, Jill Caskey and Adam S. Cohen. 2 A. Montefrancesco, ‘Nuove ricerche intorno alla cripta di S. Michele Arcangelo alla Masseria “Li Monaci”’, Il Castello: Quaderno di storia, arte e cultura 3 (1992), 4–11; A. Valchera and S. Zampolino Faustini, ‘Documenti per una carta archeologica della Puglia meridionale’, in F. D’Andria, ed., Metodologie di catalogazione dei beni archeologici (2 vols., Bari, 1997), vol. 2, 103–58, at 139–43. 3 M. Radhakrishnan, ‘Domenico Cavalca and the Liber Vitaspatrum: Vernacular hagi­ ography in late medieval and early modern Italy’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Princeton University, 2012), 293, 303–6. Onouphrios was also credited with resuscitating a dead man in Campania in 1146 (ibid., 323–4). Even though his image appears at Monreale in the 1180s, his depiction did not become common until the fourteenth century when vernacular translations of his vita first appeared (ibid., 326). For images of St Onouphrios in southern Italy, see V. Pace, ‘Eremiti in scena nell’Italia meridionale Medievale (e altrove)’, in P. De Leo, ed., San Bruno di Colonia: Un eremito tra Oriente e Occidente (Soveria Mannelli, 2004), 253–63, esp. 261–2. 4 Inv. nr. AC868. J. Durand, ‘Icône: saint Jean le Théologien’, in Byzance: L’art byzantin dans les collections publiques françaises, Musée du Louvre, 3 november 1992–1er février 1993 (Paris, 1992), 437. 5 L. Safran, The Medieval Salento: Art and Identity in Southern Italy (Philadelphia, 2014), 53 and no. 43. 6 Jonah probably lacked the abundance of motifs from nature typical of his early rep­ resentation, on which see H. Maguire, Earth and Ocean: The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art (University Park, 1987); H. Maguire, ‘Christians, pagans, and the representation of nature’, in H. Maguire, ed., Rhetoric, Nature and Magic in Byzantine Art (Aldershot, 1998), 132–7. 7 E.g., London, British Library, MS Add. 40753, fol. 159v (Psalms and Canticles, from Cyprus or the Levant), www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx? ref=Add_MS_40753; and the front of the altar at St Nicholas Anapafsas, Meteora (painted by Theophanes Strelitzas, 1527), http://edwardsingreece.blogspot.ca/2010/ 10/meteora-and-makrynitsa.html. 8 A. Rahlfs, Die alttestamentlichen Lektionen der griechischen Kirche (Berlin, 1916); Thales lectionary database, www.lectionary.eu. Additional references to Jonah occur in hymns for Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost; see R. F. Littledale, Offices from

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Service Books of the Holy Eastern Church; With Translation, Notes, and Glossary (London, 1863, repr. Piscataway, 2006), 170, 189, 214. According to the Thales database, it was part of the earlier Gallican rite, as attested in a lectionary from Luxeuil, ca. 700, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 9427. R. Durante, ‘Una conceptio per aurem nel rilievo dell’Annunciazione di S. Maria della Strada a Taurisano’, Studi Salentini 85 (2009–10 [2013]), 30–56; L. S. Miles, ‘The origins and development of the Virgin Mary’s book at the Annunciation’, Speculum 89 (2014), 632–69. Ανοικοδομήθη και εζωγραφήθη ὁ πανσεπτος ναὸς οῦτος τοῦ / ἀρχιστρατήγου Μιχαὴλ διὰ συνδρομὴς κ(αὶ) κόπου Cουρὲ στρατιώ[τ](ου) / ἄμα συν συνβίω αὐτοῦ κ(αὶ) τ [έκνοις, έκνω] [ρη]γατεύοντος δὲ Ρωμβέρτου / Καρούλλου τριτέου: ἐπι [ετους ͵ϛ̄ ω̄] κ̄ γ̄ . ἰνδ(ικτιωνος) ῑ γ̄ . [ἐζ]ωγραφήθ η δὲ / χειρὶ Νικολάου κ(αὶ) Δη(μη)τριου υ[ιου α] υτοῦ ἁπὸ της Cωλεντοῦς: κ(αὶ) οἱ ἀ / ναγινόσκοντες . ευχεσθαῖ υπερ αυτοὺς προς τον Κ(ύριον): ἀμὴν. A. Jacob, ‘Une dédicace de sanctuaire inédite à la Masseria Li Monaci, près de Copertino en Terre d’Otrante’, MEFRM 94 (1982), 703–10; Italian translation with minor modifications, A. Jacob, ‘L’iscrizione dedicatoria della cripta di S. Michele Arcangelo alla Masseria Li Monaci presso Copertino, in Terra d’Otranto’, in M. Greco, ed., Copertino storia e cultura: Dalle origini al Settecento (Lecce, 2013), 53–6; Safran, The Medieval Salento, no. 43. Soleto, the home of the two artists, is about 16 km from Li Monaci. At San Nicola in Acquarica del Capo (52 km from Li Monaci), a different pair of artists signed a Latin dedicatory text in Greek; errors in the Latin elsewhere in the church betray their superior knowledge of Greek. See M. Berger and A. Jacob, ‘Un nouveau monument byzantin de Terre d’Otrante: La chapelle Saint-Nicolas de Cel­ sorizzo, près d’Acquarica del Capo, et ses fresques (an. 1283)’, RSBN 27 (1990), 211–57; Safran, The Medieval Salento, 48. M. Cazzato, Copertino: Immagini e storie (Copertino, 2005), esp. 7–8, 14–7, con­ tains a fanciful reconstruction of the life of the ‘cavaliere francese Sourè’ in Apulia. Jacob (‘Une dédicace’, 708) translates στρατιώτης as ‘chevalier (lat. miles)’, equiva­ lent to knight. For the epithet αρχιστράτηγος, see A. Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Fresken und Mosaiken (Vienna, 2009), 364. Michael is invoked as αρχιστράτηγος in a local exorcism against hail; see A. Jacob, ‘Un esorcismo inedito contro la grandine tràdito da due codici salentini’, in M. Spedicato, ed., Segni del tempo: Studi di storia e cultura salentina in onore di Antonio Caloro (Galatina, 2008), 23–39, at 33, 35. Most recently, M. Montesano, ‘Adam’s skull’, in C. Santing, B. Baert and A. Traninger, eds., Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Leiden, 2013), 15–30. The shift to a single nail occurred in the twelfth century, according to G. Cames, ‘Recherches sur les origines du crucifix à trois clous’, CahArch 16 (1966), 185–202. C. Hahn, ‘Inscriptions and interactions: text and image on the Cloisters Cross and other ivories’, ActaNorv 24.10 (2011), 185–204, at 188–9. Personal observation. Giotto: www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/giotto/padova/, no. 37; Messina crucifix: paduaresearch.cab.unipd.it/7584/1/fazio_giuseppe_tesi.pdf, p. 246. J. F. Hamburger, St. John the Divine: The Deified Evangelist in Medieval Art and Theology (Berkeley, 2002), esp. 151–7. Giotto depicted John’s ascension in the Per­ uzzi Chapel at Santa Croce, Florence, only a few years after the dedication of Li Monaci; www.wga.hu/html_m/g/giotto/s_croce/1peruzzi/index.html. The most common image in Apulian rock-cut church apses is the Deesis. M. Falla Castel­ franchi, ‘Del ruolo dei programmi iconografici absidali nella pittura bizantina dell’Italia meridionale e di un’immagine desueta e colta nella cripta della Candelora a Massafra’, in C. D. Fonseca, ed., Il popolamento rupestre dell’area mediterranea: La tipologia delle fonti; Gli insediamenti rupestri della Sardegna (Galatina, 1987), 193–217, at 188–9.

298 Linda Safran 23 A. W. Epstein, Tokali Kilise: Tenth-Century Metropolitan Art in Byzantine Cappadocia (Washington, DC, 1986), esp. 24; www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/mosaics/1clement/. 24 H. Maguire, ‘The cycle of images in the church’, in L. Safran, ed., Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium (University Park, 1998), 121–51, esp. 145 and colour pl. IV.A; H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 372–4. 25 C. Carletti and G. Otranto, eds., Culto e insediamenti micaelici nell’Italia meridio­ nale fra tarda antichità e medioevo: Atti del Convegno internazionale, Monte Sant’Angelo 1992 (Bari, 1994). 26 In the rock-cut chapel of Sta. Cristina at Carpignano, Michael is on the east wall to the right of the second apse, dated 1020. 27 In addition to a location near the apse, St Michael is often depicted as a guardian near doorways and at corners; see Safran, The Medieval Salento, 163; A. Xyngopoulos, ‘Ἀρχάγγελος Μιχαήλ ‘ο Φύλαξ’, BNJ 10 (1934), 84. 28 cmc.byzart.eu/items/show/119989. 29 Safran, The Medieval Salento, 273, no. 43B. 30 M. Falla Castelfranchi, ‘La cultura artistic bizantina in Puglia’, in F. Abbate, ed., Arte in Puglia dal Medioevo al Settecento: Il Medioevo (Rome, 2010), 79–95, at 80. 31 The only sustained interpretation is that of G. Curzi, ‘Segni e simboli nel soffitto dipinto della cripta del Crocefisso a Ugento (Lecce)’, Ikon 2 (2009), 191–202. See also M. Falla Castelfranchi, ‘La decorazione pittorica della cripta detta del Crocefisso ad Ugento’, in M. C. De Matteis, ed., La cripta del Crocefisso ad Ugento: La storia, gli studi, le nuove acquisizioni (Ugento, 2006), 39–55; Safran, The Medieval Salento, esp. 330–1, no. 151. 32 R. L. Pisetzki, Storia del costume in Italia (2 vols., Milan, 1964–66); Safran, The Medieval Salento, chap. 3. 33 Safran, The Medieval Salento, 29. 34 ‘Qui il cavaliere Souré e la sposa, allacciati in un abbraccio, sono raffigurati con ingenua grazia cortese’: M. S. Calò Mariani, ‘Echi d’Oltremare in Terra d’Otranto: imprese pit­ toriche e committenza feudale fra XIII e XIV secolo’, in M. S. Calò Mariani, ed., Il Cammino di Gerusalemme: Atti del II Convegno internazionale di studio, Bari–Brin­ disi–Trani, 18–22 maggio 1999 (Bari, 2002), 235–74, at 238–9; identical phrase used earlier in M. S. Calò Mariani, ‘Dal chiostro alle corti’, in B. Vetere, ed., Storia di Lecce, vol. 1, Dai Bizantini agli Aragonesi (Bari, 1993), 661–734, at 714. 35 Calò Mariani, ‘Echi d’Oltremare’, 238–9; the comparison is to Paris, Musée national du Moyen Âge, Thermes de Cluny, on loan from the Louvre (OA6279). See B. D. Boehm and E. Taburet-Delehaye, eds., Enamels of Limoges, 1100–1350 (New York, 1996), 369–70. 36 M. Camille, The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire (New York, 1998). Loving couples appear in medieval Greek romances but are rare in Byzantine art. An exception is Byzantine ceramics, such as a late twelfth- or early thirteenthcentury plate from Corinth with a woman seated on a man’s lap; see H. Maguire and E. D. Maguire, Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture (Princeton, 2007), 155–6 and pl. 8; Evans and Wixom, eds., Glory of Byzantium, 270–1. 37 A. W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1990); E. A. Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990). 38 The book list is in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS gr. 549; see A. Jacob, ‘Une bibliothèque médiévale de Terre d’Otrante (Parisinus gr. 549)’, RSBN 22–23 (­ 1985–86), 285–315; for the homilies, see A. Capone, ‘Basilio di Cesarea e Gregorio di Nissa in Terra d’Otranto’, in A. Capone, ed., Circolazione di testi e scambi culturali in Terra d’Otranto tra Tardoantico e Medioevo (Vatican City, 2015), 41–58. 39 Manuscripts include the Hortus Deliciarum (fornicators chased from the Temple); Getty MS 34, a book of hours, fol. 3r, ‘Sol in geminos’; British Library, Royal MS 19 C 1, fol. 33r, ‘lechery.’

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40 Foundational studies on marginalia include M. Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (Cambridge, MA, 1992), and N. Kenaan-Kedar, Marginal Sculpture in Medieval France: Toward the Deciphering of an Enigmatic Pictorial Language (London, 1995). 41 L. Kendrick, ‘Making sense of marginalized images in manuscripts and religious architecture’, in C. Rudolph, ed., A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe (Malden, 2006), 274–94. 42 K. A. Smith, ‘Margin’, Studies in Iconography 33 (2012), 29–44, at 33, citing M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cam­ bridge, 1990). 43 H. Maguire, Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature (Oxford, 2012), esp. 78–105; R. Fulton, ‘The Virgin in the garden, or why flowers make better prayers’, Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 4 (2004), 1–23. 44 Maguire (Nectar and Illusion, 64–9) has shown that the Annunciation was associated with spring in Byzantine literature, albeit rarely in art. 45 Ephrem Syrus stated that Eden was like May on Earth; see H. Maguire, ‘Paradise withdrawn’, in A. Littlewood, H. Maguire and J. Wolschke-Bulmahn, eds., Byzantine Garden Culture (Washington, DC, 2002), 24. 46 C. Hourihane, Time in the Medieval World: Occupations of the Months and Signs of the Zodiac in the Index of Christian Art (Princeton, 2007), lxi. In ‘De Temporum Ratione’ 15, Bede links Gemini with Adam and Eve because they were made from a single body. 47 www.medievalart.org.uk/Amiens/West_Facade/ZodiacMonths/AmiensWest_Quatrefoi l_23U_Gemini.html. 48 On this manuscript of ca. 1200, Klagenfurt, Kärntner Landesarchiv, GV-Hs. 6/35, see F. Unterkircher, ‘Das “Sakramentar von Millstatt”: Entstehung und Inhalt’, in F. Nikolasch, ed., Studien zur Geschichte von Millstatt und Kärnten: Vorträge der Millstätter Symposien 1981–1995 (Klagenfurt, 1997), 279–89. 49 For the conflation of the earthly and spiritual paradises, see Maguire, ‘Paradise with­ drawn’, 26. Comparable flowers adorn the white ground of the earthly paradise in the oldest painted rock-cut church in Apulia, the Cripta del Peccato Originale in Matera. G. Bertelli, ‘La Puglia tra tardo antico e altomedioevo’, in Abbate, Arte in Puglia, 31–45, at 38–9; criptadelpeccatooriginale.it. 50 Hahn, ‘Inscriptions and interactions’, 186; L. Safran, ‘Language choice in the medieval Salento: a sociolinguistic approach’, in L. Hoffmann, ed., Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie: Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur (Wiesbaden, 2005), 853–82; criptadelpeccatooriginale.it. 51 Safran, The Medieval Salento, 224, 226; B. Bruno, ‘Le chiese medievali a due absidi nel Salento: Primi dati’, in R. Fiorillo and P. Peduto, eds., III Congresso Nazionale di Arche­ ologia Medievale, Salerno, 2–5 ottobre 2003 (Florence, 2003), 446–50. For the mixed use of churches elsewhere in the Mediterranean, see O. Gratziou, Η Κρήτη στην ὑστερη μεσαιωνική ἐποχή: Η μαρτυρία της εκκλησιαστικής αρχιτεκτονικής (Herakleion, 2010), 127–83; M. Olympios, ‘Shared devotions: non-Latin responses to Latin sainthood in late medieval Cyprus’, JMedHist 39.3 (2013), 321–41, esp. 326–8; M. Mersch, ‘Churches as “shared spaces” in the Eastern Mediterranean (fourteenth to fifteenth centuries)’, in G. Christ, F.-J. Morche, R. Zaugg, W. Kaiser, S. Burkhardt and A. D. Beihammer, eds., Union in Separation: Diasporic Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100–1800) (Rome, 2015), 498–524.

17 King David narratives, messianic politics and the Dura-Europos Synagogue Kära L. Schenk

Narrative images of King David appear often in Byzantine art. Their proliferation relates, in part, to well-known comparisons between the emperor and his biblical counterpart.1 As Henry Maguire has shown, some works recounted the story of the king’s life in ways that emphasized different aspects of his character in line with rhetorical techniques of the period.2 Whereas examples such as the ninth-century Palazzo Venezia casket discussed by Maguire represent an extensive sequence of events from the biblical king’s life, such images appear far less frequently in earlier periods. In the third century, representations are concentrated mainly in the Syrian city of Dura-Europos, in both the Christian baptistery,3 and the synagogue.4 Though scholars have studied the synagogue images frequently as precedents for later and more extensive Byzantine works, the synagogue inhabits its own complex political context which deserves more focused investigation. One facet of David’s representation in the Dura synagogue that is little analysed in previous studies is that the David images there show the king only as a peaceful, even passive figure, who refuses to seize power through force. They thus differ from later Byzantine sequences discussed by Maguire which balance peaceful and warlike aspects of the king’s personality. David’s passive character in the Dura synagogue may have implications in connection to the messianic politics in this period; I propose that the representation of the king can be understood as part of a quietistic response to Roman domination in the wake of the failed Jewish revolts against Rome.

The peaceful messianic kingdom The David images in the Dura synagogue are part of a larger series of biblical narratives which is only partly preserved and whose structure and meaning have been hotly debated. The painted decoration, dated AD 244–45, originally comprised a modest assemblage of images on the Torah shrine itself and on the wall directly above it. One contested point about the early images, particularly those depicting David and the temple he wished to build in Jerusalem, is whether, or in what way, they should be understood in light of Jewish expectations concerning a messiah, an anointed saviour figure and king anticipated from David’s line.

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A symbolic representation of the Jerusalem Temple is located on the panel affixed to the central niche with images flanking this structure all related to the site or activities associated with the Temple (Figure 17.1).5 The temple facade on the shrine appears to have been copied from coins produced during the Bar Kokhba Revolt of AD 132–35,6 when its messianically inspired leader added such images to his coins as a sign of the ultimate goal of the engagement with Rome: restoration of the Temple the Romans had destroyed in AD 70.7 At Dura, the image represented a different response to Roman domination. The dedication text on the panel refers to the shrine as a ‘house for the ark.’8 It thus uses the biblical phrase describing Solomon’s Temple, a resting place for the Ark of the Covenant, in connection to the Torah shrine that once held the wooden Torah cabinet (called an ‘ark’ in other texts and sites of worship in this period).9 The link between the Temple and synagogue was widespread in this period when the synagogue was increasingly understood as a ‘small sanctuary’, as discussed by Steven

Figure 17.1 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue. Torah shrine and ‘temple panel.’ [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

302 Kära L. Schenk Fine and others.10 The temple image also directed the prayers of worshipers back to the Temple Mount, towards which the shrine was oriented.11 While such prayers were increasingly understood as a substitute for the interrupted Temple ceremony, they also petitioned for the rebuilding of the temple in the coming messianic age.12 Although some scholars have identified the temple facade as ‘the messianic temple’, I would propose that it is the liturgical context and not any visual feature in the facade itself that would constitute its messianic significance. The wall above the shrine, initially adorned with a vine-like growth and now difficult to identify symbols, was subsequently repainted with narrative vignettes, illustrated here as drawings (Figures 17.2 and 17.3).13 The addition of these vignettes reconfigured the originally isolated narrative on the panel as part of a larger genealogical sequence, now beginning with Abraham and continuing with the numerous offspring he was promised for his obedience. Narratives added above adumbrate the realization of this promise: they represent deathbed blessings of Jacob, the third patriarch, for his children, grandchildren and the tribes of Israel. In each blessing, one figure is singled out: Ephraim rather than Manasseh on the right, and Judah as the progenitor of a powerful figure to rule over all Israel on the left. Above the blessing on the left, the Roman figure of Orpheus charming the animals with his music has been transformed into King David composing the Psalms on his lyre.14 David is accompanied by a lion both as part of the original Orphic composition and as a symbol of Judah, his tribe. In his rise to power, he thereby fulfils the prophecy concerning the ruler to come from this tribe. The use of the Orpheus figure may simply be

Figure 17.2 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, wall above Torah shrine, lower panel. Blessings of Jacob and David/Orpheus (drawing). [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

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Figure 17.3 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, wall above Torah shrine, upper panel. Solomon (?) as king over Israel. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

a reworking of a stock workshop image. In Roman ruler ideology, however, Orpheus taming the animals with music was also a political metaphor for a king who could pacify his people through civilization, perhaps characterizing David’s rule as well.15 The blessing given to Judah by Jacob (Gen 49:8–12, particularly ‘Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness – who dares rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs16 and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples) is a key passage in connection to messianic glories, reiterated in countless biblical and postbiblical texts17 and discussed by such scholars as Carl Kraeling, Rachel Wischnitzer, Herb Kessler and others.18 In contrast, Paul Flesher has explicitly rejected a messianic reading of the central images, arguing that ‘the messiah’ in Jewish tradition is a figure who violently subdues Israel’s enemies, and that the Judah prophecy in particular relates to the military might of this figure. He cites Targum Pseudo-Jonathan’s paraphrase of Jacob’s blessing of Judah in Genesis 49, with its battle-hungry saviour figure, as an example of why the pacific lyre-playing David does not qualify as messianic.19 However, recent scholarship on messianism has pointed to the variety of texts featuring a broad range of differing expectations regarding the identity, nature, and responsibilities of a messiah figure (or figures).20 Targum Onkelos, for instance, renders Jacob’s blessing in terms of a peaceful king

304 Kära L. Schenk surrounded by righteous teachers of Torah, suggesting that the lack of violence (or the gentler tone of David/Orpheus ‘pacifying’ his enemies with music rather than violently subduing them) in the Dura images should not rule out a messianic meaning.21 The enthroned ruler in the upper panel (Figure 17.3), surrounded by figures of his court, has generally been identified as David enthroned as king over all of Israel or as ‘the messiah’ himself as David’s coming descendant.22 I propose, however, that the enthroned king depicted above may not be David but Solomon, the ‘son of David’ who alone was able to build the Jerusalem Temple depicted so prominently in the synagogue decoration in all stages. The dedication text on the Torah shrine below the image of the enthroned king refers to the Temple as the ‘house for the ark’, which David vowed but only Solomon could complete. The key biblical passage supporting the phrase is II Samuel 7, in which the word ‘house’ is used numerous times to contrast the ‘house’ (temple) that David wished to build for the Ark of the Covenant with the ‘house’ (lineage) that God promised to the king instead. As Shemariyahu Talmon summarizes, out of the promise to David in II Samuel 7: … grew the image of the ideal anointed king: blessed with infinite under­ standing and wisdom, inspired and righteous, a saviour who would reunite Judah and Ephraim and regain for Israel its national splendour as in the days of the united monarchy under David and Solomon.23 The phrase resonates throughout the following succession narrative up until Solomon is enthroned and David’s ‘house’ (dynasty) is established. When Solomon sits on David’s throne, he fulfils both the divine promise made to David in 2 Sam 7 and David’s own oracular reiteration of this promise in the Psalms that he composed and sang with his lyre, including his ‘last words.’24 Whereas the image of David with his lyre in the Dura synagogue represents both a genealogical outgrowth from the branch of Judah and a fulfilment of promises made concerning Judah’s line in Jacob’s deathbed blessing, the enthroned Solomon represents the final flowering of the line, fulfilling promises made to and through David himself. Biblical passages make clear that a central aspect of David’s rejection as a temple builder was precisely that his hands were stained with blood from constant warfare (cf. 1 Kg 5:3–5). But Solomon, whose name is a variation of ‘shalom’ or peace, was to be a king whose rule surpassed that of his father in prosperity, blessing and fruitfulness,25 thus bringing to Abraham’s descendants the ultimate fulfilment of prophecies made concerning their blessedness in the land of promise.26 Solomon was also the last king to rule over a united people before Israel was broken up into two kingdoms, both of which would succumb to foreign invasion and exile. Collectively, the images serve as a peaceful representation of king, united people and glorious temple, at their historical high point. The structure of the images, the tradition of interpretation and the liturgical context,27 in which prayers petitioned for the return of David’s line,28 suggest

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that the central images likely also had a messianic significance for the congregation. I argue, then, that while David was included among the earlier images in the synagogue decoration, he shares (even cedes) the spotlight to his peaceful son, the temple-builder. The historical kingdom to which the images allude was a peaceful, prosperous prototype for the future messianic kingdom established under David’s ‘son.’29

The Lord as a warrior and the absence of David The central images in the Dura synagogue thus represent Solomon’s kingdom and temple as a peaceful high point in Israel’s history that could also be seen, particularly in the context of liturgy, as presaging its future messianic restoration. The Orphic David figure may allude to the ‘taming’ of Israel’s foes, but does not represent the bloody violence that some Jewish texts and traditions hoped would be inflicted on the enemies of God in any direct or obvious fashion.30 Had Paul Flesher investigated images of David in the rest of the synagogue decoration, he would have found further evidence that David is shown in these areas as well as a ‘non-violent’ figure. In contrast, it is Israel’s God who plays the role of warrior, taking upon himself the task of subduing Israel’s enemies. The synagogue decoration presents the rule of David or his son as the consequence of divine and sometimes quite violent intervention, though David is shown as passive or peaceful. As panels were added to the walls surrounding the central images, they framed the kingdom of David’s son and the temple as part of Israel’s larger historical narrative. Four ‘wing panels’ now flank the central images, and three levels of narrative panels were added to encircle the assembly hall. Although some of the panels on the upper two levels are missing, I have proposed a reconstruction based on a reading of the remaining panels from right to left (the direction of Hebrew or Aramaic) as part of a single (though now fragmentary) series of episodes that essentially recounts the history of Israel from Genesis to Kings. The central level focuses on the journey of the Ark of the Covenant, in the form of the Torah cabinet (the ‘ark’), from Sinai to Zion.31 If my reconstruction is correct, David plays no role in the central level of Arkrelated narratives, an absence that is noteworthy in that David was, of course, the king who conquered Jerusalem and brought the Ark into the city. Kurt Weitzmann argued that this narrative was once represented in the middle level, on the basis of comparisons between later Byzantine images and the remains of a panel showing the end of a procession with the Ark (Figure 17.4).32 But details in the panel suggest a different identification: the Battle of Jericho. Kraeling identified the objects held by one figure in the panel as parts of the lulav bundle carried during Sukkot, and thus interpreted the panel as part of Solomon’s dedication of the Temple, when the feast took place.33 However, the separation and orientation of one part of the bundle, specifically the willow (arav) pointed towards the ground, which Kraeling also noted (Figure 17.5),34 connects the panel to the willow rite that took place on the final day of the feast, Hoshanna

Figure 17.4 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue. Fragmentary procession with the Ark of the Covenant. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

Figure 17.5 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fragmentary procession with the Ark of the Covenant. Drawings by Carl Kraeling showing detail of lulav bundle. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

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Rabbah. During this rite, willow branches were beaten against the ground as the Torah was carried in seven circular processions resembling, as the Jerusalem Talmud notes, the final procession around Jericho with the Ark that caused the walls of the city to fall.35 This identification would make sense of both iconographic details in the panel and the position of this conquest narrative directly to the left of the Wilderness-related scene that would have preceded it in chronological order. The victory at Jericho would also be positioned directly opposite the defeat at Ebenezer (Figure 17.6), when the Israelites presumptuously took the Ark into battle and lost it to the Philistines. In the next panel, the Philistines place the Ark in their Temple, but the Ark then destroys the Philistine idol and is sent away toward Jerusalem (Figure 17.7). While the biblical account details several stages in the Ark’s subsequent movements, none is depicted in the synagogue; the Ark heads straight for the gates of Jerusalem to the left. Behind these gates is an impressive building, an obvious pendant to the Sinai Tabernacle, whose most logical identification would be the Jerusalem Temple (Figure 17.8).36 But David’s entry into Jerusalem with the Ark is nowhere to be seen; instead, the final phase of the Ark’s journey has been re-imagined presenting the Ark’s own triumphant movement toward the Jerusalem Temple (Figure 17.9). In a context where the representation of the divine presence was problematic, those who

Figure 17.6 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fragmentary procession with the Ark of the Covenant. Drawings by Carl Kraeling showing detail of the separation of the willow branch. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

308 Kära L. Schenk

Figure 17.7 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. Loss of the Ark at Ebenezer. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

created the images used symbolic means to show Israel’s God himself entering the city in triumph. It is the divine presence in the form of the Ark, conquering in the Battle of Jericho and destroying the idol in the Philistine Temple, who is shown as a warrior defeating Israel’s enemies.37 In contrast, my reading of the panels in the upper two surrounding levels of the synagogue suggests an omission or even an active suppression of any role for King David in the conquest of Jerusalem and the installation of the Ark on Zion. As in the central panels, there are no historical images of David that could have served as a model for a militant messiah.

David as passive servant Whereas previous scholars located three images of David in the upper two levels, my reading thus far suggests there is only one image of the king in this area of the synagogue, an image of David the Psalmist that shows his piety rather than his military prowess. The last two images of David, located on the lowest level of the synagogue, also emphasize passive piety rather than militant

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Figure 17.8 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. The Ark destroys the Philistine idol and is sent away on a cart pulled by oxen. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

zeal. If the three historical images of David depicted in the synagogue were prototypes of a coming messiah, it seems unlikely that the anticipated messiah was to be a great warrior. In the first panel, Samuel anoints David, shown as a youth wearing a porphyry-coloured robe (Figure 17.10).38 Later Jewish texts indicate that covering and crossing the hands is a gesture of prayer39 and, in this connection, Maimonides describes standing ‘as a slave’ in humility before the almighty.40 Some scholars have also noted that while the David anointed in the panel is the focus of action, Samuel is emphasized in other ways: the priestly figure is part of a larger sequence beginning with the representation of Moses at Sinai in the wing panel above and concluding with a seat for an elder below. The dedication inscription at Dura indicates that this elder may have been Samuel bar Yeda‘ya, a priest, who shared a name with the priest depicted directly above him.41 The configuration of Moses, Samuel and the synagogue leader’s seat suggests that there were other kinds of authorities celebrated in the synagogue besides the king. David appears as a passive figure compared to these other authorities, receiving his authority from them.

310 Kära L. Schenk

Figure 17.9 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. The Jerusalem Temple. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

A second narrative panel on the lowest level emphasizes David’s passivity more explicitly. The poorly preserved panel on the opposite wall has been identified as David and Saul in the Wilderness (Figure 17.11).42 Saul has been pursuing David (on the left); but as he sleeps (right), David removes his water jug and spear to demonstrate that though he had an opportunity to slay his enemy, he did not take it. In the biblical text, David adds that though ‘the Lord will strike [Saul] down; or his day will come to die; or he will go down into battle and perish’, David himself would not raise his hand against ‘the Lord’s anointed’ (meaning Saul, the first anointed king). The addition of the two narratives related to the king’s life on the lower level show him as a pious and even passive figure who waits for the Lord to fight for him and to establish his rule. Whereas the roots of the holy and peaceful David are certainly to be found in the biblical text, the counterbalancing figure who fought the lion, the bear and the giant Goliath and who had ‘slain his tens of thousands’ is nowhere preserved in the synagogue. One way to understand the self-abnegating character of David at Dura is with reference to the function of the space as a liturgical one in which the attention of the worshiper is directed, ultimately, towards the unseen object of worship,

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Figure 17.10 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. Samuel anoints David king. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

channelled primarily through the Torah shrine (‘house for the ark’) in the centre of the images. David, composing the Psalms and crossing his hands in humble prayer, might have served as a model for the worshiper. And the absence of David the warrior bringing the Ark into Jerusalem would have helped the worshiper focus on the Torah cabinet itself, as it made its way toward the niche (both in image and in liturgical practice). But could the synagogue’s peaceful, passive representation of David, a figure who explicitly rejects the violent seizure of his rightful rule, also be a messianic model? If so, why did the synagogue congregation and/or its leaders chose such a model?

A subversion of messianic violence? Along with the two images of the king as pious worshiper, the image of David actively refusing to slay Saul and claim the throne of Israel may hint at a response to centuries of religiously motivated violence by would-be messiahs that had not brought the desired results for Jewish communities. Already in the

312 Kära L. Schenk

Figure 17.11 Damascus, The National Museum of Damascus, Dura-Europos Synagogue, fresco. David and Saul in the wilderness. [Source: Yale University Gallery, Dura-Europos Collection]

first century, as violent revolt movements increased and came to a head with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70, a text called the Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo referred repeatedly to the future establishment of a messianic kingdom under David’s descendant. But it also cautioned just as frequently against establishing this kingdom prematurely. David Mendels has argued that such warnings may be interpreted as a rejection of military activism as a means to bring forth Israel’s redemption.43 If this is the case, parties critical of militant messianic movements (even as they anticipated history’s messianic conclusion) existed side by side with active supporters of religiously motivated warfare already in the first century. In the wake of Bar Kokhba’s defeat, there are several rabbinic texts that warn against forcing the end of enemy rule through direct military confrontation: Israel is, rather, to study Torah with prayerful obedience and wait for the Lord to return to Zion at the time of his own choosing.44 In some rabbinic texts, the leader of the Bar Kokhba Revolt was censured for relying on his own strength rather than divine help in his futile attempt to save Israel and to reclaim Jerusalem.45 Though these rabbinic texts should not be construed as ‘sources’ for the synagogue, they are indicative of the more limited expectations that some Jewish communities brought to the messianic enterprise in the wake of the Bar Kokhba disaster and of their negative view of messianic pretenders who took redemption into their own hands.

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The comparatively passive character that David seems to exhibit in the Dura synagogue paintings also jibes with messianic expectations as expressed in liturgical prayers of the period. In his study of the Amidah, Reuven Kimelman states that ‘the appearance of the Davidic scion … turns out to be more of a manifestation of divine power than an expression of acute messianism’, and that David’s house is not given ‘… any role in precipitating … redemption.’46 The attitude of these texts parallels both King David’s lack of agency and the redemptive power to be displayed by Israel’s divine king, the real avenging saviour figure, in the synagogue. In such a context, these images could have channelled a desire for messianic redemption through the synagogue liturgy itself, with King David as a model worshiper, rather than an agent of vengeance through warfare. Far from being non-messianic images, the pious and passive representations of David in the Dura-Europos Synagogue may thus have constituted a differently understood kind of messianic hope, tempered by failed military action and expressed through liturgical prayer.

Notes 1 R. Leader (‘The David Plates revisited: transforming the secular in early Byzantium’, ArtB 82.3 [2000], 417) has argued that not all images of David in the early Byzantine period need be understood in connection to the imperial person but cautions that there are examples of artwork featuring David, such as the sixth-century apse mosaic at Mount Sinai and the Sinope Gospels, where an imperial reading is clearly warranted. 2 H. Maguire, ‘The art of comparing in Byzantium’, ArtB 70 (1988), 91–4; see also H. Maguire, ‘Style and ideology in Byzantine art’, Gesta 28.2 (1990), 217–20. 3 For the Christian building at Dura and its image of David and Goliath, see C. H. Kraeling, The Christian Building (New Haven, 1967); P. W. Haider, ‘Eine chris­ tliche Hauskirche in Dura Europos’, in P. W. Haider, M. Hutter and S. Kreuzer, eds, Religionsgeschichte Syriens. Von der Frühzeit bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart, Berlin and Cologne, 1996), 284–8; D. Korol and M. Stanke, ‘Gehen die David- und Goliathdarstel­ lungen im “Baptisterium” von Dura-Europos sowie im Vatopedi Psalter “auf den glei­ chen Archetyp” zurück? Neues zum ursprünglichen Aussehen und zur Deutung der Darstellung im “Baptisterium”’, in I. Eichner and V. Tsamakda, eds., Syrien und seine Nachbarn von der Spätantike bis in die islamische Zeit (Wiesbaden, 2009), 131–53. 4 For the synagogue and its decoration, see C. H. Kraeling, ‘The synagogue’, in M. I. Rostovtzeff, A. R. Bellinger, F. E. Brown, and C. B. Welles, eds., The Excavations at Dura-Europos Conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters (New Haven, 1936), 337–83; C. H. Kraeling, The Synagogue: The Excava­ tions at Dura Europos (New Haven, 1956). R. Comte du Mesnil du Buisson, Les Pein­ tures de la synagogue de Doura-Europos 245–256 Après J.-C. (Rome, 1939); A. Grabar, ‘Le theme religieux des fresques de la synagogue de Doura (245–56 apres J.-C.)’, RHR 123.2–3 (1941), 143–92 and 124.1 (1941), 5–35; I. Sonne, ‘The paintings of the Dura synagogue’, Hebrew Union College Annual 20 (1947), 255–362; E. L. Sukenik, The Synagogue of Dura-Europos and Its Paintings (Jerusalem, 1947); R. Wischnitzer, The Messianic Theme in the Paintings of the Dura Synagogue (Chicago, 1948), 100; E. R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (13 vols., New York, 1953–68), vols. 9–11; J. Gutmann, ‘Programmatic painting in the Dura synagogue’, in J. Gutmann, ed., The Dura-Europos Synagogue: A Re-Evaluation (1932–72) (Missoula, 1973), 137–54; K. Weitzmann and H. Kessler, The Frescoes of the Dura Synagogue and Christian Art (Washington, DC, 1990), 151–83; W. Moon, ‘Nudity and narrative:

314 Kära L. Schenk

5

6

7

8 9

10

11 12

observations on the synagogue paintings from Dura-Europos’, in W. Moon, ed., Polyklei­ tos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition (Madison, 1995), 283–316; A. J. Wharton, ‘Good and bad images from the synagogue of Dura Europos: contexts, subtexts, intertexts’, AH 17.1 (1994), 1–25; A. J. Wharton, Refiguring the Post Classical City: Dura Europos, Jerash, Jerusalem and Ravenna (Cambridge, 1995), 38–51; S. Laderman, ‘A new look at the second register of the west wall in Dura Europos’, CahArch 45 (1997), 5–18; S. Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology (Cam­ bridge, 2005), 172–83. See below for references related to specific images of David in the synagogue. On the images of the ‘temple panel’, see Kraeling, ‘The synagogue’, 343 and Krael­ ing, Synagogue, 56–62. See also A. St. Clair, ‘The Torah shrine at Dura-Europos: a re-evaluation’, JbAC 29 (1988), 109–17; G. Sed-Rajna, ‘Images of the tabernacle/ temple in late antique and medieval art: the state of the research’, in A. CohenMushlin and B. Kühnel, eds., The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His Seventi­ eth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1998), 42–53. For coins produced during the revolt, see Y. Meshorer, Ancient Jewish Coinage (2 vols., Jerusalem, 1982), vol. 2, 132–65, and 138–41 for the temple facade on the silver tetradrachma in particular; L. Mildenberg, The Coinage of the Bar Kokhba War (Aarau, 1984). Du Mesnil du Buisson (Peintures, 19–20) first proposed a relationship between the coin image and the Dura temple panel. For the Revolt, see P. Schäfer, Der Bar Kokhba-Aufstand: Studien Zum Zweiten Judischen Krieg Gegen Rom (Tübingen, 1981); B. Isaac and A. Oppenheimer, ‘The revolt of Bar Kokhba: ideology and modern scholarship’, JJS 36 (1985), 33–60; M. Goodman, ‘Trajan and the origins of the Bar Kokhba war’, in P. Schäfer, ed., The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered. New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome (Tübingen, 2003), 23–30. The inscription reads: ‘I … made the beit (“house”) [for the] arona (“ark”). [I,] … Joseph son of Abba …’ See Kraeling, Synagogue, 269. In the Hauran region of Syria, as at Dura, an Aramaic inscription records the con­ struction of a beit arona or ‘house for the ark’ in a local synagogue. For the inscrip­ tion, see J. Naveh, On Stone and Mosaic: The Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Ancient Synagogues (Jerusalem, 1978); S. Fine, This Holy Place: On the Sanc­ tity of the Synagogue during the Greco-Roman Period (Notre Dame, 1997), 79–80 and 133, for further discussion of the term. See S. J. D. Cohen, ‘The temple and the synagogue’, in T. G. Madsen, ed., The Temple in Antiquity: Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives (Provo, 1984), 151–74; J. Branham, ‘Sacred space under erasure in ancient synagogues and early churches’, ArtB 74 (1992), 384–6; J. Branham, ‘Vicarious sacrality: temple space in ancient synagogues’, in D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher, eds., Ancient Synagogues. Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery (New York, 1995), 319–45; S. Fine, ‘From meeting house to sacred realm: holiness and the ancient synagogue’, in S. Fine, ed., Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World (New York, 1996), 32–45; idem, This Holy Place. For the internal prayer focus on the shrine and the external focus on the Jerusalem Temple, see Branham, ‘Sacred space under erasure’, 384–6; R. Hachlili, ‘The niche and the ark in ancient synagogues’, BASOR 223 (1976), 52. Prayer was also increasingly timed to correspond to (and, later, to substitute for) the daily offering in the Temple that could no longer be offered. See m. Tamid 5:1. See H. Danby, The Mishnah, Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes (Oxford, 1933), 586–7; L. I. Levine, ‘The second temple synagogue: the formative years’, in L. I. Levine, ed., The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia, 1987), 20. See also the discussion of the multivalent term ‘service’ (avodah) in the daily

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13

14

15

16 17

18

19 20

21

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prayer in R. Kimelman, ‘The literary structure of the Amidah and the rhetoric of redemption’, in W. G. Dever and E. J. Wright, eds., Echoes of Many Texts: Essays Hon­ oring Lou H. Silberman on His Eightieth Birthday (Atlanta, 1997), 188–9. For the images in the so-called ‘reredos’ images, see C. Kraeling, ‘The synagogue’, 367–71 and C. Kraeling, Synagogue, 62–5, 214–17; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vol. 9, 78–123; Weitzmann and Kessler, Frescoes, 153–83; P. V. M. Flesher, ‘Rereading the reredos: David, Orpheus, and messianism in the Dura Europos syna­ gogue’, in D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher, eds., Ancient Synagogues: Historical Ana­ lysis and Archaeological Discovery (New York, 1995), 346–66. Though Flesher (‘Rereading the reredos’), argues that there is no trace of Orpheus in the Dura image of David as a shepherd, the connection to the Orphic prototype seems obvious; moreover, an Orphic figure charming animals has been found in the later Gaza synagogue and clearly labelled as David. The image was first reported in 1966, but see A. Ovadiah, ‘The synagogue at Gaza’, in L. I. Levine, ed., Ancient Synagogues Revealed (Detroit, 1982), 129–32; P. C. Finney, ‘Orpheus-David: a connection in iconography between Greco-Roman Judaism and early Christianity’, Journal of Jewish Art 5 (1978), 7. See, for instance, Horace: ‘While men still roamed the woods, Orpheus, the holy one and prophet of the gods, made them shrink from bloodshed and brutal living; hence too the fable that he tamed tigers and ravening lions.’ Ars Poetica, 391–3 (see Horace, Sat­ ires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, trans. H. R. Fairclough, [Cambridge, 1991], 482–3). Orpheus was printed on Antonine coins. Fronto also recommended Orpheus to Marcus Aurelius as an example of concordia. See I. J. Jesnick, The Image of Orpheus in Roman Mosaic: An Exploration of the Figure of Orpheus in Greco-Roman Art and Culture with Special Reference to Its Expression in the Medium of Mosaic in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1997), 15 and 32. Jesnick (ibid., 32), also cites Claudian’s late fourth-century rhetorical description of the consul Manlius (xvii, 248–52). For this translation, see W. Moran, ‘Gen. 49, 10 and its use in Ezek. 21, 32’, Biblica 39 (1958), 405–25. Ezek 21:27; Zech 9:9; texts from among the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the florilegium 4Q174 (See F. Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. The Qumran Texts in English, 2nd ed., trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson, [Leiden, 1996], 136) and the Old Testa­ ment pseudepigrapha, such as Jubilees 31:18–20, 32 (in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha [2 vols., Garden City, 1985], vol. 2, 115–6), Psalms of Solomon 17 (in ibid., 665–9), the Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo (in ibid., 375), targumin (as discussed below); and the synagogue liturgy. Weitzmann and Kessler, Frescoes, 164. Du Mesnil du Buisson, Wischnitzer and Kraeling have all made a messianic meaning for the enthroned figure central to their arguments. See also A. Grabar, ‘Thème’; H. Stern, ‘The Orpheus in the synagogue of Dura Europos’, JWarb 21 (1958), 1–6. Flesher (‘Rereading the reredos’, 359–64) argues that the image is a ‘nationalistic’ as opposed to a ‘messianic’ one. For recent statements of Jewish revisionism concerning messianism, see W. S. Green, ‘Introduction: Messiah in Judaism: rethinking the question’, in J. Neusner, W. Green and E. Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (Cam­ bridge, 1987), 1–13; J. J. M. Roberts, ‘The Old Testament’s contribution to messianic expectations’, in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Juda­ ism and Christianity (Minneapolis, 1987), 39–51; J. H. Charlesworth, ‘From messianol­ ogy to Christology: problems and prospects’, in J. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis, 1992), 3–35. The different targumic variations on the Genesis 49 prophecy are collected in S. H. Levey, The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation: The Messianic Exegesis of the Targum (New York, 1974). For the Onkelos passage, see ibid., 7–8.

