sign in sign up
<<
Home , Alexios Apokaukos, Anna of Savoy, Bibliography of Kiss, Byzantine architecture, Byzantine art, Byzantine commonwealth

Framing the Holy: Revetments on Late Byzantine

by

Elizabeth Yoder Moss

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of University of Toronto

© Copyright by Elizabeth Yoder Moss 2016

Framing the Holy: Revetments on Late Byzantine Icons

Elizabeth Yoder Moss Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Art University of Toronto 2016 Abstract

This study examines revetments produced during the late Byzantine period

(1261–1453), situating them within the diversity of mixed-media, multisensory, and multivalent devotional images that combined personal piety with conspicuous consumption and the public spectacle of lavish patronage. These works are evidence of the “ornamental turn”—a paradigm shift marked by the increase of ornament on visual works that mediated wealth, spiritual devotion, and social power. Revetted icons do not make arguments about the faithful representation of prototypes; they make arguments about faithful veneration.

Beginning with a historiographic study of ornament, the thesis examines how the ornamental vocabulary on revetments manifests relationships between specific decorated icons. Indices of ornament motifs and a catalogue of surviving icon revetments and frames from the eleventh through fifteenth centuries constitute the appendices.

In chapter 2, I argue that the previously unstudied decorated strips added to the icon of the Mother of God in were part of a larger project aimed at legitimizing

Serbian emperor Stefan Uroš IV Dušan (r. 1331–55) and his Nicholas in Ohrid.

They structured their leadership in the on their contemporaries in . In chapter 3, I present a new reading of the dedicatory prayers inscribed on the icon of the

Mother of God in Freising. These texts manifest the icon veneration of wealthy individuals whose gifts of enamel, silver, and mediated their desire for divine aid and broadcasted

ii

their piety to viewers. Inscriptions on other revetments complement the central holy figures whose gestures direct viewers to names and key sentiments of the inscribed prayer.

In chapter 4, I argue that the hitherto unexamined facture of the revetted icon of the

Virgin in Fermo was an invention born of the desire for Byzantine imagery in thirteenth- century . It was designed to emulate the materiality and ornamental vocabulary of

Byzantine revetted icons. By drawing conclusions about how elite individuals conceptualized the efficacy and materiality of revetments, this dissertation augments the burgeoning discourse on late Byzantine icons. Examining the ornamental turn reveals new insights into how these objects functioned in late Byzantine political, social, and devotional matrices.

iii

Mary, You’re covered in roses,

You’re covered in ashes,

You’re covered in rain,

You’re covered in babies, covered in slashes,

You’re covered in wilderness,

You’re covered in stains.

Joan Baez, “Mary”

iv

Table of Contents

VOLUME 1

Abstract ...... ii

Table of Contents ...... v

List of Figures ...... vii

List of Abbreviations ...... xviii

Introduction ...... 1 Terminology and Metaphors ...... 4 Accounts of the Display of Decorated Icons ...... 14 Icons and Revetments in Late ...... 20 Metalwork Techniques ...... 30 Monetary Costs in Monastic and Household Inventories ...... 35 Dissertation Outline ...... 43 Ornament Indices and Revetment Catalogue ...... 47

Chapter 1: The Pan-Orthodox Ornamental Vocabulary on Icon Revetments and Frames ...... 51 Theories of Ornament ...... 57 Approaches to Byzantine Ornament ...... 84 Excursus: Roundels ...... 97 Conclusion ...... 106

Chapter 2: Ornament and the Icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria, Ohrid ...... 108 Motifs and Emblems on the Revetment ...... 112 The Ohrid Hodegetria in Context: –City–Empire ...... 126 Dušan Creates the ...... 139 Archbishop Nicholas in Ohrid ...... 146 Icons in Constantinople ...... 149 Conclusion ...... 155

Chapter 3: Inscriptions and the Mother of God Hagiosoritissa, Freising ...... 157 Inscriptions on Three Icon Frames ...... 176 Inscriptions beneath Icons ...... 185 Inscriptions and the Decorative Program ...... 192 Conclusion ...... 195

Chapter 4: Materiality and the in Prayer, Fermo ...... 197 The Virgin in Prayer in the Late Thirteenth–Early Fourteenth Century ...... 202 The Byzantine Revetment ...... 202 Inscriptions on the Revetment Frame ...... 211 The ...... 219

v

Techniques ...... 229 Post-Medieval Additions ...... 240 Fifteenth-Century Display ...... 240 Sixteenth-Century Woodblock ...... 244 Eighteenth-Century Oil Painting ...... 245 Conclusion ...... 247

Conclusion: The Ornamental Turn and Material Splendor ...... 251

Bibliography ...... 259 Primary Sources ...... 259 Secondary Sources ...... 263

VOLUME 2

Figures ...... 296

Appendix 1: Checklist of Icon Revetments and Frames ...... 427 Primary Corpus, Catalogue Numbers 1–5 ...... 427 Secondary Corpus, Catalogue Numbers 6–80 ...... 428

Appendix 2: Analytical Indices of Motifs on Icon Revetments and Frames ...... 436 Checklist of Motifs ...... 437 Index of Nonfigural Motifs ...... 439 Index of Figural Motifs and Emblemata ...... 481

Appendix 3: Catalogue of Icon Revetments and Frames ...... 499 Primary Corpus, Catalogue Numbers 1–5 ...... 500 Secondary Corpus, Catalgoue Numbers 6–80 ...... 515 Catalogue Analysis Table ...... 687

vi

List of Figures

Introduction

Figure I-1 Athonite kissing a decorated icon. Image: Image: Tsigaridas and Loverdou-Tsigarida, Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονή Βατοπαιδίου, fig. 5a.

Figure I-2 Interior of the at Vatopedi , . Image: Tsigaridas and Loverdou-Tsigarida, Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονή Βατοπαιδίου, fig. 6.

Figure I-3 Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 1a, reverse of ), icon late thirteenth to early fourteenth century, revetment fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, silver repoussé, 95.5 x 65 x 2.6 cm, St. Sophia, Ohrid (previously thought to be from of the Virgin Peribleptos/St. Kliment’s, Ohrid). Now: Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 2. Image: author.

Figure I-4 Crucifixion (cat. 1b, reverse of Mother of God Hodegetria), icon late thirteenth century. Tempera on wood, 95.5 x 65 x 2.6 cm, St. Sophia, Ohrid (previously thought to be from Church of the Virgin Peribleptos/St. Kliment’s, Ohrid). Now Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 2. Image: author.

Figure I-5 Mother of God Hagiosoritissa (cat. 2), icon eleventh to twelfth century, overpainted end of fourteenth century, frame plaques and enamels thirteenth century, nimbus and background ground plaques fourteenth century. Tempera on panel, cloisonné enamel, gilt-silver, 27.8 x 21.5 x 1.5 cm, Constantinople (?). Now Diocesan Museum, Freising Cathedral, Germany, inv. no. F1. Image: Buckton, “Mother of God in Enamel,” in Vassilaki, Mother of God, 178, fig. 113.

Figure I-6 Virgin in Prayer (cat. 3), icon thirteenth century, revetment late thirteenth century. Tempera on panel, gilt-silver, 48 x 36 cm, Balkans or Adriatic coast of Italy. Now Fermo Cathedral. Image: Belting, Likeness and Presence, color fig. 7.

Chapter 1

Figure 1-1 Nicholas Hilliard, Heneage Jewel (exterior), ca. 1595. Gold with enamel, diamonds, rubies, 5 x 7 cm. Image: Victoria and Albert Museum, .

Figure 1-2 Nicholas Hilliard, Heneage Jewel (interior), ca. 1595. Gold with enamel, diamonds, rubies, 5 x 7 cm. Image: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Figure 1-3 Nicholas Hilliard, Gresley Jewel (exterior front), ca. 1584–85. Gold with enamels, sardonyx cameo, tablecut rubies, emeralds, pearls, height 7.5 cm. Now private collection. Image: Koos, “Wandering Things,” 10, fig. 10.

vii

Figure 1-4 Nicholas Hilliard, Gresley Jewel (interior locket), ca. 1584–85. Gold with enamels, tablecut rubies, emeralds, pearls, height 7.5 cm. Now private collection. Image: Bridgman Images SC14568.

Figure 1-5 Detail of miniature scenes on the frame, Ohrid Hodegetria (cat. 1a, bilateral). Image: author.

Figure 1-6 Detail of a short-sleeved kaftan with çintamani design traditionally associated with Sultan Mehmet II, late 15th century. Now Topkapi Palace Museum, (13/6). Image: Evans, : Faith and Power, 395, fig. 12.9.

Figure 1-7 Details of interlace roundels (M-8) on Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 4), icon 18th century, revetment 14th century. Tempera on panel, gilt-silver, champlevé enamel, gold, 56.5 x 42 cm, Constantinople. Now Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, fig. 8.8.

Figure 1-8 book cover with bosses, silver-gilt leather. Now Holy Monastery of Dionysiou, Mount Athos. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, fig. 5.5.

Figure 1-9 Staurotheke, ca. 1150–1200. Gilt-silver, cloisonné enamel, 35 x 25 cm, Constantinople. Now Christian Museum, Esztergom, Hungary. Image: Weitzmann, The Icon, 60.

Figure 1-10 Proskynetaria icon frame, Church of the Virgin, , 12th century. Image: author.

Figure 1-11 from Rila Monastery, near , 14th century. Wood carving, 211 x 126 cm. Image: Bakalova, Trésors d'art médiéval Bulgare, 121–22, no. 121.

Figure 1-12 Compositional lines on the Mother of God Hodegetria, Vatopedi (cat. 4), icon 18th century, revetment 14th century. Tempera on panel, gilt-silver, champlevé enamel, gold, 56.5 x 42 cm, Constantinople. Now: Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, fig. 8.8.

Figure 1-13 Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 5), icon last quarter of the 15th century, revetment early 14th century. Tempera over gesso on wood panel, silver repoussé with filigree, 40 x 32 cm. Now Tretyakov Gallery, , inv. no. 22722, OS 118. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, no. 4.

Chapter 2

Figure 2-1 Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 1a, reverse of Crucifixion), icon late thirteenth–early fourteenth century, revetment fourteenth century revetment. Tempera on wood, silver repoussé, 95.5 x 65 x 2.6 cm, St. Sophia, Ohrid

viii

(previously thought Church of the Virgin Peribleptos/St. Kliment, Ohrid). Now Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 2. Image: author.

Figure 2-2 Crucifixion (cat. 1b, reverse of Mother of God Hodegetria), late thirteenth century. Tempera on wood, 95.5 x 65 x 2.6 cm, St. Sophia, Ohrid (previously thought Church of the Virgin Peribleptos/St. Kliment, Ohrid). Now Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 2. Image: author.

Figure 2-3 Detail of the revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria, rectangular compartments filled with interlocking shapes on the ground (M-29). Image: author.

Figure 2-4 Detail of the revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria, rectangular compartments filled with interlocking shapes on the frame (M-29). Image: author.

Figure 2-5 Detail of the revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria, pattern of alternating rectangular compartments with Gospel Scenes (M-37). Image: author.

Figure 2-6 Detail of the revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria, border pattern of overlapping split hearts and fleur-de-lis (M-18). Image: author.

Figure 2-7 Detail of the revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria, pattern on the ground of rectangular compartments with (M-28) alternating with hetoimasia (M-38) and miniature ’ busts (M-41). Image: author.

Figure 2-8 Detail of the revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria, pattern on the frame of rectangular compartments with palmettes (M-28) alternating with miniature saints’ busts (M-41). Image: author.

Figure 2-9 Detail of the Virgin Episkepsis plaque on the Ohrid Hodegetria, plaque on the bottom center of the frame. Image: Kondakov, Ikonografija Bogomateri, fig. 30.

Figure 2-10 of , ca. 1300. Tempera on wood, 44.5 x 36 x 3 cm, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (now St. Kliment), Ohrid. Image: Georgievski, Icon Gallery, fig. 11, inv. no. 6.

Figure 2-11 Crucifixion, Byzantine artist working on the Adriatic coast, end of thirteenth century. Tempera on wood, 136 x 80 cm, Orthodox Church Senj, . Now: Historical Museum of Croatia, Zagreb. Image: Weitzmann, The Icon, 163.

Figure 2-12 Crucifixion (cat. 44b, reverse of Christ Psychosostis), beginning of fourteenth century. Tempera on plaster round on canvas overlaid on wood, 93 x 68 x 4 cm, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (now St. Kliment), Ohrid. Image: Georgievski, Icon Gallery, 57, fig. 20.

Figure 2-13 Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 50a, reverse of Annunciation), third quarter of the fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, gilt-siver, 99.5 x 73 x 5 cm,

ix

Thessaloniki or Ohrid for the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (St. Kliment), Ohrid. Now: National Museum, , inv. no. 2316. Image: Cormack and Vassilaki, Byzantium, no. 236.

Figure 2-14 Icon of the , 1300–1310. Wood, canvas, egg tempera, 83 x 58 cm, Asia Minor and found in . Now: Byzantine Museum, . Image: Weitzmann, The Icon, 178.

Figure 2-15 Detail of the revetment on the Belgrade Hodegetria, pattern of rectangular compartments with interlocking shapes on the frame (M-29). Image: Cormack and Vassilaki, Byzantium, no. 236.

Figure 2-16 Icon Frame (cat. 57), icon nineteenth century, revetment late thirteenth– fourteenth century revetment. Tempera on panel, gilt-silver repoussé, 26.5 x 19 cm, Constantinople(?). Now: Hilandar Monastery, Mount Athos.

Figure 2-17 Shrine of King Stephan Uroš III Dečanski, ca. 1343. Wood, pigment, leather, silver, 193 x 63 x 43 cm. Now Treasury of Dečani Monastery, (inv. no. D2). Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 115, no. 59.

Figure 2-18 Panels from a Revetment of the Mother of God Hagiosoritissa (cat. 13), late eleventh–early twelfth century. Cloisonné enamel, gold and copper, nimbus fragments 13.3 x 3.8 cm, 13.3 x 4.8 cm, background fragments 5.8 x 10.8 cm, 10.2 x 11.4 cm, 12.7 x 8.6 cm, Constantinople. Now: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image: Metmuseum.org.

Figure 2-19 Artophorion (Reliquary of St. Anastasios the Persian), ca. 969/70. Silver and gilt-silver niello, 39 x 19.6 x 20 cm, /Byzantine. Now: Cathedral Treasury. Image: Bagnoli et. al., Treasures of Heaven, 118, no. 55.

Figure 2-20 Christ Pantokrator (cat. 48), mid-fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, gilt- siver, 157.5 x 125 x 4.5 cm, St. Sophia, Ohrid. Now: Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 83. Image: Milco Georgievski.

Figure 2-21 Mother of God Psychosostria (cat. 49), mid-fourteenth century, Tempera, plaster on wood, gilt-siver, 158 x 122 x 4 cm, St. Sophia, Ohrid. Now: Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 82. Image: Milco Georgievski.

Figure 2-22 screen, St. Sophia, Ohrid (reconstructed after 1983?). Image: author.

Figure 2-23 Twelve Feasts (cat. 52), Fourteenth–fifteenth century. Steatite, silver, dimensions not available, Ohrid. Now Archaeological Museum, Sofia. Image: Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, Byzantine Icons in Steatite, no. 159, pl. 153.