316 Kära L. Schenk 22 Kraeling (Synagogue, 220, 226) in his final report, followed by Weitzmann and Kessler (Frescoes, 165–6), saw two possible identifications for the figure: the histor­ ical King David or a future messiah. Flesher (‘Rereading the reredos’, 362) saw only the historical David in the image. 23 S. Talmon, ‘The concepts of the “Mashiach” and messianism in early Judaism’, in Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah, 86. John Collins (The Scepter and the Star: Messi­ anism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls [Grand Rapids, 1995], 22–48) provides a useful survey of the basis for royal messianism in the ‘proto-messianic’ texts of the scriptures, beginning with II Samuel 7. 24 Ps 132:11–2 and Ps 139:85–7 specifically recall the Lord’s promise to David con­ cerning a descendant to rule from his throne. See also 2 Sam 22 (Ps 18) as well as 2 Sam 23, in which the ‘last words of David’ reiterate the promise concerning David’s ‘house’ as an oracle uttered by David as musician. 25 See especially Kg 3:12–3, 1 Kg 4:30 and 2 Chr 9. 26 The description of life under Solomon’s rule (in 1 Kg 4:20–1 and 24–6 as well as the ideal ruler patterned on Solomon in Ps 72) both echo the wording found in the promise given to Abraham at the time of the akedah. 27 Fine (Art and Judaism, 172–83) suggests that a liturgical fragment found in the Dura synagogue itself is similar in structure and wording to such prayers, perhaps indicat­ ing that the Durene community used some version of liturgical prayers such as the Amidah (‘standing’ prayer). The fragment was published in Kraeling, Synagogue, 259. Laderman (‘A new look at the second register’, 5) had previously identified it as an example of piyyut (liturgical poetry). See also Magness’s nuanced critique of Fine’s work in ‘Priests and purity in the Dura-Europos synagogue’, in Z. Weiss, ed., ‘Follow the Wise’: Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine (Winona Lake, 2010), 423–5 note 13. 28 See Charlesworth’s remarks (‘From messiology to Christology: some caveats and perspectives’, in Neusner, Green and Frerichs, eds., Judaisms and Their Messiahs, 249) on Blessing 14 of the prayer in the Palestinian version from the Cairo Genizah. Both the Palestinian and Babylonian variations of the Amidah petition for the return of David’s dynasty to power in a rebuilt Jerusalem and both have a similar overall structure. The main divisions of the prayer are referenced in the earliest rabbinic texts, cf. m.Rosh Hash. 4:5 (Danby, Mishnah, 192–3). 29 For the connection between Solomon’s Kingdom and the image of the restored king­ dom in the later prophets, see the observations in Talmon, ‘The concepts of the “Mashiach” and messianism’, 79–115, in general, and ibid., 114 for the connection between 1 Kg 4:20 and Zech 7:7–8:13. 30 Kenneth Atkinson (‘On the Herodian origin of militant Davidic messianism at Qumran: new light from Psalm of Solomon 17’, JBL 118 [1999], 435–60) has argued that a rise in the language of violent Davidic messianism may be connected to a response to Herod. We see an upturn in revolutionary activity following the imposition of direct Roman rule. See Jos War 2.118 in Josephus, The Jewish War, trans. G. A. Williamson, rev. E. M. Smallwood (New York), 1981, 133. At least some revolutionary activity appears to have been inspired by messianic ideology; see R. A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson., Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Move­ ments in the Time of Jesus (New York, 1985), 110–27; S. Applebaum, ‘The zealots: the case for reevaluation’, JRS 61 (1971), 155–70. 31 For a more detailed discussion of the middle level of panels, see K. L. Schenk, ‘Temple, community, and sacred narrative in the Dura-Europos synagogue’, Associ­ ation for Jewish Studies Review 34.20 (2010), 195–229. 32 Weitzmann and Kessler, Frescoes, 94–8.

33 Kraeling, Synagogue, 113–7.

34 Ibid., 117, note 396.

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35 y. Sukkah 4:3:6b in J. Neusner, trans., Sukkah: A Preliminary Translation and Explanation (Chicago, 1988), 101. 36 Kraeling (Synagogue, 111–3) identified the structure as the Jerusalem Temple. Others have argued, based on the absence of the Ark of the Covenant, that it is the ‘wicked’ city of Beth Shemesh Du Mesnil du Buisson, Peintures, 84–92; Wischnitzer, The Messi­ anic Theme, 65–8; the profaned temple awaiting purification by Josiah, Grabar, ‘Le thème’, 180–2; or the ‘pagan’ Philistine temple paired with the holy Tabernacle in the Wilderness on the opposite side of the Torah shrine; see Moon, ‘Nudity and narrative’, 296–9. It has also been seen as a ‘messianic’ temple for this reason; Sed-Rajna (‘Images of the temple/tabernacle’, 44) saw the absence of the Ark is a fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy that the Ark would no longer be needed in the Messianic Age. However, if the panel is read together with the panel to the immediate right, the pair of panels can be understood to represent the Ark moving towards (or returning to) the Jerusalem Temple. 37 The narrative immediately above also shows the Lord as a warrior; in this case, divine hands, fire and hail, and the miraculous pillars, represent his presence as he vanquishes the Egyptians during the Exodus narrative, an event specifically understood as a battle in which the Lord fought for Israel; see K. L. Schenk, ‘The Exodus narrative and divine warfare in the Dura-Europos synagogue’, in A. Hoffmann, ed., Exodus: Border Cross­ ings in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Texts and Image (Heidelberg, forthcoming). 38 For the image of David and Samuel, see Kraeling, Synagogue, 164–8; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vol. 9, 187–96; Weitzmann and Kessler, Frescoes, 80–4; R. Stichel, ‘Scenes from the life of King David in Dura Europos and in Byzantine art’, in Mushlin and Kühnel, eds., The Real and Ideal Jerusalem, 105–7. 39 Isaac Sonne quotes the following midrash: ‘When a man wants to recite “the prayer” (i.e. the Amidah), he should stand up and put his hands under his garment, the right one over the left’, attributed to Jonah Ghirondi, Sepher ha-Yirah 41c; quoted in Sonne, ‘The paintings of the Dura Synagogue’, 294. Kraeling (Synagogue, 167, note 626) also refers to this midrash. 40 b. Shabb. 10a; see Kraeling, Synagogue, quoted 166–7. 41 Kraeling (Synagogue, 168) thought the position coincidental. Wharton (Refiguring the Post Classical City, 44), in contrast, states, ‘It seems more likely that Samuel’s prominence in this panel (and indeed the choice of this subject in this location) was related to the homonymous elder who sat directly below him in a throne next to the torah shrine.’ Fine (Art and Judaism, 23) concedes the possibility of ‘local political implications’ for the arrangement. 42 For Saul and David in the Wilderness, see Kraeling, Synagogue, 202–8; Goodenough, Jewish Symbols, vol. 10, 162–5 and Weitzmann and Kessler, Frescoes, 87–90. 43 D. Mendels, ‘Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, the “Fourth Philosophy,” and the political messianism of the first century C.E.’, in Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah, 261–75, esp. 268–9. 44 See R. G. Marks, The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (University Park, 1994), 13–56, esp. 47–8. 45 See also R. Hammer, ‘A Rabbinic response to the Post Bar Kochba era: the Sifre to Ha-Azinu’, Proceedings of American Academy for Jewish Research 52 (1985), 37–53, in connection to Sifre. The passages probably tells us more about rabbinic response to Bar Kokhba than about the leader’s own intentions, according to P. Schäfer, ‘Bar Kokhba and the Rabbis’, in Schäfer, ed., The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered (Tübingen, 2003), 2–7. 46 See Kimelman, ‘The literary structure of the Amidah’, 196–7. See also Kimelman, ‘The Messiah of the amidah: a study in comparative messianism’, JBL 116 (1997), 313–20.

18 From a conqueror to a legitimate heir The Byzantine princely family, Gentile Bellini and Mehmed II Fatih Rossitza Schroeder Henry Maguire has taught me how to look at images of the emperor and how to read and interpret sources pertaining to the imperial persona. But it is his incisive work on the sacred portrait, the icon and more specifically on its particular kind of verisimilitude, that informs my offering here.1 While considering the imperial representation as a meeting point of secular and sacred, a portrait and an icon,2 I explore how the Byzantines, and consequently the Venetian-born Gentile Bellini, infused the image of the ruler with a form of iconic likeness. I can only hope that I could do this with the same degree of honest clarity as Henry Maguire would. In 1480 in the course of his stay at the Ottoman court, the leading Venetian artist Gentile Bellini painted a portrait of the conqueror of Constantinople Mehmed II (r. 1451–81) (Figure 18.1).3 Bellini produced a flattering image of the sultan: it reveals a sophisticated, elegant man of undetectable age in sumptuous yet tasteful surroundings. The Conqueror is painted in an innovative three-quarter view, his alert brown eyes, distinct hooked nose, small pursed lips and pointed beard recognizable from other contemporary depictions. His skin is pale and emits an otherworldly glow which has convinced some scholars that the portrait was finished when the sultan was already gravely ill.4 The figure is painted behind a grey marble parapet on which two porphyry plaques display in gold Latin letters the titles of the sultan, as well as the date and the name of the artist Gentile Bellini. A sumptuous cloth additionally adorned with realistically represented, almost palpable gems, is draped over the ledge that separates the sultan from the viewer. Following Vasari’s famous pronouncement that Bellini painted the portrait of ‘the emperor Mehmed from life so well that it was held a miracle’,5 art historians have tried to establish the level of verisimilitude in the image. The depiction has been included in the canon of Renaissance portraiture, albeit uncomfortably, and various sources, both from Northern Europe and the East, were proposed for its unique iconography. In this chapter I suggest that in this striking display of mimetic naturalism, Bellini incorporated references to the visual tradition of the Byzantines, a tradition which he not only knew well but which he also practiced.6 I argue that Gentile represented Mehmed not simply as an exotic Eastern potentate but also as a ruler whose authority was firmly rooted in Constantinople and in the Byzantine imperial

Figure 18.1 London, National Gallery, Gentile Bellini, Portrait of Mehmed II. [Source: National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY]

320 Rossitza Schroeder tradition. I elaborate on the subtle suggestion made by Elisabeth Piltz that it was the image of the penultimate Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaiologos (r. 1425–48), and more specifically John’s depiction on the bronze medals by Pisanello (Figure 18.2), that informed Gentile’s portrait of Mehmed.7 Indeed, if we compare the full, thick-necked and heavy rendition of the sultan on the medals by Costanzo da Ferrara and Bertoldo di Giovanni, or in the miniature by the leading Ottoman painter Sinan Beg, we are struck by the daintiness of Gentile’s figure.8 Instead, the delicate features, prominent nose and ageless appearance invoke the youthful likeness of John VIII as captured by Pisanello.9 While it is rather difficult to draw a straight line that connects Bellini, Mehmed and John, there is definitely an ethos that allowed for the visual alignment between a basileus and a sultan. It is exactly this ethos and its relevant cultural mechanisms, maintained in the middle Byzantine and furthered in the late Byzantine period, that I examine in this chapter. How was it possible for an Ottoman sultan to look similar to a Byzantine ruler with whom he shared no blood relationship? It is worth pointing out that already in the 1470s, ten years before Gentile painted the sultan, engravings with the effigy of John VIII Palaiologos were clearly labelled el Gran Turco, or the Great Turk.10 The fact that Mehmed may have owned a copy of Pisanello’s bronze image of John and possessed one of the above mentioned engravings provides a more concrete context for understanding the overlap with the distinct visage of the penultimate Byzantine emperor.11 Here I suggest that the explanation should be partially sought in the Byzantine diplomatic concept of the family of kings which addressed foreign

Figure 18.2 Pisanello, Medal of John VIII Palaiologos (obverse). [Source: Heritage Image Partnership/Art Resource, NY]

From a conqueror to a legitimate heir 321 rulers as brothers and sons, turning them into relatives of sorts who share a particular kind of royal conduct as well as similar physical appearance. Thus not only did the emperors of the ruling dynasties resemble one another, but also certain foreign allies would acquire the facial features of their Byzantine colleagues and spiritual family members. First I look closely at the ways in which the Byzantines both theorized and visualized the relationship between the emperors and their heirs. I briefly investigate the symbolic parenthood of Constantine the Great as reflected in the texts and images of the Byzantines and their allies. I further consider how the diplomatic notion of the princely family affected the images of foreign, primarily Christian, rulers, and lastly, I discuss texts and representations that, in my view, informed Gentile’s momentous decision to paint Mehmed to resemble John Palaiologos and thus as a deserving heir of the Byzantine imperial tradition.

Like father like son In the eleventh century Michael Psellos concluded his discussion of the rule of Constantine X Doukas (r. 1059–67) by indicating that together with everything positive that he had effected in the course of his reign, he had also left behind sons ‘to succeed him on the throne who were the exact image of their father, resembling him both in character and in physique.’12 The worthiness to rule is thus determined not only by one’s ability but also by one’s appearance which, as Psellos attests, should manifest in the physical resemblance between imperial fathers and sons. Theodore Metochites expressed a similar sentiment in his poetic lamentation about the death of Andronikos II’s son and heir Michael IX, stating that the former delighted in his son’s noteworthy character including in the fact that he saw ‘in him his own copy in every respect.’13 This notion is stretched further by Michael Attaleiates who referred to visual evidence as a way to draw a connection between two rulers who lived in different time periods: Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 963–69) and Nikephoros Botaneiates (r. 1078–81). While visiting a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary on the island of Crete, the author encountered in it a portrait of the donor, the emperor Nikephoros and commented that, ‘I saw the image myself, which in all ways resembles the aforementioned emperor, the lord Nikephoros Botaneiates, perfect proof that he is in fact the descendant of that man [Nikephoros Phokas].’14 The facial resemblance detected by Attaleiates paralleled Botaneiates’s own assertions that he was related to the Phokas family and so served to buttress his claims to the throne.15 Robert Ousterhout has interpreted in a similar fashion the visual parallels between the two ktetors portrayed in the esonarthex of the church of the Chora church – the fourteenth-century prime minister Theodore Metochites and the twelfth-century prince Isaak Komnenos. This ‘family resemblance’ purposefully associated the two otherwise unrelated figures, tying up past and present and providing Metochites with a desirable royal lineage.16 The emperors in the last Palaiologan dynasty shared a preferred look characterized not only by their simplified loroi, dark tunics and tall crowns, but

322 Rossitza Schroeder also by their facial features with prominent cheekbones, eyes sloping downwards and heavy beards which could be slightly forked at the end. A specific example of familial and dynastic resemblance that conveyed continuity and legitimacy is observed in a fourteenth-century copy of the history of George Pachymeres (Monacensis Gr. 442). On two neighbouring folios (174r and 175v), one sees the portraits of two emperors, a father and a son – Michael VIII (r. 1259–82) and Andronikos II (r. 1282–1328) – who bear a striking resemblance to each other.17 While there are slight variations in the costumes with Michael’s enlarged prependulia and the oval pearls that dangle off of Andronikos’s loros, the facial features are almost identical. The two figures are not twins, but they still share the same pale skin tone, arched eyebrows, gaze turning to the right and full square-shaped reddish beards that suggest kinship. There is no mistaking that the two of them are related; the portraits thus conform to a political ideal that emphasized dynastic continuity. In this same vein John VI Kantakouzenos’s portraits (r. 1347–54) appear to inform those of his successor and grandson Manuel II (r. 1391–1425) indicating that by the late fourteenth century the Palaiologan ‘look’ had become iconic.18 These kinds of ideas circulated also in the empire of Trebizond. For example, the visual commonality among kings is emphasized in the fifteenth-century encomium of Trebizond by cardinal Bessarion. In this text the cardinal noted that the local Komnenian emperors were worthy to rule not only because they possessed distinct royal qualities but also because they bore similar appearances.19 What emerges from these examples is that, like sacred portraits, the royal image relied on archetypal models; furthermore, the emperors, just like the saints, were distinguished by and recognizable for their facial features which are familial and dynastic rather than individual.20 By the late Byzantine period the iconography of power included not only imperial accoutrements like bejewelled loroi, embroidered tunics and heavy, domed crowns but also specific facial types which functioned as a statement about the hereditary nature of imperial rule.

Constantine the Great’s parenthood As noted earlier, a different entry point into the discussion of how and why imperial relatives, both blood and symbolic, were depicted to look alike is provided by the imperial icon of Constantine the Great (r. 306–37).21 It is important to acknowledge here that in Byzantium Constantine’s iconography was somewhat fluid, which made his image more adaptable to the needs of patrons and artists. It is possible that one particular representation had an effect on both Gentile and Mehmed – the tenth-century mosaic in the southwest vestibule of the Constantinopolitan Hagia Sophia (Figure 18.3).22 Here the emperors Constantine and Justinian (r. 527–65) offer to an enthroned Virgin Mary and Child the gift of the city of Constantinople and of the church of Hagia Sophia, respectively. The mosaic had potent imperial associations not only because of its subject matter, but

From a conqueror to a legitimate heir 323

Figure 18.3 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, southwest vestibule, mosaic. Constantine and Justinian offering Constantinople and Hagia Sophia to an enthroned Virgin and Child. [Source: Author].

also because it marked one of the primary ceremonial entrances for the Byzantine ruler into the church. A rarely discussed feature of the mosaic is the intentional, almost twinning of the two imperial figures; Constantine and Justinian look strikingly alike with their beardless faces, neatly arranged hair and sunken cheeks.23 Even their costumes – the diadems topped with crosses and the golden loroi adorned with geometric and vegetal motifs draped over long dark tunics – are the same, and stand in contrast with the heavily bejewelled clothing of contemporary, tenth-century emperors.24 Despite the temporal distance of two centuries Justinian is cast in the mould of Constantine as one of the archetypal builders of Constantinople and worthy of imitation. In the tenth century, when the mosaic was made, Constantine was already a saint, as related in the inscription that accompanies him, while Justinian was yet to be promoted into the holy ranks. It is very likely that Justinian benefited from the fact that Constantine’s features were imprinted on his face, for in this way the former was fortuitously propelled into the realm of the holy.25 One way or another, the mosaic creates the impression that we are looking at two people who share a familial connection – either a father and a son, or two brothers – related in this case not by blood but by a different, yet equally strong, bond: that of the princely family of Byzantium. It is not surprising that numismatic portraits of emperors of this same period – the first half of the

324 Rossitza Schroeder tenth century – resemble, to a degree, the portraits in Hagia Sophia. They sport short beards (barely discernible on coins), and in the case of junior emperors no beard at all, elongated faces and bob-shaped hairstyles flipped upwards.26 In these respects the tenth-century rulers are Constantine- and Justinian-like. Images of Constantine – though now in his more familiar guise as a bearded saint – provided an effective visual model for another symbolic founder of Constantinople and of the last Byzantine dynasty, Michael VIII Palaiologos, who was also consistently identified as the New Constantine by encomiasts and historians.27 The comparison was not lost on the Patriarch Germanos III (1265–66) who commissioned a purple peplos with a golden embroidered image of Michael as the New Constantine and had it displayed in Hagia Sophia. The historian George Pachymeres tells us that Patriarch Athanasios (1289–93, 1303–09) who was against Michael’s pro-Unionist policies (which were intended to bring the Orthodox and Catholic Churches together) had the image reworked, stripping the references to Michael in it, transforming it into an icon of Constantine the Great instead.28 We do not know what the textile looked like, but we can imagine that Athanasios’s interference modified only the inscription, while the iconography very likely remained the same.29 This fluid transition might have been possible because Michael was actually represented with Constantine’s features or vice versa, just like the Serbian king Stefan I Uroš (1243–76) was painted to look like Constantine in the 1260s frescoes in the exonarthex of the Church of the Trinity in the Serbian monastery of Sopočani.30 Elka Bakalova and Elena Boeck have noted that Constantine’s kingship provided an important model for the Bulgarian king Ivan Alexander (1331–71) and that this was eventually translated visually in the frescoes of the Bachkovo ossuary where the portraits of the two rulers not only appear across from – but also seem to resemble – each other.31 Also in the fourteenth century, Nikephoros Xanthopoulos brought the idea of Constantine’s symbolic parenthood and of the prototypical nature of his icon full circle.32 While praising the emperor Andronikos II, Xanthopoulos invoked the idea of iconic likeness and exclaimed ‘for surely you are an exact image of [Constantine].’33 He further declared that even a mirror which contains the prototype of an icon cannot provide as faithful of an image of Constantine as Andronikos can, the latter shining with the reflected light of the former and resembling him fully, just like a child resembles his parent.34 Having taken on Constantine’s pious form, his strength, and the character of his soul, Andronikos’s image cannot be differentiated from that of the first Christian emperor.35 To put it simply, when one looks at Andronikos, one literally sees Constantine, and vice versa. The Byzantine notions about Constantine’s symbolic parenthood were wellknown to the Ottoman elites. Thus, just like his Byzantine predecessors, Mehmed II sought to highlight his connection to Constantine. Unlike them, however, he did it indirectly: he built the so-called Fatih Mosque, which was intended to accommodate his tomb, on the site of the church of the Holy Apostles where Constantine was buried. This ideologically charged gesture

From a conqueror to a legitimate heir 325 neatly aligned the Ottoman sultan with the first Christian emperor, and effectively transformed him into another founder of Constantinople and ultimately into another Constantine.36 It is important to note that by the second half of the fifteenth century, Piero della Francesca had represented Constantine with the features of John VIII in the church of St Francis at Arezzo.37 Given that the identity of the two had collapsed, why would not Mehmed resemble Constantine/John, his symbolic father?

The international family of kings In what ways did the notions discussed above affect the representations of foreign rulers, especially of those ‘adopted’ into the hierarchy of royal princes carefully fostered by the Byzantines since at least the tenth century? In a twelfth-century icon, today in the collection of the monastery at Mount Sinai, the Georgian king David IV (r. 1089–1125) is represented stiff and perfectly symmetrical next to an active, supplicating St George.38 The two figures are identified in Greek as Hagios Georgios and the pious emperor of all the East, Bagratounianos, respectively, while an additional Georgian inscription clarifies David’s royal claims over several Eastern peoples. Scholars have noted that the king’s clothing and regalia resemble those of the Byzantine emperor. There is no doubt that David is presented here in the guise of a Byzantine ruler; it has been proposed that by usurping the visual language of the Byzantines, the Georgian king intended not simply to copy but also to replace Byzantium.39 A curious feature of the icon has remained unobserved: David’s face bears striking similarity to the faces of the emperors of the ruling Komnenian dynasty as seen, for example, in the twelfth-century portrait of the emperor John II (r. 1118–43) and his son and heir at the time Alexios on fol. 19v of a Gospel book housed today in the Vatican library (Urb. Gr. 2).40 Both David and John share the same olive complexion, arched eyebrows, delicate nose and mouth, and well-groomed short beards with fashionably upturned moustaches. David is not a Komnenian twin, but he certainly appears to be a Komnenian relative. Indeed, the Byzantines had incorporated him into the ruling family by bestowing on him the title of panhypersebastos which, since the late eleventh century, was reserved for the close relatives of the emperor.41 The portrait of the Byzantine ruler, then, became an iconic prototype of sorts, and, I would argue, was utilized in order to buttress the Georgian king’s claims to the imperial title. This and further examples demonstrate that one needed not only to dress like the Byzantine emperor, but also to look like him. In the fourteenth century, both the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria similarly assumed the facial characteristics of their Byzantine contemporaries. Thus the early fourteenth-century fresco portrait of the Serbian king Stefan Milutin (r. 1282–1321) in the church of Bogorodica Leviška in Prizren (Figure 18.4) is painted to resemble that of the king’s father-in-law, the Constantinopolitan emperor Andronikos II (Figure 18.5).42 In this representation Milutin takes on not only the trappings of Byzantine imperial power, but also specific facial features – sloping eyes, an elongated nose and a thick reddish beard – that point to an unmistakable affiliation

326 Rossitza Schroeder

Figure 18.4 Prizren, Church of Bogorodica Leviška, fresco. Portrait of the Serbian king Stefan Milutin. [Source: Steven Enich Serbian Orthodox Church Cultural Collection, Hilandar Research Library, The Ohio State University]

with the Byzantine ruling family. This symbolic affiliation is paralleled also in written sources. Thus after Milutin married the young daughter of Andronikos Simonis the language of parenthood and brotherhood permeated the charters issued by the Constantinopolitan emperors for the Serbian Chilandar Monastery on Mount Athos; in those documents, the Serbian ruler was consistently identified as ‘most beloved son’ and ‘most beloved brother.’43 Even though he was not married to a Byzantine princess, the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander similarly assumed the features of the then-current Constantinopolitan emperor. For example, in the so-called London Tetraevangelion (British Library, Add. 39627), Ivan Alexander is depicted just like his contemporary John VI Kantakouzenos: they share the same regalia and costume as well as similar facial features. This intentional twinning favours the Bulgarian king who, through it, was effortlessly inserted into the Byzantine ruling family and could thus claim the imperium over the Greeks.44

Figure 18.5 Athens, Byzantine Museum, Chrysobull to the Metropolitan Nikolaos of Mon­ emvasia. Portrait of emperor Andronikos II and Christ. [Source: Heritage Image Partnership/Art Resource, NY]

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Byzantine fathers, Turkish sons What is even more intriguing is that gradually even Muslim rulers were ushered into the Byzantine princely family. In the tenth century, when Constantine Porphyrogennetos compiled the Book of Ceremonies, he recommended specific ways to address various rulers, near and far. Most of the Christian kings were identified as sons and brothers,45 while the Muslims, unsurprisingly, were never referred to with familial terms; they were called friends.46 By the late twelfth century, however, the two historians John Kinnamos and Niketas Choniates utilized fraternal language to describe the relationships between the Byzantines and the Seljuq Turks.47 Just like the Seljuqs, the Ottomans eventually were incorporated into the Byzantine imperial family, both literally and figuratively. Marriages were one of the ways for Ottoman princes to be adopted into the world of the Constantinopolitan emperors.48 For example, after Theodora Kantakouzene married Orchan Gazi (r. 1323–62), the latter was referred to not only as the son-in-law, but also as the son of her father, the emperor John VI. The historian Doukas notes that as John negotiated the marriage, he was also hoping that ‘Orchan will be like a son.’49 From that point onwards the language of parenthood permeates Doukas’s narrative about the relationship between Byzantines and Turks.50 One of the most poignant examples concerns the interactions between the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI (r. 1449–53) and the conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmed II. In an effort to prevent the sultan from taking over the city, the emperor appealed to the father-son connection: If you so wish, as your father did before you, you too, by the grace of God, can live peacefully with us. They (Mehmed’s ancestors) regarded my parents as their fathers, and as such honored them, and they looked upon this city as their fatherland.51 George Sphrantzes similarly indicates that the last Byzantine emperors were using familial expressions in order to define their relationships with the Ottoman sultans.52 The fraternal language found in these historical narratives implicating the Byzantine and Ottoman royals in purposeful fostering of familial connections was not one-sided. It appears in official documents produced by and/or translated in the Turkish chancellery.53 It spilled also into the correspondence of certain Orthodox bishops who sought favours with local Ottoman potentates.54 An image of an anonymous sultan, possibly an Ottoman Turk, inserted in a fourteenth-century Byzantine manuscript at the Marciana library in Venice (Gr. 516, fol. 3r) provides an important visual link in the discussion of the mechanisms that allowed for Muslim rulers in general, and Mehmed II in particular, to be incorporated visually into the Byzantine princely family (Figure 18.6). The image has been variously dated between the early fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth century and represents a male figure seated cross-legged, wearing a white garment emblazoned with red eagles, supporting a three-pronged staff and sporting an

From a conqueror to a legitimate heir 329

Figure 18.6 Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Gr. Z. 516 (=904) (collection of scien­ tific treatises), fol. 3. Portrait of an unknown sultan with a later identification ‘Ptolemy.’ [Source: Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Biblioteca Nazionale Marci­ ana/photo by author]

oversized turban wound around a large red jewel.55 The man is clearly identified with red Arabic letters as sultan.56 A later hand, very likely that of the copyist of the rest of the manuscript, Andreas Teluntas, added in Greek, above the Arabic designation, the name Ptolemy, transforming the illustration into an author portrait, and the sultan into an ancient intellectual.57 The Muslim prince in the manuscript is rather familiar-looking with his elongated nose, sloping eyes, sparse beard forked at the end and the delicate blush that blooms on his cheeks. Indeed, some of the Palaiologan male relations seen in the lavishly illuminated typikon of the Constantinopolitan monastery of

330 Rossitza Schroeder the Virgin of Sure Hope (Oxford, MS Lincoln College, gr. 35) display similar facial features.58 A fourteenth-century miniature with a representation of Andronikos III Palaiologos (r. 1328–41) (Stuttgart, Würtembergosche Landesbibliothek, Codex Hist. 2°601, fol. 2r.) affirms further the visual affinities between the Muslim ruler and the Byzantine emperor (Figure 18.7). Given the existing textual evidence, it comes as no surprise than that a sultan should be adopted, visually, into the Byzantine imperial household. In light of the observations above it cannot be coincidental that Mehmed II’s features are assimilated with those of his famed predecessor, John VIII. But there is more. One other way which might have facilitated this assimilation was

Figure 18.7 Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Codex Hist. 2°601, fol. 2r. Portrait of emperor Andronikos III. [Source: Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart]

From a conqueror to a legitimate heir 331 through the flattering references which the sultan received from his Greek admirers. I have no doubt that they had numerous occasions to signal to him that he was a basileus, even though he never used this title in official documents.59 Thus George of Trebizond, George Amiroutzes and the historian Kritovoulos on one occasion or another explicitly identified Mehmed with the coveted and singular imperial designation.60 Furthermore, there is a good reason to believe that thanks to some of his Greek courtiers,61 Mehmed knew about a peculiar claim that the Ottomans were of a distinct and distant Greek ancestry. This possibility was noted by the historian Kritovoulos and was eventually publicized in a somewhat different version in the early sixteenth century in Venice by the Greek émigré Theodore Spandounes.62 However indirect, all this evidence buttresses the claim that Gentile endowed Mehmed with the features of the legendary John VIII. Since the mid-fifteenth century when Pisanello captured the likeness of the latter, he had become the quintessential Constantinopolitan king and a political icon of sorts; both Bellini and Mehmed must have been aware of this fact. Just as in the texts discussed earlier, the portrait seamlessly associated Mehmed with the previous dynasty; a familial connection is forged between Byzantine and Ottoman rule that potently and straightforwardly related the place of the Conqueror in an uninterrupted line of royal succession. The physiognomy of Bellini’s sultan carries ‘the dynastic mask of his legitimacy.’63 This is a ‘role mask’, as Hans Belting would argue,64 the role being that of a legitimate ruler of Constantinople. Gentile transformed the conqueror into a divinely appointed heir; Mehmed is not simply an enlightened prince looking westward towards Renaissance Italy but also a deserving inheritor of the Byzantine imperial tradition and its visual heritage. The portrait epitomizes, in a sense, the Ottoman imperial project, which was as much about disruption as it was about continuity.65

Notes 1 H. Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, 1996), 5–47. 2 A. Eastmond, ‘Between icon and idol: the uncertainty of imperial images’, in A. Eastmond and L. James, eds., Icon and Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium. Studies Presented to Robin Cormack (Aldershot and Burlington, 2003), 73–85; K. Marsengill, Portraits and Icons: Between Reality and Spirituality in Byzantine Art (Turnhout, 2013), 203–32, 283–93; H. Maguire, ‘Imperial and saintly bodies in Byzantine portraiture’, in V. Penna, ed., Heads and Tails, Tales and Bodies: Engrav­ ing the Human Figure from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (Ghent, 2016), 341–9; H. Maguire, ‘Earthly and spiritual authority of the imperial image,’ in K. Mitalaïté and A. Vasiliou, eds., L’icône dans la pensée et dans l’art: constitu­ tions, contestations, réinventions de la notion d’image divine en contexte chrétien (Turnhout, 2017), 177–217. 3 C. Campbell and C. Chong, eds., Bellini and the East (New Haven and London, 2005), 78–9; S. Carboni, ed., Venice and the Islamic World 828–1797 (New York, 2007), 303; E. Rodini, ‘The sultan’s true face? Gentile Bellini, Mehmet II, and the values of verisimilitude’, in J. G. Harper, ed., The Turk and Islam in the Western Eye, 1450–1750: Visual Imagery before Orientalism (Farnham and Burlington,

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4

5 6

7

8 9

10

11 12

13 14 15 16

2011), 21–40; G. Necipoğlu, ‘Visual cosmopolitanism and creative translation: artis­ tic conversations with Renaissance Italy in Mehmed II’s Constantinople’, Muqarnas 29 (2012), 34–5; T. Sizonenko, ‘Artists as agents: artistic exchange and cultural translation between Venice and Constantinople – the case of Gentile Bellini, 1479–1481’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of California San Diego, 2013), 293–412; R. Born, M. Dziewulki and G. Messling, eds., The Sultan’s World: The Ottoman Orient in Renaissance Art (Brussels, 2015), 158–9. L. Thuasne, Gentile Bellini et Sultan Mohammed II. Notes sur le séjour du peintre véni­ tien à Constantinople (1479–1480) d’après les documents originaux en partie inédits (Paris, 1888), 50–1; J. Raby, ‘Pride and prejudice: Mehmed the Conqueror and the Ital­ ian portrait medal’, in J. G. Pollard, ed., Italian Medals (Washington, DC, 1987), 178. G. Vasari, Le vite de’più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti (13 vols., Florence, 1841–57), vol. 5, 14. C. Campbell, ‘The Bellini, Bessarion and Byzantium’, in Campbell and Chong, eds., Bellini and the East, 36–59; C. Campbell, ‘“Almost another Byzantium”: Gentile Bellini and the Bessarion reliquary’, in H. A. Klein, V. Poletto and P. Schreiner, eds., La staur­ oteca di Bessarione fra Costantinopoli e Venezia (Venice, 2017), 331–49. E. Piltz, ‘A portrait of a Palaiologan emperor’, VizVrem 55 (1998), 224. On Pisanel­ lo’s representations of John VIII, see R. Weiss, Pisanello’s Medallion of the Emperor John VIII Palaeologus (London, 1966), 19–26; T. Koutsogiannis, ‘The Renaissance metamorphoses of Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologos’, in M. Gregori, ed., In the Light of Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece (2 vols., Athens, 2003), vol. 1, 60–70; H. C. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557) (New York, 2004), 535–6; T. L. Jones, ‘The Renaissance portrait medal and the court context: on the origins and political function of Pisanello’s invention’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Florida State University, 2011), 73–122. S. E. Spinale, ‘Portrait medals of Ottoman sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451–1481)’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Harvard University, 2003), 112–61, 177–209; Necipoğlu, ‘Visual cosmopolitanism’, 36–8. fig. 19. Rachel Billinge, a Research Associate in the Conservation Department at the National Gallery in London who has recently studied the portrait in great detail, is certain that the restorer who overpainted the face followed Gentile’s original outline. Oral communication, 27 April 2018. Koutsogiannis, ‘Renaissance metamorphoses’, 65–6; Campbell and Chong, eds., Bellini and the East, 66–9; A. Saviello, ‘El Gran Turco als “maskierter” Tyrann. Ein Topos druckgraphischer Darstellungen des osmanischer Sultane im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert’, in C. S. Arcangeli and G. Wolf, eds., Islamic Artefacts in the Mediterranean World: Trade, Gift Exchange and Artistic Transfer (Venice, 2010), 217–30. J. Raby, ‘Mehmed II Fatih and the Fatih album’, Islamic Art 1 (1981), 46; Spinale, ‘Portrait medals’, 109, 137–8. M. Psellos, Chronographie ou histoire d’un siècle de Byzance (976–1077), ed. and trans. É. Renauld (2 vols., Paris, 1926–28), vol. 2, 151. For the importance of phys­ ical resemblance between fathers and children, see also ‘Miracle concerning Euphe­ mia the young maiden’, in S. Papaioannou, ed. and trans., Christian Novels from the Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes (Cambridge MA, 2017), 131. I. Polemis, ed., Theodori Metochitae, Carmina (Turnout, 2015), 154; I. Polemis, trans., Poems (Turnhout, 2017), 185. M. Attaleaites, The History, trans. A. Kaldellis and D. Krallis (Cambridge, MA, 2012), 416–17. C. M. Brand and A. Cutler, ‘Nikephoros III Botaneiates’, in A. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot, eds., Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (3 vols., New York, 1991), vol. 3, 1479. R. Ousterhout, Master Builders in Byzantium (Philadelphia, 2008), 108.