Figure 2-24 Detail of hetoimasia on frame of Mother of God Hagiosoritissa (cat. 2). Image: Buckton, “Mother of God in Enamel,” in Vassilaki, Mother of God, 178, fig. 113.

x

Figure 2-25 Detail of Virgin Episkepsis emblem from the Ohrid Hodegetria. Image: Grabar, Les revêtements, fig. 37.

Figure 2-26 Detail of Virgin Episkepsis emblem from the Ohrid Hodegetria. Image: Balabanov, Freske i icone u Makedoniji, fig. 41.

Figure 2-27 Mother of God Nikopoios (cat. 37), icon late eleventh century, revetment twelfth to fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, gilt-siver, enamels, colored precious stones, 48 x 36 cm, Constantinople. Now: Treasury of San Marco, . Image: author.

Figure 2-28 Virgin and Child, twelfth century. , conch of , Church of St. Panteleimon, Nerezi. Image: Maguire, Icons of their Bodies, 54, fig. 48.

Figure 2-29 Mother of God Episkepsis, ca. 1200. Glass, gold, and silver , 107 x 73.5 cm. Now: Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens. Image: Drandaki, et al. Heaven and Earth, no. 55.

Figure 2-30 Virgin and Child, ca. 1050. Fresco, conch of apse, St. Sophia, Ohrid. Image: Artstor/SCALA, Florence/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 2-31 Map of Ohrid in early fourteenth century. Image: author, adaptation of http://www.ohrid.com.mk/maps/map4.jpg .

Figure 2-32 Crucifixion, ca. 1295. Embroidered cloth, 122 x 68 cm, given by Progonos Sgouros and Eudokia to Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (now St. Kliment). Now: Historical Museum, Sofia, inv. no. 29247. Image: Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” fig. 5.

Figure 2-33 Virgin Orans, 1294/5. Fresco, conch of apse, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (now St. Kliment), Ohrid. Image: Wikimedia.

Figure 2-34 Christ Psychosostis (cat. 44a, reverse of Crucifixion), beginning of fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, silver repoussé, champlevé enamel, 94.5 x 70.5 x 4 cm, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (St. Kliment), Ohrid. Now Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no 11. Image: Milco Georgievski.

Figure 2-35 Mother of God Psychosostria (cat. 45a, reverse of Annunciation), early fourteenth century. Tempera and gold on wood, silver-gilt, cast silver, and champlevé enamel, 93 x 68 cm, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (St. Kliment), Ohrid. Now: Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 10. Image: Milco Georgievski.

Figure 2-36 Annunciation (cat. 45b, reverse of Mother of God Psychosostria), early fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, 93 x 68 cm, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (St. Kliment), Ohrid. Now: Icon Gallery, Ohrid, inv. no. 10. Image: Milco Georgievski.

xi

Figure 2-37 Detail of epithet plaques “Η ὁδηγήτρια,” Ohrid Hodegetria Image: author

Figure 2-38 View of open plaza and exonarthex of St. Sofia, Ohrid, 1313. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 70, fig. 3.11.

Figure 2-39 View of inscription on exonarthex at St. Sofia, Ohrid, 1313. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 70, fig. 3.12.

Figure 2-40 Aerial view of St. Sophia, Ohrid. Image: Čipan, St. Sophia, color plate 12.

Figure 2-41 Reconstruction of archbishop’s palace attached to St. Sophia, isometric view, ca. 1300. Image: Čipan, St. Sophia, 110.

Figure 2-42 Reconstruction of archbishop’s palace attached to St. Sophia, Ohrid, plan, ca.1300. Image: Čipan, St. Sophia, 111.

Figure 2-43 Penitence of , 1345. Fresco, exonarthex gallery, St. Sophia, Ohrid. Image: Wikimedia.

Figure 2-44 Scenes from the separation of the soul from the body, intercede before the hetoimasia, fourteenth century. Fresco, exonarthex gallery, St. Sophia, Ohrid. Image: Grozdanov, Ohridskoto dzidno slikarstvo, fig. 24.

Figure 2-45 Map of the Via Egnatia in the Balkans. Image: Eric Gaba, Wikimedia.

Figure 2-46 Nemanjid Family Tree, 1327–35. Fresco, southern wall of in Church of the Pantokrator, Dečani Monastery, Kosovo. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 75, fig. 3.21.

Figure 2-47 Dinar of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, 1346–55. Silver, 21 mm, Novo Brdo mint. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 43, no. 13B.

Figure 2-48 Cup of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, ca. 1345–55. Gilt-silver cast and carved, h: 3.7 cm, d: 18.1 cm, . Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 48, no. 20.

Figure 2-49 Detail of nimbus revetment of Christ, Mother of God Hodegetria, Ohrid (cat. 1a), first half of fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, silver repoussé, glass paste, 95.5 x 65 x 2.6 cm, St. Sophia, Ohrid. Image: author.

Figure 2-50 Archbishop Nicholas (center) with Jean Olivier (right), his wife Anne-Marie (left), and their son (far left), 1347–50. Fresco, annex chapel of St. , St. Sophia, Ohrid; image: Cvetan Grozdanov, Ohridskoto dzidno slikarstvo od XIV vek (Ohrid: Naroden Muzej, 1980), fig. 44.

Figure 2-51 Detail of fig. 2-21, Archbishop Nicholas on the frame of Mother of God Psychosostria (cat. 49). Image: Milco Georgievski.

xii

Figure 2-52 Graffito, gallery walls of exonarthex, St. Sophia, Ohrid. Image: Ovcharov, “L’archevêque d’Ohrid Nicolas II,” fig. 1.

Figure 2-53 of the Hodegetria icon, late thirteenth century. Fresco, narthex wall, Blachernai Monastery, Arta. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, fig. 6.6.

Figure 2-54 Drawing of fresco on narthex wall, Blachernai Monastery, Arta. Image: Ševčenko, “Icons in the Liturgy,” fig. 3.

Figure 2-55 Icon of the Praise of the Virgin with Akathiostos Cycle, second half of fourteenth century. Now: Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Image: Onasch and Schnieper, Icons: the Fascination and the Reality, 6.

Figure 2-56 Detail of the “Usual” Miracle, right side of the icon of the Praise of the Virgin. Image: Onasch and Schnieper, Icons: the Fascination and the Reality, 6.

Figure 2-57 Detail of the procession with the Virgin Hodegetria in Constantinople, left side of the icon of the Praise of the Virgin. Image: Onasch and Schnieper, Icons: the Fascination and the Reality, 6.

Chapter 3

Figure 3-1 Mother of God Hagiosoritissa (cat. 2), icon eleventh to twelfth century, overpainted end of fourteenth century, frame thirteenth century, nimbus and background ground plaques fourteenth century. Tempera on panel, cloisonné enamel, gilt-silver, 27.8 x 21.5 x 1.5 cm, Constantinople (?). Now: Diocesan Museum, Freising Cathedral, Germany, inv. no. F1. Image: Buckton, “Mother of God in Enamel,” in Vassilaki, Mother of God, 178, fig. 113.

Figure 3-2 Detail of the top of the frame showing the and hetoimasia, Mother of God Hagiosoritissa (cat. 2). Image: Buckton, “Mother of God in Enamel,” in Vassilaki, Mother of God, 178, fig. 113.

Figure 3-3 Detail showing an imaginary line connecting the patron’s name and the Mother of God’s gesture of entreaty, Mother of God Hagiosoritissa (cat. 2). Image: Buckton, “Mother of God in Enamel,” in Vassilaki, Mother of God, 178, fig. 113.

Figure 3-4 X-ray image of the twelfth-century painting of the Mother of God Hagiosoritissa (cat. 2). Image: Steiner, “Die Freisinger Hodegetria,” 48, fig. 14.

Figure 3-5 Gottfried Lang, for the Freising Lukasbild, 1626. Silver cladding and cast silver, Freising Diocesan Museum. Image: Steiner, “Die Freisinger Hodegetria,” 49, fig. 16.

xiii

Figure 3-6 Philipp Dirr, Funerary Chapel for Gebeck with Lukasbild, 1627/28. Freising Cathedral. Image: Steiner, “Die Freisinger Hodegetria,” 49, fig. 17.

Figure 3-7 Virgin and Child (cat. 27), icon and revetment thirteenth century. Tempera on panel, gilt-silver, 31 x 22.8 x 2.2 cm, Byzantium. Now: Benaki Museum, Athens, inv. no. 3764. Image: Drandaki, Heaven and Earth, fig. 56.

Figure 3-8 Mother of God and Child (one of the so-called Toys of Theodora, cat. 60), mid-fourteenth century. Tempera on panel, gold filigree revetment, 25.5 x 22 cm, Constantinople (?). Now: Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos. Image: Tsigaridas and Loverdou-Tsigarida, Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονέ Βατοπαίδιου, fig. 314.

Figure 3-9 Detail of fig. 3-8, Anna Philanthropene, Mother of God and Child (cat. 60), Vatopedi. Image: Image: Tsigaridas and Loverdou-Tsigarida, Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονέ Βατοπαίδιου, fig. 210.

Figure 3-10 Line drawing of fig. 3-8, Anna Philanthropene, Mother of God and Child (cat. 60), Vatopedi. Image: Tsigaridas and Loverdou-Tsigarida, Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονέ Βατοπαίδιου, fig. 211.

Figure 3-11 Icon of Christ (lost, cat. 79), icon and revetment thirteenth century with modern overpainting. Tempera on panel, silver repoussé, 50 x 34.5 cm, originally in the Church of St. Kliment, Ohrid. Now: lost. Image: Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, fig. 6.

Figure 3-12 Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 4), icon eighteenth century, revetment fourteenth century. Tempera on panel, gilt-silver, champlevé enamel, gold, 56.5 x 42 cm. Revetment from Constantinople. Now: Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, fig. 8.8.

Figure 3-13 Detail of fig. 3-12, inscription at bottom of frame on Vatopedi Hodegetria (cat. 4). Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, fig. 8.8.

Figure 3-14 Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 5), icon last quarter of the fifteenth century, revetment early fourteenth century. Tempera over gesso on wood panel, silver repoussé with filigree, 40 x 32 cm. Now: Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, inv. no. 22722, OS 118. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, no. 4.

Figure 3-15 Detail of fig. 3-14, reliefs of Constantine Akropolites and Maria Akropolites, Moscow Hodegetria (cat. 5). Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, no. 4.

Figure 3-16 Christ Pantokrator (cat. 48), mid-fourteenth century. Tempera on wood, gilt- siver, 157.5 x 125 x 4.5 cm, made in Ohrid (?) for the cathedral of St. Sophia, Ohrid. Now: Icon Gallery, Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (St. Kliment), Ohrid, inv. no. 83. Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 256, no. 154.

xiv

Figure 3-17 Icon Frame (cat. 21), mid-eleventh century. Wood core, gilt-silver, eight enameled medallions, forty cabochon crystals in groups of five, 22 x 20 cm, diameter 3.3 cm, Constantinople. Now: Dumbarton Oaks Museum, DC, II, no. 154, 50.1. Image: author.

Chapter 4

Figure 4-1 Virgin in Prayer (cat. 3), icon thirteenth century, revetment late thirteenth century. Tempera on panel, gilt-silver, 48 x 36 cm, Balkans or Adriatic coast of Italy; Fermo Cathedral. Image: Belting, Likeness and Presence, color fig. 7 (cat. 18).

Figure 4-2 Detail of the Gothic tabernacle reliquary inscribed “ANNUNTIATIONIS V,” late thirteenth century, probably attached in the late fifteenth century. Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral. Image: Radeglia, “Il restauro,” fig. 12.

Figure 4-3 Alessandro Ricci (1750–1829), History of the Marian Icon of Fermo and Giacomo della Marche, eighteenth century. Oil on canvas, 48 x 36 cm. Now: Fermo Cathedral. Image: Radeglia, “Il restauro,” fig. 2.

Figure 4-4 Mysteries of the , early sixteenth century. Woodcut on paper, 43.8 x 31.4 cm, woodblock 39.5 x 29 cm. Image: Radeglia, “Il restauro,” fig. 3.

Figure 4-5 Detail of inscription on left and right sides of the frame, Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral. Image: Belting, Likeness and Presence, color fig. 7.

Figure 4-6 Detail of revetment plaques on the frame showing archangels’ names and upper and lower parts of frame, Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral. Image: Belting, Likeness and Presence, color fig. 7.

Figure 4-7 Detail of alternating plaques on frame, Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral.. Image: Flicker.

Figure 4-8 Diagram of the arrangement of the Twelve Feasts, Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral. Image: author.

Figure 4-9 Detail of plaques on the frame, Vatopedi Hodegetria (cat. 4). Image: Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, fig. 8.8

Figure 4-10 icon of the Mother of God of Oxeia Episkepsis, formerly in Makrinitissa church, Thessaly. Image: Talbot, “Epigrams in Context,” figs. 10 and 11.

Figure 4-11 Detail of recess for extended finger, Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral. Image: Flickr.

Figure 4-12 Photograph of the painted panel after restoration, Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral. Image: Radeglia, “Il restauro,” fig. 42.

xv

Figure 4-13 Detail of Annunciation scene in upper left corner the frame, Virgin in Prayer, Fermo Cathedral. Image: Flickr.

Figure 4-14 Annunciation, twelfth century. Tempera and gold on panel, 63.1 x 42.2 cm, Constantinople or . Now: St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai. Image: Nelson, Holy Icon, Hallowed Ground, 152, no. 13.

Figure 4-15 Detail of Christ Child on Virgin’s breast, Annunciation, twelfth century. Now: St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai. Image: Holy Icon, Hallowed Ground, 153, no. 13.

Figure 4-16 Guido da (attributed), Annunciation, 1262–70s. Tempera on wood, 35.1 x 48.8 cm. Image: Princeton University Art Museum.

Figure 4-17 Guido da Siena (attributed), of St. Peter, detail from the Annunciation, late thirteenth century. Tempera on panel, 100.5 x 141 cm. Now: Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Image: Scala, Florence/Art Resource NY.

Figure 4-18 , and Child and Man of Sorrows , 1326–28. Tempera on panel, 28 x 23 cm. Now in Museo Horne, Florence, Italy.

Figure 4-19 di Buoninsegna, Coronation of the Virgin, panel 5 of Maestà, 1308– 11. Tempera on wood, 51.5 x 32 cm. Now: Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, . Image: Web Gallery of Art.

Figure 4-20 Paolo Veneziano, Coronation of the Virgin, detail of the Virgin, 1324. Tempera on panel, overall 99.1 x 77.5 cm, framed 115.3 x 86 x 8.9. Now: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Image: ARTstor.

Figure 4-21 Vitale da Bologna, Coronation of the Virgin, ca. 1340–45. Wood and , 52 x 57 cm. Now: Museum, Paris. Image: Erich Lessing Culture and Find Archives/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 4-22 Paolo and Giovanni Veneziano, Coronation of the Virgin, 1358. Tempera on poplar panel, 110 x 68.5 cm. Now: Frick Collection, NY. Image: ARTstor.

Figure 4-23 Guido da Siena (attributed), Coronation of the Virgin, ca. 1260. Tempera on panel, irregular shape 34.3 x 166.7 cm. Now: Courtauld Institute of Art. Image: http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/gallery/d3701bc5.html.

Figure 4-24 Jacopo Torriti, Coronation of the Virgin, 1295. Mosaic, apse , , . Image: Scala, Florence/Art Resource NY.

Figure 4-25 , The Virgin beside Christ on the Heavenly , 1277–80. Fresco, Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi. Image: ARTstor.

xvi

Figure 4-26 Duccio di Buonisegna, Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the Virgin, 1287/8. Stained glass of the , Siena Duomo, Italy. Image: Wikimedia.