From a conqueror to a legitimate heir 333 17 I. Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts (Leiden, 1976), 165–72, figs. 109–10. 18 D. M. Nicol, The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295–1383 (Cambridge, 1996), 179–81. 19 S. Kennedy, ed. and trans., Two Works on Trebizond: Michael Panaretos, Bessarion (Cambridge, MA, 219), 180. 20 Cf. Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies, 17. For the way in which facial features reinforce hereditary principles, see M. Hatzaki, ‘Experiencing physical beauty in Byzantium: the body and the ideal’, in C. Nesbitt and M. Jackson, eds., Experiencing Byzantium: Papers from the 44th Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Newcastle and Durham, April 2011 (Farnham and Burlington, 2013), 248–9. 21 G. Dagron, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 2003), 148. 22 The figural representations in the upper parts of Hagia Sophia remained visible until the sixteenth century; see G. Necipoğlu, ‘The life of an imperial monument: Hagia Sophia after Byzantium’, in R. Mark and A. Ş. Çakmak, eds., Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present (Cambridge, 1992), 212. 23 T. Whittemore, The Mosaics of Saint Sophia in Istanbul, Second Preliminary Report Work Done in 1933 and 1934 (Oxford, 1936), 16–7. 24 M. Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th Centuries) (Leiden and Boston, 2003), 18–20. 25 K. Kovalchuk, ‘The founder as a saint: the image of Justinian I in the Great Church of St. Sophia’, Byzantion 77 (2007), 205–38. For similar twinning in Christian art, see A. Derbes and A. Neff, ‘Italy, the mendicant orders, and the Byzantine sphere’, in Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power, 452–3 (St Francis as a new John Chrys­ ostom in the thirteenth-century frescoes in the church of the Virgin Kyriotissa in Constantinople); Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies, 9 (St Nikon the Metanoeite as another John the Baptist in the eleventh-century mosaics in the church of Hosios Loukas). 26 P. Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection (5 vols., Washington, DC, 1966–99), vol. 3, 110. 27 R. Macrides, ‘The New Constantine and the New Constantinople – 1261?’, BMGS 6 (1980), 13–41; C. Hillsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline (Cambridge, 2014), 99–151. 28 For a recent discussion of the peplos and its alterations see Hillsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy, 107, 147–8 and n. 147. 29 Macrides (‘The New Constantine’, 23 and fn. 53) proposed that this was possible because Constantine did not have a very specific iconographic type, whereas T. Papamastorakis (‘Tampering with history: from Michael III to Michael VIII’, BZ 96 [2003], 208) thought that both the image and the inscriptions were altered. 30 Marsengill, Portraits and Icons, 292. For other examples of the genealogical rela­ tionship between Constantine and medieval Serbian rulers, see V. Djurić, ‘Le nou­ veau Constantin dans l’art serbe medieval’, in B. Borkopp and T. Steppan, eds., ΛΙΘΟΣΤΡΟΤΩΝ. Studien zur byzantinischen Kunst und Geschichte: Festschrift für Marcel Restle (Stuttgart, 2000), 55–65. 31 E. Bakalova, Bachkovskata kostnitsa (Sofia, 1977), 165–6; E. Boeck, Imagining the Byzantine Past: The Perception of History in the Illustrated Manuscripts of Skylitzes and Manases (Cambridge, 2015), 78–80, figs. 2.4a & b. On Constantine in medieval Bulgaria, see A. E. Tachiaos, ‘Le culte de saint Constantin en Bulgarie au XIVe siècle’, in V. Giuzelev and A. Miltenova, eds., Srednovekovna hristiianska Evropa: Iztok i Zapad; Tsennosti, traditsii, obshtuvane (Sofia, 2002), 79–84. 32 For a discussion of this text, see S. Panteghini, ‘Konstantin Veliki i obnova negovog lika (XIV vek, Tsrkvena istorija Nikifora Ksantopula)’, in M. Prlević, ed., Konferencia

334 Rossitza Schroeder

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46

47 48

49 50 51 52 53

Neprolazna vrednost i trajna aktuelnost milanskog edikta. U susret velikom jubilieju 2013 godine (Belgrade, 2011), 25–9. Nikephoros Xanthopoulos, Allocutio encomiastica, PG 145, col. 589C. Ibid. Ibid., col. 589D. Ç. Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital (University Park, 2009), 66–103, 138. Weiss, Pisanello’s Medallion, 22–3; S. Ronchey, ‘Costantino Continuato. Ideologia e iconografia del carisma imperiale bizantino agli albori dell’età moderna’, ZRVI 50 (2013), 873–97. A. Eastmond, Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia (University Park, 1998), 67–71, fig. 43. Ibid., 70. Spatharakis, The Portrait, 79–83, fig. 46. P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos 1143–1180 (Cambridge, 1993), 181. Marsengill, Portraits and Icons, 290, figs. 109–10. V. Stanković, ‘Beloved son-in-law: charters of Byzantine emperors to the Hilandar monastery after the marriage of king Milutin to Simonis’, Scripta & E-Scripta 12 (2013), 63–6. E. Boeck, ‘Displacing Byzantium, disgracing convention: the manuscript patronage of tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria’, Manuscripta: Journal for Manuscript Research 51.2 (2007), 19. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies, trans. A. Moffatt and M. Tall (2 vols., Canberra, 2012), vol. 2, 681–2, 687–90. See also A. Grabar, ‘God and the “family of princes” presided over by the Byzantine emperor’, in J. Shepard, ed., The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium, the Balkans and Russia (Farn­ ham and Burlington, 2007), 1–7; C. Rapp, Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual (Oxford, 2016), 214–5. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies, vol. 2, 684, 690. Cf. the Book of Gifts and Rarities, trans. G. al-Ḥijjāwī al-Qaddūmī (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 99 where in a letter sent in 938 to the Abbasid caliph al-Radi (r. 934–40) the emperor Romanos I (r. 920–44) used fraternal designation for his Muslim colleague. John Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, trans. C. M. Brand (New York, 1976), 44; H. J. Magoulias, trans., O City of Byzantium: Annals of Nike­ tas Choniatēs (Detroit, 1984), 70. A. M. Bryer, ‘Greek historians on the Turks: the case of the first Byzantine-Ottoman marriage’, in R. H. C. Davis and J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, eds., The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern (Oxford, 1981), 471–93; K. Hopwood, ‘Byzantine princesses and lustful Turks’, in S. Deacy and K. Pierce, eds., Rape in Antiquity (London, 1997), 231–42. Doukas, Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks, trans. H. J. Magoulias (Detroit, 1975), 72. K.-P. Matschke, Die Schlacht bei Ankara und das Schicksal von Byzanz: Studien zur spätanbyzantinischen Geschichte zwischen 1402 und 1422 (Weimar, 1981), 51–6. Doukas, Decline and Fall, 220. Georgios Sphrantzes, The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: A Chronicle by George Sphrantzes 1401–1477, trans. M. Philippides (Amherst, 1980), 41. S. Lampros, ‘Το εν Ρώμη ελληνικόν γυμνάσιον (Collegio Greco) και οι εν τω αρχείο αυτού ελληνικοί κώδικες’, NέοςἙλλ. 10 (1913), 11; G. T. Dennis, ‘The ByzantineTurkish treaty of 1403’, OrChrP 33 (1967), 81; H. Çolak, ‘Tekfur, fasiliyus and kayser: disdain, negligence and appropriation of Byzantine imperial titulature in the Ottoman world’, in M. Hadjianastasis, ed., Frontiers of the Ottoman Imagination: Studies in Honour of Rhoads Murphey (Leiden and Boston, 2015), 21.

From a conqueror to a legitimate heir 335 54 J. Preiser-Kapeller, ‘Eine “Familie der Könige?” Anrede und Bezeichnung “auslän­ discher” Machthaber in den Urkunden des Patriarchatsregisters von Konstantinopel im 14. Jahrhundert’, in C. Gastgeber, E. Mitsiou and J. Preiser-Kapeller, eds., The Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople: An Essential Source for the History and Church of Late Byzantium (Vienna, 2013), 257–89. 55 I. Furlan, Codici greci illustrati della Biblioteca Marciana (5 vols., Milan, 1978–97), vol. 4, 37–40; E. Mioni, ‘Le tavole aggiune alla Geografia di Tolomeo nel cod. Marc. gr. 516’, Studi bizantini e neogreci 7 (1983), 59–60; F. Lovino, ‘Un miniatore nella bottega degli Astrapas? Alcune osservazioni attorno alle immagini del Tolomeo Marci­ ano gr. Z. 516 (904)’, Hortus artium medievalium 22 (2016), 388–9. 56 J. Olshausen, ‘Eine merkwürdige Handschrift der Geographie des Ptolemaus’, Hermes 15 (1880), 417–24. 57 Mioni, ‘Le tavole aggiune’, 60. 58 Spatharakis, The Portrait, figs. 143–4, 146–51. 59 The title was used, however, by Mehmed’s heir, Bayezid II (1481–1512); see D. Kołodziejczyk, ‘Khan, caliph, tsar and emperor: the multiple identities of the Ottoman sultan’, in P. F. Bang and D. Kołodziejczyk, eds., Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian His­ tory (Cambridge, 2012), 185. 60 V. Grecu, ed., Din domnia lui Mahomed al II-lea anii 1451–1467 de Critobul din Imbros, ed. (Bucharest, 1963), 25; J. Monfasani, ed., Collectanea Trapezuntiana: Text, Documents, and Bibliographies of George of Trebizond (Binghamton, 1984), 283, 528, 570; B. Janssens and P. Van Deun, ‘George Amiroutzes and his poetical oeuvre’, in B. Janssens, B. Roosen and P. Van Deun, eds., Philomathestatos: Studies in Greek and Byzantine Texts Presented to Jacques Noret for His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Leuven, 2004), 320–2. 61 H. W. Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany, 2003), 115–30; T. Stavrides, ‘From Byzantine aristocracy to Ottoman ruling elite: Mahmud Pasha Angelović and his Christian circle, 1458–1474’, in C. Isom-Verhaaren and K. F. Schull, eds., Living in the Ottoman Realm: Empire and Identity 13th to 20th Centuries (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2016), 55–7, 59. 62 T. Spandounes, On the Origin of the Ottoman Emperors, trans. D. M. Nichol (Cam­ bridge, 1997), 11; K. Moustakas, ‘Idealizing themes of Osmanli origins in the histor­ ical texts of the 15th and early 16th centuries’, Ariadnē 18 (2012), 156–7; K. Moustakas, ‘The myth of the Byzantine origins of the Osmanlis: an essay in interpretation’, BMGS 39 (2015), 92–4. 63 H. Belting, Face and Mask: A Double History, trans. T. S. Hansen and A. J. Hansen (Princeton, 2017), 120. 64 Ibid., 23, 99. 65 K. Barkey, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in a Comparative Perspective (Cam­ bridge, 2008), 69–70.

19 The giraffe that came to Constantinople Nancy Ševčenko

Henry Maguire’s many studies dealing with Byzantium’s understanding of the natural world inspired me to prepare a paper in honour of his retirement, on one small aspect of the subject. Since I first spoke about it in 2009 many publications have appeared on the topic of the giraffe in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Yet few of these studies make substantive use of Byzantine sources. I therefore decided to offer an expanded version of the original paper here, to honour Henry’s wide-ranging work and to bring into clearer view the interesting, if admittedly meagre, evidence on the giraffe contained in Byzantine literary and visual sources. In 1053, the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1043–55) was given two animals by the Fatimid caliph of Egypt, an elephant and a giraffe. They were introduced to the public in the Hippodrome, where they seemed to have caused a considerable sensation.1 Elephants, though no longer used in warfare, were still reasonably familiar creatures, but a giraffe was something very exotic indeed.2 No such animal had been seen in Constantinople for nearly five centuries, not since AD 573, when emperor Justin II (r. 565–78) was presented with a giraffe and elephant ivory by the recently converted Macourites from Africa.3 Prior to that, in AD 496, emperor Anastasios I (r. 491–518) had welcomed two giraffes and an elephant which had been walked overland from Egypt to Constantinople via Gaza, where their passage was noted by Timothy of Gaza.4 (Cf. Figures 19.1 and 19.2) Giraffes can reach 20 feet in height and can weigh over a ton; capturing and transporting them from their native habitat in East Africa (Ethiopia and the Sudan), therefore, always posed a challenge, even if the traders usually used young giraffes. The giraffes found in zoos today are almost all born in captivity, which is why giraffes are by now such a well-known animal. But before the mid-nineteenth century, hundreds of years could pass during which no live giraffe was seen in Europe.5 Not surprisingly, then, its appearance always constituted something of a spectacle. The first giraffe to arrive in Rome seems to have been the one which took part in Caesar’s triumphal procession in 46 BC.6 Numerous contemporary and later authors took note of the event.7 Giraffes are recorded at Arab courts from as early as the

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Figure 19.1 Chicago, Art Institute. Mosaic of man leading giraffe. N. Syria or Lebanon, 5th century. [Source: The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY]

ninth century,8 but emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen of Sicily (r. 1198–1250) (and later, his son Manfred), may have been the only western medieval sovereigns to have possessed a giraffe. Frederick’s is thought to have been a gift in 1228 from the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, al-Kamil (r. 1218–38); Frederick apparently paraded it, along with a vast number of other animals, throughout his kingdom.9 Then it was not until 1487, well over 200 years later, that giraffes appeared again in Italy, gifts from al-Ashraf Qaitbey (r. 1468–96), the Mamluk sultan of Egypt, to Lorenzo de Medici (r. 1469–92) and some of his princely contemporaries; poets wrote of Lorenzo’s giraffe, and artists could not resist integrating it into their paintings.10 No giraffe is recorded in western Europe for the entire period between the late sixteenth and the early nineteenth century, nearly 250 years. The first one to arrive in modern times was a gift from Mohammed Ali Pasha of Egypt to king Charles X of France (r. 1824–30) in the autumn of 1826; the young animal was taken down the Nile to Alexandria, shipped to Marseilles and then, in May of 1827, walked, accompanied by her favourite antelope companion and by three cows to provide her with milk, the nearly 500 miles to Paris to take up residence at the Jardin des Plantes.11 Mounted police were mobilized to control the crowds as she passed; she was met by celebrities, and drawn and painted at

338 Nancy Ševčenko

Figure 19.2 Lod, floor mosaic. Ca. 300 A.D.

[Source: Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority/photo by N. Davidov]

every stop along the way (Figure 19.3). The first giraffe in Austria, also a gift from Mohammed Ali Pasha, arrived in 1828; it was escorted into the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna in a procession headed by the violinist Nicolò Paganini.12 Within little more than a year, this giraffe, and the giraffe presented by Mohammed Ali to a third European ruler, king George IV of England (r. 1820–30), would be dead. But the giraffe in Paris lived on until 1845, and was to inspire fashions in hair style, fabrics, pastries and even forms of music and dance.13 In short, though giraffes were certainly exhibited to travellers to Cairo, they were rarely seen abroad in the medieval or even early modern periods. They emerged as a prized, if always short-lived, diplomatic gift offered almost exclusively by the rulers of Egypt, whether Fatimid, Mamluk or Ottoman, their availability a barometer of Egyptian/Sudanese relations, and of the eagerness of any Egyptian sultan to win favour in foreign courts.14 The reaction in Constantinople to the arrival of the giraffe in the eleventh century seems to have excited the residents almost as much as it did

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Fig 19.3 Beaune, Musée des Beaux-arts de Beaune, Jacques-Raymond Brascassat, Le Pas­ sage de la giraffe à Arnay-le-Duc (oil on canvas, 1827). [Source: Atelier Photo Muzard Beaune]

anywhere else. Both Michael Attaleiates and Michael Psellos speak eagerly about the arrival of the two beasts. Attaleiates reports first on the elephant then on the giraffe.15 Both of them are rare species of animals, he says, and both have been brought to the city and given to his subjects as a spectacle by the enterprising emperor Constantine IX Monomachos. His description of the elephant is part sharp observation and part folklore.16 As for the giraffe, he says it is, as its name indicates, a hybrid. It has the spots of the leopard, the size and head of a camel though its neck is not curved nor does it have a hump. Its body slopes so sharply from front to back that it is like a hill rising up out of the ground. Its walk is different from that of any other animal in that it moves both legs on one side together first, then those on the other side. In the introduction to his History, where he outlines his purpose in writing, Attaleiates stresses the importance of describing the rare animals that appeared in his time, as natural curiosities to be recorded for posterity.17 Psellos approaches the animals somewhat differently.18 He, too, remarks on

340 Nancy Ševčenko the giraffe’s strange gait, but what he particularly relishes is the implicit symbolism of the whole event: weaving the animals into his imperial panegyrics, he relates how the elephant went over to where the emperor sat in the Hippodrome, knelt down and put its head on the ground in a perfect proskynesis: ‘the greatest of all beasts bowing before you!’, he exclaims. The giraffe is a perfect symbol for the peace achieved by the emperor in distant lands: its neck being so long, it can stand at one end of the oikoumene and extend all the way across to the other. We have another contemporary mention of Monomachos’s elephant and giraffe: an eleventh-century commentator on the text of Timothy of Gaza reports on their arrival in the capital, where, he says, the animals ‘were at each opportunity shown to the people as a marvel (θαῦμα) in the theatre of Constantinople.’19 Several later Byzantine chroniclers also mention the animals, if only in passing.20 A giraffe would not be seen again in Constantinople, as far as we know, for another 200 years. Perhaps connected with this very giraffe is the sudden appearance of images of a giraffe in a contemporary manuscript illumination. There is a well-rendered, if minuscule, image of a giraffe as one of the animals who are being given names by Adam (Gen 2:19–20) in the mid eleventh-century Octateuch in Florence (Figure 19.4), and a giraffe, unfortunately flaked, appears in the same scene in the later eleventh-century Octateuch in the Vatican.21 The animal on fol. 133v of the Vatican Octateuch, depicted as one of the unclean animals of Leviticus 11, is surely a giraffe, and an elegant one at that (Figure 19.5).22 Images of the giraffe in later manuscripts, if included at all, are far less convincing than these, and it can be reasonably argued that these particular eleventh-century examples reflect interest in and, quite probably, first-hand knowledge of the Constantinopolitan creature.23 They also reflect the two main ways that the giraffe was being approached. At first glance, the narrative contexts in which the giraffe appears in the Octateuchs would seem to bear no apparent relation to the historical, political or zoological musings of either Attaleiates or Psellos. But the theme of the dominion of man over the beasts through the process of their naming by Adam, had become a kind of imperial metaphor, an approach that is reflected in Psellos; the dietary laws that restricted their consumption aimed to define the status of the giraffe in the natural world, an approach that is reflected in Attaleiates. The literary compositions and the biblical miniatures both reveal an attempt by contemporaries to carve out a place for the startling creature in God’s world.24 Those who had never seen a giraffe were never very clear about what sort of creature it really was. The confusion began with the name it had been given in Greek: camelopardalis, the camel-leopard (the English word giraffe comes not from the Greek but from the Arabic, zarafa).25 Because of this composite name, which described it in terms of two other animals, the giraffe tended to be considered a hybrid, a composite creature, as Attaleitates suggests. In the Cynegetica, the famous third-century AD hunting manual attributed (falsely) to Oppian, for example, it is one of:

Figure 19.4 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Plut. 5.38 (Octateuch), fol. 6r. Genesis 2.19-20. Adam naming the animals (top row). [Source: Reproduced with permission of MiBACT. Further reproduction by any means is prohibited]

342 Nancy Ševčenko

Figure 19.5 BAV, MS gr. 747 (Octateuch), fol. 133v. Leviticus 11. The unclean animals. [Source: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana]

… those tribes of wild beasts which are of hybrid nature and mingled of two stocks, even the Pard of spotted back joined and united with the Camel. O Father Zeus … thou hast devised this very varied form of the Camel, clothing with the hide of the shameless Pard a race splendid and lovely and gentle to men.26 In a Byzantine illustrated version of the Cynegetica of the eleventh-century, a manuscript done in the monastery of Studios and now in Venice, the camelopardalis is depicted as an ordinary camel, burdened with saddlebag.27 The artist was clearly at a loss to illustrate the written description of the camelopardalis in such a way as to suggest its exotic double lineage or its natural appearance. Since few outside of Africa got to see it reproduce it was not known whether it could actually reproduce at all.28 Even some geographers, offered the following explanation for its origin: to get a giraffe, you have to start with a male hyena.29 This male hyena has to mate with a female camel to produce

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an offspring: if that offspring is male, and it then mates with a wild cow, then, and only then, do you get a giraffe. The more widespread explanation, grounded in the etymology of its name, was that a camelopardalis is the result of the mating of a male leopard (pardalis) with a female camel.30 Despite the literary tradition, when the writer confronts an actual animal, there is, even in Byzantium, a welcome freshness about the observations, a freedom from literary clichés that betrays a sincere effort to make proper sense of the animal and to convey to others a vivid impression of its extraordinary appearance. George Pachymeres, who saw the giraffe which was given to emperor Michael VIII (r. 1259–82) by the Mamluk sultan Baybars of Egypt (r. 1260–77) around 1261 says he will describe it so that those who got to see it can be reminded of it, and those who did not can be instructed.31 Like others before him, he describes it entirely by analogy to other animals, though he avoids any suggestion that was generated by a mating of two or more dissimilar species. Its body is medium sized, like that of the large asses we call kanthonas, but it gains in height from rear to front, so that its front legs are much longer than its back ones. Its hide is κατὰ πάρδαλις – like a leopard’s; its body like that of a camel. Its neck is like a crane’s. Its feet are delicate, like a stag’s, and cloven. He is particularly concerned with its natural defences, or rather lack thereof: it is not armed as a horse is, with hooves, or with horns like a bull, or with tusks like a boar, or with claws like a cat. Its only weapon is its teeth, and these are not venomous like those of a serpent. He remarks on its gentleness, and its vegetarianism, how it lives on grass but likes bread and barley, as does a sheep, and how any child can lead it around. At the same time he calls it a τέρας, a monster, an animal ἀσύνηθες καὶ θαυμάσιον – that is, rare and marvellous. He refers to it as a spectacle – the word he uses is θαύμα – a treat for the eyes of those who saw it being walked every day through the agora.32 The giraffe given to Michael VIII is the last one for which we have a written record in Greek, and it may well have been the last one the Byzantine inhabitants of Constantinople would ever get to see. A letter of Cyriacus of Ancona, however, suggests that this western traveller encountered a giraffe grazing in a field inside the walls of the city, somewhere near the monastery of Studios, in the summer of 1444. He describes the animal in great detail in a letter back home: At length, in the midst of flowering green fields, Polyhymnia brought us this exotic animal from Egypt and the Memphitic Babylon. The Egyptians are wont to call it a zoraphan, a very handsome beast, and wondrous to look upon, which towered [above us], with a neck of disproportionate length and legs that were one and one-third times longer in the front than in the back; but in other respects, from its head to the tips of its feet and its hooves and its back, the colour of its spotted skin looked very like that of stags and does. Today we have given to the most worthy emperor, and [now] to your Beatitude, a likeness of it that I made recently during our hunt, so that in our estimation, as far as possible, you have seen the living beast as we did … .33

344 Nancy Ševčenko Cyriacus had already seen and described a giraffe in Cairo in 1436, and it is possible that in this passage he is referring to the one he had seen there.34 At any rate, he refers to the giraffe by its Arabic name (he calls it a zoraphan): it is clear that he and others who learned of the giraffe primarily through the Arab world were not burdened with the implications of the Greek word camelopardalis the way Attaleiates and even Pachymeres had been. Cyriacus never mentions either the leopard or the camel in describing the physique of the giraffe, and compares its colouring only to that of deer. The composite nature of its Greek name, and of its appearance, meant that the giraffe was very likely viewed by ordinary Byzantines not just as an exotic creature from a distant land, but as a cousin to other hybrid creatures such as griffins, centaurs, hippocamps and such that lurked at the edges of their world, and to the ant-lion (μυρμακολέων) or the pig-stag (χοιρέλαφος) known from the Bestiary tradition and from Book XI of the sixth-century Topographia Christiana of Cosmas Indicopleustes.35 They had an ambivalent attitude towards such creatures, who smacked of pagan antiquity, and whose dual nature could be doubly threatening.36 The giraffe had no such frightening aspect, yet its very existence must in some minds have been problematic, for it begged the question: if this creature, the offspring of two seemingly incompatible animals, could exist and walk about as a coherent being, could not other composite creatures from far away, known only in literature, exist as well? Much has been written of Schaulust, and of the animal as spectacle.37 Our sources regarding response to the giraffe in Byzantium are meagre indeed, but need not therefore be entirely dismissed. The Byzantine descriptions of the unusual creature they got to see are in their own way full of wonder. Most try to convey an idea of its physical appearance: its size, its colouring, its long neck and uneven body, and its peculiar gait, without relying automatically on ancient literature. Because of how rarely the giraffe was seen, the language they use seems fresh.38 Attaleiates treats the arrival of the two beasts in Constantinople as a one-time natural event, almost like the arrival of a comet, something that took place in his time, and needed to be recorded for posterity. Psellos is more concerned with their political implications: the arrival of the giraffe and the elephant indicated a ruler concerned to provide something extraordinary for the city and its populace, one who was able to maintain good relations with foreign rulers, to achieve a certain amount of international stability, and be recognized for his might even by the beasts themselves. For Pachymeres, the giraffe was a walking paradox. It was a τέρας, or monster, yet at the same time an essentially defenceless vegetarian, a wild beast yet a peaceable one, a proud creature of great size yet one so gentle that even a child could lead it by the nose. These responses to the giraffes of 1053 and 1261 have a legitimate place in the long story of Constantinople and its diplomatic triumphs and public displays, and in the even longer history of man and beast.39

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Notes 1 N. Drocourt, ‘Les animaux comme cadeaux d’ambassade entre Byzance et ses voi­ sins (VIIe–XIIe siècles)’, in B. Doumerc and C. Picard, eds., Byzance et ses périph­ éries: Hommage à Alain Ducellier (Toulouse, 2004), 67–93, esp. 83–6; N. P. Ševčenko, ‘Wild animals in the Byzantine park’, in A. Littlewood, H. Maguire and J. Wolschke-Bulmahn, eds., Byzantine Garden Culture (Washington, DC, 2002), 69–86, esp. 77–8; A. Cutler, ‘Gifts and gift exchange as aspects of the Byzantine, Arab, and related economies’, DOP 55 (2001), 247–78. 2 On the cultural history of the giraffe, see B. Laufer, The Giraffe in History and Art (Chicago, 1928); L. Dittrich, S. Dittrich and I. Faust, Das Bild der Giraffe (Hann­ over, 1993); P.-L. Gatier, ‘Des girafes pour l’empereur’, Topoi: Orient-Occident 6.2 (1996), 903–41; E. Williams, Giraffe (London, 2010); T. Buquet, ‘La belle captive. La girafe dans les ménageries princières au moyen âge’, in C. Beck and F. Guizard, eds., La bête captive au Moyen Âge et à l’époque moderne (Amiens, 2012), 65–90, with ample recent bibliography. 3 John of Biclar, Chronica minora, a. 569:3, 573:6, in T. Mommsen, ed., Monumenta Ger­ maniae Historica, Auctorum Antiquissimorum XI, Chronica Minora Saec. IV. V. VI. VII, II (Berlin, 1894), 212, 213; J. Campos Ruíz, Juan de Biclaro, obispo de Gerona: su vida, su obra. Introducción, texto critico, comentarios (Madrid 1960), 83. 4 M. Haupt, ‘Excerpta ex Timothei Gazaei libris de animalibus’, Hermes 3 (1869), 15.5–13; F. S. Bodenheimer and A. Rabinowitz, trans. and comm., Timotheus of Gaza on Animals, Περὶ Ζώων. Fragments of a Byzantine Paraphrase of an Animal-Book of the 5th century A.D. (Paris and Leiden, 1949), 31; J. R. Morgan, ‘Two giraffes emended’, CQ 38 (1988), 267–9; P.-L. Gatier, ‘Les girafes de Gaza’, in C. Saliou, ed., Gaza dans l’antiquité tardive: archéologie, rhétorique et histoire (Salerno, 2005), 75–92; P.-L. Gatier, ‘Des girafes pour l’empereur.’ The mosaics in the synagogue dated 508/509 at Maiouma (Gaza) include a mosaic of David playing the harp surrounded by animals, with the head of a giraffe visible, and a mosaic that includes two well-observed giraffes and a zebra within vine scrolls; see Gatier, ‘Girafes de Gaza’, fig. 4. 5 On menageries, see the classic study of G. Loisel, Histoire des ménageries, de l’anti­ quité à nos jours, I: Antiquité, Moyen âge, Renaissance (Paris, 1912). See also Šev­ čenko, ‘Wild animals’, 75–81; T. Buquet, ‘Les animaux exotiques dans les ménageries médiévales’, in J. Toussaint, ed., Fabuleuses histoires des bêtes et des hommes (Namur, 2013), 97–121. 6 J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (Ithaca and London, 1973, repr. Baltimore, 1996), esp. 141–2; G. Jennison, Animals for Show and Pleasure in Ancient Rome (Manchester, 1937); Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 2–4. Giraffes are occasionally mentioned in the list of animals slaughtered in the Roman games, from the time of Commodus on. 7 For the ancient sources, literary and visual, see Laufer, Giraffe, 58–65; Toynbee, Animals, 141–2 and s.v. giraffe; Gatier, ‘Girafes pour l’émpereur’, esp. 914–21. They include Pliny (Nat. Hist. 8.27), Horace (Epist. 1.196 = Epistula ad Augustum), Dio Cassius (43.23), Varro and others. 8 The royal menagerie in Tulunid Cairo (late ninth century) already included leopards, panthers, elephants and giraffes; see Ševčenko, ‘Wild animals’, 76, with sources; Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 4–10. 9 M. Giese, ‘Die Tierhaltung am Hof Kaiser Friedrichs II. zwischen Tradition und Innovation’, in K. Görich, J. Keupp and T. Broekmann, eds., Herrschaftsräume, Herrschaftspraxis und Kommunikation zur Zeit Kaiser Friedrichs II (Munich, 2008), 121–71; Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 11–2, who reviews the evidence for this giraffe having been part of Frederick’s menagerie, and illustrates (his fig. 9) an ivory casket, presented by Frederick to the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, which has an image of a giraffe painted on its lid. There is an intriguing initial in a twelfth-century Italian

346 Nancy Ševčenko

10

11 12 13

14

15 16 17

Lectionary which shows a young giraffe (based on an unattested live animal or on an Arabic source?): Montecassino 117, fol. 109r, reproduced in Dittrich, Dittrich and Faust, Das Bild, p. 4; B. Degenhart, ‘Autonome Zeichnungen bei mittelalterlichen Künstlern’, MünchJb 3rd series 1 (1950), 118 fig. 60. Another giraffe was sent to Manfred in 1262, according to Arabic sources, by sultan Beybars, the same sultan who sent the giraffe to emperor Michael VIII. See also Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 13. Buquet illustrates other images of giraffes in western manuscripts of the thir­ teenth century, ‘La belle captive’, 16 and figs. 11–14. On the giraffe in Italy during the Renaissance, with sources and a list of paintings, see L. Donati, ‘Iter Iconographicum. Citta del Vaticano – Biblioteca. La giraffe’, Maso Finiguerra 3 (1938), 247–68; J. B. Lloyd, African Animals in Renaissance Lit­ erature and Art (Oxford, 1971), 49–52; P. Lehmann, Cyriacus of Ancona’s Egyptian Visit and Its Reflections in Gentile Bellini and Hieronymus Bosch (Locust Valley, 1977); C. D. Cuttler, ‘Exotics in post-Medieval European art: giraffes and centaurs’, Artibus et Historiae 12.23 (1991), 161–79; M. Belozerskaya, The Medici Giraffe and Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power (New York, Boston and Leiden, 2006); Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 18–22. Lorenzo’s giraffe died in early 1489. The other Italian princes who were given giraffes from Egypt in this period were the Visconti, Alphonso II and Hercules I d’Este. Laufer, Giraffe, 50, 79–81. Then the traffic abruptly stops. M. Allin, Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris (New York, 1998); G. Dardaud, Une giraffe pour le roi (Paris, 1985, repr. Bordeaux, 2007). Dittrich, Dittrich and Faust, Das Bild, 27–34. On ‘Giraffenmanie’, see Dittrich, Dittrich and Faust, Das Bild, 26, 34–40; C. RiedlDorn, ‘Tiere auf weiter Fahrt. Expeditionen für Tiergarten und Museum’, in M. G. Ash and L. Dittrich, eds., Menagerie des Kaisers – Zoo der Wiener. 250 Jahre Tiergarten Schönbrunn (Vienna, 2002), esp. 353–8; O. Lebleu, Les Avatars de Zarafa, première gir­ affe de France: Chronique d’une girafomania, 1826–1845 (Paris, 2006). The peace treaty which followed the conquest of the Sudan by the Mamluks in 1275 con­ tained a provision that the Sudanese would provide the Mamluk sultan with, among other animals, three giraffes a year as tribute. The provision was nothing new: it can be traced back to at least 652, when the conquered Nubians were required to pay an annual tribute that included two giraffes, and, in fact, even further back to ancient Egypt; see Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 2. On the treaty, see Laufer, Giraffe, 35. Giraffes were often given out by Egypt to two or three rulers simultaneously: when the Byzantine emperor Michael VIII got one in 1261, so did Berke, khan of the Golden Horde and king Manfred of Sicily; various Renaissance princes all received theirs in about the same years (see note 9) and the kings of France, Austria and England all received giraffes in either 1827 or 1828. On animals as diplomatic gifts, see note 9 and 10, to which should be added L. Bodson, ed., Les animaux exotiques dans les relations internationales: espèces, fonc­ tions, signification (Liège, 1998); D. Behrens-Abouseif, Practicing Diplomacy in the Mamluk Sultanate: Gifts and Material Culture in the Medieval Islamic World (London and New York, 2014), 140–5. The giraffe given by the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir to a Maghreb ruler in 1031 was celebrated in a poem in which the giraffe is called (the) ‘property of kings’; see G. al-Ḥijjāwī al-Qaddūmī, trans., Book of Gifts and Rarities (Cambridge, MA, 1996), 106. W. Brunet de Presle and I. Bekker, eds., Michaelis Attaliotae Historia (Bonn, 1853), 48.11–50.11; A. Kaldellis and D. Krallis, trans., The History (Cambridge, MA, 2012), 86–8. According to Attaleiates, the elephant fears mosquitoes and can die if one gets in his

ear; young are born after 10 years in the womb, etc. (the correct figure is 22 months).

Presle and Bekker, eds., Michaelis Attaliotae Historia, 1:5; trans. Kaldellis and

Krallis, History, 7.

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18 G. T. Dennis, Michaelis Pselli Orationes panegyricae (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1994), Oration 1, lines 278–89, Oration 4, lines 170–6. For synopses of these encomia and their date, see P. Gautier, ‘Basilikoi logoi inédits de Michel Psellos’, SicGymn 33 (1980), esp. 746–8. Gautier’s encomia nos. 6 and 7 correspond to Dennis’s nos. 4 and 1, respectively. Attaleiates’s statement that he is concerned with recording the rare species encountered in his time is noted by Drocourt, ‘Animaux’, 86 note 107. 19 Bodenheimer and Rabinowitz, trans., Timotheus of Gaza, 31. The phrase ‘at each opportunity’ suggests the animals were exhibited rather frequently. 20 I. Thurn, ed., Ioannis Scylitzae, Synopsis Historiarum (Berlin, 1973), 475.16–7; I. Bekker, ed., Michaelis Glycas Annales (Bonn, 1836), 597.13–4. 21 Florence, Laur. Plut. 5.38, fol. 6r; see K. Weitzmann and M. Bernabò, The Byzantine Octateuchs (Princeton, 1999), 30; colour fig. 1 and fig. 5a. The giraffe, much smaller than the nearby camel, is placed among the domestic animals, not the wild or nox­ ious ones. It appears to be spotted. Vatican gr. 747, fol. 22r. Weitzmann and Ber­ nabò, Octateuchs, 30; fig. 79a. 22 Weitzmann and Bernabò, Octateuchs, 189; fig. 840. The authors have also identified a giraffe among the animals lined up to enter Noah’s ark, on fol. 29r of this same Vatican manuscript (51–2; fig. 131b). 23 The animals in the eleventh-century Cosmas manuscript in Florence (Laur. Plut 9.28, fol. 267v), and in the twelfth-century Seraglio Octateuch (Istanbul, Topkapi G. I. 8, fol. 282r) lack the long neck and slanted back characteristic of a giraffe, and look more like spotted horses or stags; see W. Wolska-Conus, Cosmas Indicopleustès, Topographie chrétienne (3 vols., Paris, 1968–73), vol. 3, fig. 2; Weitzmann and Bernabò, Octateuchs, 189; fig. 841. It could be argued that the artists were not working from life, so to speak, but from ancient model books, but the fact remains that the giraffe did quite suddenly became an animal of interest in the art of the eleventh century. 24 This incorporation of a contemporary phenomenon into a Byzantine work of art is remin­ iscent of the embedding of representations of relics that had recently arrived in the capital into depictions of the events with which they were associated: the arm of John the Baptist embedded into images of the Baptism, for example, or the lithos, the slab on which Christ’s body had been laid out, embedded into images of the Threnos, the mourning over the body of Christ before its burial. I. Kalavrezou, ‘Helping hands for the empire: imperial ceremonies and the cult of relics at the Byzantine court’, in H. Maguire, ed., Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204 (Washington, DC, 1997), 53–79, esp. 70–9; I. Spatharakis, ‘The influence of the Lithos in the development of the iconography of the Threnos’, in D. Mouriki, C. Moss and K. Kiefer, eds., Byzantine East, Latin West: Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton, 1995), 435–46. 25 Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 10–1; Buquet, ‘La giraffe, belle inconnue des bibles médiévales. Camelopardalis: un animal philologique’, Anthropozoologica 43.2 (2008), 47–68. 26 Oppian, Cynegetica, III, lines 461–81; A. W. Mair, trans., Oppian, Colluthus, Try­ phiodorus (Cambridge, MA and London, 1928, repr. 1987), 153. The description of the giraffe is otherwise remarkably accurate. But then the poet turns to another most curious creature: ‘Yea and another double breed have I beheld with mine eyes, a mighty marvel, a Camel united with a Sparrow’ (indeed, the ostrich’s scientific name, Struthio camelus, reflects this ancient misconception). 27 Venice, Bibl. Marciana gr. Z 479, fol. 53v. Cynegetica: tratado de caza y pesca, Cod. Gr. Z 479 (=881) (Valencia, 1999) and commentary volume 2003; I. Spatharakis, The Illustrations of the Cynegetica in Venice. Codex Marcianus Graecus Z 479 (Leiden, 2004), 155–9, fig. 113. 28 It should be noted, however, that according to a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century source, al Makrizi, a calf had been born in captivity in the Cairo zoo in 1292; see Laufer, Giraffe, 34; Buquet, ‘La belle captive’, 5, note 30.