Figure 4-27 Gaddo Gaddi, Coronation of the Virgin, 1307. Mosaic, Florence Duomo, Italy. Image: FADIS.

Figure 4-28 Porta del Paradiso, view of the interior of the west wall, Florence Duomo. Image: Wikimedia.

Figure 4-29 Mellon Madonna (Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne), ca. 1275–1300. Tempera, gold, gesso on wood, 82.4 x 50.1 cm. Now: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Image: www.kornbluthphoto.com.

Figure 4-30 Kahn Madonna (Enthroned Madonna and Child), thirteenth century. Tempera on panel, 124.8 x 70.8 cm. Now: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Image: www.kornbluthphoto.com.

Figure 4-31 Coppo di Marcovaldo, Madonna and Child, ca. 1265. Tempera on panel, 220 x 125 cm, St. Martino dei Servi, Orvieto, Italy. Image: Wikimedia.

Figure 4-32 Duccio di Buoninsegna, Rucellai Madonna, 1285. Tempera on panel 177 x 114 cm. Now in , Florence, Italy. Image: Wikimedia.

Figure 4-33 Copy of the Madonna of San Sisto made for the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome. Image: Romano, Reforma e Tradizione 1050–1198, 4: 111

Figure 4-34 Madonna of San Sisto, Rome. Image: http://charlottelaydominicans.org/2014/07/22/the-madonna-of-san-sisto/

Figure 4-35 Reliquary with a Tooth of St. John the Baptist, ca. 1375–1400. Silver gilt, rock crystal, 45.5 x 14.6 cm. Now: Art Institute of . Image: Bagnoli, Treasures of Heaven, fig. 41.

Figure 4-36 Reliquary with a Tooth of St. Mary Magdalene, fourteenth to fifteenth century. Silver-gilt, copper gilt, niello, rock crystal, 55.9 x 23.8 x 20.2 cm. Now: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image: Bagnoli, Klein, Mann, and Robinson, Treasures of Heaven, 196, no. 110.

Figure 4-37 , Virgin Annunciate, ca. 1475. Oil on panel 43 x 32 cm. Now: Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Image: Web Gallery of Art.

Figure 4-38 Antonello da Messina, Virgin Annunciate, ca. 1475. Oil on panel, 45 x 34.5 cm. Now: Galleria Regionale della , . Image: Web Gallery of Art.

xvii

List of Abbreviations

AB Art Bulletin BMFD Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, ed. J. Thomas and A. C. Hero, 5 vols. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000). BMGS Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift CahArch Cahiers archéologiques DOP ODB Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, edited by A. Kazhdan, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Online edition 2005.) REB Revue des études byzantines PG Patrologia Cursus Completus: Series Graeca, edited by J.-P. Migne (Paris: Migne, 1857–66). TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, http://www.tlg.uci.edu/ (Irvine: University of California, 2001).

Whenever possible, I have followed the spellings of Greek names and terms in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.

xviii

Introduction

The practice of covering and framing an icon with precious metal sheathing is one of the most innovative and least understood aspects of icon production and use in Byzantium.1

Revetments are decorated metal plaques that sheathe icons, covering the flat surface of the panel around the figure and the rectangular perimeter that surrounds the central image. This dissertation is motivated by the enigmatic status of icon revetments in late Byzantine art

(1261–1453): why did the Byzantines cover their icons with gilt-silver plates? What would cause them to choose to conceal their beautiful paintings of holy figures with glittering metal? Moreover, what do such coverings reveal about the icons and their owners and users?

Although such questions stem from a biased modern aesthetic that prioritizes painted representations over ornament and the decorative arts, they inform the literature on icon revetments.

Research on late Byzantine revetments and frames has focused on general descriptions of single icon revetments published in collection and exhibition catalogues.2 Few

1 The revetments made for the Vladimir Mother of God, one of Byzantium’s most celebrated icons, exemplify this omission. In Bank’s catalogue of Byzantine art in museums of the then Soviet Union, there are two images of the icon painting but no comment on the revetments added in later centuries. Only the fifteenth-century gold revetment is included in her catalogue. Alice Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of Soviet Museums (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1985), 22, 313–14, figs. 233 and 234. 2 Nikodim Kondakov, Ikonografija Bogomateri, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tipografija imperatorskoi akademii nauk, 1914–15); Alice Bank, “L’argenterie byzantine des Xème–XVème siècles: Classification des monuments et méthodes de recherches,” Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 17 (1970): 335–53; André Grabar, Les revêtements or et en argent des icônes byzantines du moyen âge (Venice: Institut hellénique d’études byzantines et post-byzantines, 1975); Milčo Georgievski, Icon Gallery—Ohrid. (Ohrid: Republic of : Institute for the Protection of the Monuments of Culture and National Museum, 1999); and Jannic

1 2 publications have drawn connections among specific icon revetments, which makes each one seem like the eccentric product of individual or regional interests rather than an example of an important expression of Byzantine culture.3 The way scholars have traditionally studied icons as isolated artifacts in collection or exhibition catalogues exacerbates the revetment research deficit.4 André Grabar’s catalogue of Byzantine and Georgian icon revetments published in 1975 exemplifies this approach by presenting 49 icons with decorated cladding as independent objects with only short descriptions, a few bibliographical references, and a brief introduction that synthesizes a few aspects of the phenomenon of decorating icons in the late Byzantine era.5 He connects the development of icon revetments with icons in the ninth century and posits that there was a silver workshop at Vatopedi Monastery based on the high number of works that survive there. Leaving their historical and cultural contexts unexamined, Grabar does not develop in-depth analyses of individual icons. Icon specialists usually emphasize , painting techniques, and styles, not ornament or framing

Durand, “Precious Metal Icon Revetments,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. Helen Evans (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 243–51. 3 Katia Loverdou-Tsigarida, “Αργυρές επενδύσεις εικόνων από τη Θεσσαλονίκη του 14ου αιώνα,” Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 26 (2005): 263–72. 4 An even more expansive approach that situates icons in their surrounding , pictorial decoration, ritual objects, lighting, music, and fragrance is exemplified in Alexei Lidov’s work on hierotopy. He defines this theoretical formulation as the creation of sacred spaces and as the historical study of the interactions among works of art, architecture, and other ephemeral elements. His interpretation of the numerous factors that combined to create the hierotopy at the royal in the narthex at emphasizes the interaction of miraculous icons with other aspects that were represented or remembered at that space. Among other works, see Lidov, “The Creator of Sacred Space as a Phenomenon of Byzantine Culture,” in L’artista a Bisanzio e nel mondo cristiano-orientale, ed. Michele Bacci (: Edizioni della Normale, 2007), 135–76. 5 Grabar, Les revêtements.

3 techniques.6 Although attributions to specific artists working in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have expanded our understanding of the wide variety of icons made and used in the late Byzantine period, such methodologies yield little insight about the conditions in which artisans produced and applied revetments to icons or about the decorative vocabularies used in different regions.7 By compiling a new catalogue for this dissertation, I show that there are far more revetted icons than previously thought, and that physical description is a necessary process toward expanding our understanding of icons in the late Byzantine period as a whole.

Integrating revetted icons into the wider field of late Byzantine art is contingent on working with a comprehensive catalogue that draws together all of the surviving works. Using the images in the catalogue, I also composed indices of the motifs that decorate revetment plaques. By systematically naming each motif and identifying its position on revetment compositions, I show that revetments follow general patterns in their decoration. Together, these motifs and the placement patterns constitute an ornamental vocabulary that extends beyond icon revetments and was employed throughout late Byzantine art.

6 The surveys of Doula Mouriki and Kurt Weitzmann continue to support new research on icons. Mouriki’s two monumental contributions to the study of Komnenian and late Byzantine painting laid the foundation for much subsequent research on these works. Mouriki, “Stylistic Trends in Monumental Painting of at the Beginning of the Fourteenth Century,” in L’art Byzantin au début du XIVe siècle, ed. Sreten Petković (Belgrade: Filozofski fakultet, Odeljenje za istoriju umetnosti, 1978), 55–83; and “Stylistic Trends in Monumental Painting of Greece during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” DOP 34 (1980–1981): 77–124. Kurt Weitzmann’s catalogues of icons from Byzantium and southern Europe are important compilations that define and categorize the changing iconography and styles in icon painting; Weitzmann, et al. Icons from South Eastern Europe and Sinai (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968); and Weitzmann, et al. The Icon (New York: Dorset Press, 1987). 7 Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, “Painters in Late Byzantine Society: The Evidence of Church Inscriptions,” CahArch 42 (1994): 139–58. Maria Vassilaki edited two important volumes on late Byzantine painting techniques that expound on the iconographical and stylistic aspects of icon painting in late Byzantium. Vassilaki, ed. Byzantine Icons: Art, Technique and Technology (Athens: Heraklion, 2002) and Vassilaki, ed. The Hand of : An Icon Painter in Venetian Crete (Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2010).

4

In this introduction, I argue that icon revetments bear witness to the diversity of mixed media, multisensory, and multivalent devotional images produced in late Byzantium.

By examining the terminology used for these works both in Byzantine sources and in modern scholarly literature, I show that their decorative qualities the ways viewers conceptualize these icons. Until recently, art historical scholarship has ignored icon revetments, dismissing them as unimportant frames and hindrances to the icon itself. In contrast, Byzantine sources describe decorated icons as significant gifts displayed in .

Terminology and Metaphors

In English-language scholarship, these plaques are most often called revetments, and

I also use this term to refer to decorated claddings. The term revetment is borrowed from the study of architecture in which it refers to the facing of walls with thin slabs of marble or other fine materials. These facings help unify the surfaces of and they add surface ornament to the space. The decorated cladding on an icon functions in a similar way, unifying the icon with new material and its decorative properties. The degree to which these facings helped unite—or at least reorganize—the visual field depended on the motifs and patterns used to decorate these plaques. In the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, revetments could cover the nimbus, background, and outer perimeter of the icon; rarely were they used to cover the hands, feet or bodies of the central holy figure.

5

Monastery inventories and typika employ a variety of terms for icons and their decoration. From the Komnenian period (1081–1185) the term περιφέρεια (periphereia, things attached to the circumference or periphery) refers to icon decorations.8 This expression appears in the for the monastery of Christ Panoiktirmon in Constantinople in 1077, which is the earliest evidence for decorative plaques added to icons.9 The document lists icons painted on wood with silver frames (µετά περιφερίων αργυρών διαχρύσων, and without frames (ἄνευ περιφερίων).10 Periphereia refers to silver cladding that covers the frame, not necessarily to the plaques covering the ground around the holy figure. The monastery also had an icon painted on wood with a silver frame interwoven with gold and 25 cabochons

(ἑτέρα εἰκὼν ὑλογραφία ὁ ἅγιος Παντελεήµων µετὰ περιφερίων ἀργυρῶν διαχρύσων καὶ

8 Ševčenko, “Vita Icons and ‘Decorated’ Icons of the Komnenian Period,” in Davezac, Four Icons in the Menil Collection, 57–69. Paroma Chatterjee argues that the development of vita icons introduce ontological changes in the representations of saints. She posits that vita icons expand the ways that saints are visually mediated in Chatterjee, The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 9 There are several modern editions of this typikon by Attaleiates available, including Paul Gautier, “La Diataxis de Michel Attaliate,” REB 39 (1981): 5–143, esp. 88–91; Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 522–23; and Alice-Mary Talbot, trans., “Attaleiates: Rule of Michael Attaleiates for his Almshouse in Rhaidestos and for the Monastery of Christ Panoiktirmon in Constantinople,” BMFD, 1:326–76. Dating the beginning point of this artistic tradition is controversial. Antony Cutler, “Industries of Art,” in The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. Angeliki Laiou (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002), 568. Jannic Durand describes the development of icon revetments as a repercussion of the end of and suggests that enhancing icons painted on wood with precious metal frames and haloes happened as early as the tenth century. Although the earliest evidence of revetted Byzantine icons he cites comes from the eleventh century, he accepts the ninth-century date of the revetment on the Georgian icon of the Transfiguration, attributing its creation to an emulation of Byzantine artistry. Durand, “Precious Metal Icon Revetments,” 243–44. Ryder points to (unspecified) sources that describe the aftermath of the Iconoclastic period when the interior furnishings of the Nea Ekklesia in Constantinople were renovated with precious metal revetments by Emperor in 880. He refers to this as the earliest stage of the tradition of decorating icons with revetments and frames. Although these sources indicate that the templon barriers were revetted, they do not explicitly refer to decorating portable icons with similar precious metal sheathing. Edmund Ryder, “ Icons of the Late Byzantine Period,” (PhD diss., New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, 2007), 166. 10 Gautier, “La Diataxis de Michel Attaliate,” 89, lines 1190–92.

6

ὑελίων κε΄, ἔχοντα τὰ περιφέρια γυρόθεν εἰκόνας ις΄).11 In the same century, an inventory of the Theotokos Petriziotissa monastery founded near Bačkovo, , written by Gregory

Pakourianos in 1083 lists several icons that had periphereia. These include a painted icon of

St. George with silver frames (µετὰ ἀργυρῶν περιφερίων) and bronze icons of SS. George and Theodore with silver frames (µετά αργυρών περιφερίων).12 Another term is used in this document: πέταλον (petalon, covered with leaves), which refers to the revetments on twenty- seven painted icons (εικόνες ὑλογραφία µετά πετάλων). Separate terms were used for the nimbus on the holy figures. The word στεφάνος (stephanos, crown) designates gilt-silver nimbi and φέγγος (phengos, nimbus) is a more specific term for the nimbus on icons.13 Many

11 Ibid., 91, lines 1197–99. 12 Bissera Pentcheva shows that these icons with frames and revetments are listed in the inventory after the higher status relief icons and before the painted or bronze relief icons in the appendix to Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 213. For the Greek edition of this text, see Paul Gautier, “Le typikon du sébaste Grégorie Pakourianos,” REB 42 (1984): 5–145, esp. 119–21; English tr. by Robert Jordan, “Pakourianos: Typikon of Gregory Pakourianos for the Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bačkovo,” in BMFD, 2:507–63. 13 The expression stephanos is used in several sources. For example, there are four instances of the term in the inventory of the monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos from 1201. The first instance states, “ἑτέρα εἰκὼν ὁ Χρυσόστοµος ἔχουσα στεφάνιον, εὐαγγέλιον, ἐπιµάνικα καὶ σταυροὺς τρεῖς, τὰ ἀµφότερα ἀργυρᾶ καὶ χρυσοµένα.” Here the text describes the decorations on an icon as , “… another icon of Chrysostom having a nimbus/crown, gospelbook, cuffs, and three crosses that are both gilt-silver….” Charles Astruc, “L’inventaire dressé en septembre 1200 du trésor et de la bibliothèque de Patmos: Édition diplomatique,” Travaux et mémoires 8 (1981): 15–30, esp. 20. The term is also used in a thirteenth-century donation act: Lembiotissa Chartulary in Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana VI, eds. Miklosich and Müller, 56–57, no. 15–16. The document states, “στεφάνιν τοῦ ἁγίου λαιµὶν, βούλλας ἓξ καὶ ἕτερα ἀσήµια, ἤγουν χεὶρ καὶ ποὺς.” It refers several items, “….a crown/nimbus of holy bust, seals out of silver and other things out of silver, that is to say, a hand and a foot….” The term phengos is used in many sources, including this and several additional instances in the twelfth-century monastic inventory in Actes de -Pantéléèmôn, eds. Paul Lemerle, Gilbert Dagron, Sima Ćirković, Archives de l’Athos 12 (Paris: Lethielleux, 1982), 65–76, esp., 74, Panteleemon, no. 7, line 9: “εἰκὸν ἐτέρα ὁ ἄγιος Συµεὼν ἐπι στύλου καὶ τὴν ἀγίαν Μάρθαν καὶ τὸν ἄγιον Κόνωνα καὶ δύο ἀγγελήκεια ἄνωθεν ἔχουσαι φεγγεία ἀργυρὰ ἔγκαυστα τὰ ἀµφότερα.” The text refers to silver haloes on two angels both depicted in encaustic who are part of an icon of St. Simeon Stylites, St. , and St. Konon. Phengos appears in the typikon for Theotokos Eleousa, Louis Petit, ed. “Le Monastère de Notre Dame de Pitié en Macédoine,” Izvestija Russkogo Archaeologičeskogo Instituta v Konstantinople 6 (1900): 114–25, 118 line 20, where it states, “εἰκὼν Θεοτόκος ὑλογραφία ἒχουσα “φέγγος στενὸν καὶ περιφέρια στενὰ ἂνευ εἰκόνων ἀργυρὰ διάχρυσα.” This passage describes an icon of the Mother of God painted on wood having a nimbus and thin frame of gilt-silver without images.

7 icon revetments (cats. 1a, 2, 5, 17, 18, 21, 23, 28, 31, 44a, and 45a to name a few) have frames with a series of small round medallions depicting busts of saints (M-41 in index of motifs, Appendix 2). These enamel roundels are referred to as τύποι (from typos, impression or imprint), σκουτάρι (skoutare, from σκοῦτα, shield), and στρογγύλος (stroggylos, round, spherical).14 Depictions of bust figures are called λαιµίν (laime, neck).15 The word χείρ (cheir, hand) also refers to a metal cladding that covers the hand of a figure. In this excerpt from the

Lembiotissa cartulary from a monastery located between Smyrna and Nymphaion, a hand revetment is included in a list with other silver elements that sheath the icon including the nimbus, a seal, and the foot: “στεφάνιν τοῦ ἁγίου λαιµὶν, βούλλας ἓξ καὶ ἕτερα ἀσήµια,

ἤγουν χεὶρ καὶ ποὺς” that is, “… a nimbus of a holy bust, and seals out (of silver) and other things out of silver, that is to say, a hand and a foot….”16 Finally, the term καρφίον

(karphion) refers to the nails or studs that attach ornaments to icons.17

14 In the tenth century, Theophanes Continuatus uses the term typos to describe the enamel medallions of Christ in the epistyle: ed. Immanuel Bekker, Theophanes Continuatus, Ioannes Cameniata, Symeon Magister, Georgius Monachus (Bonn: Weber, 1838), 331. Stroggylos is used in the inventory of St. John the Theologian, Patmos. See Charles Diehl, “Le trésor et la bibliothèque de Patmos au commencement du 13e siècle,” BZ 1 (1892): 488–525, esp. 511. The term skoutare appears in the eleventh-century will of Eustathius Boilas: ὁ ἅγιος Γεώργης σκουτάριν. See: Maria Parani, Brigitte Pitarakis, and Jean-Michel Spieser, eds. and trans., “Un exemple d’inventaire d’objets liturgiques: le testament d’Eustathios Boïlas (avril 1059),” REB 61 (2003), 143–65, esp. 158, L. 133; see also: Speros Vryonis, ed. and trans., “The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathius Boilas (1059),” DOP 11 (1957): 263–77, esp. 268. 15 Laime is used in the inventory of the monastery of Christ Panoiktirmon by Attaleiates: “Eἰκὼν ἀργυρά, προσευχάδ(ιον) διάχρυσον, ὁ Σ(ωτ)ήρ, λαιµήν, δίθυρον,” Gautier,” La Diataxis de Michel Attaliate,” 89, v. 1177 and vv. 1183, 1189, and 1191. 16 Lembiotissa Cartulary, no. 15–16 in Franz Miklosich and Josef Müller, eds., Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana I (Vienna: C. Gerold, 1860), 4:56–57. 17 In this passage from a twelfth-century imperial typikon, the studs are described as part of the decoration of the icon: “εἰκόνες δύο ἀµπαρατείνες µετὰ καρφίων χρυσῶν, ἡ µέν µία µετὰ κιχροελ<> ἀργυρᾶς διαχρύσου, ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα µετὰ ὁµοίου κρικελλίου χρυσοῦ, ἐτζακίσθησαν δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ χρόνου,” “…two icons with gold studs, Paul Gautier, “Le typikon de la Théotokos Kécharitôménè,” REB 43 (1985), 5–165, 153.61. This use of the term is more fitting than the interpretation that it refers to a nimbus on the icon. See Pentcheva, Sensual Icon, 218.

8

The database “Artifacts and Raw Materials in Byzantine Archival Documents” supported by Université de Fribourg also uses the word revetment to denote the metal cladding on icons.18 Revetment is given as the English translation of several Greek terms that describe icons, including κόσµος (kosmos, ornament) and its variants and κατακλίδιον

(kataklidion, plaque or band). The term kosmos occurs as early as the eleventh century in the typikon from Xenophontos Monastery on Mount Athos that states, “εἰκόνες καινούργιαι παρ᾽

αὐτοῦ γεγονυῖε καὶ κόσµω ἀργυροχρύσω κοσµηθεῖσαι πέντε,” meaning, “icons becoming renewed and ornamented by five pieces of gilt-silver revetment.”19 The use of the term kosmos to denote an icon revetment continued through the late Byzantine period. In a

Synodal Act from 1370, the use of the word kosmos indicates that the revetment could be separated from an icon of John the Baptist.20 The text gives an account of a robbery in which a monk pried open a storage box with a lancet, removed an icon of the Baptist, ripped off the metal revetment (ἀποσπάσας τὸν κόσµον), and then threw the icon into a corner of the church. He kept the revetment but put the outer cloth or garment (ροῦχα) below the altar table (τὰ δὲ ροῦχα ἔθηκε κάτωθεν τῆς ἁγίας τραπέζης).21 This passage seems to indicate that

18 Ludovic Bender, Maria Parani, Brigitte Pitarakis, Jean-Michel Spieser, Aude Vuilloud, Artefacts and Raw Materials in Byzantine Archival Documents, University of Fribourg, URL: http://www.unifr.ch/go/typika. 19 Actes de Xénophon, ed. Denise Papachryssanthou, Archives de l’Athos XV (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1986), 72.84–85. 20 Miklosich and Müller, Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi (Vienna: C. Gerold, 1860), Patriarchal Register, no. CCLXXXVII, 539. “Kαὶ µετὰ τῆς ἁγίας λόγχης ἀνοίξας τὸ σενδούκιον ὑφείλετο ἐξ ἐκείνου ῥοῦχά τινα καὶ ἁγίαν εἰκόνα τοῦ τιµίου Προδρόµου κεκοσµηµένην, ἀφ’ ἧς ἀποσπάσας τὸν κόσµον, τὴν µὲν ἁγίαν εἰκόνα ἔρριψεν εἴς τι µέρος τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ µοναστηρίου, τὸν δὲ κόσµον εὑρέθη κατέχων ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ αὐτοῦ, τὰ δὲ ροῦχα ἔθηκε κάτωθεν τῆς ἁγίας τραπέζης.” 21 Nicolas Oikonomides also describes this incident in Oikonomides, “The Holy Icon as an Asset,” DOP 45 (1991): 35–44, at 39. The term rouchon is generally used for clothing, but it may also refer to blankets. This text also reveals an important detail about the settings and display of decorated icons: the work was kept in a storage box, not displayed in the church.

9 the icon was wrapped for safekeeping in the storage box.22 Although kosmos is found in the eleventh century, its variant κεκοσµηµένη (kekosmēmenē, adorned) was not as common and does not appear until the 1370 Synodal Act (καὶ ἁγίαν εἰκόνα τοῦ τιµίου Προδρόµου

κεκοσµηµένην). Kekosmēmenē is also used in the typikon from 1449 of the monastery of the

Theotokos Eleousa in Stroumitza (near Veljusa in the Republic of Macedonia).23 In this list of the monastery’s property, the term is used to distinguish between icons that were adorned and those that were not. The list includes icons with silver-gilt frames, an icon with busts of saints in the frame, and icons with silver nimbi.24 This usage suggests that kekosmēmenē was a general term that referred to different kinds of icon decoration, not simply metal cladding.25

The term kataklidion appears in a fourteenth-century document from Vatopedi that states,

“εἰκόναι δύο µεγάλαι κεκοσµηµέναι, … ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα εἴκων <> ἔχον …, ἕτερον τρίτον

κατὰκλίδιον εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν εἱκώνα ἔχον ὑελία δεκα,” that is, “two large ornamented icons … and another icon … having… a third icon revetment to the same icon having ten glass

22 Artefacts and Raw Materials in Byzantine Archival Documents, University of Fribourg, https://elearning.unifr.ch/apb/typika/synthese/314 23 For the use of this fifteenth-century term, see the typikon for the monastery of the Theotokos Eleousa, Louis Petit, ed. “Le Monastère de Notre Dame de Pitié en Macédoine,” Izvestija Russkogo Archaeologičeskogo Instituta v Konstantinople 6 (1900): 1–153, esp. 119, lines 4-6: “Εἰκὼν θεοτόκος στασίδιον πηχυαῖον ἔχουσα φέγγη δύο ἀργυρᾶ µετὰ τοῦ βρέφους. Καὶ ταῦτα µέν εἰσιν ἃ εὕροµεν εἰκονίσµατα ἱερὰ διαφόρων ἁγίων κεκοσµηµένα.” For an English translation of this text, see Anastasius Bandy with Nancy Ševčenko, trans., “Inventory of the Monastery of the Mother of God Eleousa in Stroumitza,” BMFD, 4:1667–78, no. 61. 24 For the most recent English translation of this typikon for the monastery of the Theotokos Eleousa, see Anastasius Bandy with Nancy Ševčenko, “Eleousa: Rule of Manuel, Bishop of Stroumitza, for the Monastery of the Mother of God Eleousa,” in BMFD, 1: 167–91, no. 10. The first modern edition of this typikon was published by Petit, ed. “Le Monastère de Notre-Dame,” 69–93, commentary 94–114. esp. 119, v. 6. 25 Because this term may refer to different forms of adornment, I believe it should not be used to refer to decorated icons. Nancy Ševčenko interprets the kekosmēmenē (decoration) of Komnenian icons as meaning paintings with metal revetments based on the form of surviving decorated icons from that era in her article, Ševčenko, “Vita Icons and ‘Decorated’ Icons,” 57–69, esp. 68–69 and n. 19. Pentcheva also discusses the appearance of the term kekosmēmenē in the typikon of the monastery of the Theotokos Eleousa from 1449 and its use in scholarship on earlier Komnenian decorated icons in her reconstruction of aesthetic hierarchy. See Pentcheva, Sensual Icon, 275.

10 cabochons.”26 In this text, the term for ornamentation attached to the icons refers to plaques or bands, perhaps like those attached to two icons of Christ Pantokrator (cats. 32 and 48) and the Ohrid Hodegetria (cat. 1a).

Bissera Pentcheva includes most of these terms in a short discussion of Byzantine terms for icon decorations as part of her discussion about the aesthetic hierarchy of icons.27

Grabar includes a short list of other terms used in Byzantine sources at the end of the introduction to his catalogue, although he gives no sources or citations for them: θριγγίον,

ἐπένδυσις, ἔνδυµα, πλαίσιον, and κόσµησις.28 Θριγγίον (thringion, cornice) appears more commonly in publications about post-Byzantine icon revetments.29 In Greek, the expression

επένδυση (ependesē, investment) emphasizes the financial and material profit that was embedded in these covers. In general, these terms refer to the adornments as linings, garments, frames, and decorations. They give little indication of the form or decorative qualities of the embellishments. In addition, the terms do not indicate when the coverings were made and applied to their icons. In some cases, the revetment was clearly produced at the same time as the icon, as can be seen on panels where the surface is left unpainted beneath the revetment plaques (see cats. 43a, 44a, 45a). This is not necessarily a cost-cutting

26 Actes de Vatopédi II, De 1330 à 1376, ed. Jacques Lefort, Vassiliki Kravari, Christophe Giros and Kostis Smyrlis, Archives de l’Athos XXII (Paris : Peeters, 2006), 303.5. 27 Pentcheva, Sensual Icon, 222, notes 45–63 on 279. 28 Grabar, Les revêtements, 16. 29 In the exhibition catalogue Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 1261–1557, which advanced normative terminology for many types of art objects, Ekaterina Gladysheva was the only contributor to use the terms thringion and riza to refer to an icon revetment in her description of the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria with Constantine Akropolites and Maria Akropolitisa now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Gladysheva, “Revetted Icon with the Virgin Hodegetria,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 28–30, no. 4; Edmund Ryder uses exclusively the term thringion to denote the icon frames in his dissertation on late Byzantine micromosaic icons: Ryder, “Micromosaic Icons of the Late Byzantine Period,” chap. 3, 161–222.

11 measure; some of the most finely crafted icons and revetments were produced at the same time, leaving some of the icon unpainted.

In addition to these Greek terms, Russian expressions are occasionally used to refer to

Byzantine icon covers. The general term оклад (oklad, casing) denotes all types of adornment added to icons. This includes metal sheathing as well as woven, embroidered, and beaded covers. The narrower expression басма оклад (basma oklad) refers to the technique of embossing a metal plate with a relief design. The plates are trimmed to cover the ground around the holy figure and nailed next to each other, covering the surface of the icon, which is also the technique used for Byzantine revetments. On many , the plate is bent over the rim and nailed onto the outer edges of the panel, not the painted surface. On such works, the decorative covers are formed from a single sheet of metal with ornament stamped onto the entire surface. The term риза (riza, robe or framing) from Old is also used from the seventeenth century onward to refer to icon covers made of many types of sheet metal and decorated with a variety of techniques. This type of covering concealed most of the painted icon leaving only the faces, hands, and feet free.30

Several other non-Greek and non-Russian terms sometimes occur in the literature on

Byzantine icons. First, the Italian word corona, meaning crown, is sometimes used to refer to a richly decorated nimbus with a crown integrated into its design. Second, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many icons were displayed in a glass-fronted wooden case called a

30 Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov introduced the Russian term ríza to describe the silver plates covering the clothing and ground on Russian icons, borrowing the term from the vocabulary for priestly . It refers to the which is the sleeveless outer garment worn by celebrating the . The use of this term for icon covers highlights the sense that the icon is permanently clothed in its ornate robes. Kondakov, The Russian Icon, trans. Ellis Minns (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), 36–9, esp. 37.

12 kiot, ark or box. The corona adorns the icon in acknowledgement of the holy figure’s high status and the kiot houses the icon that mediates the divine presence.