348 Nancy Ševčenko 29 Laufer, Giraffe, 33 (Zakariya al-Qazwini); G. Petit and J. Théodoridès, Histoire de la zoologie: des origins à Linné (Paris, 1962), 209 (al-Edrisi, Abu Zeid); T. Buquet, ‘Les legendes relatives à l’origine hybride et à la naissance des girafes selon les auteurs arabes’, Bulletin d’études orientales 62 (2014), 125–47. 30 For Arabic sources describing the giraffe, see R. Kruk, ‘Zarafa: encounters with the giraffe, from Paris to the medieval Islamic world’, in B. Gruendler, W. Heinrichs and M. Cooperson, eds., Classical Arabic Humanities in Their Own Terms: Fest­ schrift for Wolfahrt Heinrichs on His 65th Birthday (Leiden, 2008), 568–92. The word camelopardalis has at present only 20 entries in the TLG. 31 A. Failler, ed., V. Laurent, trans., Relations historiques/Georges Pachymérès (5 vols., Paris, 1984), vol. 1, 239.6–28. It is unclear to me whether this giraffe was the one destined for Berke Khan that was deliberately waylaid by Michael VIII and died in Constantinople before reaching the khan, or whether this was a gift sent to Michael himself; see Behrens-Abuseif, Practicing Diplomacy, 28. 32 We have later reports, for Ottoman Constantinople and also for Florence in the time of the Medici, of giraffes being walked about the city streets, poking their heads into second­ storey windows in hopes of handouts of food; one can easily imagine this happening in the streets of Constantinople in the thirteenth century and in the eleventh as well. 33 Cyriac of Ancona, Later Travels, trans. E. W. Bodnar and C. Foss (Cambridge, MA, 2003), 56. 34 Lehmann, Cyriacus, 9–17. E. Bodnar (Cyriac of Ancona, Later Travels, 417 note 11) thinks because of the reference to Polyhymnia that this animal appeared to Cyriac in a dream. Cyriac had indeed made drawings of the giraffe he saw in Cairo, copies of which have survived. See Lehmann, Cyriacus, figs. 30–4; Williams, Giraffe, fig. p. 63. 35 For the Physiologos, see M. Bernabò, Il Fisiologo di Smirne (Florence, 1998), 25, 29, 37, 66 (ταυρέλαφας, bull-elephant, but in Cosmas ταυρέλαφος, bull-stag), figs. 10 (sirens and centaurs), 19 (χοιρέλαφας or pig-elephant, but pig-stag in Cosmas), 38 (ant-lion). Cosmas Book XI:1–9: Wolska-Conus, Cosmas, vol. 3, 314–33. 36 Take, for example, the description of the huge feline driven down from the mountain heights of Bithynia by an unusually deep snow in the winter of 1167. To characterize the beast, John Kinnamos resorts to the concept of a hybrid creature that combines the strength and ferocity of its constituent parts. He says emperor Manuel I went to hunt ‘in one of the Eastern regions, whose name is Damatrys. As he was occupied in this activ­ ity, a great mountain of a bear encountered him, yet not a lion, nor is it possible to call it a leopard, but the size and similarity to a lion prevent this. It had a double nature taking something from both, a leopard in a lion and a lion in a leopard, a monstrous mixture of qualities, terrible in valor, courageous in frightfulness, and all the properties belonging to both in each other.’ A. Meineke, ed., Ioannis Cinnami, Epitome (Bonn, 1836), 266.9–267.13, C. Brand, trans., Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus (New York, 1976), 200. On the significance of hybridity, see H. Maguire, ‘The profane aesthetic in Byzantine art and literature’, DOP 53 (1999), 189–205, esp. 190–7; H. Maguire, ‘Pro­ fane icons: the significance of animal violence in Byzantine art’, Res 38 (2000), 19–33; E. D. Maguire and H. Maguire, Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Cul­ ture (Princeton, 2007), 11–24, 90–6, 160–7. 37 G. Kaselow, Die Schaulust am exotischen Tier. Studien zur Darstellung des zoologischen Gartens in der Malerei des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Hildesheim, Zürich and New York, 1999); T. H. Clarke, The Rhinoceros from Dürer to Stubbs, 1515–1799: An Essay on the Exotic (London and New York, 1986); J. Berger, ‘Why look at animals?’, in J. Berger, ed., About Looking (New York, 1980, repr. 1991), 3–28. See also the richly documented articles by L. Bodson, ‘Contribution à l’étude des critères d’appreciation de l’animal exotique dans la tradition grecque ancienne’, in Bodson, ed., Les animaux, 139–212, and her modified English version, ‘Ancient Greek views on the exotic animal’, Arctos. Acta Philologica Fennica 32 (1998), 61–85.

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38 The Arabic poem cited above (note 14) includes this marvellous simile, not matched in Byzantium: (her skin) ‘is like dusky clouds streaked within by lightning, cracking as they move’; see al-Ḥijjāwī al-Qaddūmī, trans., Book of Gifts, 107. 39 Ironically, with an increasing number of fauna becoming extinct, it is possible that some exotic animals will once again become legendary creatures. As H. A. Bryden (‘The Giraffe at home’, Chambers Journal 8 [1891], 585–8, cited in Williams, Gir­ affe, 95) wrote in 1891, at a time when the supply of giraffes in the wild was getting scarce, ‘Yet another hundred years and (our) successors will be inclined to rank the giraffe among dragons, unicorns and other creatures of fable.’

20 The many-eyed archangels in early Byzantine art Brooke Shilling

Henry Maguire has made multiple contributions to the study of archangels in Byzantine art.1 In this chapter and volume dedicated to him, I would like to explore an uncommon attribute of archangels in early Byzantine art. I argue that wings made of peacock feathers, as opposed to generic plumes, were influenced by the Roman symbolism of the peacock, the visions of Old Testament prophets and liturgical invocations of angels. I will focus on the depiction of the archangels Michael and Gabriel in the apse mosaic of the church of the Panagia Angeloktistos at Kiti in Cyprus, where the iconography of peacock-feathered wings expands the role of the archangels and sheds light on the functions of Byzantine apse decoration. Most likely dated to the second half of the sixth century, the apse mosaic at Kiti represents the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel against a flat gold background (Figure 20.1).2 All of the figures except for Christ are identified by inscriptions. At the centre of the composition, the Virgin stands on a jewelled podium holding the Child on her left side. He carries a scroll in his left hand and gestures with his right. Mary wears a purple robe, red mantle and a gold halo outlined in red, while Christ wears gold garments and a gold cross-halo outlined in blue. Exceptionally, the arms of the cross are truncated and rounded to give the impression of three dimensions.3 Approaching the pair on either side, the archangels wear long white tunics with gold clavi and white himations. Their wings are made up of peacock feathers, rendered in green, yellow, red, blue and gold tesserae. Unfortunately, much of the figure of the archangel Michael is lost. Only his head, halo and left wing remain, along with the top of his right wing, the rightmost portion of his robes, his sandalled left foot, right forearm and hands. Both of the angels’ costumes are marked with initials, but only Gabriel’s ‘Η’ and ‘Γ’ are legible.4 The haloes of the archangels are set in silver and outlined in red, distinguishing them from those of the Virgin and Child. The archangels carry gold staffs ending in tiny spheres and present translucent orbs, symbols of imperial dominion, to the Christ Child.5 They stand on a green ground line, which places them both beside and behind the Virgin and Child. Remarkably, the footstool on which the Virgin stands overlaps the two lower geometric

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Figure 20.1 Kiti, Church of the Panagia Angeloktistos. Apse mosaic. [Source: Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard Univer­ sity, Washington, DC]

borders of the apse conch so that the figures appear to hover in front of it.6 In the soffit of the apse, the upper border of the mosaic illustrates six vessels flanked by pairs of confronted or addorsed stags, parrots and ducks. Enveloped in acanthus leaves, they symbolize the living creatures of the water, air and land, which God created on the fifth and sixth days in the book of Genesis.7 According to Psalm 104:4, God made the angels out of spirit and fire. They are bodiless, but assume many forms to grace and terrify mankind.8 Despite multiple manifestations of angels in Scripture, anthropomorphic angels were favoured by Christian artists for ease of representation. In early Christian art, angels are typically represented as youthful, winged men, but occasionally they are wingless.9 Their wings take the form of feathers, either layered or scaled in appearance, with long plumes in various colours. For the most part, these feathery wings are generic and nondescript. Like the physical form given to angels, the wings are primarily symbolic, alluding to the supernatural qualities of angels and their roles as divine messengers. While the iconography of the winged man changed little over time, the costumes and attributes of angels might vary according to context. Byzantine archangels appear in the classical white tunic and himation, in the chlamys of high

352 Brooke Shilling court officials, in the purple silk and loros of the emperor, and in the armour of military generals.10 Usually they hold staffs and orbs, but occasionally they hold standards. There are a few iconographic parallels for archangels with peacock-feathered wings. On the mosaics of the east wall above the apse at the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai (AD 548–65), two angels fly towards the central lamb, carrying gold cross-staffs and offering blue globes marked with crosses (Figure 20.2).11 Four or five eyes are visible on each bared wing. Despite the iconographic similarities with the archangels at Kiti, the angels of Sinai appear lighter in flight with their bodies and wings treated schematically. At Kiti, the figures are grounded, well-modelled and more substantial. Other examples are found in wall painting, for example on the east wall of cell 1723 at the Monastery of Apa Jeremiah at Saqqara in Egypt.12 The angels are inscribed ‘angel of God’ and flank the Virgin and Child below a bust of Christ in Majesty. Likewise, two angels inscribed ‘angel of God’ and ‘angel of the Lord’ have wings of peacock feathers on the east lunette of chapel 28 at the Monastery of Apa Apollo at Bawit, also in Egypt.13 They stand beside the enthroned Virgin and Child, carrying incense boxes and censers. From the cathedral of Faras in modern Sudan, an angel with peacock-feathered wings is identified as Michael. The early

Figure 20.2 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, apse mosaic. Triumphal arch, north spandrel. [Source: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expeditions to Mount Sinai]

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ninth-century painting once adorned the south wall of the stairwell, but is now located in the National Museum in Warsaw.14 In manuscript illumination, the archangel Gabriel appears with wings of peacock feathers in two of the four miniatures inserted into the Armenian Etchmiadzin Gospels: the Annunciation to Zachariah and the Annunciation to the Virgin.15 Along with the Adoration of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ, these folios have been dated to the seventh century. Finally, a Proconnesian marble relief of the sixth or seventh century, now in the Antalya Museum, portrays a bust-length angel with peacock-feathered wings, inscribed ‘Archangel Gabriel.’16 The presence of identifying inscriptions for the archangels in the earlier examples, especially the apse mosaic at Kiti and the Antalya relief, is noteworthy, to say nothing of the designation of the Virgin as Η ΑΓΙΑ ΜΑΡΙΑ or Saint Mary at Kiti.17 Archangels were first inscribed in Christian art around the middle of the sixth century, following the earlier, albeit infrequent, identification of apostles and saints. Indeed, all identifying inscriptions were applied inconsistently before the iconoclastic period. Only after iconoclasm did identifying inscriptions become an essential part of the sacred portrait, helping to ensure that the prayers of the faithful would reach the prototype.18 Unfortunately, the question of why archangels would be inscribed in the mid to late sixth century cannot be discussed at length in this chapter.19 It may be that the inclination to invest the image with greater authenticity and to connect the image to its prototype existed already before iconoclasm, spurred by ever-present concerns over idolatry. Alternatively, the archangels and the Virgin at Kiti may have been identified for the purposes of didactic reinforcement and remembrance: to ensure that the images were clearly and fully understood by the faithful and to encourage them to keep the names of the saints in mind. Of primary interest to our study is the fact that the archangels are clearly identified as Michael and Gabriel, while the peacock-feathered wings will be shown to complicate that identification. Apart from any association with archangels, peacocks figure frequently in early Christian art as part of the common imagery of nature, especially on floor mosaics and in other programmes celebrating God’s Creation on earth.20 Yet peacocks are often distinguished from other birds and animals by their arrangement in pairs, symmetrically confronted or addorsed, flanking vessels or fountains. Occasionally they face frontally with their tails spread. Symbolic interpretations of the bird were inherited from the Roman world, where the peacock was associated with immortality, in part because of the annual renewal of its feathers.21 As an attribute of the goddess Juno, the peacock appeared on coins commemorating the apotheosis of Roman empresses. In the fourth century, Augustine confirmed that the flesh of the peacock would not perish.22 The peacock is retained as a symbol of eternal life in early Christian baptisteries and tombs, where pairs of peacocks are shown drinking from the fountain (πηγὴ) of paradise. In the fifth-century floor mosaic of the baptistery at Stobi, confronted peacocks flank two out of four kantharoi with pine cone finials (Figure 20.3).23 Deer, birds and ducks, associated with the land, air and water, represent the full range of living creatures in the earthly paradise. Likewise, the north wall of a fourth-century tomb (no. 89) from the eastern

354 Brooke Shilling

Figure 20.3 Stobi, baptistery. Floor mosaic. [Source: Author]

cemetery of Thessaloniki shows two peacocks approaching a fountain raised on a column.24 A large wooden fence, representing the gates of paradise, emphasizes the division between the worlds of the living and the deceased. Another tomb painting of the fourth century in Nicaea represents two large peacocks grasping a kantharos in a paradisiacal landscape, while other birds flit around the lush garden.25 At the summit of the composition, a medallion with the chi-rho proclaims the way to Christian salvation. A closer and more important parallel for the apse mosaic at Kiti comes from the sixth-century Rabbula Gospels.26 On folio 1v, the same standing type of the Virgin and Child, complete with a jewelled podium, is framed by a colourful canopy with a semi-circular roof (Figure 20.4). Poised on the roof, two peacocks flank a central floral element, located on the same vertical axis as the Virgin and Child. Their symmetrical, albeit higher placement in relation to the figures recalls the peacock-feathered archangels in the mosaic at Kiti. Read in conjunction with the more conventional imagery of church floors, baptisteries and Christian tombs, the Rabbula Virgin replaces the central vessels as the new source (πηγὴ) of life. The interpretation may also be applied to the apse mosaic at Kiti, where six vessels and living creatures frame the Virgin and Child in the conspicuous upper border.27 The traditional symbolism of the peacock, combined with biblical descriptions of the seraphim and cherubim in the visions of the prophets, led to the embellishment of angels with wings of peacock feathers. Indeed, the peculiar iconography of the

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Figure 20.4 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Plut. 1.56 (Rabbula Gospels), folio 1v. [Source: Reproduced with permission of MiBACT. Further reproduction by any means is prohibited]

archangels at Kiti suggests their conflation with other angelic beings, despite the paradox of their explicit identification as Michael and Gabriel. The seraphim of Isaiah (6:2–3) each had six wings, two covering the face, two covering the feet and two for flying. The vision of Ezekiel refers to four living creatures (1:5) and cherubim (10:12), each with four faces and four wings, all covered with eyes and accompanied by flaming wheels. Drawing on the Old Testament visions, the book of Revelation (4:6–9) describes four beasts full of eyes with four faces and six wings full of eyes. The angels of Isaiah and Revelation cry ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ The seraphim and cherubim appear in apse decoration and on liturgical objects, which shed light on the meaning of the iconography at Kiti. The Riha flabellum or rhipidion is a silver-gilt liturgical fan dated by imperial stamps to the reign of Justin II (AD 565–578) (Figure 20.5). Now displayed at Dumbarton Oaks, the fan was produced in Constantinople and discovered in Syria as part of the Riha treasure, now known to belong to the larger Kaper Koraon treasure.28 The fan illustrates the tetramorph of Ezekiel’s vision with the faces of a lion, man, ox and eagle, four wings of peacock feathers and

356 Brooke Shilling

Figure 20.5 Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Liturgical fan from the Riha treasure. [Source: Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC]

flaming wheels, surrounded by sixteen stylized peacock feathers defining the scallops of the outer edge. A nearly identical fan, a product of the same workshop with the same border and stamps of Justin II, was discovered with the Stuma treasure, now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum (Figure 20.6).29 It shows the seraph of Isaiah’s vision with six wings, no eyes and the face of a man, but also incorporates the flaming wheels of Ezekiel. In the context of the liturgy, the fans serve to protect the Eucharist from flies or insects. Symbolically, they recall the guardians of the Lord in heaven, the seraphim and cherubim, with which they are decorated. In addition, the stylized feathers of the border denote the use of actual peacock feathers in the construction of liturgical fans made of parchment or cloth.30 The tradition of decorating fans with peacock feathers to keep flies from food is pre-Christian in origin,31 but enabled the development of a thoroughly Christian symbolism. The fashioning of the archangels’ wings at Kiti underscores the protective function of the archangels in relation to the Virgin and Child, the sacred space of the apse and the Eucharist. Their role as guardians and protectors is also implied by their staffs, which resemble those of imperial palace guards, in particular the ostiarioi.32

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Figure 20.6 Istanbul, Istanbul Archaeological Museum, Liturgical fan from the Stuma treasure. [Source: Author]

The inclusion of flaming wheels in the Stuma fan exemplifies the conflation of angelic beings in Christian art, which was influenced by liturgical texts, despite the meticulous classification of Pseudo-Dionysios.33 His Celestial Hierarchy (ca. 500) ranked angels into nine orders and three triads according to Scripture: seraphim, cherubim and thrones; virtues, dominations and powers; and principalities, archangels and angels.34 All participate in divine likeness and illumination, but those of the first hierarchy, including the seraphim and cherubim, are distinguished by their closeness to God and superior knowledge of the divine. Only the lowest orders, the archangels and angels, can communicate with men on earth. They act as divine messengers, guides and guardians of the righteous. The hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysios was extremely influential, but did not resolve confusion in the liturgy. In the liturgy of John Chrysostom and in the Coptic liturgy of St Cyril or St Mark, the seraphim and cherubim are both described as six-winged and many-eyed, although the seraphim of Isaiah had no eyes and the cherubim of Ezekiel had four wings.35 Representations of prophetic visions in apses also did not distinguish them. Hence the difficulty in identifying the vision and prophets of the apse mosaic of

358 Brooke Shilling Hosios David in Thessaloniki (perhaps mid-sixth century), where Christ sits on a rainbow throne supported by four beasts with adjoined wings covered with eyes (Figure 20.7).36 The angels appear to correspond to the descriptions of Ezekiel and Revelation but lack the flaming wheels of the former and hold gospel books, signalling the four evangelists, while the scroll of Christ alludes to Isaiah 25:9. In particular, the Trisagion, or thrice-holy hymn chanted in the anaphora since the fourth century,37 inspired the depiction of seraphim and cherubim in apse decoration. Although the Trisagion imitates the cries of the seraphim of Isaiah and the four beasts of Revelation, it was inscribed in relation to other types of angels. The Trisagion appears on the standards of the archangels Michael and Gabriel on the sixth-century mosaics of the triumphal arch of Sant’ Apollinare in Classe (Figure 20.8), and on the standards of the four orders of angels – principalities, powers, dominations and virtues – belonging to the original, late seventh-century mosaics of the bema of the Church of the Dormition at Nicaea (Figure 20.9).38 These examples, along with the mosaic at Kiti, exploit the conflation of the angelic orders in the liturgy to encourage a typological reading of Scripture and proclaim the unity of sacred time, both important features of early Christian apse decoration and of Byzantine art in general.39 Likewise, the invocation of multiple angels would

Figure 20.7 Thessaloniki, Church of Hosios David. Apse mosaic. [Source: Bildarchiv Foto Marburg/Photo: Gloc, Jan/Haag, Paul]

Figure 20.8 Sant’ Apollinare in Classe, apse mosaic, triumphal arch, north side. Archangel Michael (pre-restoration photograph with painted plaster). [Source: Bildarchiv Foto Marburg]

Figure 20.9 Nicaea, Church of the Dormition, apse mosaic, bema, north side. Angels. [Source: The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg]

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have been thought more effective perhaps than that of a single type, in the same way that saints’ images were repeated in early churches.40 Not only are the orders of angels assimilated to each other, but also the clergy and congregation are assimilated to angels in liturgical texts. In the early fifth century, Balai of Aleppo compares the priests to the many-eyed seraphim or cherubim in a Syriac hymn on the church at Qenneshrin, after establishing the presence of God in the church: ‘For it is not an ordinary dwelling; it is heaven on earth since [heaven’s] Lord [dwells] in it. Instead of Watchers [are] the pure priests Who serve therein the Deity.’41 The comparison was repeated by Pseudo-Dionysios, who likens the clergy surrounding the altar to the seraphim surrounding God in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (ca. 500).42 The whole congregation is joined to the ranks of angels by means of the opening words of the Cherubic Hymn, or Cheroubikon, sung at the entrance of the gifts beginning in 573–4 under Justin II: ‘We who mystically represent the cherubim and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the lifegiving Trinity, let us lay aside all worldly care to receive the King of all escorted unseen by the angelic corps.’43 In a single passage of the Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation (ca. 730), Germanos I of Constantinople brings together the angels of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Revelation, extends the analogy to the priests and congregation, and confirms the iconography of the rhipidia: ‘The fans and the deacons are in the likeness of the six-winged Seraphim and the many-eyed Cherubim, for in this way earthly things imitate the heavenly, transcendent, spiritual order of things.’ He enumerates the cries of the ‘four-formed creatures’: the lion, calf and man, who ‘antiphonally exclaim’ the thrice ‘Holy’, while the eagle cries ‘Lord of Sabaoth.’ Like the seraph of Isaiah 6:6, the priest distributes the bread, taking in his tongs (i.e. hands) Christ, the spiritual coal.44 A coherent sanctuary programme influenced directly by the liturgy did not emerge in Byzantium until the eleventh or twelfth century.45 The decoration of the early Byzantine sanctuary was more allusive with respect to the liturgy. With a few exceptions, explicitly liturgical themes, like the Communion of the Apostles, were restricted to liturgical objects and to manuscripts.46 Most often the liturgy is signalled by Old Testament types, like the Hospitality of Abraham and the Sacrifice of Isaac in the presbytery of San Vitale in Ravenna (540–47/8), or by theophanies of Christ, including the visions of the prophets, which emphasize the presence of God in relation to the Eucharist.47 At Kiti, the many-eyed archangels reveal the liturgical significance of an apse mosaic centred on the theme of the Incarnation. The assimilation of Michael and Gabriel to the seraphim and cherubim, the two highest orders of angels, by means of the peacock-feathered wings, allows them to fulfil multiple functions in relation to the liturgy and the Virgin and Child. They serve as guardians and attendants of the holy figures and the altar, praising God eternally in heaven and in the Eucharist, and therefore as models for the priests and congregation. Although Glenn Peers has emphasized that all representations of angels are dissimulations because of their bodiless and everchanging nature, he concedes that modifications of the generic type of the winged

362 Brooke Shilling youth carry meaning and introduce complex relationships.48 In the context of the composition, the archangels at Kiti support a vision of the Virgin and Child, which I have described elsewhere as a parallel to the Eucharistic vision and a substitute for the vision of an increasingly remote and divine Christ.49 As the many-eyed creatures surround the throne of God in heaven, the wings of the archangels serve as an allusion to and a reminder of the divinity of the Christ Child held in the arms of the Virgin Mary. Likewise, in the absence of a vision of the divine Christ, the angels with peacock-feathered wings point towards heaven and inspire the mind to divine contemplation.50

Notes 1 H. Maguire, ‘The self-conscious angel: character study in Byzantine paintings of the Annunciation’, HUkSt 7 (1983), 377–92; H. Maguire, ‘A murderer among the angels: the frontispiece miniatures of Paris Gr. 510 and the iconography of the arch­ angels in Byzantine art’, in R. Ousterhout and L. Brubaker, eds., The Sacred Image East and West (Urbana, 1995), 63–71; H. Maguire, ‘The heavenly court’, in H. Maguire, ed., Byzantine Court Culture from 829–1204 (Washington, DC, 1997), 247–58. See also H. Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, 1996), 67–72, 82–5. 2 For the late sixth-century date, see A. H. S. Megaw, ‘Mosaici parietali paleobizantini di Cipro’, CorsiRav 32 (1985), 173–98; E. Fischer, ‘Die Panagia Angeloktistos in Kiti auf Zypern: Neue Aspekte zu Bau und Apsismosaik’, in S. Rogge, ed., Begeg­ nungen: Materielle Kulturen auf Zypern bis in die römische Zeit (Münster, 2007), 151–95; A. Foulias, ‘Το ψηφιδωτό της Αψίδας στην Παναγία Αγγελόκτιστη Κιτίου’, Επετηρίδα Κέντρου Μελετών Ιεράς Μονής Κύκκου 8 (2008), 269–334; B. Shilling, ‘Apse mosaics of the Virgin Mary in early Byzantine Cyprus’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 2013), 85–159. 3 On the motif as an allusion to the relic of the True Cross, see Shilling, ‘Apse mosaics of the Virgin Mary’, 116–17. Others note the appearance of the three-dimensional wooden cross; see Megaw, ‘Mosaici parietali paleobizantini di Cipro’, 185–6; D. Korol, ‘Die spätantikchristlichen Wand- und Gewölbemosaiken Zyperns (5.-7. Jh.) und ihre neuere Geschichte’, in S. Rogge, ed., Zypern: Insel im Brennpunkt der Kulturen (Münster, 2000), 159–201, esp. 174; Fischer, ‘Panagia Angeloktistos in Kiti auf Zypern’, 180. 4 Although such initials frequently mark the robes of angels, saints and prophets in early Christian art, their meaning is elusive. One theory is proposed by A. Quacquarelli, ‘I monogrammi cristologici del Battistero degli Ortodossi di Ravenna’, CorsiRav 26 (1979), 313–24. 5 On ancient glass spherical models of the earth and the heavens, see G. di Pasquale, ‘Scientific and technological use of glass in Graeco-Roman antiquity’, in M. Beretta, ed., When Glass Matters: Studies in the History of Science and Art from GraecoRoman Antiquity to Early Modern Era (Florence, 2004), 31–76, esp. 67–70. I thank Eunice Maguire for this reference. 6 On the meaning of this illusion, see B. Shilling, ‘The other door of the sanctuary: the apse and divine entry in the early Byzantine church’, in E. M. van Opstall, ed., Sacred Thresholds: The Door to the Sanctuary in Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2018), 341–70. 7 B. Shilling, ‘Fountains of paradise in early Byzantine art, homilies and hymns’, in B. Shilling and P. Stephenson, eds., Fountains and Water Culture in Byzantium (Cambridge, 2016), 208–28. 8 See the important study by G. Peers, Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium (Berkeley, 2001), esp. 13–60.

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9 For an example of a wingless angel, see the wall mosaic fragment (AD ca. 600) from the north chapel of the episcopal basilica at Kourion in Cyprus in A. H. S. Megaw et al., Kourion: Excavations in the Episcopal Precinct (Washington, DC, 2007), 46–50, fig. 1.2, pl. 1.30a; Megaw, ‘Mosaici parietali paleobizantini di Cipro’, 192–5. 10 Maguire explores the association of the emperor and archangels through imperial

dress in ‘A murderer among the angels’, 63–71 and ‘The heavenly court’, 247–58.

11 G. Forsyth and K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai:

The Church and Fortress of Justinian (Ann Arbor, 1973), 13, pls. 122B, 123B.

12 J. E. Quibell, Excavations at Saqqara (1908–9, 1909–10): The Monastery of Apa Jeremias (Cairo, 1912), 23, 98–99, 135, pl. 25. P. van Moorsel and M. Huijbers, ‘Repertory of the preserved wallpaintings from the Monastery of Apa Jeremiah at Saqqara’, in Miscellanea Coptica (Rome, 1981), 125–86, esp. 154, pls. 18–9. 13 The wall paintings at Bawit are not securely dated, but may be located between the second half of the sixth and the eighth centuries; see J. Clédat, Le monastère et la nécropole de Baouit (Cairo, 1906), 154, pls. 96, 98. 14 An eighth-century pair of archangels on the west wall of the narthex had wings covered with eyes; see cat. nos. 7–8, 16–17 in K. Michalowski, Faras: Die Wand­ bilder in den Sammlungen des Nationalmuseums zu Warschau (Warsaw, 1974), 103–9, 130–4. 15 T. Mathews, ‘The early Armenian iconographic program of the Ēǰmiacin Gospel (Erevan, Matendaran MS 2374, olim 229)’, in N. Garsoïan, T. Mathews and R. Thomson, eds., East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period (Washington, DC, 1982), 199–215. 16 D. T. Rice, Art of the Byzantine Era (New York, 1963), 60–1. 17 The inscription of the Virgin is found infrequently between the fifth and tenth centur­ ies with most examples coming from the Eastern Mediterranean. Foulias (‘Το ψηφιδωτό της Αψίδας στην Παναγία Αγγελόκτιστη Κιτίου’, 310–20) associates the title with a Monophysite patron. However, I do not see the title as contradictory to ‘Theotokos’ given the appearance of the terms together in texts and dedicatory inscriptions; see Shilling, ‘Apse mosaics of the Virgin Mary’, 141–56. 18 Maguire, Icons of Their Bodies, 36–40, 100–45. 19 Five functions of naming – identification, identity, authentication, intensification and manipulation – are explored by B. Kiilerich, ‘What’s in a name? The meaning of name inscriptions in Byzantine art’, in A. Quintavalle, ed., Medioevo: immagine e racconto: atti del Convegno internazionale di studi: Parma, 27–30 settembre 2000 (Milan, 2003), 87–95. 20 See H. Maguire, Earth and Ocean: The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art (University Park, 1987). 21 Ibid., 39–40; J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (Ithaca, 1973), 250–3. 22 Augustine, The City of God, 21.4. 23 Shilling, ‘Fountains of paradise’, 209–12. 24 E. Marke, Η νεκρόπολη της Θεσσαλονίκης στους υστερορωμαϊκούς και παλαιοχριστιανικούς χρόνους: μέςα του 3ου έως μέσα του 8 ου αι. μΧ. (Athens, 2006), 159, fig. 101, pl. 12c. 25 Maguire, Earth and Ocean, fig. 51. 26 Unfortunately, recent analysis of the manuscript has cast doubt on whether the illustra­ tions are contemporary with the Gospel text, dated by a colophon to 586; instead, they may have been produced earlier in the sixth century. Whether the text and images were joined together in 586 or only much later in the fifteenth century is also an outstanding question. See the collection of essays in M. Bernabò, ed., Il Tetravangelo di Rabbula: Firenze, Biblioteca medicea laurenziana, Plut. 1.56: l’illustrazione del Nuovo Testa­ mento nella Siria del VI secolo (Rome, 2008). On the manuscript, see also J. Leroy, Les manuscrits syriaques à peintures conservés dans les bibliothèques d’Europe et d’Orient (Paris, 1965), 139–97. 27 Shilling, ‘Fountains of paradise’, 208–28.

364 Brooke Shilling 28 M. Ross, Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dum­ barton Oaks Collection (3 vols., Washington, DC, 1962), vol. 1, 15–7; M. Mango, Silver from Early Byzantium: The Kaper Koraon and Related Treasures (Baltimore, 1986), 150–4. 29 Mango, Silver from Early Byzantium, 147–9. 30 S. Boyd, ‘Art in the service of the liturgy: Byzantine silver plate’, in L. Safran, ed., Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium (University Park, 1998), 152–85, esp. 163. Boyd suggests that silver liturgical fans had ceased to be used by the sixth century and instead functioned ceremonially. 31 Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art, 251. 32 The ostiarios was a court eunuch, responsible for introducing dignitaries to the emperor. See A. Kazhdan, ‘Ostiarios’, in A. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (3 vols., New York, 1991), vol. 3, 1540. In the Book of Ceremonies, ostiarioi appear to the right and left of the emperor in proces­ sions, carrying gold staffs decorated with precious stones. The Kletorologion (899) also specifies that the insignia of the silentiarios, awarded by the emperor, was a golden rod. See Constantine Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies, trans. A. Moffatt and M. Tall (2 vols., Canberra, 2012), vol. 1, book 1.10, 23–4; book 2.708. A. Vogt, Le livre des cérémonies (2 vols., Paris, 1935), vol. 1, book 1: 7, 18–19; vol. 1, commentary: 43. 33 Peers, Subtle Bodies, 46–9. 34 Pseudo-Dionysios, The Complete Works, trans. C. Luibheid and P. Rorem (New York, 1987). 35 F. E. Brightman, ed., Liturgies Eastern and Western (Oxford, 1896), 175, 385, also cited in Peers, Subtle Bodies, 48. The relevant sections of the Chrysostom and Coptic liturgies are dated respectively to AD ca. 398 and the late fourth to mid-fifth century; see P. F. Bradshaw and M. E. Johnson, The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation (Collegeville, 2012), 82–3, 93–9. 36 On the visions of Ezekiel and Habakkuk, following the fourteenth-century (?) monk Ignatius, see A. Xyngopoulos, ‘Τὸ Καθολικὸν τῆς μονῆς Λατόμου ἐν Θεσσαλονίκῃ καὶ τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ ψηφιδωτόν’, Ἀρχ.Δελτ. 12 (1929), 142–80. On Ezekiel’s vision with Ezekiel and Zacharias, then Peter and Paul, see A. Grabar, Martyrium: recherches sur le culte des reliques et l’art chrétien antique (2 vols., Paris, 1946) vol. 2, 198–202; A. Grabar, ‘A propos d’une icone byzantine du XIVe siècle’, CahArch 10 (1959), 289–304. On John’s vision with Isaiah or Ezekiel and John, see J. Snyder, ‘The meaning of the “Maiestas Domini” in Hosios David’, Byzantion 37 (1967), 143–52. On the impossibility of making a precise identification and the mid sixthcentury date, see J.-M. Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments du IVe au VIe siècle: contribution à l’étude d’une ville paléochrétienne (Athens, 1984), 157–60. 37 R. F. Taft, ‘Trisagion’, in Kazhdan and Talbot, eds., Oxford Dictionary, vol. 3, 2121. 38 F. W. Deichmann, Ravenna: Hauptstadt des spätantiken Abendlandes (3 vols., Weis­ baden, 1969–76), vol.2.2, 245–6. The standards and inscriptions of the angels at Nicaea are preserved from the first phase of decoration, while the angels date to the ninth century; see P. Underwood, ‘The evidence of restorations in the sanctuary mosaics of the church of the Dormition at Nicaea’, DOP 13 (1959), 235–43. 39 Cf. E. Thunø, The Apse Mosaic in Early Medieval Rome: Time, Network, Repetition (Cambridge, 2015). 40 Cf. Maguire, Icons of Their Bodies, 100–45. 41 Madrasha 4, cited in K. McVey, ‘Spirit embodied: the emergence of symbolic inter­ pretations of early Christian and Byzantine architecture’, in S. Ćurčić and E. Hadjitryphonos, eds., Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art (Princeton, 2010), 39–71, esp. 55.

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42 Pseudo-Dionysios, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, trans. T. Campbell (Washington, DC, 1981), 57, 175. 43 R. Taft, The Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and Other PreAnaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Rome, 1975), 54–5; M. Solovey, The Byzantine Divine Liturgy: History and Commentary, trans. D. Wysochansky (Washington, DC, 1970), 226–9. 44 Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, trans. P. Meyendorff (Crest­ wood, 1984), 94–7. 45 C. Walter, Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church (London, 1982); S. E. J. Gerstel, Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs of the Byzantine Sanctuary (Seattle, 1999). 46 See for example Mango, Silver from Early Byzantium, 159–70. 47 Grabar, Martyrium, vol. 2, 129–234; C. Ihm, Die Programme der christlichen Apsis­ malerei vom vierten Jahrhundert bis zur Mitte des achten Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 1960), 42–51; J.-M. Spieser, ‘Further remarks on the mosaic of Hosios David’, in J.­ M. Spieser, Urban and Religious Spaces in Late Antiquity and Byzantium (Aldershot, 2001), 1–12; Shilling, ‘Other door of the sanctuary’, 341–70; Thunø, Apse Mosaic. 48 Peers, Subtle Bodies, 55–9. 49 Shilling, ‘Other door of the sanctuary’, 341–70. On distancing elements in the imagery of the divine Christ, see J.-M. Spieser, ‘The representation of Christ in the apses of early Christian churches’, Gesta 37.1 (1998), 63–73. 50 On spiritual ascent as a function of medieval art, see the collection of essays in H. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadel­ phia, 2000).

21 Absence of nomina sacra in post-iconoclastic images of Christ and the Virgin Mosaics of Hagia Sophia,

Constantinople

Natalia Teteriatnikov* It is a privilege to write in honour of Henry Maguire, whose innovative studies in the field of Byzantine art continue to stimulate art historians. This chapter focuses on the absence of inscribed monograms, also known as nomina sacra (abbreviated names commonly used in depictions of Christ and the Virgin),1 in post-iconoclastic mosaics of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (originally built and decorated in 532–37). The absence of names in Late Antique saints’ portraits was initially addressed by Henry Maguire.2 Later, Karen Boston further explored this theme, but limited her study to images of Christ in the period immediately after iconoclasm.3 She found that until the first decades of the tenth century, images of Christ were often depicted without inscribed names in some Constantinopolitan works of art. Further examining images of Christ in monumental decoration in other areas of the Byzantine Empire, particularly Egypt, Sinai and Cappadocia, Boston concluded that images of Christ were, in fact, labelled in these areas during this period. She proposed that the tradition of labelling images of Christ could have come to Constantinople from Cappadocia or the Near East.4 In this chapter I expand on the work of Maguire and Boston by discussing the ninth- and early tenth-century mosaics of Hagia Sophia, which include images of both Christ and the Virgin without monograms. I further open the discourse on why monograms of Christ and the Virgin are not included in the mosaic programme of Hagia Sophia and other Constantinopolitan works of art from the post-iconoclastic period. The first part of this chapter discusses the material data; the second part deals with church fathers’ responses to holy names through the period after iconoclasm. I suggest that after iconoclasm the church of Constantinople probably intended to reinstate the old pre-iconoclastic tradition of depicting images of Christ and the Virgin without inscribed names to authenticate the restored images, though the veneration of both, images and their respective names, was already understood and slowly appropriated by iconophiles in art and church decoration during the second period of iconoclasm. After monograms first appear on imperial coins and seals depicting Christ and the Virgin, an official statement on correct representation, they began to be incorporated in art and church decoration of Constantinople.