The impact that revetments had on the visual tradition of icon painting and veneration may be observed on and in Greece. Icons in these places were decorated with similar motifs that obscured an increasing amount of the icon panel itself, and their coverings played a part in religious devotion. There, some icons and wall paintings were enhanced with pastiglia formed from patterns worked into a plaster surface under the upper layer of gilding.31 Gilt-gesso motifs that imitate the more costly gilt-silver revetment plaques indicate the significance of icon revetments in liturgy and devotion, yet these adornments have not been integrated into the wider understanding of the roles icons played in religious practices.32

The Kykkotissa icon at the Kykko Monastery on Cyprus epitomizes this trajectory of concealing an increasing amount of an icon panel to the point that the holy figure is no longer visible behind its precious metal revetment and woven ποδέα (podea, ) that covers the upper portion of the panel.33 Examining the conceptualizations of icons by those who

31 Mojmír Frinta’s article remains the primary study of pastiglia on panel paintings. Frinta, “Raised Gilded Adornment of the Cypriot Icons, and the Occurrence of the Technique in the West,” Gesta 20, no. 2 (1981): 333–47. Recent technical studies on the raised gilded decoration used by Pacino di Bonaguida add to our understanding of this innovative technique; see Christine Sciacca, ed. Florence at the Dawn of the : Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350 (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2012); and see also Christopher Lakey’s interpretation of Pacino’s so-called Chiarito Tabernacle, in which he examines a unique example of this technique where the relief decoration technique is used to compose the entire scene of Christ and his twelve apostles. Lakey, “The Curious Case of the ‘Chiarito Tabernacle’: A New Interpretation,” Getty Research Journal 4 (2012): 13–30. 32 Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “Icons in the Liturgy,” DOP 45 (1991): 45–57. 33 A silhouette of the original painting was made in repoussé metal and attached over the image because the icon was believed to be a work by St. Luke and therefore too sacred to be viewed. The icon had been part of the collection at the great palace in Constantinople when Alexios I gave it to the monastery at the end of the eleventh century. Before the icon was covered, artists in the Balkans and copied the iconographic type. Beginning in the late twelfth century, the Mother of God is shown wearing an additional veil over her other garments, the chiton (tunic) and red/purple maphorion. This is often decorated with nonfigural

13 decorated and used revetted icons augments our understanding of the artistic climate of the late Byzantine period.

In order to address the notable gap in scholarship encompassing the meaning and function of icon revetments, I analyze three revetments in close detail. I situate each revetment within its historical context, comparing it with other surviving revetments while examining specific aspects of revetments. I these case studies with a historiographic overview of the study of ornament as a foundational component of , specifically in the field of . The abundance of small-scale ornament with repeating motifs is a distinguishing feature of icon revetments. Nonfigural ornament on many objects and monuments is commonplace, in contrast to the use of figural designs as surface decoration.

The proliferation of these motifs and patterns in late Byzantine art is part of what I call the

“ornamental turn.”34 Increasing the use of figural and nonfigural motifs in art diminishes their symbolic significance and increases their decorative qualities. Each case study relies on my catalogue of icon revetments and indices of ornament motifs for interpretation and context.

By cataloguing extant revetments and compiling the key motifs and their uses, I present icon

patterns including hearts and lozenges. See Christodoulos Hadjichristodoulou, “Icon with the Virgin Kykkotissa,” and Sophocles Sophocleous, “Icon with the Virgin Kykkotissa,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 169–70, no. 91, and 171–72, no. 93. The literature on icon includes Valerie Nunn’s important article on podea. Nunn, “The Encheirion as Adjunct to the Icon in the Middle Byzantine Period,” BMGS 10 (1986): 73–102, 84–85. Nunn shows that spiritual power was thought to multiply and flow from the holy figure represented in the icon and that it echoed in the covering and in the frames surrounding miraculous icons. The earliest work on icon veils was by Anatole Frolow in “La ‘Podea,’ un tissu décoratif de l’église byzantin,” Byzantion 13 (1938): 461–504; in recent literature, Warren Woodfin discuss a podea in Sofia that disappeared in the early twentieth century and has recently reappeared. Woodfin, The Embodied Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 37. 34 I am especially grateful to Linda Safran for suggesting this succinct phrase.

14 revetments as a corpus assembled for studying shared formal characteristics. I show how the ornamental vocabulary is employed on each revetment’s complex visual program in which figural and nonfigural motifs, iconography, and inscriptions converge and interact.

Accounts of the Display of Decorated Icons

The wider context for this study is my aim to expose the constraints imposed by earlier art historians and my own ambition to recast how the discipline regards icon revetments and frames. Many art historians are reluctant to combine metal frames and revetments in the same category—partly because they are influenced by post-medieval conceptualizations of frames that define them as separate from the work of art itself.35

Likewise, most specialists treat an icon and its revetments as separate entities. They regard the frame or revetment as less important than the icon itself partly because it depends on the icon for its form and significance. By contrast, I treat the three items—frame, revetment, and icon—together. They share decorative motifs and techniques and are combined to form a whole composition: a decorated icon. Revetments and frames are constituent elements of the icon, and in most cases, their formal composition and design are closely integrated. On most

Byzantine icons, the wooden panel is recessed in the central by carving into the wood.

This creates a main area that is set back from the surrounding frame, which is thicker and adds strength to the wooden panel as whole. Icon revetments follow the changes in relief

35 Jacques Derrida begins his important book on the framing and the parergon with this premise. Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).

15 depth on their icons. They became part of the image of the holy figure and were accepted as part of the icon by Orthodox devotees for hundreds of years.

In each case study, I use close visual and formal analysis that puts figural and nonfigural ornament on equal footing with the icon it adorns. Iconography is a core methodology for the study of icons, yet much of the surface of a revetted icon cannot be analyzed in iconographic terms. Nevertheless, I use this method to expand on the symbolic significance of the pictorial elements of the revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria in chapter 2.

While Byzantinists have prioritized the theology of icons and iconographic interpretations, the eleventh-century development of precious metal sheathing for icons represents an important artistic innovation that challenges the importance of iconography and invites further study of decorative arts.36

Textual sources from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries emphasize that decorated icons were important objects in the liturgical life of churches and monasteries. The church supported the social practices of honoring all icons, and decorated icons invited special veneration. St. Symeon of Thessaloniki (ca. 1381–1429) drew a parallel between venerating icons and venerating the at the Great and when the gifts were offered for in the : “While the divine icons [θεῖαι εἰκόνες] are holy as images of real persons, the gifts are holy as things offered to God and presented to become

36 Ševčenko draws connections between Komnenian artistic ideals and the development of icons with a secondary and framing layer of imagery and decoration added by new patrons and artists. Ševčenko, “Vita Icons and ‘Decorated’ Icons,” 57–69. The theological interpretation of icons remains the dominant mode for Byzantinists. Hans Belting equates some icons to sermons and Charles Barber argues that the Byzantines regarded artists as elevated and erudite theologians. Hans Belting, The Image and Its Public in the (New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1990), 117; Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 138.

16 the body and .”37 In this passage, Symeon clearly echoed the liturgical formulations of the transformation of the Eucharistic gifts, as they were understood following

Iconoclasm. In fact, these mediating images form the foundation for his sacramental theology. Icons are honored in the liturgy just as the priest censes the and altar, the entire sanctuary, and the whole church, and decorated icons were venerated in similar ways with candles and .38

Later in the same text, Symeon accused non-Orthodox Christians of adorning their icons with human hair and garments;39 in his view, they were no longer making images of a prototype that deserves to receive veneration. He wrote, “What other innovation have they

[the Latins] introduced contrary to the tradition of the church? … For instead of painted garments and hair, they adorn them with human hair and clothes, which is not the image of hair and of a garment, but the [actual] hair and garment of a man, and hence is not an image and a symbol [τύπος] of the prototype. These they confect and adorn in an irreverent spirit, which is indeed opposed to the holy icons….”40 Although non-Orthodox Christians in the fifteenth century used these materials to decorate wax effigies, his accusation highlights the

37 Symeon of Thessaloniki, “Explanation of the Divine Temple,” St. Symeon of Thessalonika: The Liturgical Commentaries, ed. and trans. by Steven Hawkes-Teeples (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2011), 129, sections 65 and 66. 38 Symeon of Thessaloniki, “On the Sacred Liturgy,” Liturgical Commentaries, 237, sections 112–13. 39 David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). Throughout this book, Freedberg explores the ways Christians manipulated their holy images and with clothing, human hair, and other adornments, pushing these simulacrums into becoming substitutions for these figures. By increasing the verisimilitude of the holy image, they helped bolster the beliefs of worshipers. 40 Symeon of Thessaloniki, “Contra Haereses,” in The Art of the , 312–1453: Sources and Documents, ed. and trans. by (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 253–54.

17

Orthodox conviction that icons receive veneration by representing their prototypes symbolically, not by using actual hair and clothing to represent the holy figure.

Monastery typika indicate that late Byzantine and clerics displayed special icons for veneration by faithful viewers. For example, in the typikon for the Prodromos monastery on Mount Athos (ca. 1330–31), the founder Neilos stipulates that lamps should burn continually before three sacred icons: the Virgin, St. John the Baptist, and the

Dormition of the Mother of God.41 The author does not describe the icons he gave to the monastery, but he does state that he gave two podeai of gold thread and two of silk thread.42

As a gift that adorns special icons, this textile is closely related to icon revetments.

Gifts of decorated icons were linked with the schedule of memorial services celebrated at the Convent of the Mother of God Bebaia Elpis in Constantinople according to its typikon of ca. 1327–35, and the costliness of these decorated icons can be evaluated simply based on the materials included in the descriptions: precious stones, pearls, and gilt- bronze.43 The author of the typikon, Theodora Synadene (niece of Michael VIII ), stipulates that many members of her family and their descendants should be commemorated throughout the year. For example, on January 8, her -in-law Isaac Komnenos

Tornikes was commemorated with seven liturgies, two candelabra, and a celebration for the

41 Stephen Reinert, trans., “Prodromos: Testament of Neilos for the Monastery of St. John the Forerunner (Prodromos) on Mount Athos,” BMFD, 4:1393, no. 48, section 10. 42 Ibid., 1393, section 14. 43 Alice-Mary Talbot, introduction to “Bebaia Elpis: Typikon of Theodora Synadene for the Convent of the Mother of God Bebaia Elpis in Constantinople,” in BMFD, 4:1518, no. 57. Not all who were commemorated by these special liturgies made donations to the convent; the author defends her directives by referring to the donations made by other family members.

18 in the refectory.44 Together with his wife, he gave 1,000 hyperpyra and an icon of the bust of the Mother of God decorated with three red precious stones and pearls. Later in the year, on June 6, there were special liturgies and a feast in the refectory to commemorate

Michael Komnenos Branas Palaiologos.45 Michael gave several costly gifts to the monastery, including a decorated icon of the Michael made of gilt-bronze, two silver lamps, and a cash gift of 300 hyperpyra. Gifts of icons and money to the convent ensured that its inhabitants remembered these individuals throughout the .

Theodora Synadene includes directives for the memorial services for two of her family members. Her nephew John Komnenos Doukas Angelos Branas Palaiologos was commemorated on August 8 and on every Thursday throughout the year because he gave the monastery two richly decorated icons and a podea.46 The first was a gold icon of the Mother of God decorated with pearls, eight precious stones in red and blue, and a podea covered with pearls, called a syrmatinon (συρµάτινον, from σύρµα, “wire netting or barbed wire”), decorated with an image of the Mother of God.47 The podea showed the four feasts of the

Mother of God; it was made of gold with a circle of 66 pearls in the middle. The second icon was a decorated image of the Dormition, but no specific information about the

44 Ibid., 4:1561–2, section 140. In this and several other directives, the author also refers to donations made by honorees to a vineyard nearby. Such donations ensure the refreshments offered in the refectory include wine. 45 Ibid., 4:1561, section 137. 46 Ibid., 4:1562, section 142. The weekly commemoration included making the Eucharistic bread in his honor, and the annual remembrance included special liturgies, candelabra, and the distribution of wine in his honor at the monastery gate. 47 For the diplomatic edition of this typikon for Theotokos Bebaias Elpidos, see Hippolyte Delehaye, Deux byzantins de l’époque des Paléologues, Mémoires, Second series 8 (Brussels: Académie Royale de Belgique, 1921): 93, 24.22–27: Δέδωκε γὰρ εἰκόνισµα χρυσοῦν, τὴν ὑπεραγίαν Θεοτόκον, ὅλον µετὰ µαργάρων, ἔχον καὶ λιθάρια ὀκτώ, τὰ µὲν τέσσαρα κοκκίνου, ἠερανὰ δὲ τὰ ἕτερα τέσσαρα, µετὰ καλύµµατος ὁλοµαργάρου, ὃ καλοῦσι συρµάτινον, τὴν στήλην ἔχον τῆς ὑπεραγίας µου Θεοτόκου· ἐκόσµησε <δὲ> φιλοτίµως καὶ ἕτερον εἰκόνισµα τῆς ὑπεραγίας µου Θεοτόκου, τὴν Κοίµησιν·

19 form of its ornament was provided. Theodora stated that her nephew’s commemorations were proportional to the richness of his gifts, which suggests that these gifts with pearls, precious stones, and gold embroidery were especially valuable to the convent. On December

24, the convent commemorated the author’s father-in-law, the Theodore Doukas

Mouzakios.48 He gave a decorated icon of St. Onouphrios and 100 hyperpyra; in exchange, the author directs that he should be honored according to the convent’s current fiscal status, which suggests that the monetary value of this gift was not sufficient to guarantee an extravagant liturgical feast with candelabra or a lavish banquet with wine. This connection between the donation of decorated icons and memorial services at the convent suggests that there may be memorial or funerary associations in the decorative programs on these icons.

Dedicatory and commemorative prayers inscribed on revetments and figures represented on the revetment decoration reminded viewers of the patrons who sponsored both the icon and the monastery where the icon was displayed, although the monastic foundation is rarely named in the inscriptions. A wealthy donor could remind viewers to pray for his soul by representing himself on the decorated icon he gave to the convent.

Monastery inventories and typika reveal much about how Byzantine monks and clerics regarded decorated icons in comparison with other icons and artifacts in their collections. These sources also reveal details about how these icons were displayed and venerated by faithful viewers. For example, the thirteenth-century bishop who wrote the typikon of the monastery of Machairas on Cyprus specifies that oil lamps and wax candles

48 Talbot, trans., “Bebaia Elpis,” in BMFD, 4:1562, section 143.

20 should be lit in front of their important icons.49 He directs that the church be illuminated with four candles at all services, in addition to the oil lamps that burn continually at the two , at the icons, in the choros (lighting fixture), and in the narthex. The consumption of these lights added to the cost of running the monastery and to the cost of the icons themselves. The typikon does not indicate whether these icons were adorned with revetments, but gilt-silver cladding would heighten the effect of these icons that were set up for special veneration and illumination.

These texts concentrate on icons as valuable gifts with precious materials as decoration. They emphasize status and veneration, not iconography or the theological subtleties that characterize particular images. Such texts invite an anthropological analysis of decorated icons that engages the social relations between those who gave these icons to monasteries and the residents of the religious itself. Although such an approach does not necessarily conflict with a theological one, it nonetheless shifts the focus from icon theory to the examination of the practices associated with icons.