Absence of nomina sacra 367

Depictions of Christ and the Virgin in Constantinople after iconoclasm Holy images were gradually interpolated into the old, aniconic mosaic programme of Hagia Sophia soon after iconoclasm. These include the Virgin and Christ child in the apse; angels, archangels, prophets and the church fathers in the north and south tympana; and the Virgin in a medallion flanked by Peter and Paul on the western arch of the naos, as well as the emperor before Christ enthroned above the royal doors in the narthex (Figures 21.1–21.3). The unusual feature of this new programme is that the names of prophets and church fathers in the tympana are all inscribed, but images of Christ and the Virgin have no monograms (such as ‘IC ΧC’ or ‘ΜP ΘΥ’). Only one image of the Virgin, in a medallion at the apex of the western arch, has the monogram ‘ΜP ΘΥ’, according to a drawing by Wilhelm Salzenberg.5 Although few images have survived in the tympana mosaics, Cyril Mango reconstructed the programmes of both tympana based on images of the drawings and watercolours made during the restoration of Hagia Sophia by Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati from 1847 to 1849 and Salzenberg, when these now-lost mosaics were still in situ (Figure 21.2).6 Thus, depictions of Christ and the Virgin in key locations in the church show that their names were strangely omitted. The earliest are the mosaics of the Virgin and Child enthroned in the apse conch and the archangels in the bema (ca. 867) (Figure 21.1),7 followed by the lunette mosaic in

Figure 21.1 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, apse mosaic. Virgin and Child enthroned. [Source: Author]

Figure 21.2 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, nave. Diagram of the north tympanum. [Source: After Mango and Hawkins, ‘The Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul: The Church Fathers in the North Tympanum’, Diagram IV]

Figure 21.3 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, narthex, mosaic over imperial door. Emperor before Christ. [Source: Author]

Absence of nomina sacra 369 the narthex depicting the emperor before Christ enthroned (Figure 21.3).8 The names of all figures, including the emperor, Christ and two medallion busts of the archangel Michael or Gabriel and the Virgin are absent. The monogram ‘IC XC’ was added later, probably in the eleventh century (according to Ernest Hawkins), evidenced by the disturbed mosaic tesserae around Christ’s nimbus.9 Thus, like the Virgin in the apse, all images of the narthex lunette originally lacked inscriptions. There is one more mosaic panel in the room above the southwest vestibule made in the 870s (Figure 21.4).10 The lunette above the entrance door of this room depicts the Deesis, including Christ enthroned flanked by the Virgin and John the Baptist. In this room, the surviving mosaic fragments of saints and church fathers show that they were labelled. The figure of John in the Deesis panel is completely lost except for a portion of his halo. The plaster is missing around the upper portion of the Christ figure. Fortunately, there is an area of original plaster around the upper part of the Virgin’s nimbus.

Figure 21.4 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, room above the southwest vestibule, north wall, lunette mosaic. Fragmentary Deesis. [Source: MS. BZ.004, The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Field Records and Papers, ca. late 1920s–2000s, Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC]

370 Natalia Teteriatnikov The tesserae are almost gone, but the preparatory paint outlining the nimbus survives. There is no sign of preparatory drawings for inscriptions or traces of their tesserae in the background on the setting bed to either side of her halo. Therefore, the reconstruction of the Deesis produced by Hawkins does not include monograms. In contrast to the foregoing mosaics, all later depictions of Christ, the Virgin and other holy figures found in Hagia Sophia have monograms, notably two pairs of imperial portraits: Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55) and Zoe (ca. 978–1050) before Christ11 and John II Komnenos (1118–43) and Irene with their son Alexios before the image of the Virgin on the east wall of the south gallery,12 and the emperors Constantine the Great and Justinian before the Virgin and Christ child in the north lunette of the south vestibule (made in the last decades of the tenth century).13 We have nothing with which to compare these mosaics, because Hagia Sophia is the only surviving monumental decorative programme from ninth-century Constantinople. Looking at other forms of artistic production in Constantinople during this period, we discover that Christ and the Virgin are depicted frequently without monograms in manuscripts, ivories and other media. Among manuscripts, the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzos, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, cod. gr. 510, represents the work of an imperial workshop. It was commissioned for the emperor Basil I (r. 867–86) sometime between 879 and 882, probably by the patriarch Photius.14 Fol. Av (1) presents a full-page illustration of Christ enthroned, with no monogram on either side of his cross-nimbus. The mid ninth-century Khludov Psalter (Moscow, State Historical Museum, Klud. 129-d) was produced in the circle of Patriarch Methodius.15 Several depictions of Christ and the Virgin in this manuscript lack labels, including fol. 1v, which features a medallion depicting a youthful Christ with a cross-nimbus (Figure 21.5). Images of Christ and the Virgin Orans in Princeton Univ. Lib. Garrett 6, fols. 10v and 11r, on the other hand, include the monograms ‘IC XC’ and ‘ΜHP ΘΥ.’16 These illuminations, like those of the Khludov Psalter, date to the mid-ninth century. Yet, unlike the Paris Gregory and the Khludov Psalter, these images are labelled. A final case is the ninth- or early tenthcentury book cover in the Biblioteca Marciana, Ms. Lat. CI.1. 101, with an enamelled Crucifixion on the front and the Virgin Orans on the back.17 These images are labelled ‘IC XC’ and ‘ΜP ΘΥ’, respectively.18 Provincial church decoration, on the other hand, presents an utterly different picture. The churches in Cappadocia and Egypt, as examined by Boston, show that in the second half of the ninth through the tenth century all images, including Christ’s, are carefully labelled. The same trend has been observed in depictions of Mary. Thus, surviving church decoration from the Byzantine provinces and artefacts produced in Constantinople confirm that monograms of Christ and the Virgin were applied inconsistently. To better understand why names were not always applied to images of Christ and the Virgin in Constantinople, we need to review the process of appropriation of holy names in images during Late Antiquity and iconoclasm.

Figure 21.5 Moscow, State Historical Museum, Gr. 129 (Khludov Psalter), fol. 1v [Source: after M. V. Shchepkina, Miniatiury Khludovskoi psaltyri: grecheskii illiustrirovannyi kodeks IX veka (Moscow, 1977)]

372 Natalia Teteriatnikov

Christ, the Virgin Mary and their names in Late Antiquity In Late Antiquity, depictions of Christ and the Virgin feature two main characteristics: first, they were rarely labelled, and second, labelling of both occurred at different times. The reason for not labelling, as Maguire has suggested, was that everyone knew who they were. Indeed, Christ and the Virgin were the most recognizable religious figures due to their iconographic attributes. Images of Christ usually include a cross-nimbus, a symbol of his death on the cross on the hill and an attribute that only appears with Christ. In some cases, as in the apse mosaics in the church of Santa Pudenziana (ca. 401–17), Christ does not have a nimbus, but the cross is shown above his head.19 At Santa Pudenziana he also holds an inscribed book, another of his common attributes. None of the figures in this mosaic are labelled. A similar case can be found in the mosaics of the mausoleum of Galla Placidia (d. 450), in which images of Christ as the Good Shepherd and various saints are not labelled.20 In this case, Christ has a nimbus without a cross, but instead he holds a cross-staff (Figure 21.6). Another example is the mosaic of the Transfiguration in the apse of the basilica of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai decorated during the reign of the emperor Justinian.21 Here, all apostles and prophets are labelled, but Christ’s name is omitted (Figure 21.7). As for the Virgin, she is commonly depicted dressed in a maphorion.22 When she appears with the Christ child, the latter in most cases has a cross-nimbus, holds a scroll and adopts a gesture of blessing. Occasionally, when she is

Figure 21.6 Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, mosaic over the entrance. Christ as the Good Shepherd. [Source: Author]

Absence of nomina sacra 373

Figure 21.7 Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, church, apse mosaic. Transfiguration. [Source: M. Lidova]

shown without a nimbus, as in the case of the sixth-century ivory diptych from the Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz,23 the pair can still be identified because the Christ child gives a blessing with his right hand while holding a scroll in his left. The above-mentioned attributes of Christ and the Virgin serve as identifiers and were a part of their perception by the faithful. Like Christ and the Virgin, saints rarely received labels. The oral knowledge of images may have played a role. The frequently used formula ‘in the memory of those whose names are known to God’,24 which derives from the prayer for the dead, suggests that it was also not necessary to spell out saints’ names on icons. Such a formula is occasionally found on tombstones, in church decoration and on artefacts, such as the floor mosaics of the chapel near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem,25 and the mosaics in the church of Saint Demetrios in Thessaloniki.26 From the sixth century onwards, names were slowly incorporated into images of Christ and the Virgin, yet labels in the images of the Virgin Mary changed during Late Antiquity and in the eighth and ninth centuries. The earliest representations of the Virgin are often inscribed ‘Maria.’ As Ioli Kalavrezou has shown, in the art of the fifth and sixth centuries, the Virgin is represented as the mother of Christ without attributes of her holiness, as seen in monumental decoration like the mosaics of San Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna (Figure 21.8).27 During this period, her name was inscribed as MAPIA or HAΓIA MAPIA,28 or in mosaics of the apse of the church of

374 Natalia Teteriatnikov

Figure 21.8 Ravenna, S. Apollinare Nuovo, North wall, mosaic. Virgin and Child enthroned. [Source: Author]

Panagia Angeloktisti at Kition, Cyprus.29 In some instances these names appear as monograms, as seen in the fifth- or sixth-century icon of the Virgin from the State Museum in Kiev30 or the seventh- or eighth-century icon of the Crucifixion at the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai.31 The fifth and sixth centuries brought additional changes. The Virgin’s name occasionally appears as HAΓIA ΘΕΟΤOKOS. Kalavrezou has explained that Mary’s title Theotokos (‘The one who bore God’) received the approval of the council of Ephesus in 431, which was primarily devoted to debating the human and divine natures of Christ. From that point, the name Theotokos is slowly appropriated in art and church decoration. It appears in inscriptions, for example on the sixth-century openwork lamp from Sion in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Washington, DC (BZ.1965.1.12).32 After the council of 787, when the veneration of icons was re­ established,33 a new name, ΜΗΤΗΡ ΘΕΟΥ, first appears in works of art such as the Martvili triptych,34 the silver cross from the church of Saint Nicolo di Mendicoli, Venice35 and others. After the final restoration of images and the triumph of Orthodoxy (c. 843), images of the Virgin continue to lack labels, for example the ninth-century apse mosaics depicting the standing figure of the Virgin in the church of the Dormition at Nicaea36 or the previously discussed apse mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Figure 21.9). To understand the inconsistency in

Figure 21.9 Nicaea, Koimesis Church, apse mosaic. Virgin and Child. [Source: after T. Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia das bauwerk und die mosaiken (Berlin, 1927), pl. 20]

376 Natalia Teteriatnikov using inscribed names in images of Christ and the Virgin, I will examine the perception of holy names by church fathers of Late Antiquity and after iconoclasm.

Church fathers’ perceptions of holy names The phenomenon of using nomina sacra in images of Christ and the Virgin is rooted in the idea of naming God, and thus can be understood in the context of his perception in Late Antiquity. God acquired multiple names in the Bible such as Adonai, All-High, Blessed, Creator, Elohim and Sabaoth among others.37 These names had power, yet God was incomprehensible and no name could convey his essence. Early church fathers, including Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzos or Ephrem the Syrian, among others, formulated a conception of God in their writings.38 For example, Clement of Alexandria wrote: One should not speak about God’s parts either; for the One is invisible and therefore also infinite; not understood in terms of space or time but as a continuum and without limit and, therefore, formless and nameless. If we should give it a name, improperly calling it either ‘One’ or the ‘Good’, either ‘Mind’ or the ‘Selfsame’, either ‘Father’ or ‘God’, or either ‘Creator’ or ‘Lord’, we speak without applying its name; but, being at a loss, we use beautiful names in order that our understanding may find support in them, while not going astray in other directions. For each individual name is not informative of God, but all names together are indicative of the power of the Almighty.39 Therefore, the name should be used with caution. The same theology was applied to the name of Christ, the second person of the Trinity. Christ’s name was discussed within the Trinitarian framework by theologians, especially Ephrem the Syrian, Gregory of Nazianzos and Pseudo-Dionysios.40 During the fifth and sixth centuries, debates on the divinity of Christ and, consequently, his mother were central topics among the church fathers and theologians. As mentioned earlier, the Council of Ephesus (ca. 431) was the first to establish the status of the Virgin by giving her the title Theotokos,41 reinforcing her important role as the Mother of God. Pseudo-Dionysios pursued the meaning of Christ’s names further in his treatise on Divine Names (written sometime in the last decades of the fifth or first decades of the sixth century).42 In this work, he focused on the different names of Christ, including Light, Life, Logos, Wisdom and Ancient of Days. His work was influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy and particularly by his teacher Proklos, one of the last pagan philosophers who addressed the meanings of the names of gods in a new way.43 Proklos rejected the Aristotelian understanding of names as symbols and brought forward a new concept of names as likenesses of images and applied this concept to the names of pagan gods. This idea was further developed by

Absence of nomina sacra 377 Pseudo-Dionysios concerning the names of Christ. He explained that the use of multiple names for God conveys his essence, and although Dionysios did not apply the names of God or Christ to artistic representations, many artists responded to the growing preference for naming Christ. The influence of Dionysios’s writings can be seen in the sixth- or seventh-century icon of Christ enthroned from the Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai. In this icon, Christ is labelled E [MMA] NOYHL and is portrayed with hair and a white beard as the Ancient of Days.44 Here we see one of the earliest manifestations of Christ’s names in pictorial representation. Dionysios’s works were wellknown and appreciated in Egyptian monastic communities, especially in the circle of John Philoponus, a theologian from Alexandria.45 Dionysios’s works were slowly appropriated by church fathers of Late Antiquity, especially during the sixth, seventh and later in the eighth centuries in the Christian East. During the first phase of iconoclasm (726–87), Dionysios’s work became exceptionally influential. The importance of holy names was addressed by John of Damascus specifically in the context of holy icons. The second council of Nicaea (787) was convened to restore the veneration of images. The acts of this council stated: We honour and salute and reverently venerate: to wit, the image of the incarnation of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that of our spot­ less Lady the all-holy Mother of God, from whom he pleased to take flesh, and to save and deliver us from all impious idolatry; also the images of the holy and incorporeal Angels, who as men appeared to the just. Likewise also the figures and effigies of the divine and all-lauded Apostles, also of the God-speaking Prophets, and of the struggling Martyrs and of holy men. So that through their representations we may be able to be led back in memory and recollection to the prototype, and have a share in the holiness of some one of them.46 The debates on the names of holy images continued during the second period of iconoclasm (814–43). The question of names inscribed on holy images was raised by Theodore the Studite, who provided an answer to iconoclasts during the debates: ‘Is the inscription to be venerated?’ the heretics ask, ‘or the icon, of which the title is inscribed? Is it exclusively one or the other, and not both? How?’ That is rather like asking, ‘Is it right to venerate the Gospel book or the title on it? The representation of the cross or the inscription on it?’ I might add also in the case of our own kind, ‘the man, or his name?’ per­ haps of Paul and Peter and each of the individuals of the same species. Would not that be stupid, not to say ridiculous? What is there, of all things before our eyes, that is nameless? How can the thing which is named be separated in honour from its own appellation, so that we may offer vener­ ation to the one and deprive the other of it? These are relationships, for

378 Natalia Teteriatnikov a name is by nature the same of something which is named, and not a sort of natural image of that to which it is applied. Therefore the unity in vener­ ation is not divided.47 In this passage, Theodore argues that an image and its inscribed name are one and the same and should be equally venerated. From this, it becomes apparent that the legitimacy of names in holy icons was supported by iconophiles. What is not clear, however, is the consistency of applying names in icons. The surviving images from this period, as discussed earlier, present no change in this direction. Some images include names, while others do not. In the churches of the West of this period, the depiction of saints, Christ and the Virgin are always accompanied by their names (for example, in the churches of Rome). Because there was no iconoclasm in the West, and thus no destruction of images, the names of Christ, the Virgin and saints were gradually integrated in all media from the sixth century on. By the seventh and eighth centuries, holy names had become a part of image identity. As for Constantinople, inscribing saints’ names after iconoclasm was of paramount importance. During this period, worshipers may no longer have remembered the exact portrayals and attributes of saints. Church fathers of the time even criticize artisans for incorrect depictions of holy persons. One of the decrees of the second council of Nicaea regarding the definition of images was: To make our confession short, we keep unchanged all the ecclesiastical tra­ ditions handed down to us, whether in writing or verbally, one of which is the making of pictorial representations, agreeable to the history of the preaching of the Gospel, a tradition useful in many respects, but especially in this, that so the incarnation of the Word of God is shown forth as real and not merely fantastic, for these have mutual indications and without doubt have also mutual significations.48 Some church fathers, on the other hand, stress that the veneration of old images, particularly those of Christ, have to rely on long-standing tradition. During the iconoclastic debates about the legitimacy of holy images, Patriarch Nikephoros I wrote: Furthermore, we affirm that the delineation of representation of Christ was not instituted by us, that it was not begun in our generation, nor is it a reinvention. Painting is dignified by age, it is distinguished by antiquity, and is coeval with the preaching of the Gospel. To put it briefly and emphatically, these sacred representations, inasmuch as they were tokens (symbola) of our immaculate faith, came into existence and flourished, as did the faith, from the very begin­ ning: undertaken by the Apostles, this practice received the approval of the Fathers. For just as these men instructed us in the words of divine religion, so in this respect also, acting in the manner as those who represent in painting the glorious deeds of the past.49

Absence of nomina sacra 379 Nikephoros suggests that holy images, particularly of Christ, should be represented as in the past. This statement does not specify whether images should be labelled or not. It seems that the subsequent patriarchs of Constantinople implemented this concept of restoration of images as they were in the past. Patriarch Methodios, a follower of Nikephoros, worked to include images in art and illuminated manuscripts. The Khludov Psalter was produced in the circle of Methodios and, as has been suggested, demonstrates how images of Christ and the Virgin lack labels while saints and other biblical subjects are correctly identified. The mosaic images in the nave of Hagia Sophia were most likely supervised by Patriarch Photios during his two terms (858–67 and 877–86). Photios had great regard for Late Antique tradition. His library and his review of Late Antique authors is a testimony to his keen interest in keeping dogmatic issues alive.50 Photios was a student of Patriarch Methodios. Notably, the inscription on the triumphal arch of Hagia Sophia reads: ‘The images which the impostors had cast down here pious emperors have again set up.’51 This quote belongs to the same mosaic production as the apse mosaic with the enthroned Virgin and Christ child (ca. 867).52 Thus the image was executed during the term of Patriarch Photios, whose interpretation of the restoration of images was to depict them as they had been in the past. Although the mosaic image in the apse before the Virgin and Child was most likely a cross, the inscription probably refers to a general destruction of images during iconoclasm and their restoration by the emperors after the triumph of Orthodoxy (ca. 843).53 The ninth century was a period of compiling and organizing data pertaining to liturgical calendars, saints’ lives and church feasts. The information was preserved in cathedral and monastic typika, menologia, euchologia and prophetologia. The surviving menologia and prophetologia show illustrations of saints and prophets with names inscribed.54 Furthermore, after iconoclasm, the liturgical typikon of the Saint Sabas (or Mar Saba) Monastery near Jerusalem was adopted everywhere in the Near East and, ultimately, in Constantinople, providing consistency and regulation.55 Thus labelling holy images most likely became a necessity for the purposes of public education. Yet the artistic production in Constantinople shows that there was an effort to carry on the pre-iconoclastic tradition of not labelling images of Christ and the Virgin, especially in the cathedral church of the capital. This tradition carried on until the end of the tenth century before slowly fading away. I would like to suggest here that the final data point in the chronology of the labelling of images of Christ and the Virgin was the appearance of their monograms on imperial coins.

Monograms of Christ and the Virgin on coins After the period of iconoclasm, Michael III (r. 842–67) re-established a bust of Christ on one side of his solidus, similar to the one found on the coins of Justinian II (r. 685–95, 705–11). However, Michael added the inscription ‘IESOUS CHRISTOS’ around the rim.56 Yet, almost a century later, John I Tzimiskes (r. 969–76) introduced the image of Christ with the first depiction

380 Natalia Teteriatnikov

Figure 21.10 Cambridge, Harvard Art Museum. Coin of emperor John Tzimiskes. [Source: after A. R. Bellinger and P. Grierson, eds., Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dum­ barton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection (5 vols., Washington, DC, 1966–99), vol. 3, part 2, pl. XLII, no. 6b]

of a monogram on the nomisma and follis (Figure 21.10).57 On the nomisma, the bust of Christ Pantokrator with ‘IC XC’ appears on the obverse, while the reverse depicts the emperor John holding a patriarchal cross and crowned by the Virgin.58 The depiction of Christ was considered an innovation and was recorded later by the historian George Kedrenos, who copied this information from Skylitzes: And he [John] ordered also the image of the Saviour to be engraved on his nomisma and the obol [follis] which had not been done before this. And Greek letters were engraved on the other side to about this effect: Jesus Christ, King of Kings. And the emperors who succeeded him did likewise.59 The appearance of Christ accompanied by his monogram on a coin was linked to John’s piety. John had rebuilt and enlarged the chapel of Christ Chalkites.

Absence of nomina sacra 381 This chapel had an icon of Christ to which John was devoted. From this point onward the monogram of Christ was applied consistently in the art and monumental decoration of Constantinople. It is also possible that soon after John’s coin was issued the monogram was added to the above-mentioned image of Christ enthroned in the lunette mosaic above the royal door in the esonarthex of Hagia Sophia (Figure 21.11). The official appearance of the Virgin’s monogram as ‘ΜΡ ΘΥ’ is first registered on a gold coin of Leo VI (r. 886–908) (Figure 21.12a & b).60 It presents the image of the Virgin on the obverse and Leo VI on the reverse. The bust of the Virgin is of the Blachernitissa type, and is identified by the inscription MARIA along the top border. In addition, the monogram ‘ΜP ΘΥ’ appears on each side of the Virgin’s nimbus. This is the first monogram of the Virgin to appear on imperial coins. Her monograms regularly appear in Constantinopolitan works of art and monumental decoration from the tenth century on. Coins were in the public domain, and their iconography had an impact on society and art. Combining the imperial portrait with a holy image accompanied by his or her respective names, coins manifested imperial devotion to the rest of society. Monograms of Christ and the Virgin on these coins also act as ‘seals’ and ensure divine protection on the emperors’ behalf and of the citizens who own these coins.61

Figure 21.11 Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, narthex, mosaic over imperial door. Emperor before Christ, detail of Christ. [Source: Author]

Figure 21.12a Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Coin of emperor Leo VI, obverse. Virgin Mary. [Source: Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC]

Figure 21.12b Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, Coin of emperor Leo VI, reverse. Emperor Leo VI. [Source: Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection, Washington, DC]

Absence of nomina sacra 383

Conclusion In the early days of Christianity, artisans were cautious in applying names to images of Christ and the Virgin because the names of God were incomprehensible, as attested by Late Antique church fathers. Some images of Christ and the Virgin in art and church decoration received abbreviated names (nomina sacra) for devotional purposes, a practice probably adopted from the manuscript tradition. During the fifth and sixth centuries, the debates over the two natures of Christ promoted the discussion of the power of holy names. In the course of the iconoclastic period, the subject of inscribed names on holy images was addressed in the discussion on the legitimacy of icons, especially by John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite. Yet after iconoclasm, the lack of monograms in the portrayals of Christ and the Virgin in the mosaics of Hagia Sophia and other works of art produced in Constantinople was intended to reinforce the pretence that these images were restored by the iconophiles, as stated in the inscription that originally ran along the triumphal arch of Hagia Sophia. The second part of the ninth century was a transitional period for the church and the artistic milieu of Constantinople. Old traditions persisted alongside the new ones that emerged, as demonstrated by the labels accompanying some images from this period. After iconoclasm, the pre-iconoclastic tradition of omitting monograms from depictions of Christ and the Virgin continued as a manifestation of their authentication. Furthermore, the lack of monograms in images of Christ and the Virgin in the mosaics of Hagia Sophia can be understood as a statement of the restoration of ‘old’ tradition destroyed by the iconoclasts. This trend continued for some time in the art of Constantinople until the official introduction of monograms on imperial coins. From that point onward, the monograms of Christ and the Virgin were firmly established in all media. When the memory of iconoclasm faded away in the tenth century, the majority of images were labelled.

Notes * I would like to thank Alice-Mary Talbot for reading this chapter and offering valuable suggestions. My thanks go to Alyson Williams (Dumbarton Oaks Library) and Joni Joseph and the Byzantine Collection of Dumbarton Oaks for providing images. I would like to thank also Linda Safran for bibliographic references. 1 Nomina Sacra are divine names, which derived from the Old and New Testament includ­ ing Θεός, Κύριος, Ἰησοῦς, Χριστός, Μήτηρ, Θεοτόκος, Πατήρ, Ἄνθρωπος among others. These can be distinctly abbreviated. Other shortened or abbreviated names are not included in the list of nomina sacra, as for example saints names, which can be some­ times shortened. Nomina sacra first appeared in written texts and were used by scribes for devotional and other purposes. Nomina sacra slowly penetrated early Christian art and were used on artefacts and in church decoration. On the origin and function of nomina sacra, see L. W. Hurtado, ‘The origin of the Nomina Sacra: a proposal’, JBL 117.4 (1998), 655–73; L. W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Cambridge, 2006); C. M. Tuckett, ‘Nomina Sacra: yes and no?’, in J.­ M. Auwers and H. J. de Jonge, eds., The Biblical Canons (Leuven, 2003), 431–58; J. Heath, ‘Nomina Sacra and Sacra Memoria before the monastic age’, JThSt 61 (2010), 1–34; S. V. Leatherbury, ‘Reading and seeing faith in Byzantium: the Sinai inscription as verbal and visual “text”’, Gesta 55.2 (2016), 133–56, esp. 143–4.

384 Natalia Teteriatnikov

2 Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton,

1996), esp., 100–6, 144; H. Maguire, ‘Eufrasius and friends: on names and their absence in Byzantine Art’, in L. James, ed., Art and Text in Byzantine Culture (Cambridge, 2007), 139–60. A. Terry, H. Maguire. Dynamic Splendor: The Wall Mosaics in the Cath­ edral of Eufrasius at Poreč. 2 vols. (University Park, PA, 2007), vol. 1, 142–47. 3 K. Boston, ‘The power of inscriptions and the trouble with texts’, in A. Eastmond and L. James, eds., Icon and Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium. Studies Pre­ sented to Robin Cormack (Burlington, 2003), 35–51. 4 Many monuments cited date loosely to the second part of the ninth and early tenth century. 5 W. Salzenberg, Alt-christliche Baudenkmale von Constantinopel vom V. bis XII. Jahr­ hundert (Berlin, 1854), pl. BI. XXXII; C. Mango, Materials for the Study of the Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul (Washington, DC, 1962), 76–80, fig. 100. 6 Mango, Materials, diagrams III–IV. 7 The golden backgrounds around the figure of the Virgin were set up at the same time as her figure. See C. Mango and E. J. W. Hawkins. ‘The apse mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul: report on work carried out in 1964’, DOP 19 (1965), 115–48 esp. 124–5. 8 T. Whittemore, The Mosaics of St. Sophia in Istanbul. Preliminary Report on the First-Forth Year’s Work, 1931/32–1934/38 (4 vols., Paris, 1933–52), vol. 1, 14–24 and pls. XII-XXI; T. Whittemore, ‘Mosaics of Aya Sophia’, BIABulg 10 (1936), 202–6; T. Whittemore, ‘The narthex mosaics of Sancta Sophia’, Atti del V Congresso internazionali di studi bizantini (2 vols., Rome, 1939), vol. 2, 214–13; Mango, Materials, 24–5, fig. 8; C. Osieczkowska, ‘La mosaïque de la porte royale de Sainte-Sophie de Constantinople et la litanie de tous les saints’, Byzantion 9 (1934), 41–83; A. Grabar, L’empereur dans l’art byzantin (London, 1971), 98–106; N. Oikonomides, ‘Leo VI and the narthex mosaic of Saint Sophia’, DOP 30 (1976), 151–72; Z. Gavrilović, ‘The humiliation of Leo VI the Wise (the mosaic of the nar­ thex at Saint Sophia, Istanbul)’, CahArch 28 (1979), 87–94; R. Cormack, ‘Interpret­ ing the mosaics of S. Sophia at Istanbul’, AH 4.2 (1981), 131–50; R. Cormack, ‘The Emperor at Hagia Sophia: viewer and viewed’, in A. Guillou and J. Durand, eds., Byzance et les images (Paris, 1994), 223–54. 9 E. J. W. Hawkins, ‘Further observations on the narthex mosaic in St. Sophia at Istan­ bul’, DOP 22 (1968), 151–66, esp. 164, fig. 2. 10 R. Cormack and E. J. W. Hawkins, ‘The mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul: the rooms above the south vestibule and ramp’, DOP 31 (1977), 175–251, esp. 213–9, figs. 27–8, 36. 11 Mango, Materials, 27–8 and figs. 14–16. 12 Ibid., 28 and fig. 17. 13 Whittemore, Mosaics of St. Sophia, vol. 2, 29–31; Whittemore, ‘On the dating of some mosaics in Hagia Sophia’, BMMA 5 (1946), 34–45; Mango, Materials, 23–5; Grabar, L’empereur dans l’art byzantin, 109–11; R. Cormack, ‘The Mother of God in the mosaics of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople’, in M. Vassilaki, ed., Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art (Milan, 2000), 107–23. 14 L. Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge, 1999), xvii, 5–7. 15 M. V. Shchepkina, Miniatiury Khludovskoĭ psaltyri: grecheskiĭ illiustrirovannyĭ kodeks IX veka (Moscow, 1977), fol. 1v; H. C. Evans and W. D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261 (New York, 1997), 97–8. 16 K. Weitzmann and G. Galavaris, The Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Illu­ minated Manuscripts (Princeton, 1990), 42–6; G. Vikan, Illuminated Greek Manuscripts from American Collections (Princeton, 1973), fig. 1; N. Teteriatnikov, ‘Illuminated manu­ scripts’, in S. Ćurčić and A. St. Clair, eds., Byzantium at Princeton (Princeton, 1986), pl. no. 169; Evans and Wixom, eds., Glory of Byzantium, 90–1, fig. 43.

Absence of nomina sacra 385 17 D. Buckton, ed., The Treasury of San Marco, Venice (Milan, 1984), 124–8.

18 Ibid., 124–5.

19 A. Grabar, The Golden Age of Justinian (New York, 1967), fig. 145; W. Oakeshott,

Die Mosaiken von Rom vom dritten bis zum vierzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1967), 74–6. 20 F. W. Deichmann, Frühchristliche Bauten und Mosaiken von Ravenna (BadenBaden, 1958), pls. 3, 8. 21 G. H. Forsyth and K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Church and Fortress of Justinian (Ann Arbor, 1973), 11–13, pl. CIII; J. Meziolek, ‘Transfiguratio Domini in the apse of Mount Sinai and the symbolism of light’, JWarb 53 (1990), 42–60; J. Elsner, ‘The viewer and the vision: the case of the Sinai apse’, AH 17 (1994), 81–102; R. Nelson, ‘Where God walked and monks pray’, in R. S. Nelson and K. M. Collins, eds., Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (Los Angeles, 2006), 1–37. 22 On the maphorion as a distinguishing characteristic of Virgin Mary see T. Mathews and N. E. Muller, The Dawn of Christian Art in Panel Paintings and Icons (Los Angeles, 2016), 155. 23 K. Weitzmann, ed., The Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Sevent Century (New York, 1979), 528–30. 24 J. Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. S. Rendall and E. Claman (New York, 1992), 72. 25 H. Evans, ‘Non-classical sources for the Armenian mosaic near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’, in N. G. Garsoïan, T. F. Mathews and R. W. Thomson, eds., East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period (Washington, DC, 1982), 217–22, esp. 219. 26 R. Cormack, The Church of Saint Demetrios: The Watercolors and Drawings of W. G. George (Thessaloniki, 1980), 70. 27 I. Kalavrezou, ‘Images of the mother: when the Virgin Mary became “Meter Theou”’, DOP 44 (1990), 165–72, esp. 166–7. 28 Ibid. 29 Grabar, Golden Age, fig. 144; A. Foulias, The Church of Our Lady Angeloktisti at Kiti, Larnaka (Nikosia, 2012), fig. 15. 30 K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Icons (Prince­ ton, 1976), 15–18, pl. XLII. 31 Ibid., pl. LXXXIX. 32 G. Bühl, ed., Dumbarton Oaks: The Collections (Washington, DC, 2008), 94–5. 33 Kalavrezou, ‘Images of the mother’, 168–70. 34 A. D. Kartsonis, Anastasis: The Making of an Image (Princeton, 1986), 108–9. 35 S. Bettini, Venezia e Bysanzio (Venice, 1974), no. 17. 36 T. Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia. Das Bauwerk und die Mosaiken (Berlin and Leipzig, 1927), pl. 20; C. Barber, ‘Theotokos and Logos: the interpretation and reinterpretation of the sanctuary programme of the Koimesis church, Nicaea’, in M. Vassilaki, ed., Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium (Aldershot and Burlington, 2005), 51–9. 37 S. Bulgakov, Icons and the Name of God, trans. B. Jakim (Grand Rapids, Mich., 2012), 124. 38 R. K. Soulen, The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity (Louisville, 2011). 39 A. van den Hoek, ‘God beyond knowing: Clement of Alexandria and discourse on God’, in A. B. McGowan, B. E. Daley and T. J. Gaden, eds., God in Early Christian Thought: Essays in Memory of Lloyd G. Patterson (Leiden and Boston, 2009), 37–60, esp. 38–9. 40 Bulgakov, Icons, 115–66, esp. 115–6, 130–1. 41 Ibid.

386 Natalia Teteriatnikov 42 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, trans. C. Luibheid, P. Rorem (New York, 1987), 47–131. 43 R. M. van den Berg, ‘The gift of Hermes: the Neoplatonists on the language and philosophy’, in S. Slaveva-Griffin and P. Remes, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism (London and New York, 2014), 251–65. 44 Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine, 41–2, pl. XVIII. 45 L. S. B. MacCoull, ‘John Philoponus: Egyptian exegete, ecclesiastical politician’, in A. C. Skinner, D. M. Davis and C. Griffin, eds., Bountiful Harvest: Essays in Honor of S. Kent Brown (Provo, 2011), 211–21. 46 ‘The second council of Nicea, 787’ in P. Halsall, ed., Internet Medieval Sourcebook (available online at https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/nicea2.asp, accessed June 15, 2018). 47 Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons, trans. C. P. Roth (Crestwood, NY., 1981), 34–5. 48 ‘The second council’, as note 46. 49 C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Toronto, 1986), 175. 50 W. T. Treadgold, The Nature of the Biblioteca of Photius (Washington, DC, 1980). 51 Mango and Hawkins, ‘The apse mosaics of St. Sophia’, 125. 52 Ibid., 147. 53 Mango and Hawkins (‘The apse mosaics of St. Sophia’, 147–8) suggested that if the preceding image had been a cross, ‘the background might have been filled with clouds or vegetal rinceaux or any other appropriate ornament’, because, they argued, the gold background surrounding the figure of the Virgin was made anew in the ninth century. No other interventions in these areas of mosaic were found, which suggests that the original image was replaced only once, by the current image of the Virgin. The fact that the original image in the apse survived iconoclasm is a further indication that it may have been a cross. 54 J. Lowden, Illuminated Prophet Books: A Study of Byzantine Manuscripts of the Major and Minor Prophets (University Park, 1998). 55 R. Taft, ‘Liturgy’, in E. Jeffreys, J. F. Haldon and R. Cormack, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 2008), 599–619, esp. 602–6; N. Ševčenko, ‘Art and liturgy in the later Byzantine empire’, in M. Angold, ed., The Cambridge History of Eastern Christianity 5 (Cambridge, 2006), 127–153; A. L. Lingas, ‘Sunday matins in the Byzantine cathedral rite: music and liturgy’, (unpublished PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, 1996), 154–6. 56 A. R. Bellinger and P. Grierson, eds., Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbar­ ton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection (5 vols., Washington, DC, 1966–99) vol. 3, part 1, pl. XXVIII, 2.1, 2.2; R. Cormack, ‘Painting after iconoclasm’, in A. Bryer and J. Herrin, eds., Iconoclasm: Papers Given at the Ninth Spring Sympo­ sium of Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, March 1975 (Birmingham, 1977), 147–63, esp. 147. 57 Bellinger and Grierson, eds., Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins, vol. 3, part 2, pl. XLII, nos. 6b–c. 58 Ibid., vol.3, part 2, pl. XLII, no. 6b. 59 Cited after Ibid., vol. 3, part 2, 634. 60 Ibid., vol. 3, part 2, pl. XXXIV, nos. 1a–1b2. See also V. Penna, ‘The Mother of God on coins and lead seals’, in Vassilaki, ed., Mother of God, 209–17, 365; Kalav­ rezou, ‘Images of the mother’, 171. 61 On the perception of texts as ‘seals’ in the works of art and monumental decoration see Leatherbury, ‘Reading and seeing’, 143–4.

22 Integrated yet segregated Eastern Islamic art in twelfth-century Byzantium1 Alicia Walker

During the reign of the Komnenian Dynasty (1081–1185), art and architecture produced in Byzantium show evidence of political and cultural relations with eastern Islamic polities, who were sometimes enemies and sometimes allies of the Empire.2 Foremost among these groups were the Seljuq dynasties. The Great Seljuqs (1037–1194) established themselves as a formidable opponent at the infamous Battle of Manzikert in 1071, when Sultan Alp Arslān (r. 1063–72) bested the Byzantine army and captured its leader, emperor Romanos IV Diogenes (r. 1068–71).3 The years following coincided with the weakening of the Byzantine state from internal strife and instability. The Seljuqs capitalized on this situation and rapidly consolidated control of Byzantine Anatolia. From this military and political stronghold emerged a new dynasty, the Seljuq Sultanate of Rūm (1077–1308).4 Despite efforts in the twelfth century to regularize relations with the Seljuqs of Rūm, the Byzantines were humiliated in a stunning defeat at Myriokephalon in 1176.5 Yet behind these tumultuous events of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the antagonistic relationship to which they attest, there simultaneously transpired a history of Byzantine–Seljuq cultural imbrication. Trade, diplomacy and defections between the Seljuqs and Byzantines brought their communities into close and constant contact.6 High-ranking refugees passed between the Seljuq and Byzantine courts, and intermarriages took place, producing multiple generations of bicultural, bilingual elite on both sides of the Seljuq–Byzantine divide.7 This chapter explores artistic connections between Byzantium and the Seljuqs, which were in keeping with a larger reality of Byzantine intercultural relations during the twelfth century. Scholars have recognized the transcultural character of some of the monuments and objects I discuss, but such studies tend to analyse works of art and architecture only individually, without situating them within broader socio-artistic patterns.8 While arguing that these objects and monuments attest to a significant phenomenon of eastern Islamic impact on Byzantine visual culture, I simultaneously propose that there was a limit for the depth to which this impact was absorbed. The examples considered here suggest that although eastern Islamic artistic forms were transplanted to Byzantium, they did not take root in Byzantine soil, but instead were kept as potted plants that existed independently of their surroundings, or were grafted onto Byzantine stalks such that they preserved

388 Alicia Walker a clear distinction from their new environments. As such, they were not fully assimilated into Byzantine artistic culture or production. At the same time, I argue that they did become part of Byzantine visuality.9 Eastern Islamic and Islamic-inspired works of art and architecture were visible within the Byzantine material and aesthetic landscape, Byzantine artists were able to reproduce eastern Islamic art forms, Byzantine patrons commissioned Islamicinspired works of art, and Byzantine viewers were equipped to interpret Islamicinspired artistic motifs and forms in relation to Byzantine art and identity. This chapter addresses the movement of eastern Islamic works of art into Byzantium as well as the ways in which Byzantine artists, patrons and viewers responded to and found meaning in these foreign objects and monuments. I am concerned not only with what was adopted from eastern Islamic models, but also how eastern Islamic artistic forms were adapted to suit Byzantine interests and needs, how they were interpreted and redeployed within Byzantium.10 The surviving textual and physical documentation for Islamic artistic and architectural impact in Byzantium is minimal and dispersed, making it difficult to draw broader conclusions from the available evidence. This chapter focuses much of its attention on two instances of Seljuq-inspired monumental decorative programmes recorded by Byzantine historians, which evince the emulation of Seljuq models and their interpretation by Byzantine audiences. I then consider three extant objects of Byzantine – or possible Byzantine – provenience that are relevant to the question of eastern Islamic-Byzantine artistic interactions in the twelfth century. These works of portable art suggest that interactions with eastern Islamic groups included not only the Seljuqs but also several dynasties subdued by the Seljuqs and/or Ayyubids (1171–1260) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including the Ghurids (879–1215), Ghaznavids (977–1186) and Artuqids (1101–1409). Ultimately, I propose that Byzantine patrons, artists, authors and viewers harnessed knowledge of these foreign artistic traditions to articulate notions of Byzantine identity through contrast with eastern Islamic works of art and architecture, and that they did so with the intention of communicating Byzantine political, military and cultural superiority to both Byzantine and ‘other’ audiences.

Wall painting in the villa of Alexios Axouch The Byzantine historian John Kinnamos recounts that around the year 1165, a general serving under Manuel I Komnenos (r.1143–80), Alexios Axouch (d. after 1167), decorated his suburban palace with images glorifying the antiByzantine campaigns of Kılıç Arslān II (r. 1155–92).11 Kinnamos interprets this decorative programme as an act of treason and groups it with other seditious schemes that proved Alexios Axouch to be a traitor. Axouch fell from favour and was banished to a monastery. Paul Magdalino and Lucy-Anne Hunt have cast doubt over these accusations. Why would a seasoned courtier commit the treasonous and politically naive act of decorating his home with images glorifying the emperor’s enemy?12 Hunt posits

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instead that Axouch’s villa was adorned with princely cycle imagery, a secular visual repertoire prevalent in medieval Islamic art, which depicted elite pastimes including martial games, hunting, merrymaking and animal contests.13 This iconography was well-attested in eleventh- and twelfth-century Islamic art, appearing, for example, on courtly objects and monuments of the Fatimids and Seljuqs.14 During this era, Islamic princely iconography also became international in its popularity, as demonstrated by the twelfth-century royal chapel at the Norman palace in Palermo (Sicily), the Cappella Palatina, which famously combines the form of a Byzantine cross-in-square church at its east end with a Latin basilica at its west end, the latter capped with an Islamic-style muqarnas (honeycombed) ceiling adorned with princely imagery (Figure 22.1).15 Among small-scale works of art, a Histoire ancienne of 1295 (London, British Library, Add. Ms. 15268), produced by Crusader artists at Acre (modern day Israel), shows a similar incorporation of princely cycle and Christian imagery. In the frontispiece for the Book of Genesis, Islamicizing scenes of princely merrymaking and hunting frame images of Creation (Figures 22.2 and 22.3).16 This comparative evidence from medieval works of luxury art depicting princely cycle images in Christian contexts raises the possibility that the wall paintings in Axouch’s home asserted neither his Muslim sympathies, nor his allegiance to the Seljuq ruler. Instead, they were simply fashionable ornament for an elite suburban villa commissioned by a high-ranking aesthete who was aware of the current styles in courtly art across the Mediterranean.

Figure 22.1 Palermo, Cappella Palatina, ca. 1140. Detail of nave ceiling. [Source: © 2011 Ruggero Poggianella Photostream]

Figure 22.2 London, British Library, Ms. Add. 15268 (Histoire universelle [Histoire ancienne jusqu’à Cesar]), 1275–91, 37 x 25 cm, fol. 1v. Frontispiece showing scenes of Genesis, at center and scenes of hunting and merrymaking in the borders. [Source: © The British Library Board]

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Figure 22.3 London, British Library, Ms. Add. 15268 (Histoire universelle [Histoire anci­ enne jusqu’à Cesar]), 1275–91, fol. 1v. Detail of frontispiece showing scenes of merrymaking. [Source: © The British Library Board]

If Axouch’s house was decorated with princely cycle imagery (and not depictions of the sultan’s triumphs), then Kinnamos may have intentionally misrepresented these domestic decorations in order to blacken Alexios Axouch’s reputation. Given, on the one hand, how ubiquitous the princely cycle iconographic vocabulary had become by the twelfth century and, on the other hand, Kinnamos’s elite social standing and probable exposure to eastern Islamic art, he would have been equipped to recognize princely imagery as an iconographic repertoire of Islamic courtly culture, and to associate it with the elite circle of the Seljuq sultan. It is also reasonable to expect that Kinnamos knew such imagery did not depict a specific sultan or a particular battle, but instead generic images of courtly pastimes. Following this line of argument, it is possible that Kinnamos intentionally distorted the nature of the imagery in question so as to strengthen the grounds for his condemnation of Alexios Axouch. If this interpretation is correct, the example attests to both the impact of Seljuq art on Byzantium and the limit to which it was absorbed. Seljuq artistic forms had penetrated Byzantine artistic taste such that they were considered fashionable and were used to decorate an aristocratic home, thus attesting to Byzantine use of this cosmopolitan visual vocabulary of princely cycle imagery. At the same time, Kinnamos’s distortion of the meaning of the programme points to how this artistic repertoire was perceived as non-Byzantine, such that it could be manipulated to substantiate claims of its patron’s foreign inclinations and even disloyalty. Princely cycle imagery was understood and perhaps even produced by the Byzantines, yet it never fully assimilated to become an intrinsic part of their artistic identity. Its roots in the Islamic tradition remained firm, and this lineage could be surfaced to raise suspicion regarding the political loyalties of individuals with whom such art was associated.

The Mouchroutas Hall and John ‘the Fat’ Komnenos In the history of the palace revolt of John Komnenos (d. 1201), the author Nikolaos Mesarites reports that by the year 1200, there stood in the imperial palace in Constantinople a hall known as the Mouchroutas.17 He describes the

392 Alicia Walker building as having a ‘heaven-shaped ceiling made of hemispheres. The recesses and projections of the angles are densely packed.’18 Scholars have interpreted this passage to mean that the hall was capped with an Islamic muqarnas ceiling (see Figure 22.1).19 Mesarites further specifies that the surfaces were painted by a ‘Persian hand’ (i.e. a Seljuq artist) and depicted ‘Persians and their various costumes’, possibly scenes of revelry from the iconographic repertoire of the princely cycle.20 Together, these features parallel aspects of Seljuq architecture of the second half of the twelfth century.21 Mesarites’s ekphrasis on the Mouchroutas Hall appears at a climactic moment in his account, when the usurper, John Komnenos (known as John ‘the Fat’ because of his corpulence) is about to be dethroned and assassinated. I have argued elsewhere that within Mesarites’s history, the Mouchroutas Hall functions as a rhetorical device that conveys John Komnenos’s unfitness for the throne by comparing him to the merrymaking ‘Persian’ (that is, Seljuq) figures who decorate the ceiling.22 Unlike a true Byzantine emperor, whose power and authority were conveyed through Christomimesis, John Komnenos is Perso­ mimetic. His parallel to foreign revellers emphasizes his dissolute, undignified nature and reveals him as an imposter. Mesarites deploys the foreign character of the Mouchroutas Hall to critique John the Fat by association. In this respect, his rhetorical positioning of the Mouchroutas Hall echoes Kinnamos’s deployment of the decorations at the home of Alexios Axouch. Like Kinnamos, Mesarites is clearly familiar with the style and iconography of Seljuq art, recognizing both its content and origin, and he foregrounds its non-Byzantine nature, using this ‘otherness’ to discredit John the Fat. It is unknown exactly when the Mouchroutas Hall was constructed or what motivated its foundation. Scholars have suggested it was intended as a reception room for use during diplomatic visits by Muslim emissaries and potentates, for instance that of Kılıç Arslān II, who came to Constantinople in 1161.23 If this was the case, then in this instance the Byzantines did not adopt a Seljuq art form, first and foremost, for their own use. Rather, they replicated an eastern Islamic palatial environment of (and for) their Seljuq guest, no doubt as a sign of hospitality and as a statement of Byzantine artistic – and by extension cultural and political – prowess. The need for a separate space for ceremonies involving the Seljuq sultan may have been prompted by members of Manuel’s court, who objected when Manuel proposed to have Kılıç Arslān march in a procession of icons to Hagia Sophia.24 Given that many of the imperial reception spaces in Constantinople – like the Chrysotriklinos (the Byzantine throne room) – were decorated with sacred images, the Mouchroutas Hall may have been built to create a neutral environment within the palace where the sultan could be received without offending the religious sensibilities of Byzantine clergy or courtiers.25 Yet, given the popularity of this style of architecture and decoration in Islamic and other courts in the twelfth century, it is equally possible that the Mouchroutas Hall was constructed independently of any diplomatic necessity, as an imperial pleasure palace employing a style en vogue throughout the Mediterranean.26

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John Axouch’s villa and the Mouchroutas Hall in the socio-political context of twelfth-century Byzantium These two examples of Byzantine references to Seljuq–Islamic works of architecture and monumental decoration indicate that the Byzantines maintained a clear awareness of the ‘otherness’ of eastern Islamic art and distinguished it from works in the Byzantine tradition. At the same time, the Byzantines were familiar enough with this foreign visual language not only to recognize, but also to manipulate its meaning to serve their own ends. While they did not accept eastern Islamic art as their own, the Byzantines did become versed in eastern Islamic forms, developing a more cosmopolitan visual culture as a result.27 Indeed, if these foreign artistic forms had been successfully absorbed into the Byzantine tradition, they may not have elicited Kinnamos’s or Mesarites’s responses. It was each building’s retention of distinctly foreign associations that caused these authors to draw attention to these monuments with the aim of disparaging the individuals associated with them. If Alexios Axouch’s home was decorated with princely cycle imagery, this feature was a common element in the decoration of both his home and the Mouchroutas Hall. Why would this particular type of Islamic iconography have been adopted in monuments produced in Byzantium as well as in other monuments and objects produced in Latin Christian contexts? No doubt the secular character of princely cycle imagery contributed significantly to its appeal: there were no doctrinal challenges to impede its appropriation by Christians, whether Latin or Orthodox.28 Furthermore, the repertoire of scenes depicting royal prowess and luxury found in the princely cycle resonates with themes already apparent in Byzantine and Western medieval art, and this iconography was no doubt widely appreciated as a sign of social power and prestige.29 In these two examples, however, there are additional motivations behind the buildings’ alignments with foreign art and architecture and the religious-political powers with which such monuments were associated. Specifically, both Alexios Axouch and John Komnenos were themselves of Seljuq origin. Indeed, they belonged to the same extended family.30 Alexios Axouch was the son of John Axouch (d. ca. 1150), who came to the Byzantine palace as a captive during his youth. He was raised in the cohort of the future Byzantine emperor, John II Komnenos (r.1118–43). John Axouch eventually converted to Christianity and held prominent positions at court. Alexios Axouch followed in his father’s footsteps, serving John II’s heir, Manuel I, with distinction.31 Still, the Seljuq origins of Alexios’s family were never completely forgotten and resurfaced in Kinnamos’s efforts to cast doubt on his loyalty. As noted above, this calumny was eventually successful, and Alexios fell from favour, spending his final years in monastic exile. John ‘the Fat’ Komnenos was Alexios Axouch’s son, the product of Alexios’s marriage (ca. 1141) to the granddaughter of John II Komnenos, Maria, daughter of Alexios Komnenos (who was the son of John II and Manuel I’s older brother). John the Fat was enthroned during a coup in 1200, but he wore the imperial crown only

394 Alicia Walker momentarily, being overthrown within a day. Mesarites explicitly draws attention to John the Fat’s Seljuq origins by calling the Mouchroutas Hall a ‘Persian stage’ and stating that it was ‘the work of the hand of John’s kinsman from his grandfather’s family.’32 In both Kinnamos’s and Mesarites’s texts, the Seljuq origins of Alexios Axouch and John Komnenos prompt the introduction of Islamicizing art forms into the discussion, and in each case the monument is used rhetorically to criticize the individual in question. By incorporating Islamic works of art into these texts, the authors exposed the non-Byzantine origins of the individuals with whom the monuments were associated. These two examples attest to a Byzantine comprehension of eastern Islamic visual language and manipulation of this ‘other’ artistic tradition. They suggest that Byzantine patrons, artists and audiences kept foreign artistic forms at a distance, so to speak, conscious of their non-Byzantine nature but also appreciative of their aesthetic merits and their usefulness in communicating particular messages about Byzantine identity through the framing and manipulation of difference.33

The impact of eastern Islamic models on Byzantine portable objects Three works of twelfth-century portable art also raise the possibility of Byzantine artistic connections with eastern Islamic groups, but involve a different set of methodological challenges because they lack conclusive evidence regarding their origins, models, contexts of use and meanings. The so-called Innsbruck plate is a well-known conundrum of medieval art (Figure 22.4). It is inscribed around its rim with a dedication that makes clear its intended recipient: the early twelfth-century Artuqid emir Rukn al-Dawla Abu Sulayman Dawud (r. 1114–44), who ruled Hisn Kayfa (Hasankeyf) on the Tigris River in Northern Mesopotamia and was a vassal of the Seljuq state. The object’s place of production is uncertain, however; persuasive arguments have been made for an Islamic, Georgian or Byzantine origin.34 The iconography displays a princely cycle iconographic repertoire, with animals, acrobats and musicians encircling a central scene of Alexander the Great in ascent. If the object was produced in Byzantium (which I believe is a possibility worthy of serious consideration), it would offer further evidence of Byzantine fluency in Islamic princely cycle iconography and the strategic deployment of this imagery for a Muslim recipient. As such, it would attest to a pattern consistent with one of the possible motivations for the construction of the Mouchroutas Hall: both works of art could have been commissioned by the Byzantines – most likely the emperor or his delegate – as part of a diplomatic interaction with a Muslim political leader. Another well-known work of art, in this instance a definitively Byzantine object, shows a different set of possibilities for how we might understand Byzantine artistic interactions with eastern Islamic groups. The San Marco censer takes the form of a garden or palace pavilion and is decorated with classicizing imagery of personifications as well as composite and mythological animals (Figure 22.5).35 Yet, the overall form of the object recalls the shape of

Figure 22.4 Innsbruck, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum. Plate of Rukn al-Dawla Dawud (inv. no. K 1036), 1114–44, diam. 27 cm. [Source: Innsbruck, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum]

Figure 22.5 Venice, Treasury of San Marco. Censer in the shape of a pavilion, twelfth century, h. ca. 36 cm. [Source: Per gentile concessione della Procuratoria di San Marco]

396 Alicia Walker portable censers produced in the Islamic world across a broad geographic and temporal span (Figure 22.6) as well as a category of small scale ceramic tables of Seljuq production that imitate pavilions (Figure 22.7).36 Scott Redford posits that these ceramic tables and other small-scale works spurred a taste for Seljuq art and architecture across a broad medieval geography that included Byzantium.37 Given the paucity of surviving evidence, it is impossible to say if the San Marco censer reflects the form of contemporary Byzantine secular architecture exclusively, or if the formal resonance with Islamic works of art indicates the impact of foreign models on Byzantine monumental and portable arts. Indeed, although the parallels are suggestive, effective Byzantine absorption of foreign artistic impacts is difficult to prove precisely because, in the process of assimilation, non-Byzantine sources become obscured. We might instead understand these objects and their resonances to bespeak the development of a diffuse common culture of elite artistic forms in the twelfth century that moved fluidly between Byzantine and eastern Islamic realms, laying the foundation for larger-scale intercultural artistic endeavours, such as the Byzantine construction of the Seljuq-style Mouchroutas Hall.38

Figure 22.6 Washington, DC, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Censer (F1952.1), eight or ninth century, brass, h. ca. 32 cm, l. (incl. handle), ca. 41 cm. [Source: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Purchase – Charles Lang Freer Endowment]

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Figure 22.7 Washington, DC, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Tabouret (F1909.41), twelfth or thirteenth century, stone-paste, h. ca. 39 cm, w. ca. 29 cm. [Source: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Gift of Charles Lang Freer]

A final example of artistic interaction with eastern Islamic visual culture in Byzantine portable arts of the twelfth century, is found in a gilded silver cup (Figure 22.8), which combines an exterior decorative programme of princely cycle imagery – musicians, acrobats, dancers and banqueters along with real and fantastic animals (Figure 22.9) – with the portrait of Saint George at the bottom of its interior (Figure 22.10).39 The exterior of the cup is worked with a dense honeycomb pattern of small, bulbous surfaces.40 The closest parallel for this polylobed form is found in a corpus of large scale candle holders produced in eastern Islamic territories. A twelfth-century example, thought to come from eastern Iran or Afghanistan, shows similar motifs of real and fantastic animals in a remarkably similar style (Figures 22.11 and 22.12).41 This object has been related to another candle holder, which is thought to come from northern Afghanistan, is inscribed with the name of a Ghurid owner and is dated to 1166 (Figure 22.13).42 The Ghurids were subdued by the Seljuqs in the 1030s to 1050s, and it is possible that, as the Seljuqs expanded their territories in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, they played a role in transmitting Ghurid objects and artisans westward.43 The cup would have been an appropriate luxury utensil for elite dining in the imperial circle of Constantinople, where Byzantine courtiers and Seljuq diplomats and elite refugees commingled. Indeed Byzantine emperors gifted

398 Alicia Walker

Figure 22.8 St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Beryozovo cup (inv. no W-3), twelfth century, h. 11.6 cm. [Source: © The State Hermitage Museum/photo by V. Terebenin]

Figure 22.9 St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Detail of Beryozovo cup (inv. no W-3). [Source: © The State Hermitage Museum/photo by V. Terebenin]

sumptuous dining sets to Seljuq rivals and friends alike. During his diplomatic visit to Constantinople in 1261, Kılıç Arslān received extravagant sets of tableware from Manuel I,44 and Alexios III Angelos (r. 1195–1203) gave Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay Khusraw I (r. 1192–96 and 1205–11)

Figure 22.10 St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Detail of Interior of Beryo­ zovo cup (inv. no W-3) showing an image of St George. [Source: © The State Hermitage Museum/photo by V. Terebenin]

Figure 22.11 Copenhagen, The David Collection. Candlestick (inv. no. 27/1971), 1150– 1200, h. 33 cm. [Source: P. Klemp]

Figure 22.12 Copenhagen, The David Collection. Detail of candlestick (inv. no. 27/1971) with lobes depicting plants and animals. [Source: P. Klemp]

Figure 22.13 Stuttgart, Linden-Museum. Candlestick, 1166. [Source: Linden-Museum, Stuttgart/photo by A. Dreyer]

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numerous precious metal vessels filled with fine food and drink when the latter visited the Byzantine court from 1200 to 1204.45 Even the figure of Saint George would not necessarily have been viewed as unfamiliar or ‘other’ by a Seljuq user because the Seljuqs of Anatolia co-opted the cults of Orthodox military saints as they conquered Byzantine territories.46 The cup can be understood to evince a Byzantine capacity for adapting their visual culture to make it familiar to and comprehensible for a nonByzantine, possibly eastern Islamic audience, which might have included Seljuq diplomatic refugees. At the same time, in the eyes of a Byzantine courtier, the cup could have been appreciated as an embodiment of Byzantine cultural cosmopolitanism and as evidence of the mastery of the artistic and cultural language of a powerful adversary, a message which on a symbolic level evoked Byzantine dominance in the broader political and even military spheres. In this way, the cup operated within the context of not only twelfth-century elite dining, but also twelfth-century elite political discourse.

Conclusion The impact of eastern Islamic – especially Seljuq – models on Byzantine artistic culture is found in physical objects that travelled to Byzantium, and in Islamicizing works of art and architecture that were produced there, but also in attitudes towards eastern Islamic art apparent in twelfth-century chronicles, and the subtle ways in which Byzantine authors interpreted and positioned works of eastern Islamic origin in these texts. If we judge the ‘success’47 of eastern Islamic art in Byzantium by the number of Islamic or Islamicizing objects and monuments that we can securely document at the Byzantine court, or if we measure the intensity of cross-cultural artistic interaction based on straightforward accounts about Byzantine reception of eastern Islamic art, then we must conclude that this phenomenon was limited in the extreme. But if we look for the impact of eastern Islamic art between the lines of Byzantine sources – both textual and material – we can see evidence of a deeper and broader familiarity with (and manipulation of) eastern Islamic artistic forms, revealing that their impact on twelfth-century Byzantium was more significant and complex than an initial survey of extant sources suggests.

Notes 1 Among the many contributions of Henry Maguire’s work, perhaps most influential on my own learning and thinking have been his ground-breaking studies that redefined understanding of Byzantine secular art. I offer this essay in gratitude for the many years of inspiration and encouragement that he and his scholarship have provided. 2 A. Grabar (‘Le succès des arts orientaux à la cour Byzantine sous les Macédoniens’, MünchBeitr ser. 3, 2 [1951], 32–60) was among the first scholars to identify the impact of Islamic art on the material culture of the Byzantine court. For more recent assessment

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3 4

5

6

7

8

9

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of this phenomenon, see the numerous, important studies by Anthony Cutler, including those gathered in Image Making in Byzantium, Sasanian Persia and the Early Muslim World: Images and Cultures (Farnham, 2009). Also see A. Walker, The Emperor and the World: Exotic Elements and the Imaging of Middle Byzantine Imperial Power, Ninth to Thirteenth Centuries C.E. (New York, 2012), which cites additional relevant bibliography. On the rise of the Seljuqs and their early relations with Byzantium, see now A. Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca. 1040–1130 (New York, 2017). The name of this dynasty stated their claim over former Roman-Byzantine territories: ‘Rūm’ was the medieval Arabic term for ‘Roman’, referring to the ancient Romans, the Byzantines and the Melkites, among other groups; see K. Durak, ‘Who are the Romans? The definition of Bilād al-Rūm (land of the Romans)’, Journal of Intercul­ tural Studies 31.3 (2010), 285–98. Regarding the evolution of Byzantine political attitudes toward the Seljuqs during this period, see A. Beihammer, ‘Orthodoxy and religious antagonism in Byzantine perceptions of the Seljuk Turks (eleventh and twelfth centuries)’, Al-Masāq 23 (2011), 15–36. For discussion of the Battle of Myriokephalon and its political con­ text, see P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 (Cambridge, 1993), 98–100. For a useful summary of these relations, see N. Necipoğlu, ‘The coexistence of Turks and Greeks in medieval Anatolia (eleventh–twelfth centuries)’, Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 5 (1999–2000), 58–76. Also see D. Korobeinikov, ‘A sultan in Con­ stantinople: the feasts of Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay-Khusraw I’, in L. Brubaker and K. Linardou, eds., Eat Drink and Be Merry (Luke 12:19) – Food and Wine in Byzantium (Burlington, 2007), 93–108; A. Beihammer, ‘Muslim rulers visiting the imperial city: building alliances and personal networks between Constantinople and the eastern border­ lands (fourth/tenth–fifth/eleventh century)’, Al-Masāq 24 (2012), 157–77. On the offspring of these unions, see R. Shukurov, ‘Harem Christianity: the Byzan­ tine identity of Seljuq princes’, in A. C. S. Peacock and S. N. Yıldız, eds., The Sel­ juks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East (London, 2012), 115–50. My inquiry and aims resonate with those found in Shukurov’s survey of Byzantine appropriations of Islamic and ‘Oriental’ literary and artistic models (‘Byzantine appro­ priation of the Orient: notes on its principles and patterns’, in A. C. S. Peacock, B. de Nicola, and S. N. Yıldız, eds., Islam and Christianity in Medieval Anatolia [Burlington, 2015], 167–82), in which he similarly considers broader patterns of transfer and adaptation. The term ‘visuality’ refers to the socially contingent aspects of the way people see. The term ‘visual culture’ shifts focus from questions of origin and production of works of art and architecture – that were often at the core of traditional art historical investigation – to the experience of objects and monuments in a particular moment and place, and in relation to one another. Visuality and visual culture are useful con­ cepts for the present study because they accommodate works of art and architecture that were not originally devised or produced in Byzantium, but were nonetheless encountered there. On the definition of ‘visuality’ and its value in engaging with pre­ modern visual cultures, see R. Nelson, ‘Descartes’s cow and other domestications of the visual’, in R. Nelson, ed., Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (Cambridge, 2000), 1–21, esp. 2–3. This interest fundamentally informs my earlier study of the role of Islamicizing fea­ tures in middle Byzantine imperial art; see Walker, The Emperor and the World.

John Kinnamos, The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, trans. C. Brand (New York,

1976), 199–202. For a new translation and analysis of this passage, see A. Walker,

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‘Paintings in the house of Alexios Axouch in suburban Constantinople’, in C. Barber and F. Spingou, eds., Medieval Texts on Byzantine Art and Aesthetics, vol. 3, From Alex­ ios I Komnenos to the rise of Hesychasm (1081–ca. 1330) (Cambridge, forthcoming). P. Magdalino, ‘Manuel Komnenos and the Great Palace’, BMGS 4 (1978), 101–15, esp. 108; L.-A. Hunt, ‘Comnenian aristocratic palace decoration: descriptions and Islamic connections’, in M. Angold, ed., Byzantine Aristocracy (Oxford, 1984), 139, 140, 142. For a broad sample of ‘princely cycle’ imagery from diverse medieval artistic traditions, see J. Johns and E. Grube, The Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina (Genoa, 2005). Regarding this body of images and its evolution, see D. Shepherd, ‘Banquet and hunt in medieval Islamic iconography’, in U. E. McCracken, L. M. C. Randall, and R. H. Randall Jr., eds., Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E. Miner (Baltimore, 1974), 79–92; E. Hoffman, ‘Between East and West: the wall paintings of Samarra and the con­ struction of Abbasid princely culture’, Muqarnas 25 (2008), 107–32. For examples, see E. Hoffman, ‘A Fatimid book cover: framing and reframing cultural identity in the medieval Mediterranean world’, in M. Barrucand, ed., L’Egypte Fatimide: son art et son histoire (Paris, 1999), 403–20; M. Cyran, ‘Re-discovered panels of the Fatimid palaces’, in M. Barrucand, ed., L’Egypte Fatimide. Son art et son histoire (Paris, 1999), 658–63; S. Canby, D. Beyazit, M. Rugiadi, and A. C. S. Peacock, eds., Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs (New York, 2016), 72–165. For a full assessment of this monument as a reflection of the multicultural nature of Norman Sicilian society, see W. Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton, 1997). For analysis of iconographic compar­ anda for the ceiling, see Johns and Grube, The Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina. E. Hoffman, ‘A Fatimid book cover: framing and re-framing cultural identity in the medi­ eval Mediterranean world’, in Barrucand, ed., L’Egypt Fatimide, 415–9; E. Morrison and A. Hedeman, Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250–1500 (Los Angeles, 2010), 102–4; L. Mahoney, ‘The “Histoire ancienne” and dialectical identity in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, Gesta 49.1 (2010), 31–51. A. Heisenberg, ed., Nikolaos Mesarites, Die Palastrevolution des Johannes Komne­ nos (Würzburg, 1907), par. 27–8. This discussion of the Mouchroutas Hall draws from my earlier publications, Walker, The Emperor and the World, 144–64; Walker, ‘Middle Byzantine aesthetics and the incomparability of Islamic art: the architectural ekphraseis of Nikolaos Mesarites’, Muqarnas 27 (2010), 79–101. Walker, The Emperor and the World, 175–6. S. Ćurčić (‘Some palatine aspects of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, DOP 41 [1987], 125–44) has argued for a possible connection between the Cappella Palatina and the Mouchroutas Hall. S. Redford (‘Constantinople, Konya, conical kiosks, cul­ tural confluence’, in A. Ödekan, N. Necipoğlu and E. Akyürek, eds., The Byzantine Court: Source of Power and Culture. Proceedings of the Second International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium, Istanbul 21–23 June, 2010 [Istanbul, 2013], 48–54, esp. 43–7) casts doubt on this comparison, however, arguing that the Cap­ pella Palatina shows closer parallels to Fatimid architectural models. Redford sug­ gests that the Mouchroutas description corresponds instead with the muqarnas forms of twelfth- and thirteenth-century tombs in Iraq and Armenia. He also advocates for the role of Seljuq ephemeral and miniature architecture in disseminating Seljuq architectural forms and ideas to Byzantium. Walker, The Emperor and the World, 175–6. Regarding the Byzantine terminology for Seljuqs as ‘Persians’, see K. Durak, ‘Defining the “turk”: mechanisms of estab­ lishing contemporary meaning in the archaizing language of the Byzantines’, JÖB 59 (2009), 65–78. As detailed in Hunt, ‘Comnenian aristocratic palace decoration’, 141–2; Walker, The Emperor and the World, 147–51. For a critique of the paralleling of the Mouchroutas

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29 30 31 32 33

Hall with Seljuq royal pavilions and the suggestion that it instead recalls other archi­ tectural models, such as funerary monuments in Seljuq Anatolia and medieval Iraq, see Redford, ‘Constantinople, Konya’, 42–3. Walker, The Emperor and the World, 155–64. See Magdalino, ‘Manuel Komnenos and the Great Palace’, 108–9; Hunt, ‘Comnenian aristocratic palace decoration’, 141; Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I, 118. Regarding relations between Manuel I and Kılıç Arslān see Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I, 76–8. John Kinnamos, The Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, 157. For discussion of this controversy, see Beihammer, ‘Orthodoxy and religious antagonism’, 29–30; Korobeini­ kov, ‘A sultan in Constantinople’, 94–5. Kılıç Arslān’s exclusion from Christian rituals in Constantinople is of particular interest given that he appears to have been deeply respectful and even assimilative of Christian sacred objects and practices in his own ter­ ritories. When receiving Michael the Syrian (the Patriarch of the Jacobite Church in Antioch) at Melitene in 1183, Kılıç Arslān incorporated gospel books, candles, liturgical chants and processional crosses into the welcome ceremony. For the account of this event, see J.-B. Chabot, ed. and trans., Chronique de Michel le Syrien: Patriarch Jaco­ bite d’Antioche (1166–1199) (4 vols., Bruxelles, 1963), vol. 3, 390–1. Beihammer (‘Orthodoxy and religious antagonism’, 6–7, 25 note 29) argues that Kılıç Arslān’s actions reflect a ‘higher degree of acceptance regarding Christian rites and sacred objects’, which the sultan believed brought him political and military success, including the defection of Byzantine leaders and their territories. On the decoration of the Chrysotriklinos, see G. Dagron, ‘Trônes pour un empereur’, in A. Avramea, A. Laiou and E. Chrysos, eds., Βυζάντιο: Κράτος και Κοινωνία. Μνήμη Νίκου Οικονομίδη (Athens, 2003), 180–203; M. Featherstone, ‘The Chryso­ triklinos seen through De Cerimoniis’, in L. M. Hoffmann and A. Monchizadeh, eds., Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie: Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur (Wiesbaden, 2005), 832–40. On commonalities and competition among medieval courts of diverse religious, cul­ tural and political orientation across the medieval Mediterranean, see E. Hoffman, ‘Pathways of portability: Islamic and Christian interchange from the tenth through the twelfth century’, AH 24.1 (2001), 17–50, esp. 25–6. Regarding the cosmopolitan character of the twelfth-century Byzantine court, see Hunt, ‘Comnenian aristocratic palace decoration’; Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I, 107–8; Walker, The Emperor and the World, xx–xxi and 108–64. For discussion of the tendency to favour non-sacred iconographies in medieval cross-cultural artistic interactions between groups of different religious identities, see R. Cormack, ‘But is it art?’, in J. Shepard and S. Franklin, eds., Byzantine Diplo­ macy (Aldershot, 1992), 219–36; O. Grabar, ‘The shared culture of objects’, in H. Maguire, ed., Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204 (Washington, DC, 1994), 115–29. For example, see T. Steppan, ‘The Artukid bowl: courtly art in the middle Byzantine period and its relation to the Islamic east’, in O. Pevny, ed., Perceptions of Byzan­ tium and Its Neighbors (843–1261) (New York, 2000), 84–101. A point noted by Magdalino, ‘Manuel Komnenos and the Great Palace’, 109. For further discussion of this family, see Walker, The Emperor and the World, 154–5; Walker, ‘Paintings in the house of Alexios Axouch.’ Walker, The Emperor and the World, 154 and 175–6. These twelfth-century examples of Byzantine appropriations of Seljuq architectural forms – and the marshalling of these monuments in political invective – find a parallel in the thirteenth-century letter from John Apokaukos, Metropolitan of Naupaktos to his friend Demetrios Chomatenos, archbishop of Bulgaria. John criticizes the governor of Naupaktos, Constantine Doukas, for his immoral behaviour and penchant for Seljuq

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style architectural renovations. John claims Constantine took over the bishop’s palace in 1220, degrading the space by constructing a ‘souphas’, which John describes as a ‘Persian hall.’ The structure appears to have been something like a dais with a throne. Constantine received guests and petitioners here, elevated above them. John states that Constantine also ate seated on the structure. The description of these architectural innov­ ations is coupled with condemnation of Constantine’s abuse of power and disrespect for Christian authority and sacred space. John analogizes Constantine’s love of foreign, Islamic architectural forms with the latter’s despotic nature. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed., ‘Συμβολὴ εἰς τὴν ἱστορίαν τῆς ἀρχιεπισκοπῆς Ἀχρίδος’, in Sbornik stateii, posviash­ chennykh pochitateliami akademiku i zasluzhennomu professoru V. I. Lamanskomu po sluchaiu piatidesiatiletia ego uchennoi dieiatel’nosti (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1907), vol. 1, 245–7. For discussion of this passage, see Hunt, ‘Comnenian aristocratic palace dec­ oration’, 145–6; Magdalino, ‘Manuel Komnenos and the Great Palace’, 108; Redford, ‘Constantinople, Konya’, 41 note 3; F. Spingou, ‘A Seljuk dining hall in Nafpaktos’, in C. Barber and F. Spingou, eds., Medieval Texts on Byzantine Art and Aesthetics, vol. 3, From Alexios I Komnenos to the rise of Hesychasm (1081–ca. 1330) (Cambridge, forthcoming). For the Byzantine attribution, see Steppan, ‘The Artukid bowl.’ For the Georgian attribution, see S. Redford, ‘How Islamic is it? the Innsbruck plate and its setting’, Muqarnas 8 (1990), 119–35, which cites earlier bibliography positing an Islamic attribution. Also see Hoffman, ‘Pathways of portability’, 39–42; Canby et al., eds., Court and Cosmos, 56–7. On the connections of the censer to twelfth-century court culture, see N. Trahoulia, ‘The scent of an emperor: desire and the San Marco incense burner’, Arte Medievale 8.1 (2008), 33–40; A. Walker, ‘Off the page and beyond antiquity: ancient romance in medieval Byzantine silver’, in M. P. Futre Pinheiro and S. J. Harrison, eds., Fic­ tional Traces: Receptions of the Ancient Novel (2 vols., Groningen, 2011), vol. 1, 55–68. Redford, ‘Constantinople, Konya’, 46–7; Redford, ‘Portable palaces: on the circula­ tion of objects and ideas about architecture in medieval Anatolia and Mesopotamia’, Medieval Encounters 18 (2012), 382–412. Also see M. S. Graves, ‘The aesthetics of simulation: architectural mimicry on medieval ceramic tabourets’, in M. S. Graves, ed., Islamic Art, Architecture and Material Culture: New Perspectives (Oxford, 2012), 63–79. Redford, ‘Constantinople, Konya’, esp. 45–6; Redford, ‘Portable palaces’, 396–8. Hoffman, ‘Pathways of portability’, 21–6; Redford, ‘Constantinople’, 45–6; Redford, ‘Portable palaces.’ A.V. Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of Soviet Museums (New York, 1978), 22 and 312–13, figs. 215–17; Y. A. Piatnitsky, ‘K istorii postupleniia v Ermitazh vizan­ tiiickoii serebrianoii chashi XII veka’, in V. N. Zalesskaia, ed., Vizantiia v kontekste mir­ ovoi istorii: materialy nauchnoii konferentsii, posviashchennoii pamiati A. V. Bank (Saint Petersburg, 2004), 128–39, with earlier bibliography; E. D. Maguire and H. Maguire, Other Icons. Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture (Princeton, 2007), 46–9. I introduce some aspects of my interpretation of the Beryozovo cup in the short essay ‘The Beryozovo cup: intercultural identities at the Byzantine banquet table’, in F. Stroth, ed., 100 Byzantine Objects (forthcoming), and provide a detailed consider­ ation of the object in ‘The Beryozovo cup: a Byzantine object at the crossroads of the twelfth-century Eurasia’, The Medieval Globe 3 (2017), 125–48. For discussion of these vessels and related pieces of middle Byzantine tableware, see A. Ballian and A. Drandaki, ‘A Middle Byzantine silver treasure’, Benaki Museum Journal 3 (2003), 47–80. A. Leth, The David Collection: Islamic Art (Copenhagen, 1975), 71.

406 Alicia Walker 42 H. Forkl, ed., Die Gärten des Islam (Stuttgart, 1993), 82–5; S. Blair, Text and Image in Medieval Persian Art (Edinburgh, 2014), 63, 85–6. I thank Bekhruz Kurbanov for generously sharing his in-progress research on this object. 43 A Ghurid provenience for the David Collection candle holder is not definitive. The object also shows strong similarities to candle holders attributed to the Ghaznavid dynasty, which was subdued by the Seljuqs in the eleventh to twelfth century and conquered by the Ghurids in 1150. On the art and architecture of the Ghurids and Ghaznavids as well as the transcultural nature of the objects and monuments they produced, see F. B. Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval ‘Hindu-Muslim’ Encounter (Princeton, 2009). Regarding evidence of Byzantine– Ghaznavid artistic interaction through the trade and emulation of ceramic wares, see M. V. Fontana, ‘A note on the relationship between some Ghaznavid and Byzantine grafitta wares’, East and West 55 (2005), 117–27. 44 Chabot, ed. and trans., Chronique de Michel le Syrien, vol. 3, 319. Maguire and Maguire, Other Icons, 55–7. 45 M. T. Houtsma, ed., Histoire des Seldjoucides d’Asie Mineure, d’après l’abrégé du Seldjouknāmeh d’Ibn-Bībī: texte person (Leiden, 1902), 17; H. Duda, Die Seltschu­ kengeschichte des Ibn Bibi (Copenhagen, 1959), 30–1; cited and translated by Koro­ beinikov, ‘A sultan in Constantinople’, 99. 46 On this phenomenon, see O. Pancaroğlu, ‘The itinerant dragon-slayer: forging paths of image and identity in medieval Anatolia’, Gesta 53.2 (2004), 151–64; O. Pancaroğlu, ‘Caves, borderlands and configurations of sacred topography in Medi­ eval Anatolia’, Mésogeios 25–26 (2005), 249–81; E. Wolper, ‘Khiḍr and the chan­ ging frontiers of the medieval world’, Medieval Encounters 17 (2011), 120–46. 47 I invoke here the seminal article of Grabar, ‘Le succès des arts orientaux à la cour Byzantine sous les Macédoniens.’

23 The Mother of God in the earthly paradise Warren T. Woodfin

It was Henry Maguire who introduced me to the Byzantine literature of the earthly paradise in my first year of graduate studies at the University of Illinois, when, as an exercise in medieval Greek, he handed me the charming Vita of Makarios of Rome to translate.1 His scholarship has also opened vistas onto the history of Byzantine gardens and parklands, most long since obliterated by the expansion of modern Istanbul, but accessible to us through the mediation of texts.2 More important still is the lesson I took away from his career-spanning interest in word and image: that the relationship between texts and works of art is always less straightforward – and far more interesting – than one anticipates at first glance. It is therefore appropriate that the subject I treat here should build not only on Henry Maguire’s long interest in gardens and Edenic landscapes, but also on the relationship between literary depictions of these territories and pictorial ones.