Icons and Revetments in Late Byzantine Art

I propose that the appearance of revetted icons in the late eleventh century and their proliferation in the twelfth century and later is tied directly to the increasing opacity of templon screens that divided the sanctuary from the naos.50 In the ninth through twelfth

49 Anastasius Bandy, trans., “Machairas: Rule of Neilos, Bishop of Tamasia, for the Monastery of the Mother of God of Machairas in Cyprus,” in BMFD, 3:1131–32, no. 34. 50 Sharon Gerstel, ed., Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2006), 135. Vasileios Marinis focuses on middle Byzantine churches in his contextualization of

21 centuries, these screens continued to serve the same function of separating spaces but did not necessarily block the view of the altar from the naos.51 Slender pillars with epistyles and low parapets were the norm at that time. These elements were adorned with a variety of inscriptions, ornament, and figural imagery in paint, ceramic tiles, and relief .52 The earliest evidence for decorative plates or plaques added to icons comes from 1077 in the typikon for the monastery of Christ Panoiktirmon, mentioned above, when panel paintings were given adornments in precious metals.53 In the late Byzantine period, templon screens were designed to be increasingly opaque with icons hung between the vertical supports.54 The specifics of this change in opacity have been debated in recent decades; most scholars now

templa in their spatial surroundings in Marinis, “The Sanctuary and the Templon,” in Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 25–48, esp. 41–48. 51 Gerstel began exploring the form of altar screens and the placement of icons within these screens in, Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs for the Byzantine Sanctuary (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999), see esp. chap. 1, “The Creation of Sacred Space,” 5–14. 52 Georgios Pallis, “Inscriptions on Middle Byzantine Marble Templon Screens,” BZ 106, no. 2 (2013): 761– 810. His study focuses on the less frequent use of dedicatory inscriptions and scriptural quotations used to decorate Middle Byzantine marble templon screens. Catherine Vanderheyde, “The Carved Decoration of Middle and Late Byzantine Templa,” Mitteilungen zur spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 5 (2007): 77–98. 53 Dating the beginning point of this artistic tradition is controversial. Antony Cutler, “Industries of Art,” in The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. Angeliki Laiou (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002), 568. Jannic Durand describes the development of icon revetments as a repercussion of the end of Iconoclasm and suggests that enhancing icons painted on wood with precious metal frames and haloes happened as early as the tenth century. Although the earliest evidence of revetted Byzantine icons he cites comes from the eleventh century, he accepts the ninth- century date of the revetment on the Georgian icon of the Transfiguration, attributing its creation to an emulation of Byzantine artistry. Durand, “Precious Metal Icon Revetments,” 243–44. Ryder points to (unspecified) sources that describe the aftermath of the Iconoclastic period when the interior furnishings of the Nea Ekklesia in Constantinople were renovated with precious metal revetments by Emperor Basil I in 880. He refers to this as the earliest stage of the tradition of decorating icons with revetments and frames. Although these sources indicate that the templon barriers were revetted, they do not explicitly refer to decorating icons with similar precious metal sheathing. Ryder, “Micromosaic Icons,” 166. 54 Sharon Gerstel, “An Alternate View of the Late Byzantine Sanctuary Screen,” in Gerstel, Thresholds of the Sacred, 134–61. In some late Byzantine churches, masonry walls were painted to look like stone screens with panels inserted between the supports.

22 agree that the term as a solid barrier enclosing the altar should be applied only to screens in post-Byzantine churches.55 The height and decorative content of late Byzantine screens differ broadly, but icon revetments share the same decorative vocabulary that is used on the framing elements of these screens. Decorated icons were likely displayed on these screens, as was likely the case with two large icons from St. Sophia, Ohrid (chapter 2). Other icons were displayed separately on special stands in front of the screens with a podea hanging below the icon.

The theory that revetments were designed for icons hung in templon screens shifts the focus from iconography to wider questions about how icons were displayed and how

Byzantines interacted with their icons. This fact introduces a methodological challenge: in the broader discourses of art, history, and material culture, scholars tend to separate icons from other works of art and artifacts. Because these are religious images, we tend to focus on their religious properties by evaluating their representations of theological concepts and their functions in sanctioned religious ceremonies. Byzantinists continue to lean on the work of

Hans Belting, who, in his magnum opus Bild und Kult, distinguishes “icons” from other works of “art” in that they are images controlled by their theological underpinnings.56 Icons

55 Ann Wharton Epstein, “The Middle Byzantine Sanctuary Barrier: Templon or Iconostasis?,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 134 (1981): 1–28. See Marinis, “Sanctuary and the Templon,” 45, n. 152 for additional sources in this debate. 56 Belting, Likeness and Presence, 19. Belting reiterates the Byzantine belief in the elevated status of icons by writing, “But the theology of the image elevated the work to a quasi-sacred status and sought to remove it from the control of the artist. That it was produced by a painter was secondary as far as theology was concerned, which saw the image as a vehicle of revelation.” On page 12 of his recent article about the impact of Belting’s tome on , Roland Betancourt highlights how Belting’s conceptualization of to an unhelpful perpetuation of the neo-Kantian binaries of “the beautiful and the functional, the aesthetic and the cult image.” Betancourt, “Medieval Art after Duchamp: Hans Belting’s Likeness and Presence at 25,” Gesta 55, no. 1 (2016): 5–17.

23 were designed to communicate theological concepts and adhere to accepted image types.

While this approach helps support the scholarly examination of how religious practices and beliefs shape the appearance and functions of icons, an overreliance on religious concepts unnecessarily restricts our understanding of the functions of icons in daily life. It is worth remembering that only a small minority of icon viewers was highly educated in theology and iconography.

This theology- and iconography-driven discourse is complemented by another group of art historians who emphasize social issues and the decorative arts. These scholars tend to study icon revetments in terms of the roles that decorated icons played in the support of religious houses; they also examine the density of decoration on their surfaces.57 One of the social-history topics that has been correlated with the development of revetments is the phenomenon of miracle-working icons. Jannic Durand attributes the theories and practices related to miraculous icons with the emerging use of revetments on icons in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.58 Although this interpretation may explain the impetus for applying decoration to some icons, there is insufficient evidence to assume that all revetted icons worked miracles.

57 Jannic Durand, Katia Loverdou-Tsigarida, and Glenn Peers have approached revetments in this way. Jannic Durand, “Precious Metal Icon Revetments,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 243–51; Katia Loverdou- Tsigarida has published several studies of the decorated icons at Vatopedi, including this article on the Vimatarissa: Loverdou-Tsigarida, “Revêtement de l’icône de la Vierge Vimatarissa datant de l’époque des Paléologues, monastère de Vatopédi,” Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog instituta [Byzantine Studies] 44 (2007): 423–35; Glenn Peers, Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), see esp. 1–2 in which he addresses the way frames are a locus for the intersection of sacred presence and personal messages. 58 Durand, “Precious Metal Icon Revetments,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 600, n. 16

24

A rich social context gives scholars a fertile landscape in which to locate icons and their veneration. Unlike non- (per Belting’s definition), icons are best understood in relationship to the sacred spaces and rituals that activate them. Pentcheva’s first book,

Icons and Power, lays out the iconographic traditions and rituals associated with icons of the

Theotokos.59 In her more recent book, The Sensual Icon, she examines the viewer’s experience of the visual effects of candle flames picked up by textured relief surfaces on icons. She connects the changing hues of mixed-media icons with changes in the experience of the presence of the divine figure, writing, “textured surfaces of these tactile eikones became a site of shifting presence effects as changing light, air, and human movement in space triggered a phenomenal poikilia of chameleonic polymorphism.”60 The flickering movement of candlelight reflected by a relief icon creates a lively effect, as though the icon is changing or responding to one’s prayers. This type of devotion is an orchestrated practice that gives viewers a positive response to their devotion. At the center of Pentcheva’s discussion is the concept of mechanical reproduction through which an exact imprint of the prototype permeates both the iconic image and its materiality.61 She relies more on the theological writings of Theodore of Stoudios to describe this process of imprinting than on

59 Bissera Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005). Her underlying argument draws connections between the ritual veneration of icons of the Mother of God with the imperial cults in the . 60 Pentcheva, Sensual Icon, 209 61 Pentcheva published her initial exploration of the idea of imprinting and materiality several years before she published her second book: Pentcheva, “The Performative Icon,” AB 88 (2006): 631–55.

25 the physical evidence of specific icons that were produced and altered with a variety of metalworking and enameling techniques.62

Reproductions of icons were understood to be produced in more than strictly mechanical terms, although certainly the earliest icons, the , replicated themselves through miraculous mechanical means.63 Annemarie Weyl Carr states, “If an icon is replicated in other icons, then its special sacred identity is visible. The greater the degree of the replicas’ identity to one another, the stronger the identity of the replicated icon that stands behind them.”64 Thus, copies that reproduced great icons intensify the sacred identity of the original icon.65 The evidence from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries suggests that the nature of the relationship between the icon and its prototype was not as stable or as tightly controlled as one might assume based on Byzantine theologians and some modern scholars.

This relationship has been problematized by several scholars, including Carr who introduced the concept of the icon of an icon, in which the meta-icon contains both the image and

62 Pentcheva attributes the development of revetments to the Komnenian interest in material contrast. Painted icons were expected to have a likeness of the holy figure, but their revetments were not held to that standard. This gave patrons and artists more freedom to use precious materials without attempting to create a likeness. Bissera Pentcheva, “What is a Byzantine Icon? Constantinople versus Sinai,” in The Byzantine World, ed. Paul Stephenson (London: Routledge, 2010), 265–83, at 276. 63 The concept of mechanical reproducibility is at the heart of Pentcheva’s work and her application of the concepts of typos and imprint. See Pentcheva, “What is a Byzantine Icon?,” 265–83, esp. 267–73. 64 Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constantinople,” DOP 56 (2002): 75–92, esp. 75–76. 65 David Freedberg challenges art historians to reconsider the value of copies in his formative book on the reception of images, saying that, “The study of copies… remains one of the great tasks of the history of images.” Freedberg, Power of Images, 121.

26 depictions of its own materiality, reception, and veneration.66 The representation of an icon prototype within a larger scene invests the new icon with the truth of the first icon.

Icon revetments also engage this concept of a meta-icon. They elaborate on the prototype by incorporating materializations of the devotional actions of its patron and viewers on the panel itself. In turn, these decorations, inscriptions, and textures inspire thoughts and actions in their viewers. The ornamental program that redirects the viewers’ attention from the image to the patterns of ornament and inscribed prayers that surround the holy figure actively governs the viewer’s cognitive processes and behaviors. In other words, the revetment pries apart the correspondence between type and icon, wedging the prayers and devotion of one or several individuals between them. It interrupts the strict reproduction of iconography by allowing decorations to complement the image of the holy figure. Revetted icons do not make arguments about faithful representations of prototypes; they make arguments about faithful veneration. They help mediate the power of the represented holy figure who intercedes on the viewer’s behalf.

Icon revetments and frames are one of many genres of art produced in the late

Byzantine period.67 1261 and 1453 are dates relevant to the social and political life of

Constantinople and reflect the capital’s central status in the scholarship of late Byzantine art; yet almost none of the surviving revetments have been attributed to artists working there during this era. The made for and used by the Palaiologan emperors focuses on

66 Carr, “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage,” 81. The concept of the meta-icon is discussed below on pages 90– 92. 67 Although the dates that define the late Byzantine era are contested, I maintain the conventional bookends of 1261 and 1453. In the wake of the important exhibition on late Byzantine art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004, several important studies have been published that examine aspects of the unique political and cultural circumstances of this age.

27 the economic constraints they faced; their resources were limited and used for repairing, rebuilding, and enlarging the existing churches in Constantinople.68 After 1330, the imperial class undertook very few new architectural projects there, yet luxury objects continued to be made.69 At the same time, many histories of the late Byzantine period elucidate the historical drama of the dwindling power and territory controlled by the imperial family without examining the dynamic social relations unfolding west of the capital in the Balkans.70 In contrast to the austere patronage in Constantinople, elites in Thessaloniki, Arta, Mistra,

Ohrid, Sofia, and those with connections to Mount Athos were actively engaged in projects and other artistic commissions. These were important centers for artistic production, including icons and revetments. An analysis table of the icon catalogue in Appendix 3

(volume 2, pages 681–82) lists the locations where scholars believe icon revetments were made. Although this corpus is not representative of all late Byzantine art, it does remind us to lessen our focus on Constantinople and incorporate other cultural centers into our research.

The decoration of the churches and the religious practices in the Athonite monasteries offers glimpses into the visual and ritual world of the late Byzantine period, when several

68Alice-Mary Talbot, “The Restoration of Constantinople under Michael VIII,” DOP 47 (1993): 243–61; Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, “Patronage and Artistic Production in Byzantium during the Palaiologan Period,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture, ed. Sarah Brooks (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006), 76–97. 69 Slobodan Ćurčić, “Religious Settings of the Late Byzantine Sphere,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 66. The production and trade of luxury objects in the Palaiologan period presents an unexpected paradox. David Jacoby’s research on luxury textiles examines the widening scope of trade between Constantinople and other centers, including Trebizond and Mistra. Jacoby, “Late Byzantium between the Mediterranean and Asia: Trade and material Culture,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture, ed. Sarah Brooks (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006), 20–41. Cecily Hilsdale’s book presents luxury objects as agents of power and prestige suitable for diplomatic and cultural exchange. Hilsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 70 See John Haldon, A Social History of Byzantium, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. See also Timothy Gregory, A History of Byzantium (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) in which Serbia and the Balkans are addressed as heirs of Byzantium.

28 new monasteries were decorated there (fig. I-1).71 At Vatopedi on feast days, liturgical continue to circle around the katholikon located in the center of the courtyard.

Vatopedi houses many more Byzantine revetted icons than any other monastery at Mount

Athos, perhaps because there were skilled artisans or a silver and gold workshop there where many of these revetments were produced.72 The interior of the katholikon is richly decorated with its marble floor, , and wall paintings, and the explosion of ornate silver and goldwork that covers the choros, screen, and icons corrects the view of icons as objects isolated from their visual and material contexts (fig. I-2).

Like icons, reliquaries were displayed, touched, kissed, and adorned with embellishments. Reliquaries and revetments both conceal and reveal the artifact contained within, framing these objects with ornament, inscriptions, and costly materials.73 In addition, these containers increase the desirability of the body part or sacred artifact inside by increasing its visual appeal and complexity.74 Ornament becomes an index of high value when used on reliquaries—without the addition of decoration and lavish materials, a fragment of a saint’s bone or scrap of cloth from a saint’s garment is indistinguishable from

71 Although many of the most important Athonite monasteries were founded by the end of the tenth century, including Iveron, Hilandar, and Vatopedi, several new monasteries were founded in the early fourteenth century, including Gregoriou and Pantokrator. 72 Grabar, Les revêtements, 54–55, no. 25. 73 Cynthia Hahn, “What do Reliquaries do for Relics?,” Numen 57 (2010): 284–316. This is a useful survey of the relationships between the materiality of reliquaries and the materiality of the relics they contained. Luigi Canetti addresses the materiality of reliquaries in his article, Canetti, “Trésors et décor des églises au Moyen Âge. Pour une approche sémiologique des ornamenta ecclesiae,” in Du matériel au spirituel: Réalités archéologiques et historiques des "dépôts" de la Préhistoire à nos jours: XXIXe Rencontres internationales d'archéologie et d'histoire d Antibes: actes des rencontres, 16–18 octobre 200 8, ed. Sandrine Bonnardin (Antibes : Association pour la promotion et la diffusion des connaissances archéologiques, 2009), 447–56. 74 Holger Klein, “Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West,” DOP 58 (2004): 283–314.

29 an ordinary object or detritus. A similar operation may be observed in the application of ornament on icons. The addition of these decorative plaques elevates the icon, separating it from other, undecorated icons. Because the plaques used to decorate icons are similar in size, materials, and ornamental vocabulary, it is possible to speculate that the same artisans may have produced both icon covers and reliquaries in the same workshops.

30

Metalwork Techniques

Most Byzantine icon revetments were formed in gilt-silver that was ὁλοτζάπωτος

(holotzapōtos), meaning completely decorated with repoussé and chasing.75 Ὁλοκόσµητος

(holokosmētos) refers to an icon that is fully decorated with a repoussé and chased sheet of metal.76 These techniques were typically performed together as artists hammered shapes and patterns into sheets of silver from the reverse (repoussé) and then refined these designs from the front using finely pointed chisels (chasing). The term grammistos refers to the linear niello and engraving work.77 When cloisonné enamels were included in the revetment compositions in the twelfth century, they added contrasting texture and color to the surface.

In the second half of the fourteenth century, some revetments were produced with filigree formed from thin wires curled into spirals and other shapes. With this technique, artists could enhance the appearance of icons using lesser-quality metal for the surface area. Filigree attached to a backing plate was an especially important technique on revetments from

Vatopedi in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century.

The artistic techniques used to purify the silver and gold and to form and decorate the gilded plaques were probably very similar to the procedures described in Theophilus’s twelfth-century handbook of artistic techniques, On Divers Arts.78 Theophilus Presbyter (ca.

75 The term holotzapōtos is used in the Patmos inventory: Charles Diehl, “Le trésor et la bibliothèque de Patmos au commencement du 13e siècle,” BZ 1 (1892): 488–525, esp. 512, “ἑτέρα εἰχὼν ὁλοτζάπωτος ὁ Χρίστος καὶ οἱ δύο Εὐαγγελισταὶ Λουκᾶς καὶ Ἰωάννης.” 76 For holokosmētos see ibid., 512, “ἑτέρα εἰχὼν οἱ ἄγιοι Ἀπόστολοι Πέτρος καὶ Παυῦλος ὁλοκόσµητος ἀργυρᾶ χαιὶ χρυσωµένη.” 77 For grammistos as engraving or niello, see the Theotokos Eleousa typikon from 1449, ed. Petit, “Le monastère de Notre dame de Pitié,” 119, v. 19. 78 References to Theophilus, On Diverse Arts, are taken from the 1979 Dover edition. Theophilus, On Divers Arts: The Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking, and Metalwork, trans. John Hawthorne and

31

1110–40) was a Benedictine monk who studied the materials and techniques of arts in the medieval West and Byzantium that were known to him.79 Because there is no comparable text from Byzantium, his text is the best source for details on these techniques. He writes that to purify silver one begins by first melting silver pieces in a crucible lined with ashes, which absorb the oxidation produced in this process.80 Then one adds lead and covers it with charcoal. The lead added over the molten silver easily oxidizes and instantly fluxes (or helps to melt) the oxides of the impurities, which the silversmith cleans away using a stick. The silver boils if it was mixed with tin or brass. To remove these metals, another fluxing agent, such as small pieces of glass, is added into the molten silver; impure metals adhere to these pieces, which makes it possible for the artist to remove them.81 After the molten silver is poured out and flattened by hammering it into thin sheets—thin enough that one can press a fingernail into them—the artist begins surface decoration techniques.

Cyril Stanley Smith (New York: Dover, 1979). Although Theophilus was a German monk, these techniques were used throughout Europe and the Latin Mediterranean. His adopted Greek name also suggests that he had an affinity for Byzantine artistic practices. Some have tried to argue he was the artist Roger of Helmarshausen based on an inscription in a different hand written in the margins of the earliest manuscript of his text, “Theophilus qui et Rugerius.” See the earlier edition of his text, Theophilus: The Various Arts, ed. and trans. Charles Reginald Dodwell (1961; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), xxxiii–xliv. 79 In her dissertation, Heidi Gearhart summarizes Hermann Degering’s theory that Theophilus was a Greek monk and writer who brought his knowledge of Byzantine art to Cologne in her dissertation, Gearhart, “Theophilus ‘On Diverse Arts’: The Persona of the Artist and the Production of Art in the Twelfth Century Period” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2010), 36. His identity and connections to Byzantine art remain controversial. 80 Theophilus, “Chapter 23: Refining Silver,” On Diverse Arts, 96–97. “Thesaurization” is the process through which objects made of silver and other precious metals are melted down in order to reuse the metal. It comes from the Greek word thesauros meaning storehouse or treasure. 81 Ibid., “Chapter 23: Refining Silver,” 96–97.

32

Repoussé and chasing are the primary techniques used to form the designs on revetments.82 The artist begins by drawing the figures on the reverse of the plate and then, still working on the reverse side, he gently rubs the deepest part of the design using a bent tool. He then carries out a cycle of light hammering followed by annealing the metal in the furnace (heating and cooling it slowly). After he carefully rubs the figure with smooth tools, he anneals it to strengthen the metal. Theophilus also describes the process of forming repoussé designs using dies. This technique uses sheets of silver that are thinner than those used for raised work.83 The artist begins by inserting a die with a detailed carving into an anvil. Then, the silver sheet is placed over it, and a piece of lead is laid on top. When struck hard with a hammer, the die punches the carving into the silver. Using die punches is not labor intensive, and it produces highly detailed and uniform designs. Many of the motifs and emblems on icon revetments were produced using die punches.

From Theophilus’s description of gilding techniques, we learn that the metalworker must gild the silver repoussé before chasing the details on the front.84 This is also sometimes called fire or mercury gilding, because these components are essential to the process of bonding gold to its support. The artist begins by forming an amalgam (or alloy) of mercury

82 Ibid., “Chapter 74: Repoussé Work,” 150–52; “Chapter 75: Work Pressed on Dies,” 153; and “Chapter 78: Repoussé Work Which is Chased,” 156–7. 83 Ibid., “Chapter 75: Work Pressed on Dies,” 153. This technique is very commonly used for borders, pulpits, altar panels, caskets, reliquaries, and phylacteries. Dies were used to impress many different kinds of designs: the of God, the , small fish, birds, animals, and flowers. 84 Ibid., “Chapter 74: Repoussé Work,” 152. “But if the plate is silver and you want to gild the halos, hair, and beards and parts of the robes on the figures, this must be done before the chasing in this way.” Theophilus, “Chapter 35: Milling Gold [Amalgam],” 110 and “Chapter 38: Amalgamating and Gilding the Handles.” His description of working the gold and mercury amalgam by hand and testing it with fingers to feel if it is well milled indicates how much exposure a goldsmith had to mercury, which causes neurological and kidney problems including numbness, shaking or tremors, blindness or double vision, memory problems, and seizures. The technique was used as early as .

33 and gold. One part gold and eight parts mercury are heated and stirred until the gold melts and mixes with the mercury. The mixture is then cooled, placed in a chamois bag, and excess mercury is squeezed out, yielding a buttery paste of golden mercury. This mixture can easily be painted onto very clean silver.85 The surface may be pre-treated with an additional thin layer of mercury to increase adherence of the paste.86 Next, the artist heats the entire piece to vaporize the mercury, which creates a metallurgical bond between the gold and its silver support. Finally, the surface is polished and burnished to give a bright, reflective shine.

After the gilding is applied to the silver, the artist finishes the decorative details by chasing, using a variety of tools with pointed, rounded, or bent tips.87 Theophilus advises applying tenax, a filler material made with melted wax and ground tile or sand, to the reverse side to support the raised relief figures.88 Much of the original filling material on the Fermo icon revetment has been lost (fig. I-6), especially from the openwork areas of the decoration and because of previous restorations. Conservators found filling material that had adhered to the painting on the background but not in the area behind the nimbus.89

85 This technique may also be used for gilding copper. 86 In some cases, the artist may choose to use sheets of gold foil laid directly onto the silver surface that was pre-treated with a mercury coating. 87 These tools push into the metal to refine the relief decoration and sharpen the edges, folds, and details in the surface. No metal is removed in this technique. 88 Ibid., “Chapter 74: Repoussé Work,” 152. “Next, when, after fully raising and polishing these gold or silver plates, you want to attach them, take some wax and melt it in an earthenware or copper pot and mix with it finely ground tile or sand in the proportion of two parts of this to a third of wax. When these have been melted together, stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden , and with it fill all the figures, or whatever other raised work in gold, silver, or copper there is. When it is cold, attach it where you wish.” 89 Daila Radeglia, et al. “Il restauro dell’icona della Madonna di Fermo: Problematiche di un manufatto polimaterico,” Bollettino ICR 1 (2000): 86–127, esp. 99–100. This old filling material was completely removed and put into storage. The lacunae on the outside of the frame (in the upper right scene of the Presentation in the Temple and Death of the Mother of God on the left) were not filled in with new material because these losses do not interfere with the readability of these scenes.

34

There are several openwork areas on the frame of the Fermo icon. The technique used on revetments to create this effect of a perforated surface is called opus interrasile; it involves punching holes into a gold or silver sheet and then modifying the opening to the desired shape. Theophilus mentions using very small files to shape and smooth silver edges.90

He also refers to making openwork sheets of silver for book covers.91 Another openwork technique uses filigree wires bent into complex serpentine patterns; this became more popular in later Palaiologan metalwork and is seen on some very late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century revetments, including the icons of Christ Pantokrator and the Virgin and

Child at Vatopedi Monastery (cats. 59 and 60).

Beyond these general techniques, the most basic issues about how revetment plaques were created and decorated are not well understood. How did artists measure or copy the contours of the central holy figure in order to produce plaques that precisely followed those irregular shapes? Many revetments appear to have been modified over time with ornament and decorative patterns that are distinct to each phase of decoration.92 A few are formed from mass-produced strips of silver, and these are discussed in chapter 2. On some icons, the revetment is composed of a single sheet of silver and the icon beneath was only painted in the areas revealed by the revetment. From this we can deduce that the artisan intended the icon to be adorned with its revetment from the outset. These different techniques of assembling metal plaques to form an icon revetment suggest that the varying social and

90 Theophilus, 94. 91 Ibid., “Chapter 72: Openwork,” 148. 92 There are several short studies on the technical process of fabricating and nailing decorated pieces of metal onto wooden icons in Gerhard Wolf, ed., Mandylion: Intorno al Sacro Volto, da Biszanio a Genova (Milan: Skira, 2004).

35 economic conditions in which these revetments were produced played a significant role in determining their forms and decorative programs.

Monetary Costs in Monastic and Household Inventories

The monetary cost of icons in the late thirteenth through fifteenth centuries may be understood by analyzing artistic production in this period, surveying monastic documents, patriarchal tribunals, household inventories, and reading how authors describe embellished icons. These documents reveal which icons were costly items and why.93 Anthony Cutler proposes that we may be able to determine the cost of an icon by examining artists’ workshops and how much artists earned by painting icons. If the same artists painted churches and icons, then they likely earned roughly the same amount painting icons that they earned in the warmer months decorating churches.94 Further study would be needed to corroborate this formula with evidence from artists’ contracts.

Based on general patterns from the few surviving sources, it is possible to deduce how much an artist was paid to make an icon or a revetment. In the fourteenth century, the famous icon painter Pantoleon was commissioned to copy an icon. He was paid for the time it took to paint the icon, not for his skills, which suggests that his fee was not remarkably

93 It is worth remembering that in addition to these officially sanctioned appraisals (wills and inventories of a house or monastery), many icons had a highly personal value. Icons extended the liturgical experience of Orthodox worship into the private devotional practices of devout believers. Even the oldest legends of acheiropoieta icons emphasize how icons and icon veneration developed independently from the authority of the church hierarchy. The social and personal value of icons should be incorporated in any analysis of their place in the late Byzantine . 94 Anthony Cutler assumes that if artists earned substantially more either decorating churches or painting icons, they would have focused their efforts on the higher-paid craft. Cutler, “The Industries of Art,” in Laiou, Economic History of Byzantium, 2:555–87, 565.

36 high.95 Additionally, an icon was more valuable if it was produced in Constantinople or

Rome, a feature that ostensibly guaranteed its quality. In other words, the artist’s payment was based on how much time it took to paint the icon and the quality of the painting, not its authenticity to the prototype.

Surveying the surviving documents that refer to the relative value of icons also aids in calculating their cost. Oikonomides’s compilation of the surviving data from monastic foundation documents, brevia, acts of donation, inventories, and wills provides a solid foundation for this topic.96 In these sources, icons decorated with gold, silver, and occasionally with pearls and stones are given a higher monetary or objective value than unadorned icons, which are given low valuations. Most of the surviving documents that tell us about the owners and comparative value of icons come from monasteries, including St.

John the Theologian on Patmos and Mount Athos, where the largest number of decorated icons survives.

Recent editions and translations of Byzantine typika are a helpful supplement to

Oikonomides’s analysis of the monetary and social value of icons, especially the database of

Byzantine archival documents administered by the Université de Fribourg.97 The inventory of the Monastery of the Mother of God Eleousa in Stroumitza from 1449 itemizes its collection of icons in two groups of “adorned” and “unadorned” icons, and these labels were used by

95 Oikonomides, “Holy Icon as an Asset,” 37. 96 Ibid., 34–44. See also Maria Parani, Brigitte Pitarakis, and Jean-Michel Spieser, “Un exemple d’inventaire d’objets liturgiques: le testement d’Eustathios Boïlas (avril 1059),” REB 61 (2003): 143–65; Speros Vryonis, ed and trans., “The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathius Boilas (1059),” DOP 11 (1957): 263–77. 97 Ludovic Bender, Maria Parani, Brigitte Pitarakis, Jean-Michel Spieser, Aude Vuilloud, Artefacts and Raw Materials in Byzantine Archival Documents, http://www.unifr.ch/go/typika.

37 other monastery administrators to describe their icons.98 Those in the inventory with adornments are identified first and the embellishments include silver-gilt frames, or

περιφέρια, that are narrow and without images; frames with busts of saints; and enameled, silver, or silver-gilt haloes.99 The subjects of the adorned icons include six of the Mother of

God and Child shown seated or standing, one icon of three military saints shown in profile, and one of a saint whose identity is now unknown because of a lacuna in the text. The inventory goes on to list the monastery’s collection of almost thirty unadorned icons identified by their subject and described in terms of size, measured in cubits. A small gilded bronze icon of St. Menas is included in the list of unadorned icons; this contrast between adorned and gilded icons suggests that “adorned” ones have plaques of precious metal or enamel attached to the surface, not just a thin layer of gilding.

The inventory for Stroumitza does not explicitly state or compare the value of these icons with other commodities; however, the founder who wrote the typikon in the eleventh century restricted monks’ personal property to their bedding, clothes, and holy icons for worship. This indicates that the personal value of some icons in the monastery was greater than their monetary cost.100 The founder spelled out his fears that owning personal property could form a wedge between members of the community:

98 Anastasius Bandy and Nancy Ševčenko, trans., “Eleousa Inv.: Inventory of the Monastery of the Mother of God Eleousa in Stroumitza,” in BMFD, no. 61, 4:1667–78; Petit, ed., “Le Monastère de Notre Dame de Pitié,” 114–25. 99 Ibid., 1671. 100 Anastasius Bandy, trans., “Eleousa: Rule of Manuel, Bishop of Stroumitza, for the Monastery of the Mother of God Eleousa,” BMFD, 1:167–91, no. 10, 176; Petit, ed. “Le Monastère de Notre Dame de Pitié,” 69–93.