The landscape of paradise The imagination of the realm of the blessed as a garden is widespread in Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. This ancient idea took on new life with the advent of Christianity. Some early theologians followed Origen in identifying the ‘third Heaven’ into which St Paul reports that he was caught up (2 Cor 12:2; cf. 2 Enoch 8:1–9:1) with the earthly paradise, making the connection between the new life of the Christian believer and the life of the first parents in Eden complete.3 While the natural imagery of the earthly paradise flourished in Early Christian art, it survived into the Middle Byzantine period only in attenuated form.4 After the Iconoclast interlude of the eighth and ninth centuries, the use of nature imagery became restricted, as Maguire has pointed out, to a few discrete iconographic contexts in sacred art. One such case of post-Iconoclastic survival lies in the manuscript illustrations of the Christian Topography that circulated in Byzantium under the name of Kosmas Indikopleustes.5 The three extant luxury manuscripts, one dating to the ninth and two to the eleventh century, are thought to copy the images from a midsixth century original, as these are directly referred to in the text.6 According to the Christian Topography, the earthly paradise lies at the far eastern end of the world, beyond the ocean that encircles the inhabited earth. Illustrations in the

408 Warren T. Woodfin Middle Byzantine copies of the work show paradise schematically as a rectangle of fruiting trees against a white background (Figure 23.1). The white ground, as Maguire has observed, signifies the even mixture of weather that allows the trees to bring forth all manner of fruits year-round.7 An abundant literature of dream visions from the Middle Byzantine period reinforces the picture of the earthly paradise inherited from Late Antiquity.8 In the Life of Philaretos the Merciful written by his grandson Niketas in 821/ 822, the narrator records a dream that he had at the age of seven, in which he saw his grandfather seated in Eden.9 In his dream, experienced on the third day after the burial of the generous Philaretos, Niketas found himself at the edge of a terrifying river of fire, beyond which lay a garden of indescribable delights full of fruit-bearing trees bearing outlandishly huge produce: grapes the size of a tall man, pomegranates the size of wine barrels, and equally enormous dates and hazelnuts.10 The tenth-century Vision of the Monk Kosmas gives us another tour of paradise in the form of a dream vision. Kosmas experienced his dream, we are told, on Pentecost Sunday, 933, just as he was recovering from a life-threatening illness.11 After dreaming of an arduous passage past a boiling hot river, Kosmas reaches the gate of paradise. Within the gates, he sees a green and pleasant valley, the beauty of

Figure 23.1 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, Cod. gr. 1186 (Christian Topography), fol. 66v. Map of Earth. [Source: Michigan–Princeton–Alexandria Expeditions to Mount Sinai]

The Mother of God in the earthly paradise 409 which, he says, is beyond words, and an olive grove with trees more numerous than the stars, beneath which the souls of the blessed recline.12 Further circumstantial details of this landscape are enumerated in the tenthcentury Life of St Andrew the Fool.13 The saint falls asleep during a winter storm in Constantinople and finds himself spending two weeks in paradise, which he describes as follows: God had made many trees grow there, although not like the trees of this world, by no means, but evergreen, trees of a different nature, dripping with honey, with lofty and pleasant foliage, with branches bowing down and rising in waves against each other, bringing pleasure and offering a sight like the crystal of heaven, trees for the blessed to enjoy, transform­ ing the soul into a fire of pleasure, rejoicing and gladness. A strange thing was that different trees had different kinds of appearance and beauty; to some had been given everlasting and never-fading flowers, to others only leaves; some had been ordained by God to be adorned with fruit, others had blossom and leaves and sweetness and a strange appearance and fruit that was precious, marvelous and incomparable.14 The vividness of Andrew’s vision is reflected in the late twelfth-century fresco depiction of him at the Hermitage of St Neophytos the Recluse, where he appears holding a branch festooned with flowers plucked, presumably, from the earthly paradise (Figure 23.2).15 Such flowers figure prominently in Michael Psellos’s description of the deathbed vision of his daughter Styliane. He reports her seeing ‘a garden shaded by trees, hanging with fruit, abundantly planted with all the other varieties of flora and exceedingly delightful. Nor was any species of rose, or lily, or any other fragrant flower missing.’16 Despite their varying degrees of detail and elaboration, the consistency with which these sources describe the conventional features of the earthly paradise makes the trope instantly recognizable when encountered in texts. Turning to visual representations, apart from the manuscripts of the Christian Topography, the garden of paradise usually appears in the context of the Last Judgment, an iconography that comes into its own in the eleventh century.17 Among the earliest surviving depictions are two full-page miniatures in an eleventh-century Gospel manuscript copied at the Stoudios Monastery, the socalled Frieze Gospels, now in Paris, BnF gr 74 (Figure 23.3). A handful of trees surrounding the biblical personages suffice to suggest the space of Eden, which is closed off by a gate in the form of a cherub. A crowd of the redeemed stands in a rather disorderly queue behind St Peter, awaiting entrance, while within the garden, the Mother of God sits on a lyre-backed throne. Next to her, the enthroned figure of Abraham is surrounded by diminutive figures representing souls; the infant soul of Lazarus reposes on his lap (cf. Lk 16:22). In a second, similar depiction within the same manuscript (Figure 23.4), Peter and the waiting crowd are missing, and the artist has relegated the throng of infant souls around the throne of Abraham to the edge of the composition to make room for the abbot and monks

410 Warren T. Woodfin

Figure 23.2 Paphos, Hermitage of St Neophytos, fresco. St Andrew the Fool with flowers of Paradise. [Source: Author]

of the Stoudios Monastery, who cluster between Abraham and the Virgin. Another small-scale representation from the eleventh century, this time in ivory, is preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Figure 23.5).18 A pair of cypress trees flanking the throne of Abraham sketch out the garden setting, which is also inhabited by the enthroned Mother of God and the Good Thief (St Dismas). His identity is clear, as he wears his loincloth and holds the cross on which he was crucified, and his presence is justified by the words of Jesus in Lk 23:43, ‘Amen I say to you; this day you will be with me in Paradise.’ To the right an angel ushers the redeemed into paradise. Although it is now poorly preserved, the west wall of the narthex of the Panagia Chalkeon at Thessaloniki, frescoed in the eleventh century,19 replicates a similar scheme: an angel stands outside the gate conducting the blessed, while inside the garden the figures of the Good Thief, the Mother of God and Abraham are distinguishable among the trees. The architectural setting of the fresco is particularly effective, as it places the cherub-guarded gate of paradise directly over the church’s main door.20

The Mother of God in the earthly paradise

411

Figure 23.3 Paris, BnF MS gr. 74 (Gospel book), fol. 51v. The Last Judgment. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

The same basic schema and selection of figures recurs over the succeeding centuries in various media, both in portable art forms and in monumental painting and mosaic, of which the twelfth-century mosaic of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello constitutes a prominent example (Figure 23.6). Here, Abraham with the

Figure 23.4 Paris, BnF MS gr. 74 (Gospel book), fol. 93v. The Last Judgment with Stoudite monks. [Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France]

Figure 23.5 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Italo-Byzantine ivory. The Last Judgment. [Source: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London]

The Mother of God in the earthly paradise 413

Figure 23.6 Torcello, Santa Maria Assunta, west wall, mosaic. The Last Judgment. [Source: Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY]

infant souls of the righteous, the Mother of God, and the Good Thief stand within the garden, while an angel and St Peter stand outside the gate with its guardian cherub. An icon of the Last Judgment from Mt Sinai shows a variant on the composition, dividing it into two registers: above, the Good Thief along with the Virgin enthroned, flanked by a pair of angels; below, Abraham with the souls of the righteous (Figure 23.7).21 The white background of both levels is decorated

Figure 23.7 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, icon. The Last Judgment. [Source: By permission of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt. Photograph courtesy of Sinai Icon Archive, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University]

The Mother of God in the earthly paradise 415 with scrolling vines to indicate the landscape of paradise. Outside the doubleheight gate with its integral cherub, Peter stands in front of a group of figures of clerics wearing polystravria phelonia, leading them into paradise.22 Directly over the image of image of Eden, the artist has inscribed, with rather faulty orthography, Ι Θ[εοτό]ΚΟ[ς] ΕΝ ΤΟ ΠΑΡΑΔΙϹΟ, ‘The Mother of God in Paradise.’ Both textual descriptions and images of paradise share a remarkably consistent stock of motifs.23 They invariably present a lush, garden landscape with fruiting trees and flowers, and with a limited set of inhabitants: Abraham, accompanied by the souls of the righteous; the Good Thief with his cross and very occasionally additional figures such as the Stoudite monks who appear in the Paris Frieze Gospel (BnF gr 74).24 The major discrepancy is the figure of the Mother of God, who appears virtually without fail in artistic depictions of paradise, but is strikingly absent from Middle-Byzantine descriptions of it. It is true that many apocryphal texts from Late Antiquity place the Virgin in paradise following either her Dormition (Koimesis) or bodily Assumption.25 While details from these episodes filter into the iconography of the Koimesis (e.g. the episode of Jephonias, that appears frequently from the thirteenth century onwards), they seem not to have had an impact on the Middle-Byzantine dream visions of paradise. In fact, the Mother of God’s absence from paradise is made explicit in the Life of Andrew the Fool. Just before the end of his two-week sojourn in paradise, Andrew is informed that he would not see the Virgin there, as she was busy on Earth helping those in need of her intercession: Our distinguished Lady, the Queen of the heavenly powers and Mother of God, is not present here, for she is in that vain world to support and help those who invoke God’s Only Son and Word and her own all-holy name.26 While it is possible to imagine that the early apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Bartholomew influenced the creation of paradise imagery that included the Mother of God, it seems more likely that her presence is an organic outgrowth of the landscape itself. While that landscape is only suggested by a few conventional signs in most Byzantine works that depict it, it lacks a key detail highlighted in the early apocryphal texts, which make much of Mary’s placement directly under the Tree of Life in paradise.27 If such texts were the source of the iconography, one would expect the Tree of Life to be prominent and identifiable among the other plants of the garden, but this is not the case. It would seem that the Virgin’s presence owes less to the Late Antique apocryphal texts than it does to the association of gardens with the feminine reflected in the courtly arts and literature of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. One might say that she is less a figure placed in paradise than she is an embodiment of paradise. Leo VI’s homily on the Annunciation, for example, addresses the Virgin specifically as paradise: ‘Hail, Paradise! Nourished by your fruit, we have stripped off the corrupting poison that clings to us, and have been re-made in ageless, blossoming form.’28

416 Warren T. Woodfin Comparisons between cultivated nature and women are a literary commonplace, but Middle-Byzantine authors were able to draw both on the biblical tradition, notably the Song of Songs, and on Hellenistic Greek romances to exploit this topos. The garden assumes a major role in the surviving twelfth-century novels not only as a setting for the romantic interactions of the main characters, but also as a metaphor for female sexuality itself. As Antony Littlewood and Charles Barber have both pointed out, the garden is a metaphor for woman: its virtues protected by a wall, but its abundant vegetation and ripening fruits signifying its fertility.29 Within this larger system of garden symbolism, the appearance of trees and other vegetation as erotic motifs cuts across a number of the Komnenian novels. The twelfth-century verse novel Drosilla and Charikles is shot through with metaphors – many derived from the Song of Songs – likening women to palm tree, cypresses and plane trees.30 Its near-contemporary Eumathios Makrembolites’s novel, Hysmine and Hysminias, has perhaps the most elaborate garden description of all the surviving Byzantine novels. The first appearance in the narrative of the heroine, Hysmine, is in the garden of her father Sosthenes. As Hysminias, the hero and narrator of the novel, describes it: This was full of grace and pleasure, brimming with plants, completely full of flowers. The cypresses are in rows, the myrtles form a dense covering, the vines are wreathed with grape clusters; the violet leaps out from its leaves and beautifies the vision with perfume; as for the roses, one is emer­ ging from the bud, another is swelling, yet another has already emerged; and some which have already reached maturity are spread on the ground.31 If this description recalls for us the vision of Andrew the Fool in paradise, or perhaps the deathbed vision of Psellos’s daughter, it is no accident. Hysminias remarks on the scene: ‘Seeing this, I thought I beheld Alkinoos’ garden and felt that I could not take as fiction the Elysian plain so solemnly descried by the poets.’32 This remark placed in the mouth of the hero cleverly ties together classical allusions – to a garden described in Book VII of the Odyssey – with the descriptions of the landscape of paradise current in Christian Byzantine culture. Already prior to the twelfth century, however, the use of the motifs of scrolling vines and perching birds was used on the enamelled Crown of Constantine Monomachos to signify the flourishing of the peculiarly feminine imperial court under the reign of Constantine IX (r. 1042–55) with Zoe and Theodora, the daughters of Constantine VIII.33 The twelfth-century Homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos help us to bridge the gap between the romantic garden – the trysting place of the Komnenian novels – and the Eden of religious art. These sermons are preserved in two luxury manuscripts, one in the Vatican and one in Paris (Vat. gr. 1162 and Paris gr. 1208), produced by the same atelier in Constantinople (the miniatures referenced here are from the Vatican manuscript). Both manuscripts are

The Mother of God in the earthly paradise 417 distinguished by profuse illustrations and luxuriously patterned headpieces, which contribute to the pervasive garden imagery that runs through the text and images. Some of these images, such as the Prayer of Anna in her garden (fol. 16v), which is richly furnished with a fountain and flowering trees, expatiate on the narratives drawn from the Gospels and from the Protoevangelium of James.34 Others, however, include paradise imagery that has no obvious logical connection to the events being described. In the sermon on the Nativity of the Virgin, James the Monk places an elaborate encomium of the Mother of God in the mouth of Adam. The passage begins in the manuscript just below the large miniature of the Anastasis on fol. 48v, and it is given pictorial form in the lowest register of the image, in which Adam stands as a suppliant to the right of the Virgin’s throne (Figure 23.8).35 He addresses her as follows: O daughter, out of my birth pangs, you have risen up like a shoot! What a stem has sprouted afresh from my nature! What a flower of blessing has bloomed! A flower that smells sweetly with grace, that drives away the disgust of my sorrow; a flower blooming with unfading delight; a flower from which the precious unguent has been pressed, from which the fragrance of my renewal has wafted. O offshoot, by which the fault of the plant has withered away; an offshoot, out of which the tree of life grew up according to the flesh; by which the death of disobedience was rooted out. O root that has put forth the tree of resurrection; that flour­ ishes with immortality; that bears fruits an abundance of grace, whose fruit shall not wither.36 Since the Gospels represent Christ’s mother as still alive for the events of his crucifixion and resurrection, it defies the logic of the biblical (and extrabiblical) narrative to place her in paradise as the recipient of Adam’s praises upon his being raised by Christ in the scene of the Anastasis. Rather, as the speech put in Adam’s mouth makes clear, she is identified with Eden – she is both the very ground that gives birth to the Tree of Life and herself the abundant bloom of paradise. Equally anachronistic is the following three-quarter page miniature, on fol. 50v (Figure 23.9), showing the Virgin enthroned in paradise with the infant Christ on her lap and an honour guard of angels, while in the register below she is acclaimed by a great crowd of prophets.37 The title at the top of the page reads ‘συναγωγὴ προφητῶν περὶ Χ[ριστο]ῦ προλεγόντων’ (‘The assembly of prophets prophesying about Christ’). Several kinds of trees with foliage of green, blue and pink, along with the gold background dotted with flowers, makes the location in paradise unambiguous. The setting makes no sense from the standpoint of a chronological narrative. If, however, we understand the Mother of God herself to be an extension of the paradisiacal landscape – and vice versa – then the way the artist has presented the scene has an internal logic.

Figure 23.8 BAV, MS gr. 1162 (Homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos), fol. 48v. Anastasis, Christ leading Adam and Eve into Paradise, and the Virgin adored by angels in Paradise. [Source: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana]

Figure 23.9 BAV, MS gr. 1162 (Homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos), fol. 50v.

The Virgin and Child adored by angels and prophets in Paradise.

[Source: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana]

420 Warren T. Woodfin The placement of the Mother of God in paradise in these miniatures appears to be a function not of a narrowly textual inspiration, but rather of a broader cultural pattern of association of women in general – and Mary in particular – with paradisiacal landscapes. Neophytos the Recluse, far from the courtly environs of twelfth-century Constantinople, invokes many of the same themes in his Chairestismoi on the Virgin, replete with metaphors drawn from nature: Hail, spiritual paradise of the flower of incorruption. Hail, spring rising from Eden and irrigating paradise, that is, the church of God and the con­ gregation of the faithful … Hail, ‘Tree of Life, that is in the midst of Paradise,’ from which we the faithful eat the fruit for the remission of our sins. Hail, door of Paradise that admits the faithful and turns aside the faithless.38 As Maguire has noted, the actual depiction of paradisiacal landscapes in art – even in a manuscript as lavish as the Homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos – hardly lives up to the rhetorical descriptions of it given by contemporary authors. In lieu of the lush growth of plants and flowers, the images concentrate on the most singular blossom of paradise, the Mother of God herself. In certain later Russian icons of the Last Judgment, the ‘narrative’ inhabitants of paradise in fact vanish, and the garden becomes reduced to the motif of the Virgin enthroned between angels and a pair of the flanking trees.39 This substitution marks the triumph of the symbolic, visual identification of Mary and the garden over the text-driven iconographic logic of showing the cherub-guarded gate, Abraham and the Good Thief. This non-narrative, metaphorical presence of the Virgin in paradise, as encountered in the miniatures from the Homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos, arises from a cultural system in which texts and images cross-pollenate and reinforce one another, rather than the one providing a script for the other. In this respect, it can be contrasted with the iconography of the Anastasis that became current in Russia by the seventeenth century. In these later images, Christ leads the righteous of the Old Testament out of Hades below, while above, the Good Thief joins Enoch and Elijah in paradise (Figure 23.10). The scheme derives in more-or-less direct fashion from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (or Acts of Pilate), which describes the journey of the Good Thief’s soul following his death on Good Friday.40 There is an impeccable narrative logic to the depiction, in which the only two scriptural figures explicitly taken up into heaven prior to Jesus are joined by the one to whom he promised immediate entry into paradise on the day of his crucifixion. The Mother of God has no place within the walls of this particular Eden. The tight correlation of text and image in this later Russian iconography of paradise stands in instructive contrast to the earlier Byzantine imagery, which draws promiscuously from both narrative and metaphorical sources and literature both pious and secular in order to create a visual identity for paradise that is distinct from that described in any text.

The Mother of God in the earthly paradise 421

Figure 23.10 Collection of the author: Nineteenth-century Russian icon with the Anastasis and related scenes. [Source: Author]

Notes 1 A. A. Vasil’ev, ed., Anectoda graeco-byzantina (Moscow, 1893), 135–65. 2 H. Maguire, ‘A description of the Aretai palace and its garden’, Journal of Garden History 10 (1990), 209–13; H. Maguire, ‘Gardens and parks in Constantinople’, DOP 54 (2000), 251–64; H. Maguire, ‘Imperial gardens and the rhetoric of renewal’, in P. Magdalino, ed., New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzan­ tium, 4th–13th Centuries (Aldershot, 1994), 181–98.

422 Warren T. Woodfin 3 H. Maguire, ‘Adam and the animals: allegory and the literal sense in Early Christian art’, DOP 41 (1987), 363–4. Cf. Gregory of Nazianzos’s sarcastic reference to his listen­ ers’ supposed experience of a ‘fourth heaven and another paradise’, Oration 39.18, in C. Moreschini, ed., Grégoire de Nazianze Discours 38–41 (Paris, 1990), 192. 4 H. Maguire, Earth and Ocean: The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art (Univer­ sity Park, 1987); H. Maguire, Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Lit­ erature (New York, 2012). 5 The author of the Christian Topography has been identified as Constantine of Antioch by W. Wolska-Conus, ‘Stéphanos d’Athènes et Stéphanos d’Alexandrie: Essai d’identification et de biographie’, REB 47 (1989), 28–30. The name Kosmas Indikopleustes first appears in catenae of the eleventh century; see ibid., 29. 6 W. Wolska-Conus, ‘La “Topographie Chrétienne” de Cosmas Indicopleustès: hypothèses sur quelques thèmes de son illustration’, REB 48 (1990), 155–91. The three manuscripts are the ninth-century Vat. gr. 699 (C. Stornajolo, Le miniature della Topografia cristiana di Cosma Indicopleuste, Codice Vaticano Greco 699 [Milan, 1908]); the eleventh-century Sinai gr. 1186 (P. Huber, Heilige Berge: Sinai, Athos, Golgota: Ikonen, Fresken, Miniatu­ ren [Zurich, 1980], 56–115); and the eleventh-century Florence, Laur. Plut. 9.28 (J. Ander­ son, The Christian Topography of Kosmas Indikopleustes, Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 9.28: The Map of the Universe Redrawn in the Sixth Century [Rome, 2013]). 7 H. Maguire, ‘Paradise withdrawn’, in A. Littlewood, H. Maguire and J. WolschkeBulmahn, eds., Byzantine Garden Culture (Washington, DC, 2002), 24; H. Maguire, Nectar and Illusion, 89–90, 97. 8 On Byzantine conceptions of paradise, see E. Patlagean, ‘Byzance et son autre monde’, in Faire croire: modalités de la diffusion et de la réception des messages religieux du XIIe au XVe siècle (Rome, 1981), 201–21; J. Baun, Tales from Another Byzantium: Celestial Journey and Local Community in the Medieval Greek Apoc­ rypha (Cambridge, 2007); Maguire, Nectar and Illusion, 92–8. On the parallel trad­ ition in Latin North Africa, see J. N. Bremmer, ‘Contextualizing Heaven in thirdcentury North Africa’, in R. S. Boustan and A. Y. Reed, eds., Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (Cambridge, 2004), 164–7. 9 L. Rydén, ed. and trans., The Life of St. Philaretos the Merciful Written by his Grandson Niketas (Uppsala, 2002), 112–17. 10 Ibid., 113. 11 C. Angelidi, ‘La version longue de la vision du moine Cosmas’, AB 101 (1983), 80, trans. 91, discussion of the date at 99. 12 Ibid., 81–5; trans. 92–5. 13 For the date, see L. Rydén, ed., The Life of St. Andrew the Fool (2 vols., Uppsala, 1995), vol. 1, 41–56. For the alternative dating to the seventh century, see C. Mango, ‘The life of St Andrew the Fool reconsidered’, RSBS 2 (1982), 297–313. 14 Rydén, ed., Andrew the Fool, vol. 2, 48–9. 15 The image is discussed by Rydén, ed., Andrew the Fool, vol. 1, 195, and connected to the episode of his being saved from freezing to death by a branch entwined with otherworldly lilies and roses. Cf. Andrew the Fool, vol. 2, 47. On the painting, see C. Mango and E. J. W. Hawkins, ‘The hermitage of St. Neophytos and its wall paint­ ings’, DOP 20 (1966), 179, fig. 92. 16 Maguire, Nectar and Illusion, 94; K. Sathas, ed., Mesaionike bibliotheke (7 vols., Paris, 1876), vol. 5, 83; translated in M. Kyriakis, ‘Medieval European society as seen in two eleventh-century texts of Michael Psellos’, ByzSt 3 (1976), 96. 17 M. Angheben, ‘Les Jugements derniers byzantins des XIe–XIIe siècles et l’iconographie du jugement immédiat’, CahArch 50 (2002), 105–34; N. P. Ševčenko, ‘Images of the Second Coming and the fate of the soul in middle Byzantine art’, in R. J. Daly, ed., Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity (Brookline, 2009), 250–72. Eighth- and ninth­

The Mother of God in the earthly paradise 423

18

19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29

30

century texts reference the iconography of the Last Judgment, although without great specificity about the nature of the depiction of paradise. See Oratio adversus Constanti­ num Cabalinum, PG 95, col. 324–5; J. M. Featherstone and J. S. Codoñer, eds. and trans., Chronographiae quae Theophanis Continuati nomine fertur libri I–IV (Berlin, 2015), 232–4. Both texts are discussed by Ševčenko, ‘Images of the Second Coming’, 258–9. Another image of the Last Judgment, showing ‘heaven and hell and their inhabit­ ants’, was seen by Nasir-i Khusraw in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1047, shortly after the rebuilding of the church by Constantine IX Monomachos; see W. Thackston, ed. and trans., Nasir-i Khusraw’s Book of Travels [Safarnama]: A Parallel PersianEnglish Text (Costa Mesa, 2001), 48. P. Williamson, Medieval Ivory Carvings: Early Christian to Romanesque (London, 2010), 129–30. Williamson rejects the former attribution to Venice, made on the basis of compositional similarities to the Torcello mosaic discussed below. Cf. A. S. Keck, ‘A group of Italo-Byzantine ivories’, ArtB 12 (1930), 161–2. The inscription gives the problematic dating of the building to 6537 of the twelfth indiction, thus either to 1028 (Byzantine date) or 1044 (Alexandrian date); see A. Tsitouridou, The Church of the Panagia Chalkeon (Thessaloniki, 1985), 9–11. Baun, Tales from Another Byzantium, 158–9, 161, fig. 5.6; Tsitouridou, Panagia Chalkeon, 50, fig. 8, 52. G. Soteriou and M. Soteriou, Εἰκόνες τῆς μονῆς Σινᾶ (2 vols., Athens, 1956, 1958), vol. 1, pl. 151; vol. 2, 130–1; K. Weitzmann, The Icon: Holy Images – Sixth to Fourteenth Century (New York, 1978), pl. 23. N. P. Ševčenko, ‘Images of the Second Coming’, 252, fig. 14.1. Inscribed Ο Α(γιος) ΠΕΤΡΟC ΕΠΑΖΟΝ (sc. ἐπάγων) ΤΟΥC ΔΙΚΕΟΥ(ς) IC (sc. δικαίους εἰς) ΤΟΝ ΠΑΡΑ/ΔΙCΟΝ, i.e. St Peter leading the righteous into para­ dise. The author thanks Georgi Parpulov for his help in deciphering the inscription. As noted in Maguire, Nectar and Illusion, 94–8. On the inhabitants of paradise, see Baun, Tales from Another Byzantium, 177–212; Angheben, ‘Jugements derniers byzantins’, 115–19. S. Shoemaker, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford, 2002). S. Mimouni, ‘Histoire de la recherche relative aux traditions littér­ aires et topologiques sur le sort final de Marie’, Marianum 58 (1996), 111–82. Rydén, ed., Andrew the Fool, vol. 2, 60–1. Shoemaker, Ancient Traditions, 31, 38, 165–6, 179–80, 189–90. Χαῖρε παράδεισε, οὗ τῷ καρπῷ τραφέντες, τὸν προσφυέντα ἡμῖν φθοροποιὸν ἰὸν ἀπεπτύσαμεν, πρὸς ἀνθηρὰν δὲ καὶ ἀγήρω ἰδέαν μετεποιήθημεν. Leo VI, Homilia I, 8, ll. 89–90, in T. Antonopoulou, ed., Leonis VI Sapientis Imperatoris Byzantini Homiliae (Turnhout, 2008), 8. The author thanks Alice-Mary Talbot for helpful sug­ gestions in improving his translation; responsibility for any remaining infelicities rests with the author. A. Littlewood, ‘Romantic paradises: the rôle of the garden in the Byzantine romance’, BMGS 5 (1979), 95–114; C. Barber, ‘Reading the garden in Byzantium: nature and sexuality’, BMGS 16 (1992), 1–19. On a treatise on garden symbolism in Byzantium, the Theoretikon Paradeission, see M. Thompson, ed., The Symbolic Garden: Reflections Drawn from a Garden of Virtues: A XIIth Century Greek Manu­ script (North York, 1989); Maguire, ‘Imperial gardens’, 181–97. See also the papers collected in Littlewood, Maguire and Wolschke-Bulmahn, eds., Byzantine Garden Culture. Niketas Eugenianos, Drosilla and Charikles, 1.79–80, 3.314–15 in F. Conca, ed., Il romanzo bizantino del XII secolo (Turin, 1994), 310, 362; E. Jeffreys, trans., Four Byzantine Novels (Liverpool, 2012), 354, 383. On the symbolic meanings of trees, see P. Roilos, Amphoteroglossia: A Poetics of the Twelfth-Century Medieval Greek Novel (Cambridge, 2005), 205–8, 211–23.

424 Warren T. Woodfin 31 Makrembolites, Hysmine and Hysminias 1.4.1, in Conca, ed., Romanzo bizantino, 502; trans. Jeffreys, Four Byzantine Novels, 179. 32 Ibid. 33 H. Maguire, ‘Davidic virtue: the crown of Constantine Monomachos and its images’, in A. Cohen-Mushlin and B. Kühnel, eds., The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art. Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1998), 122–3. On the relationship between Byzantine enamels and garden themes in literature, see W. Woodfin, ‘Within a budding grove: dancers, gardens, and the enamel cup from the Chungul Kurgan’, ArtB 98 (2016), 164–70. 34 I. Hutter and P. Canart, Das Marienhomiliar des Mönchs Jakobos von Kokkinoba­ phos, Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1162 (2 vols., Zürich, 1991), vol. 2, 25–6. This image is also discussed by Maguire, Nectar and Illusion, 71–3. 35 Hutter and Canart, Marienhomiliar des Mönchs Jakobos, vol. 2, 36–8. 36 Ὦ θύγατερ, οἷον ἐξ ἐμῶν ὠδίνων ἀνέδραμες βλάστημα! οἷον στέλεχος ἡ κατ’ ἐμὲ φύσις ἀνέθηλεν! οἷον τὸ τῆς εὐλογίας ἐξήνθησεν ἄνθος! ἄνθος τὸ τὴν χαρὰν εὐωδιά­ σαν, τὸ τὴν ἀηδίαν τῆς ἐμῆς ἀποσοβῆσαν λύπης· ἄνθος τὸ τὴν ἀμάραντον τερπνό­ τητα κυπρίσαν· ἄνθος, ἐξ οὗ τὸ πολύτιμον ἀπεθλίβη μύρον· ἀφ’ οὗ ἡ μυρωδία τῆς ἐμῆς διέπνευσεν ἀναπλάσεως. ῏Ω βλάστημα, δι’ οὗ τὸ τοῦ φυτοῦ ἀπεμαράνθη ἔγκ­ λημα· βλάσημα, ἐξ οὗ τὸ ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς μετὰ σαρκὸς ἀνεφύη· δι’ οὗ ὁ τῆς παρα­ κοῆς ἀπεῤῥιζώθη θάνατος. ῏Ω ρίζα, ἡ τὸ τῆς ἀναστάσεως ἀναβλαστήσασα δένδρον· τὸ τὴν ἀθανασίαν κομῶν· τὸ τὴν εὐθηνίαν τῆς χάριτος καρποφοροῦν, οὗ ὁ καρπὸς οὐκ ἀποῤῥυήσεται. Vat. gr. 1162, fol. 48v–49r. James of Kokkinobaphos, In nativita­ tem santissimae Dominae nostrae Dei Genitricis Mariae, PG 127, col. 593B-C. The author thanks Alice-Mary Talbot for her help in improving his translation, but takes full responsibility for any remaining faults. 37 Hutter and Canart, Marienhomiliar des Mönchs Jakobos, vol. 2, 39. 38 A. Sakellaridou-Sotiroudi, ed. in Αγίου Νεοφύτου του Εγκλείστου Συγγράμματα, 6 vols. (Paphos, 2005), vol. 5, 74–75; translation from Maguire, Nectar and Illu­ sion, 83. 39 As in a late fifteenth-century Last Judgment icon from the Church of Saints Boris and Gleb in Novgorod; see V. Gormin and L. Yarosh, Novgorod: Art Treasures and Architectural Monuments, 11th–18th Centuries, trans. L. Sorokina and C. Justice (Leningrad, 1984), pl. 19. 40 On the circulation of Slavonic translations of the Acts of Pilate/Gospel of Nicodemus in Ukraine and Russia, see G. Minczew and M. Skowronek, ‘The Gospel of Nicode­ mus in the Slavic manuscript tradition: initial observations’, Apocrypha 17 (2006), 179–202.

Index

Page numbers in italic refer to a table. Page numbers in bold refer to pictures in the text. Abraham: Dura-Europos Synagogue 302, 304; and paradise 409, 410, 411, 413, 415, 420 ‘acheiropoietos’ 151, 157 Acheiropoietos Basilica, Thessalonki 14 Achilles 24 Acre Triptych 192, 193 Acts of the Apostles 117 Adam 340, 417 Ainalov, Dimitri 21 Alexander III, Tsar 29, 31, 33 Alexander, Pope 131 Alexandra, Empress 71 Alexios Axouch 388–391, 393, 394 Alexios III Angelos 398–401 Alexios Komnenos 208, 325, 393 Alexiou, Margaret 204 ‘Allegory of Jerusalem on High’ 4–6 aluminium 31, 33, 44n12 Amiens Cathedral 293, 294, 295 Amiroutzes, George 331 Ammianus Marcellinus 57 Ananias and Sapphira 119–120, 123 Anastasios I 336 Anastasis, Church of, Jerusalem 272, 273, 420, 421; see also Holy Sepulchre, Church of, Jerusalem Andronikos II 322, 324, 325–326, 327 Andronikos III Palaiologos 224, 330 angels 355, 357–362 Anicia Juliana 92 animals, exotic 344, 348n36, 349n39 Anna Komnene Doukaina, daughter of Michael II 84, 89n45 Anna, mother of Mary 84

Annunciation 286, 288, 291; and spring 294–295, 299n44 Anselm, Bishop of Havelberg 139 Antalya Museum 353 Antioch 193; Antioch bathhouse 169; ‘Green Carpet Mosaic’ 171–172, 173, 175, 176, 178; ‘Striding Lion Mosaic’ 176, 178 Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo 312 antithesis 25, 26, 267, 275 Apa Apollo Monastery, Bawit 352, 363n13 Apa Jeremiah Monastery, Saqqara 352 Aphrodite, goddess 168 apocalyptic imagery 146, 155 Apokaukos, John 405n33 Archangelos Monastery, Cemil 264 archangels 350–362; and eyes 352, 355, 357; and Ezekiel 355, 356, 357, 358; Panagia Angeloktistos 350–352, 354–355, 361–362; and peacocks 350, 353–354, 355; San Apollinare 155, 358, 359; wings of 350, 351–353, 355–356, 357–358, 362; see also Gabriel, Arch­ angel; Michael, Archangel Aristotle 206

Ark of the Covenant 301, 304, 305–308,

309, 311 Arta 81, 83–84 Artuqid emir Rukn al-Dawla Abu Sulayman Dawud 394 Ascension 22, 123, 125, 253, 257 Atelier of the Palaiologina 221 Athanasios, Patriarch 324 Attaleiates, Michael 321, 339, 340, 344 Aubé, Benjamin 91, 92 Augustine 116, 353

426 Index Augustus, Emperor, statue of 24

Axouch, Alexios 388–391,

393, 394

Axouch, John 393–394

Bachkovo Monastery 146, 152, 153, 155,

156, 161n46

Bakalova, Elka 324

Bakirtzis, Charalambos 4–15; see also

Thessaloniki

Balai of Aleppo 361

Baltoyanni, Chrysanthe 83

baptism 61; of Constantine 133, 134,

137, 141

Bar Kokhba Revolt 300–301, 312

Barbara Kilisesi Chapel, Soğlanlι Valley

252–253

Barber, Charles 80, 275–276, 416

Bartholomew, Gospel of 415

Basil, Christ and Eudokia ivory box 56, 57

Basil I 56, 58, 370

Basil II the parakoimomenos 101;

Menologion of Basil II 94

Basilakes, Nikephoros 208, 210

Bassett, Sarah 18–26; see also Byzantine

art; John the Baptist

Bawit interior 177

Beaumesnil, Pierre de 123–124, 130n42

Bellini, Gentile 318–331, 332n9

Belting, Hans 23, 331

Bern Historical Museum 192

Beryozovo cup 397–398, 399

Bessarion, Cardinal 322

bestiaries 344

Betancourt, Roland 275

Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

328–330, 370

Billinge, Rachel 332n9

birds 170, 353–354, 416; see also peacocks

Blacherna Church, Arta 83, 86

Boeck, Elena N. 29–43, 324

Bogorodica Leviška Church, Prizren

325–326 Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum, Kiev 18, 19, 21

Boistaillé, Jean Hurault de 223–224

Bolman, Elizabeth 204

Boston, Karen 366, 370

Botkin collection 37–38

bracelet, Constantinian 175

Brascassat, Jacques-Raymond, Le Passage

de la giraffe à Arnay-le-Duc 339

Brescia casket 118–121, 124–125, 126

British Library: Histoire ancienne

(1295) 389, 390, 391; London

Tetraevangelion 326

British Museum 41; Maskel casket

122–123, 125, 126, 127; St George and

the boy of Mytilene 189–193, 195–198

Brodsky, Joyce 131

Brubaker, Leslie 47–67, 136

Buchthal, Hugo 218, 220

Buona Nuova Church, Massafra 291

Buondelmonti, Christoforo 209

burials/burial chambers 253, 254, 257, 258,

261, 264

Burlington Magazine 42

Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens:

Andronikos II 327; St George with

female donor 71–72; two female saints

71, 73, 83

Byzantine art 3; and Constantine and

Helena 131–132, 133, 134, 136, 137,

138–139; enameling techniques 140; and

grief 3, 60, 274–275, 279; and

juxtaposition 20, 24–26, 123, 125, 164,

285; light and shade modelling 20, 22,

24, 25; motion in 20, 24, 25, 26, 48–49;

and Muslim culture 191, 328, 387–401;

style 18–21, 22, 23–24; texture 162–181;

and theft 37–38, 41–42; use of colour

145n54, 167, 171–172; use of line 20,

22; visuality 388, 402n9; see also cloth­ ing/drapery; gender; gesture; Muslim

culture; posture in Byzantine art

Caesar, Julius 336

Calò Mariani, Maria Stella 291, 292

Cameron, Averil 208

candle holders 397, 399, 400, 406n43

Çanlι Kilise 252

Cappadocia 251–265 Cappella Palatina, Palermo 389, 403n19 Cappella Romana 273

Carr, Annemarie Weyl 71–86, 218

Carruthers, Mary 294

caskets: Brescia casket 118–121, 124–125,

126; Maskel casket 122–123, 125, 126,

127; Palazzo Venezia 300

ceilings 178, 291, 392

censers 394–396 Centre ‘Ivan Dujčev’, Sofia (So) 219, 220,

221, 222, 223, 224, 225–245

Chariton, scribe 218, 219, 222

Charles X, King of France 337–338 Chomatenos, Demetrios 209

Index Choniates, Niketas 328 Chora Church, Constantinople (Kariye Carnii, Istanbul) 251 Choumnos, Nikephoros 4, 14 Christ Chalkites, Chapel of 380 Christ, humanity of 26 Christ, images of 159n27, 160n28; Bachkovo Monastery 153; beardless 148, 153, 155, 160n30; on coins 379–382; as lamb of God 20, 23; Latomou Monastery apse mosaic 148, 149–150, 151; and nomina sacra 366, 367–370, 372–373, 376–383; Poganovo icon 152–155, 161n44 ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ 146–157; apse mosaic 146–148, 151, 159n16, 358; Ezekiel 148, 154–155; as funerary icon 146, 149, 152, 155–156; images of Christ 148, 150, 151; miracles 151–152, 156, 157; Poganovo icon 146, 152–155, 156, 157, 160n38, 161n44, 161n48; visions 149, 150–151 Christ the Saviour Monastery, Messina 272 Christian rulers 325, 328 Christian Topography 407, 422n5 Christos Paschon 204–212; dialogue 205, 208, 209–210; drama 204, 205–210; Easter 204, 205; laments (cento) 204, 205, 206, 208–209, 210, 211; monologue 205, 208, 209; and Psellos 206, 209; and Resurrection 205, 206, 207, 211; Theotokus 204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210; tragedy 204, 205–206, 207, 209 chromolithography 31, 34–35 church calendars 218–246; see also Hodegon lectionaries churches, multiple phase 251–265; burial chambers 253, 254, 257, 258, 261, 264; Cappadocia 251–265; funerary chapels 251, 257, 289; hermitages 258, 260, 264, 265; masonry 251–252, 253; rock-carved 252–253; Sarica Valley (Kepez) 258–261, 262, 263, 264, 265 Clement of Alexandria 376 clothing/drapery 25, 140, 162, 351–352; imperial 134, 136, 138, 143n17; St George 189, 191 coins, monograms on 379–382 colour, use of 145n54, 167, 171–172 Conrad III 139, 144n42 Constantine Chlorus 133–136, 140–141, 142; baptism of 133, 134, 137, 141; as Crusader 134, 136, 137, 141; and Helena

427

131–133, 136, 137, 138–139; and John the Baptist icon 18, 22, 23; and Mosan art 131–132, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138–139 Constantine I the Great 6–8, 370; family likenesses 322, 324, 333n29; and Justinian 322–323, 370 Constantine IX Monomachus 29, 336, 339–340, 416; Hagia Sophia 51, 52, 57 Constantine the Rhodian 209 Constantine VI 54–56, 57 Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos 279, 328 Constantine VIII 416 Constantine X Doukas 321, 405n33 Constantine XI 328 contrapposto pose 20, 21, 22, 24–26 Coptic liturgy 357 Cormack, Robin 192 Corneille, Pierre, Polyeucte martyr 109n9 Coronation of the Virgin tryptych 193 corporeality 67; in Byzantium art 48–49 Corrigan, Kathleen 22–23 Cortona, Nicaea 100–101, 144n35 Cosmas Indicopleustes 344 couple, embracing 292–295, 298n36 Crac des Chevaliers ‘baptismal’ chapel 191 Crocefisso Church, Ugento 291, 292 Crossing the Red Sea 66 Crucifixion 141, 279, 294–295, 374; Crucifixion and Deposition diptych 267, 269, 270, 274, 275, 278, 279; Li Monaci 288, 289–290 Crusade Window, St Denis 134

Crusaders 134; Constantine 134, 136, 137,

141; St George 71, 85, 193–194 Ċurčić, Slobodan 6–7 Curzi, Gaetano 291 Cutler, Anthony 91–108, 279 Cvetović, Branislav 85 Cynegetica 340–342, 347n26 Cyprus 71, 192; Cyprus Passion Cycle 211, 216n54 Cyriacus of Ancona 343–344, 348n34 Cyril of Skythopolis 104 Dalassenos, John 273 Dalton, Ormonde 21, 42 Damascus Gate Chapel, Jerusalem 373 Dance of Miriam 66–67 dancers 29, 66–67 David Collection, Copenhagen 397, 399, 400, 406n43 David IV 325

428 Index David, King 29, 300–313; and DuraEuropos Synagogue 304–305, 309–311; and messianism 303–305, 312–313; as passive character 300, 304, 308–313; and Samuel 304, 309, 311, 317n41 de Linas, Charles 36–37 Delehaye, Hippolyte 91 Demesnil, Nicole Lemaigre 254, 255 dialogue 205, 208, 209–210 Diehl, Charles 35, 38–39 Dioscorides 169, 172 Djumati Monastery, Georgia 41 Dodd, E. C. 195 donors 71–74, 76–83, 85, 86, 149, 192, 321; donor-monk 79, 80, 81; and Moses 77, 78; and St George 72, 74, 79, 82–83; women as 71, 75, 83–84, 85–86 Dormition, Church of, Nicaea 358, 360, 364n38, 374, 375 Doryphoros of Polykleitos 24 dowries, marriage 139, 144n48 drama, Byzantine 204, 205–210 dreams see visions Drosilla and Charikles 207, 416 Drpić, Ivan 75 Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC 2; Antioch bathhouse 169; coins 382; Constantinian bracelet 175; earring 164–165; ‘Green Carpet Mosaic’ 171–172, 173, 175, 176, 178; lamp from Sion 374; Matthew’s Gospel 181; Riha treasure 355–356; Seal of Leo 180; Woolen tapestry with a boar hunt 174, 175 Dura-Europos Synagogue 300–313; Abraham 302, 304; Ark of the Covenant 301, 304, 305–308, 309, 311; David 304–305, 309–311; Ephraim 302, 304; God as warrior 305–308, 312; Jacob 302, 303; Jerusalem Temple 300–302, 305–307, 310, 312; Judah 302, 303; Moses 309; Orpheus 302–303, 315n14; Samuel 309; Saul 310, 312; Solomon/ Solomon’s Temple 301, 303, 304–305; Torah shrine 300–301, 304, 311, 314n8, 314n11 earring, Dumbarton Oaks 164–165 Easter: Christos Paschon 204, 205; Li Monaci 285, 289, 291, 295 Eastern symbolic mode 141–142 Ebenezer, defeat at 307, 308 Eden, garden of 407, 408, 409, 415, 417, 418, 420

Eirene Doukaina Angelina Komnene 83 Eirene Eulogia Palaiologina 83 Eirene of Athens 54, 55, 370 Eirene of Hungary 57 ekphrasis (liveliness) 267, 392 elephants 336, 339, 340 ‘Eleven’ 1 Elias, Prophet 97, 101 Emaux byzantins (Kondakov) 29–39, 43n5, 43n8 emotion 24, 118; and hymns (sticheron) 269, 272, 274–275, 278, 290; and women 60, 69n25, 208; see also grief; lament; sorrow enamels 29–43; Senkschmelz 140 encaustic 20, 21 Ender, Jody 208 enjoyment, personification of 169 Entry into Jerusalem 66 Ephesus, Council of 374, 376 Eudokia 56, 92–93 Euphrasius Basilica, Poreč 155 Euripides 204, 206–207, 210, 212, 213n21 Eusebius, Bishop of Cesaraea 136 eyes 22; and archangels 352, 355, 357, 358 Ezekiel, prophet: and archangels 355, 356, 357, 358; ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ 148, 154–155 family likenesses 318–331; and Bellini 318–331, 332n9; Constantine the Great 322–325, 333n29; Mehmed II Fatih 318, 319, 324–325, 328–329, 330–331, 332n9 fans, litergical 355, 356, 357 Faras Cathedral, Sudan 352–353, 363n14 Fatih Mosque 324 Fatimid dynasty 389 Felicetti-Liebenfels, Walter 21 Ferrara, Costanzo da 320 Ferris, I. 8 Fine, Steven 302 Flesher, Paul 303, 305 flowers see roses Follieri, Enrica 100–101 formal values 23, 189, 195 Fortunatus, Venantius 171–172 Forty Martyrs, Church of, Veliko Tŭrnovo 102 Fossati, Gaspare and Giuseppe 367 France 34, 37 Frankish art 188, 191–193, 194, 195, 196–198, 199 Frederick I Barbarossa 131, 139, 144n42

Index Frederick II Hohenstaufen 337, 345n9 Freiburg Leaf 196, 197 Frieze Gospels 409, 411 Frolow, Anatole 138 Fry, Roger 42 Fulcher of Chartres 194 funerary chapels 251, 257, 289 funerary icons 123; ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ 146, 149, 152, 155–156 Gabriel, Archangel 353, 358, 369; Panagia Angeloktistos 350–352, 361 Galla Placidia, Ravenna 25, 372 gardens 407–421; Eden 407, 408, 409, 415, 417, 418, 420; James the Monk (James of Kokkinobaphos) 416–417, 418, 419, 420; and Last Judgment 409–415, 420, 423n17; and Psellos 409, 416; see also paradise, earthly gaze 48, 51–52, 275 Gemini 294–295 gender 49, 53–67 Genesis, Book of 351; Histoire ancienne (1295) 389, 390, 391 geopolitics, chromolithographic 29–43; see also Russian heritage George IV, King of England 338 George of Nikomedeia 211, 282n38; ‘Theotokos at the Cross’ sermon 268, 274, 275 George of Trebizond 331 Georgia 325, 394; Georgian enamels 36, 38–39, 41–42 Gerasa mosaic floor 174, 177 Gerasimos, Patriarch of Jerusalem 39 Germanos I of Constantinople 361 Germanos III, Patriarch 324 Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum 188 gesture 49–67, 118; corporeality 48, 67; and emotion 60, 69n25; gaze 48, 51–52; and gender 49, 53–67; and Maguire 57–58, 67, 118; prayer 309, 317n39; San Vitale 50, 53–54; and women 57, 58, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67 Geza, King of Hungary 48, 68n4 Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kay Khusraw I, Sultan 398–401 Ghurids 388, 397, 406n43 Giotto, Noli me tangere 289 Giovanni, Bertoldo di 320

429

giraffes 336–344, 345n6, 345n4, 345n9; and Mamluk sultans 337, 338, 343, 346n14; and Psellos 339–340, 344; reproduction 342–343, 347n28 Glabas Tarchaneiotes, Michael 104 God (the Lord): God’s will 194, 202n31; naming of 376, 383; as warrior 305–308, 312 Gorgias of Leontini 25 Grabar, A. 155 Grabar, Oleg 2 Gračanica Church 105 Graeco-Roman tradition 20–21 Grand Manner 26 Grandmont Abbey 145n52 ‘Great Babylon’ 6 Great Palace complex, Constantinople 179 ‘Green Carpet Mosaic’, Antioch 171–172, 173, 175, 176, 178 Gregory, C. R. 221 Gregory of Nazianzus 204; Homilies 48, 57–67, 134, 135, 136, 137, 370 Gregory of Nyssa 96–97, 293 Gregory of Tours 92 grief 3, 60, 274–275, 279 Guillaume II de Villehardouin 75, 84 Habakkuk, prophet 148, 154–155, 156, 161n47, 161n48 Hagia Irene, Constantinople 175 Hagia Sophia, Constantinople 366–383; apse mosaics 180, 277, 278, 367, 374, 379, 386n53; archangels 369; and calendar of saints 221; Constantine and Justinian 322–323, 370; Deesis 369; Emperor before Christ 368–369; and family likenesses 322–324; inscriptions 379; John II Komnenos, Virgin Mary and Eirene 52, 57, 370; John the Baptist 369; lunette mosaic 367–368, 381; narthex 368–369, 381; and nomina sacra 366–383; and roses 176, 178, 180; and sight and sound 268–270, 271, 276, 277, 278; tympana 367, 368; Zoe and Constantine IX panel 51, 52, 57, 370 Hamburger, Jeffrey 279 Hanging-Judas image 115, 116, 118, 119, 122, 124–127 Harley, Felicity 115–127; see also Judas Iscariot Harvard University 2 Hawkins, E. J. W. 369, 370 heaven, blessings of 167

430 Index Helena Angelina Doukaina, daughter of Michael II 84–85 Helena Dragaš 155 Helena, Empress (St Helena) 63–64; and Constantine 131, 132–133, 136–138, 140–141, 142; Helena discovering the True Cross 63–64, 135, 138, 141; Invention of the Cross 134, 136, 140 Helena Kantakouzene 155 Heptapyrgion, Thessaloniki 14, 15 hermitages 261–264; Hermitage of St Neophytos the Recluse 409, 410; Sarica (Kepez) Church 2 260, 264, 265; Timios Stavros Monastery 257, 258, 260 heroic status 24–26 Histoire ancienne (1295) 389, 390, 391 Hodegon lectionaries 218–246; Centre ‘Ivan Dujčev’, Sofia (So) 221, 222, 223, 224, 225–245; and Chariton 219, 220, 222, 224, 227; Gregory (G) 221; Jaharis manuscript (J) 220–221; Mandylion 222, 224, 248n39; Menaion (M) 221, 247n32; Painter C 219, 220; Painter D 219; Paris 311 (P) 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225–245; St Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai (Si) 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225–245; Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopitanae (CP) 220; Theotokus 225, 232, 237, 242, 244, 245; Vatopedi Monastery (V) 209, 220, 222, 224, 225–245, 248n39; Vatopedi Skevophylakion 16 (Vsk) 219, 221, 222, 224, 225–245 Hodegon Monastery, Constantinope 218, 223, 224 Holy Apostles, Church of 93, 108, 324 Holy Friday 267, 268, 272, 282n38 Holy Sepulchre, Church of, Jerusalem 194; see also Anastasis, Church of, Jerusalem Homer, Odyssey 278, 416 Honorius, robe of 162 Hörandner, Wolfram 204 Hoshanna Rabbah feast 305–307 Hosios David, Church of see Latomou Monastery, Thessaloniki (Hosios David Church) Hosios Loukas, Daphni 102, 290 hospitality, symbols of 167, 177 Hunger, Herbert 204 Hunt, Lucy-Anne 388–389 Hutter, Irmgard 219, 220 hymns, chanted (sticheron) 267–279; and emotion 269, 272, 274–275, 278, 290; Leo VI’s 267–268, 272–274, 279,

280n14, 282n38; and sight and sound 268–272, 274–279; ‘Theotokos at the Cross’ sermon 268, 274, 275 iconoclasm 275, 279, 366, 377–378; post-iconoclasm 366–383 Ignatios, Abbot, Akapniou Monastery 146, 149–152, 159n20 Ignatios, Abbot of Hodegon Monastery 220 Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of 2 immigration 10 imperial family representation 318–331; and Bellini 318–331, 332n9; Mehmed II Fatih 318, 319, 324–325, 328–329, 330–331, 332n9; see also family likenesses imperial imagery 131, 318 ‘Imperial Menologion’ 93, 95 Innsbruck plate 394, 395 inscriptions: Hagia Sophia 379; Latomou Monastery apse mosaic 148–149; Li Monaci 287–288, 289; Panagia Angeloktistos 353; Virgin Mary 353, 363n17 Invention of the Cross 134, 136, 140, 142 Isaiah, Book of 355, 356, 357, 361 Islamic art, Eastern 387–401; see also Muslim culture Ivan Alexaxander, Tsar 324, 326 James, Liz 146 James the Monk (James of Kokkinobaphos) 180–181, 416–417, 418, 419, 420 Jericho, Battle of 305, 307–308 Jerome 116 Jerphanion, Guillaume de 254, 257–258 Jerusalem 4–8; and St George 188, 193–194, 199; Temple of 300–302, 304, 305–307, 310, 312 Jesus: betrayal of 116–117, 118; death of 122–123, 126–127 Joasaph I 219, 220 Joasaph II 219, 220, 222, 223 John, Gospel of 117, 127, 285 John I Tzimiskes 379–381 John II Komnenos 251, 325, 393, 394; John II Komnenos, Virgin Mary and Eirene 52, 57, 370 John of Damascus 26, 377, 383 John of Gaza 164 John the Baptist 18–26; Hodegon lectionaries 223, 226, 233, 235, 240,

Index 242; and motion 20, 24, 25, 26, 48–49; and St George 74, 87n16 John VI Kantakouzenos 224, 322, 326, 328 John VIII Palaiologos 320, 325, 330–331 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore 2 Jonah 294, 296n6; Li Monaci 285, 286, 288 Jones, Lynn 131–142; see also Constantine Chlorus; Helena, Empress (St Helena); Stavelot Triptych Joseph the Hymnographer 150 Judas Iscariot 115–127; Hanging-Judas image 115, 116, 118, 119, 122, 124–127; kiss of betrayal 118, 123; Passion narrative 118, 120–121, 123, 125, 126; Servanne sarcophagus 123–125, 126, 130n38, 130n42; and St Peter 119–120, 123; tree 122, 123, 127 Juno, goddess 353 Justin II 336 Justinian’s fortress, Sinai see St Catherine’s Monastery, Mt Sinai juxtaposition, technique of 20, 24–26, 123, 125, 164, 285 Kalavrezou, Ioli 51, 373, 374 Kaminiates, John 10–12 Kastoria, Greece 71, 74, 75 kastron 8, 10–12 Katomyomachia 211 Kedrenos, George 380 Kessler, Herbert 125 Khakhouli triptych 37, 38, 42 Khludov Psalter 370, 371, 379 Kiev group 22, 23 Kiliç Arslān II 388, 392, 398, 404n24 Kimelman, Reuven 313 King’s Church, Studenica 105 King’s College, Cambridge 1 Kinnamos, John 328, 388, 391, 394 kiss of betrayal 118, 123 Kitzinger, Ernst 2, 21, 49 Klein, Holger 133, 140 Kleinbauer, Gene 8 knights 192 Koimesis Church (Church of the Dormition), Nicaea see Dormition, Church of, Nicaea Komnene, Anna 206 Komnenian art 208, 210; Komnenian novels 207, 417 Komnenian Dynasty 322, 325, 387; Alexios Komnenos 208, 325, 393; Anna Komnene Doukaina 84, 89n45; Eirene

431

Doukaina Angelina Komnene 83; Isaak Komnenos 57, 321; John II Komnenos (’the Fat’) 52, 57, 251, 325, 370, 393, 394; Manuel I Komnenos 252, 392, 398; Manuel II Komnenos 322; Michael II Angelos Komnenos 75, 84 Kondakov, Nikodim 29–34, 35, 36–39, 41–43 Kosmas Indikopleustes see Christian Topography Koutloumousiou Monastery, Mt Athos 219 Kraeling, C. H. 305 Kraus, Manfred 208 Kritios Boy 24 Kritovoulos 331 Lam, Andrea Olsen 146–157; see also ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ lamb, Christ as 20, 23 Lamberz, Erich 219 lament: cento 204, 205, 206, 208–209, 210, 211; threnos 217n55, 267, 274 L’art byzantin (Bayet) 45n58 Last Judgment 289, 409–415, 420, 423n17; Last Judgment with Stoudite monks 409–410, 412, 415 Lateran Baptistery, Rome 134 Latomou Monastery, Thessaloniki (Hosios David Church) 155–156, 161n46; apse mosaic 146–148, 151, 159n16, 358; miracles 149, 151–152, 156, 157; see also ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ Lazarev, Viktor 21 lectionaries, Gospel 99, 218, 246n3; see also Hodegon lectionaries Leo VI, Emperor 381–382, 415; hymns of 267–268, 272–274, 279, 280n14, 282n38 Leviticus, Book of 340 Li Monaci, Apulia 283–296; Annunciation 286, 286, 288, 291, 294–295, 299n44; Archangel Gabriel 286; Archangel Michael 283, 286, 287, 290–291; ceilings 283, 291–293; Crucifixion 288, 289–290; Easter 285, 291, 295; embracing couple 292–295, 298n36; inscriptions 287–288, 289; Jonah 285, 286, 288; marginalia 293–294; nails 288, 297n17; patrons 291, 296; skull of Adam 288; St John the Evangelist 284, 288; St Onouphrios 283–284, 286, 296; Victor mortis 289, 295; Virgin Mary 286, 288

432 Index Life of Cyril Phileotes 209

Life of Philaretos the Merciful 408

Life of St Andrew the Fool 409, 415, 416

light and shade modelling 20, 22, 24, 25

Limburg staurotheke 38, 101

L’Imitation de Jésus-Christ 34

line, use of 20, 22

Littlewood, Antony 416

London Tetraevangelion 326

Lothar III 139, 144n42

Luke, Gospel of 117, 127

lulav bundle 305–307

Lust, Amiens Cathedral 293, 294

Lydda (Lod) 192, 194–195

Maccabees, Santa Maria Antique 23

Macrides, Ruth 209

Madaba’s House, Phaedra 168

Magdalino, Paul 388

Magister, Thomas 8

Maguire, Eunice Dauterman 2, 3, 162–181;

see also roses Maguire, Henry Pownall 1–3; and

archangels 350; and ‘formal values/

characteristics’ 91, 189; and gardens/

landscapes 407, 420; and gesture 57–58,

67, 118; and hardness and softness of art

162, 163–164; and imperial imagery 131,

318; and nomina sacra 366, 372; and

representation of the holy 188; and

rhetoric 195, 267, 300; and roses 164,

178; and secularity 205; and sorrow 51,

204; and texts and images 148, 156, 283;

works xxii–xxix, 3, 67, 267, 293

Mahoney, Lisa 188–199; see also St George Maimonides 309

Makrembolites, Eumathios, Hysmine and

Hysminias 416

Mamluk sultans 191, 337, 338, 343,

346n14 Manfred of Sicily 75, 84–85 Mango, Cyril 149, 367

Manuel I Komnenos 252, 392, 398

Manuel II Komnenos 322

Manuel Panselinos 104

Mar Saba Monastery, Jerusalem

195, 272, 379

Mar Tadros, Church of, Bahdeidat 192, 195

Marciniak, Przemyslaw 208

marginalia 293–294 Mark, Gospel of 116

Marriage of David and Michal plate 54, 55

Martvili triptych 374

martyrdom 74–75, 91–108; St George 188,

194–195, 198; see also St Polyeuktos Marwan tiraz 165–167 Maskel casket, British Museum 122–123, 125, 126, 127

Mathews, Thomas 23

Matthew, Gospel of 116–117, 125, 181

Maximianus, Throne of 21, 22

Medici, Lorenzo de 337

Mehmed II Fatih 223; and imperial family

representation 318, 319, 324–325,

328–329, 330–331, 332n9

Menaion 101, 102; Hodegon lectionaries

221, 247n32

Mendels, David 312

Menologion of Basil II 93, 94

Mesarites, Nikolaos 391–392, 394

messianism 303–305, 312–313

Messina crucifix 289

Methodius, Patriarch 370, 379

Metochites, Theodore 251, 321

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

41; Crucifixion plaque 279; J. Pierpont Morgan collection 29; textile fragments 162–168, 177–179, 183n14 Meyer, Mati 67

Michael, Archangel: Li Monaci 283, 286,

287, 290–291; Panagia Angeloktistos

350–352, 361; San Apollinare 358; Santa

Cristina 298n26; St Catherine’s

Monastery 48–49, 80, 81; St Marco

Basilica 100, 108

Michael II Angelos Komnenos 75, 84

Michael III 379–382

Michael IX Palaeolous 321

Michael VII, King of Hungary 48, 68n4

Michael VIII Palaiologos 322, 324, 343,

348n31

Millet, Gabriel 104

Milutin, Stefan, King of Serbia 325–326

miracles: Latomou Monastery 149,

150–151, 156, 157; and St. George

189–192, 196

Miracles of Saint Demetrios, Second

Book of 9

Mohammed Ali Pasha 337, 338

monograms, inscribed see nomina sacra

monologue 205, 208, 209

Monte Gargano, Italy 290

Montfaucon, B. de, Palaeographia

Graeca 218

Morgan, J. Pierpont 29, 41, 42, 131–142

Index Mosan art 131–132, 133, 134, 136, 137,

138–139

Moses 76, 77, 78, 80, 309

Mother of God: and gardens/landscapes

415–420; Mother of God Tryphiotissa

74; and nomina sacra 376, 377; Russian

heritage 37–38, 42; and St George 74,

76; see also Theotokus; Virgin Mary

motherhood, Byzantine 207

motion in Byzantine art 20, 24, 25, 26,

48–49

Mouchroutas Hall, Constantinople

391–392, 393

Mouriki, Doula 80–81 Mouzalon, ethopoiia 209

Mullett, Margaret 204–212; see also Christos Paschon Musée des medailles, Paris 279

Muslim culture 191, 328, 387–401;

princely cycle imagery 389–391, 393,

394, 397

Myriokephalon, Battle of 387

Mytelenaios, Christopher 209

Mytilene, boy of 189–193, 195–198, 199; see also St George Nativity, Church of, Bethlehem 192,

198–199

nature imagery 407

Neilos, Archbishop 76, 77, 80 Nelson, Robert S. 218–246; see also Hode­ gon lectionaries Neo-Platonism 116, 376

Neophytos, hermit 261–264, 420;

Hermitage of St Neophytos the Recluse

409, 410

Nestor 93

New Tokalι Kilise, Cappadocia 290

Nicaea, Council of 377, 378

Nicholas the Sophist 18–19, 24

Nicodemus, Gospel of 420

Nikephoros I, Patriarch 275–276, 378–379 Nikephoros II Phokas 112n57, 321

nomina sacra 366–383; and images of

Christ 366, 367–370, 372–373, 376–383;

and Maguire 366, 372; and saints 373,

377–378; San Apollinare Nuovo 373,

374; and Virgin Mary 366, 367–379

Octateuchs: Florence 340, 341, 347n21;

Vatican 340, 342, 347n23

Oppian 340–342, 347n26

433

Orchan Gazi 328

Origen 407

ostiarioi 356, 364n32 Ousterhout, Robert 251–265, 321; see also churches, multiple phase Pachymeres, George 322, 324, 343

Paganini, Nicoló 338

paganism 149–150, 212, 344, 376

Pala d’Oro 38

Palazzo Venezia 56, 57, 300

Panagia Angeloktistos, Kiti 262, 350–352,

354–355, 361–362, 374

Panagia Chalkeon, Thessaloniki 410

Pantokrator Monastery, Constantinople (Zeyrek Camii, Istanbul) 251–252 paradise 408–409, 417

paradise, earthly 407–421; and Abraham

409, 410, 411, 413, 415, 420; Eden 407,

408, 409, 415, 417, 418, 420

paradox 25

Paris 311 (P) 220, 221, 222, 223, 224,

225–245

Paris Psalter 168

Paschon: ethopoiia 211

Passion narrative 118, 120–121, 123,

125, 126

Passion, visions of 267–279; see also hymns, chanted (sticheron) Patria stories 102, 110n19 patronage 35, 291, 296

peace 170, 312

peacocks 262, 350, 353–354, 355; and

Rabbula Gospels 354, 355, 363n26

pearl images 162, 164–165 Peers, Glenn 76, 361–362 Pelagonia, Battle of 75, 84

Pentcheva, Bissera 267–279; see also hymns, chanted (sticheron) Pérez Martin, I. 218

performance, Byzantine 207–211; dialogue

205, 208, 209–210; drama 204, 205–210;

laments (cento) 204, 205, 206, 208–209,

210, 211; monologue 205, 208, 209;

satire 209, 210, 211; tragedy 204,

205–206, 207, 209

personality 26

Perugia Missal 192

Petrie Museum, London 170

Philoponus, John 377

Philoxenus diptychs 175

Photios, Patriarch 59, 277–278, 370, 379

Piero della Francesca 325

434 Index Pilate 122, 123, 125

pillion riders 189, 191; see also Mytilene,

boy of; St George Piltz, Elizabeth 320 Pisanello 320, 331 pleasantness 169 Pliny 24 Poganovo icon, Sofia 86; and ‘Christ of the Miracle of the Latomou’ 146, 152–155, 156, 157, 160n38, 161n44, 161n48 Politis, Linos 218 Polykleitos 24 posture in Byzantine art 87n14, 137; orant 71, 74, 75, 76, 80, 82–83 prayer 309, 317n39 prestige 81, 393 princely cycle imagery 389–391, 393, 394, 397 Proconnesian marble relief 162, 353 Prodromos, Theodore 204, 210, 211 progymnasmata 208 Proklos 376 Protoevangelium of James 417 Prudentius 126 Psalm 104 351 Psellos, Michael 57, 321; and Christos Paschon 206, 209; and daughter, Styliane 209, 409, 416; and gardens/ landscapes 409, 416; and giraffes 339–340, 344 Pseudo-Dionysios 357, 361, 376–377 Ptolemy 329 Puchner, Walter 205, 207 Qau roses 170 Quinisext Council 23 Quintilian 24 Rabbula Gospels: and peacocks 354, 355, 363n26; and roses 172, 173 Ravenna, Italy 1 Raymond of Aguilers 188 Red Monastery Church, Egypt 176 Redford, Scott 396 reliquaries: Cortona 100–101, 144n35; Stavelot Triptych 131–142, 143n8; True Cross reliquaries 134, 139–141, 143n8, 144n35 Resurrection 141; and Christos Paschon 205, 206, 207, 211 Revelation, Book of 355, 358 rhetoric 195, 208, 267, 300 Riha treasure 355–356

Robert ‘the Wise’ 287–288 Romanos the Melode 270, 279 roses 162–181; calyx of 171, 172, 176–177, 180, 186n39; on curtains 167–168, 174, 177; earring 164; four-petal 179–181; geometricized 172–173; ‘Green Carpet Mosaic’ 171–172, 173, 175, 176, 178; grid framework 168, 169, 173–178; and Hagia Sophia 176, 178, 180; latticedesign 172, 173, 174, 177, 178; medical uses 169; and pearls 162, 164–165; and Rabbula Gospels 172, 173; rose medallion 172, 173; rose-scattering 168, 177; and softness 162–163, 164–165, 167, 172, 174, 181; ‘Striding Lion Mosaic’ 176, 178; as symbols of hospitality 167, 177; textile fragments 162–168, 177–179, 183n14; and use of colour 167, 171–172; and well-being 168, 169, 170, 174; X-rose 165, 174, 175, 178, 179–181 Rossano Gospels 121 Rotunda, Thessaloniki 6–9, 13–14, 178, 183n14 Rus’ hoards 36, 41 Russian heritage 29–43; Georgian enamels 36, 38–39, 41–42; Russo-Byzantine style 31, 36, 39; and Virgin Mary 37–38, 42; Zwenigorodskoi collection 41–42 Safran, Linda 283–296; see also Li Monaci, Apulia Saint Anna, order of 39, 46n63 Saint Nicolo di Mendicoli church, Venice 374 saints 218–246; and nomina sacra 373, 377–378; Saints of the first half of January 97, 98; see also Hodegon lectionaries Salamis, Cyprus 1 Salzenberg, Wilhelm 367 Samuel 304, 309, 311, 317n41 Samuel bar Yeda’ya 309 San Apollinare, Classe 155, 358, 359 San Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna 373, 374 San Clemente, Rome 290 San Marco censer 394–396 San Nicola Church, Acquarica del Capo 297n12 San Vitale, Ravenna 50, 53–54, 155, 160n28, 361 sanctuaries, Byzantine 361 Santa Cristina, Carpignano 298n26 Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello 411–413

Index Santa Pudenziana Church 372

Sant’Antonio Church, San Pancrazio

Salentino 291

Sapphira and Ananias 119–120, 123

Sarica Valley (Kepez): Church 1 259;

Church 2 258–261, 262, 263, 264, 265

satire 209, 210, 211

Saviour, Church of, Dečani 106–107, 108

Schenk, Kära L. 300–313; see also David, King; messianism Schönbrunn Zoo, Vienna 338

Schroeder, Rossitza 318–331; see also family likenesses; imperial family representation Schulz, Jean 35, 44n27 sculpture 24, 25, 71–74, 75, 171

Seal of Leo 180

secularity 205, 212

Seligman, Germain 42

Seligman, Jacques 41

Seljug dynasties 387–401; Seljuq Sultanate of Rūm 387, 402n4; see also Muslim culture Senouphios, monk 150–151, 156

sermons 268–272, 274, 277–279 Serres Cathedral 75

Servanne sarcophagus, Arles 123–125, 126,

130n38, 130n42

Ševčenko, Ihor 2

Ševčenko, Nancy Patterson 75, 77–78, 83,

164, 336–344; see also giraffes sexuality, female 416

Shilling, Brooke 350–362; see also archangels sight and sound 270–272, 274–275 Silentiarios, Paul 268

Sinan Beg 320

social hierarchy 49–50, 51–52 softness of art 162–163, 164–165, 167,

172, 174, 181

Song of Songs 292–293, 416

Sopočani Monastery, Serbia 324

sorrow 3, 51, 204, 274–275; see also grief

sound 268–272, 274–279 Souré 287, 288, 296

Spandounes, Theodore 331

Sphrantzes, George 328

spring 149, 294–295 St. Andrew the Fool 409,

415, 416

St. Basil 60–61 St. Catherine 83

435

St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt Sinai 71;

apse mosaic 47, 51–52, 57, 352, 372,

373; Archangel Michael 48–49, 80, 81;

Christ enthroned 377; Crucifixion icon

374; David IV 325; Hodegon lectionaries

(Si) 219, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225–245;

John the Baptist 18, 21–22; Justinian’s

fortress 169–170; Last Judgment

413–414; Map of Earth 408; Mary and

Christ and saints and angels 49, 76, 78;

Moses receiving the Law 76–79, 80;

Saints of the first half of January 97, 98;

St George 79, 80–83, 325; St John

Chrysostom and St George with a donor

monk 79

St. Clement of Ankyra 222

St. Clement of Rome 222, 230

St. Clement, Ohrid 74

St. Cyprian 61–63 St. Demetrios Church, Thessaloniki 8–10,

14, 103–104, 148, 373; St Euthymios

Chapel 103–104, 108

St. Eirene 73, 83–84 St. Eudokomos 222; St Euthymios Chapel,

Thessaloniki 103–104, 108

St. Francis Church, Arezzo 325

St. George 71–86, 188–199; clothing/

drapery 189, 191; and Crusaders 71, 85,

193–194; and donors 72, 74, 79, 82–83;

Frankish art 188, 191–193, 194, 195,

196–198, 199; and Jerusalem 188,

193–194, 199; and John the Baptist 74,

87n16; as man of action 196, 203n44; as

martyr 188, 194–195, 198; and miracles

189–192, 196; and Mother of God 74,

76; mounted/with pillion riders 189–193,

195–196, 199; St Catherine’s Monastery

79, 79, 80–83, 325; St George and the

boy of Mytilene 189–193, 195–198; St

George with female donor 71–72, 74–76,

82–83, 84; St George with King David II

Bagratuni the Builder of Georgia 80–82,

86; on tableware 397, 399, 401; in text

193–195; and Virgin Mary 74, 76, 192;

vita icons 71, 75, 76–80, 85; as warrior

189, 191, 199

St. George Church, Staro Nagoričino 105–106 St. George of Omorphoklesia 74

St. Helena see Helena, Empress (St Helena) St. John Chrysostom 76, 79, 357; Hodegon

lectionaries 229, 234

436 Index St. John the Evangelist 153, 275; Hodegon

lectionaries 223, 226; Li Monaci 284,

286, 288, 289; Louvre 284; and spring

294, 295

St. Juliana 61–63, 69n29 St. Justinian 53, 92, 322–323, 370

St. Lucy, Buona Nuova church 291

St. Marco Basilica, Venice 97–101, 108,

111n47

St. Marina 71, 84, 86n6

St. Martin of Rome 221, 238

St. Mary of Egypt 223, 237, 249n77

St. Nicholas Church, Pelinovo 113n76 St. Onouphrios 283–284, 286, 296n3 St. Paul 116

St. Peter 119–120, 123

St. Petersburg: imperial library 34, 35;

State Hermitage Museum 397–398, 399

St. Polyeuktos 91–108, 109n9, 109n14,

109n16; appearance 106, 107; Imperial

Menologian 95–96, 108; as martyr 106,

107; Menologion of Basil II 93, 94; St

Polyeuktos, St Markianos, St John of

Saba and St Theodosios the Koinobiarch

97, 99; as warrior 106–107

St. Polyeuktos Church, Constantinople 92–93, 110n28 St. Remaclus, Ratable of 131

St. Sabas (Mar Saba) monastery, Jerusalem

195, 272, 379

St. Simeon’s Church, Paşabaği 260

St. Sozon 222, 225, 248n53

St. Spyridon 108

St. Stephen, the Wonderworker 237,

247n35

St. Thomas, Patriarch of Constantinople

221, 227, 237

Staatliche Museen Preussischer

Kulturbesitz 373

Stasov, V. V. 39–41 State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg

397–398, 399

State Museum, Kiev 374

Staurakios, John 14

Stavelot Triptych 131, 132–133, 136–138,

140–141, 142, 143n8; and Wibald 131,

132, 138, 139, 144n41

Stefan I Uroš 324

sticheron see hymns, chanted (sticheron) Stobi baptistery 353, 354

Stoudios Monastery 409, 411

Stoudite typikon 272

‘Striding Lion Mosaic’, Antioch 176, 178

Stuma treasure 356, 357

style in Byzantine art 18–21, 22, 23–24 Stylite Niketas, Kιzιl Çukur 260

suffering 208, 274

suicide 116–118; see also Judas Iscariot swords 96, 111n36 Symeon Metaphrastes, Menologion of

93, 104

Synaxarion of Constantinople 93

synkresis 267

tables, ceramic 396, 397

tableware 397–401 Talmon, Shemariyahu 304

Targum Onkelos 303

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan 303

Taxiarches Mitropoleos, Kastoria 83

Teluntas, Andreas 329

Temple, Jerusalem 300–302, 304, 305–307,

310, 312

Teteriatnikov, Natalia 366–383; see also nomina sacra textile fragments, Metropolitan Museum of Art 162–168, 177–179, 183n14 texture 162–181, 211; softness of art

162–163, 164–165, 167, 172, 174, 181

theft 37–38, 41–42 Theodora Kantakouzene 328

Theodora, Patron of Latomou Monastery 150

Theodora Petraliphina 84, 85, 86

Theodore II Laskaris 75, 84

Theodore the Studite 377–378, 383

Theodores, two (Theodore Teron and

Theodore Stratelates) 74, 75, 87

Theodosios tou Saloustiou 76, 78

Theophylact of Ochrid 208

Theotokos: Christos Paschon 204, 206,

207, 208, 209, 210; Hodegon lectionaries

222, 225, 232, 237, 242, 244, 245;

Mother of God 37–38, 42, 74, 76, 376,

377, 415–420; ‘Theotokos at the Cross’

sermon 268, 274, 275

Thessaloniki 4–15; as kastron 8, 10–12;

Latomou Monastery (Hosios David)

146–151, 155–156, 157, 159n16,

161n46, 358; Rotunda 6–9, 13–14, 178,

183n14; St Demetrios Church 8–10, 14,

103–104, 148, 373; Vladtades Monastery

14, 15; see also Latomou Monastery,

Thessaloniki (Hosios David Church)

threnos (lament) 217n55, 267, 274

Throne of Maximianus, Ravenna 21, 22

Timios Stavros Monastery, Sinasos

253–258; frescos/paintings 255, 257;

graffitti 257; hermit cell 257, 258, 260;

Index special association 258; True Cross relics 257

Timothy of Gaza 336, 340

Tokalι Kilise, Göreme 259, 264

tragedies, Byzantine 204, 205–206,

207, 209

Treasury of San Marco 97–101, 108,

111n47

Trebizond 322

trees 122, 123, 127

Trier Cathedral 54–56, 57, 138

Trisagion 358

True Cross relics 39, 194, 222, 257; and

Helena 63–64, 135, 138, 141; Stavelot

Triptych 131, 133, 135, 138–139, 141,

142; True Cross reliquaries 134,

139–141, 143n8, 144n35

Trullo, Council of 67

Tsigaridas, E. 104

Tuilier, André 206

typikon: Pantokrator Monastery 251–252;

Stoudite typikon 272; Typikon of the

Great Church 93, 101

Uspenski, Porphyry 21

Valentinian II 24

Vasari, G. 318

Vatican Library 219, 325

Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos (V) 104;

Hodegon lectionaries 209, 220, 222, 224,

225–245, 248n39

Vatopedi Skevophylakion 16, Mount Athos

(Vsk) 219, 221, 222, 224, 225–245

Victor mortis 289, 295

Victoria and Albert Museum, London: Last

Judgment 410, 412; Marwan tiraz

165–167, 183n14; rose medallion

172, 173

Vienna Genesis 22

Virgin Mary 407–421; and archangels 350,

351, 353, 363n17; in Christos Paschon

206, 209; on coins 381–382; Hagia

Sophia 367–369; inscriptions 353,

363n17; Latomou Monastery apse

mosaic 149–150; Li Monaci 286, 288;

and nomina sacra 366, 367–379; Panagia

Angeloktistos 350, 351; and Russian

heritage 37–38, 42; and St George 74,

437

76, 192; Virgin Hodegetria 74, 83,

85, 86, 86, 218; Virgin Orans 370;

see also Theotokus

Virgin of Sure Hope Monastery 330

Vision of the Monk Kosmas 408

visions 149, 150–151, 276–278, 408–409 visuality, Byzantine 388, 402n9 vita icons 71, 75, 76–80, 85

Vlatades Monastery, Thessaloniki 14, 15

Voelkle, William 132, 134, 141–142

Walker, Alicia 387–401; see also Muslim culture Walter, Christopher 91

warriors: God 305–308, 312; St George

189, 191, 199; St Polyeuktos 106–107

water sources 149, 159n16 Weitzmann, Kurt 22, 305

well-being 168, 169, 170, 174

Wessel, Kurt 140

Western narrative mode 142

Wharton, Annabel 259

White, Andrew Walker 208, 210

Wibald, Abbot of Stavelot and Corvey 131,

132, 138, 139, 144n41

William of Tyre, History of Deeds Beyond the Sea 194–195 Wilpert, Joseph 125

wings 350, 351–353, 355–356,

357–358, 362

women 103; as donors 71, 75, 83–84,

85–86; and emotion 60, 69n25, 208; and

gesture 57, 58, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67; and

paradise 416, 420

Woodfin, Warren T. 407–421; see also paradise, earthly Woolen tapestry with a boar hunt 174, 175

Wulff, Oscar and Alpatov, Michael 21

Xanthopoulos, Nikephoros 324

Xyngopoulos, A. 156

Yeats, William Butler, Sailing to

Byzantium 163

zodiac 294–295 Zwenigorodskoi, Alexander 29, 31–36, 39–42, 43n4, 44n25