38

For how will those who are eager to appropriate to themselves that which is

shared in common and who intensely strive towards diversity and difference

be called members of a cenobitic community and practitioners of the solitary

life if they reckon that ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ ought to be preferred to that which

is shared in common? [For these are] the words which cool and break down

into members and parts the things that are well-joined together and at the

same time tear them asunder and also cause and produce difference and

separation in many things.101

This apology for common ownership in the coenobitic community does not refer to icons. By including icons on the short list of private items that monks were allowed to keep, the founder suggests that owning them—whether revetted or not—was as personal and non- controversial as owning clothing and was not considered something that would inhibit common life in the monastery. By contrast, at Mount Galesios, monks were advised to keep a simple wooden cross in their cells and to venerate icons in the church.102

The distinction between adorned and unadorned icons appears elsewhere. For example, in the thirteenth-century typikon for Skoteine Monastery (located in the diocese of

Philadelphia in western Asia Minor), the founder includes several icons in the inventory as well as a range of liturgical implements and vestments:

101 Ibid., 176. 102 Patricia Karlin-Hayter, trans. “Galesios: Testament of Lazarus of Mount Galesios,” BMFD, 1:148–66, no. 9, 156; ed. Hippolyte Delehaye, Acta sanctrum novembris, vol. 3 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1910), 508– 606.

39

Large icons for veneration. Five others on the templon. On the same templon,

the twelve feasts, small icons for the feasts of the Lord. Two decorated images

[εἰκονίσµατα κεκοσµηµένα δύο], one of Christ and one of St. George. An

of the Dormition and the Nativity. Another small one of the

Dormition with ornamentation [ἡ Κοίµησις κεκοσµηµένον]. Another of [St.

Michael the Archangel] the supreme commander [of the heavenly armies]

fashioned in bronze.103

In this passage, the author distinguishes among icons according to their size, location in the church, and subject. He also refers to the icons of Christ and St. George as decorated icons and to the small carving of the Dormition using the same word for decoration (κεκοσµηµένος

κοσµέω). These descriptors indicate that these three icons had special embellishments, but there is no suggestion of a link between their decoration and their position among the community’s icons. The author is silent about whether these were especially revered or celebrated.

Even unadorned icons were expensive for monasteries to acquire, and the typikon of

Skoteine Monastery (located outside Philadelphia on Asia Minor) indicates that at the time of its foundation the monks were unable to afford these, let alone food and clothing and the resources to build a new chapel: “The church, though, did not have any of the holy icons. But the allagator, lord Phokas, under God’s guidance, decorated it with paintings on wood. He donated only what was essential. All the maintenance for the painters each day and other

103 George Dennis, trans., “Skoteine [Boreine]: Testament of Maximos for the Monastery of the Mother of God at Skoteine near Philadelphia,” BMFD, 3:1176–95, no. 35, 1187; Manuel Gedeon, “Διαθήκη Μαξίµου κτίτορος τῆς ἐν Λυδίᾳ µονῆς Κοτινῆς,” Μικρασιατικὰ Χρονικά 2 (1939): 271–90.

40 services came from the monastery and were provided by it.”104 The monastery’s patron, a member of the imperial guard, donated the paintings; even unadorned, painted icons were too costly for these monks to afford on their own.

The inventory of the household of the landowner Manuel Deblitzenos in Thessaloniki from 1384 includes several icons and their values given in hyperpyra.105 The list of property also includes many other household items. All of the icons were decorated and one has ὑελία

(hyelia), a small cabochon.106 Their dimensions are not given so it is not possible to evaluate a correlation between size and monetary value. One icon is appraised at 7 hyperpyra, one at

6, one at 5, three at 4, and one at 2 hyperpyra. The highest-valued icon is equivalent to the value of an old bedcover of fox fur. Used silk blankets were valued at 6 hyperpyra.107 Used bedding, mattresses, and blankets were valued at 4 hyperpyra. Such everyday household items as a kettle, towel, and worn-out blanket were valued at 2 hyperpyra. The highest- valued icon is equivalent to half of the value of a horse (14 hyperpyra) and almost a quarter of the value of a very good silk blanket. These values show that icons were relatively

104 Ibid., 1182. 105 Oikonomides, “Holy Icon as an Asset,” 38. For a more extensive analysis of this document, see Oikonomides, “The Contents of the Byzantine House from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century,” DOP 44 (1990): 206–7. Nomisma means “money” and is especially used to refer to the gold solidus. The hyperpyron was introduced in the late eleventh century in a monetary reform of Alexius I who created a new, “super- refined” denomination of the nomisma of only 20 ½ carats (instead of the 24 carats of the old nomisma) but of a heavier weight than the nomisma. By the mid-fourteenth century the gold hyperpyron was much debased and the name was used for a large silver coin that had half of the value of the original gold coin. 106 The reference to ὑελία, which is a small cabochon, is very unusual. It suggests that the icon’s devotional purpose included a reflective element, although this is only speculation. The Fribourg database translates this term as a glass piece, enamel, or even colored glass paste. Bender, Parani, Pitarakis, Spieser, Vuilloud, Artefacts and Raw Materials in Byzantine Archival Documents, s.v. “hyelion.” 107 Six hyperpyra was about the same as a priest’s salary in Constantinople in 1324. Oikonomides, “Holy Icon as an Asset,” 38 and 40, n. 48. Presumably received additional income from such other sources as the sale of oil and candles at the shrine of a venerated icon.

41 inexpensive in comparison with other items in the estate; it is reasonable to assume that many other icons owned by middle-class families in fourteenth-century Thessaloniki were similarly valued.

Oikonomides lists several icons that were considered much more valuable either because of their size or because they were decorated with elaborate revetments. For example, icons were used in one case just before the year 1400 to secure a mortgage for 110 hyperpyra.108 In another situation, a priest sold the golden halo from an icon of the Theotokos in order to pay for food for his wife and children; he was later removed from office for committing this sacrilege.109 In 1370, a monk an icon of St. John the Baptist from a house; he later disposed of the icon in the corner of a church but kept the revetment, presumably to sell the metal.110 In a second instance of theft, a man stole an icon of the

Theotokos Therapeiotissa and destroyed it; he kept the revetment in order to sell it.111 These examples show how revetments added significant value to icons and that revetments were easily— although not without controversy—converted into cash.

Decorated icons were costly, but monasteries received donations of decorated icons as gifts that in turn could become sources of income. The display of certain icons prompted some visitors to give money to the church where the icon was on view. In one such arrangement made in the fourteenth century, the display of an icon of the Hodegetria

108 Ibid., 38, n. 32. 109 Ibid., 38, n. 34. 110 Ibid., 39, n. 35. See discussion above on page 5. 111 Ibid., 39, n. 36.

42 prompted capital donations.112 In several other instances, nuns, monks, and other individuals profited personally from the display of a decorated icon. For example, in 1321, a monk planned to earn an income from a renowned and venerated icon.113 He bought land in

Constantinople from the monastery of the Anastasis and made plans to build a church that would house the tomb of a saint and icon of a martyr and monastic kellia in order to give the complex the appearance of a monastery. After construction began, however, the monk changed his mind and ordered that the church be torn down, and so the monk was compensated for his expenses. A similar plan was carried out in the 1390s when a rich woman bought a piece of land in Constantinople next to a church she already owned; she planned to generate profits from the display of an icon of the Theotokos Mangouriotissa and her plans also included building monastic-style kellia.114 If the display of a decorated icon was a revenue source, then its monetary cost can be seen as a type of business investment.

This arrangement of using venerated icons to generate income was so well established that in 1401 a brother and sister who had inherited a famous proskynema icon of the Virgin

Koubouklaraia also inherited the promise of an income. There was an agreement regulating how to divide the offerings to the icon, the income from special services conducted with it, and the sale of such related merchandise as oil and candles. Both of the siblings received a share, as did the church and the priest who officiated at the special services. Unfortunately,

Constantinople was threatened by famine because of the ongoing Ottoman blockade, and

Emperor Manuel II was still traveling in western Europe, bearing gifts, possibly the Freising

112 Ibid., 40, n. 48. A patriarchal tribunal recorded its decision concerning the revenues generated by this icon. 113 Ibid., 41. 114 Ibid.

43 icon of the Mother of God (see chapter 3). The sister tried to escape from the city with the icon, but it was sent back to their church because the export of proskynema was forbidden.

The brother was then ordered to pay 300 hyperpyra to the emperor to guarantee that the icon would not be exported.115 Soon he, too, decided to leave the city, and the icon was sent to the emperor and then on to the archon Manuel Boullotes, who had to pay yet another deposit of

200 hyperpyra. When he set up the icon for veneration in a new church, a patriarchal tribunal reviewed the arrangement and decided that the siblings should still receive their share of the income from the icon and that the original church, not the new one, should receive its share of the icon-generated income. This episode shows that venerated icons could be expected to generate a substantial income based on the deposits of 300 and 200 hyperpyra that were assessed to assure the emperor that the icon would not be exported and to guarantee that

Boullotes would protect it. It also shows that no matter how much income could be generated by a proskynema icon, which may have been was adorned with a precious metal revetment and frame, the siblings were faced with the dilemma that they could not eat money. This incident also highlights the contrast between this valuable icon and the difficult economic and political conditions at that time.

Dissertation Outline

The preceding discussion of archival accounts of decorated icons shows that these works invited financial offerings and thus generated revenue for their caretakers. Through

115 It is unclear in Oikonomides’s transcription of this document who was ordered to pay this money. Gabras was the family name of the siblings, not the priest, but he states that the “priest Gabras” was made to pay the emperor the 300 hyperpyra deposit. I suspect it was the brother and co-owner of the icon who paid this deposit, not the priest, who would probably be unable to come up with that sum.

44 their inscriptions, some icons also memorialized loved ones and invited prayers for their protection and eternal . Because decorated icons were made with costly materials, they acquired monetary value that occasionally sparked disagreements. While icons had been at the center of controversy in earlier centuries, documents with details about ownership in the late Byzantine period signal new debates about the social, monetary, and political functions that icons played. By decorating these icons with lavish materials and beautiful patterns, artists, patrons, and donors turned from questions about representation to requests for ornamental motifs and silverworking techniques.

I explore these developments by examining ornament as a subject in the discipline of art history and then more specifically in the study of Byzantine art. In the first chapter, I explain how the study of ornament has slipped in and out of the discipline of art history for centuries. The pervasive use of ornament on objects and monuments suggests that its design and facture were the ubiquitous tasks of many artisans. I then offer a historiographic rationale for the study of Byzantine ornament, especially in the late Byzantine era. Before now,

Byzantine art historians have overlooked the ornamental turn in late Byzantine art largely because our methodological focus on iconographic analysis has blinded us to the nonfigural elements in art and architecture. By shifting attention away from figural to ornamental designs, we can broaden our view of the artistic production by Byzantine, Serbian, Bulgarian and even Italian artisans who shared an ornamental vocabulary. The history of icon revetments unfolds across Byzantium, with Constantinople as just one of several artistic centers where icons were adorned with ornamented cladding.

In the subsequent chapters, I present three revetted icons as case studies on ornament, inscription, and materiality. These themes are relevant to all icon revetments, and the

45 thematic analysis of each example also yields insights that are applicable to a wider cultural context. For the sake of clarity, I refer to these icons using the cities where they are now located—Ohrid, Freising, and Fermo—and not by the subject of the icon itself (which, in any case, are all images of the Mother of God). By examining icon revetments as separate artistic works in their own right, I underscore the primacy of ornament and the decorative arts for the producers and users of these icons. These works represent the expansive scope of what I call pan-Orthodox ornament used by artists from Constantinople to the Balkans and even further to Italy.

My second chapter engages ornament as the key to interpreting one icon revetment in its historical and political context. I argue that the revetment on the bilateral icon in Ohrid

(figs. I-3 and I-4) was designed to emulate the bilateral icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria and Crucifixion in Constantinople and that this was part of a larger goal to legitimize the

Serbian emperor Stefan Uroš IV Dušan (r. 1331–55). The motivations of the Serbian emperor and his appointed archbishop are revealed through the ornamental vocabulary and decorative program on the icon’s revetment. Although Ohrid has been recognized as a cultural center in the fourteenth century, scholars have not sufficiently synthesized the works in Ohrid with those in other centers, including Constantinople, Thessaloniki and Mount Athos. The revetted icons in Ohrid epitomize an important cultural and artistic center where the emulation of

Constantinople mixed with the innovations of new and local leadership to create a fresh and complex artistic forms.

I move in chapter 3 to an analysis of the inscriptions on the icon of the Mother of God in Freising (fig. I-5). Although this icon and revetment has attracted attention from art historians for its exquisite enamels, significant differences of opinion and many questions

46 remain about the chronology of the painting, enamels, and gilt-silver sheathing. No one has sufficiently integrated the interventions on this work into a coherent history of the object.

This chapter uses the inscribed prayer and epithets on the Freising icon, which I argue were produced at two different cultural moments, as catalysts for a wider study of inscriptions on frames and revetments. Dedicatory prayers like this one add complexity to the visual surface of the revetment and direct how viewers see the icon as they read prayers inscribed around the frame. The chapter incorporates several additional inscriptions that are also carefully integrated with the design of their icons. As secondary additions to the icon, the placement of these inscriptions shows how artists and designers worked with the icon’s composition to emphasize specific terms in the inscription and elements of the composition. They incorporated the gestures and gazes of the central figures in their modifications, directing the viewers to important words on the revetment. For these and other Greek texts, I use rectified transcriptions where possible with standard accents and breathing marks. I expand ligatures, abbreviations, and contractions, and I insert letters or words in square brackets for the sake of orthographical or grammatical correctness.

My fourth chapter (fig. I-6) focuses on a revetted icon that breaks with the norms.

Many aspects of its painting and cladding differ from the general conventions in Byzantine art, yet the overall appearance of this work is that of a Byzantine icon. I interpret the Fermo

Virgin as a work that was produced to satisfy an appetite for an authentic Byzantine icon by an Italian audience. In my view, this work exemplifies the reception and emulation of decorated icons by non-Orthodox audiences. Italians recognized the benefits they could experience by acquiring a decorated icon from Byzantium. The iconography and decorative program on this revetment convey important details about their expectations of Byzantine

47 icons. With its emblems of small gospel scenes on the frame, the revetment interprets the icon of the Virgin as the powerful image at the center of . Interlace medallions add visual complexity to the revetment in the same way that the Greek inscription signaled to the Italian viewers that the Virgin in her icon is beyond comprehension. Rather than situating this work in the narrative of the reception of Byzantine art by Westerners, I interpret the appeal for such decorated icons as a creative and generative force. By interrogating this work's physical and formal attributes, I show how essential it is to establish an object's historical context before constructing complex narratives about Italian reception and emulation of Byzantine art.

Ornament Indices and Revetment Catalogue

Following the case study chapters, I present three appendices that form the groundwork for these and future detailed analysis of individual icon revetments. The first and third appendices contain a checklist and catalogue of 80 icon revetments and frames from

Byzantine, Serbian, and Bulgarian artistic centers that almost doubles the number published by André Grabar in 1975. I have excluded the Georgian examples because after 1204 there were few direct contacts between and Constantinople.116 I have also omitted the two well-known relief icons of the Archangel Michael in Venice dated to the tenth or eleventh centuries that Grabar used as his point of departure.117 Although these relief icons share many

116 In future work, I hope to expand my research by studying the Georgian icon revetments and comparing them with those from Byzantium. The majority of the surviving Georgian revetted icons are dated to the tenth and eleventh century, unlike most of the Byzantine ones that are dated to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 117 Grabar, Les revêtements, 21–22, figs. 1 and 2, color plate A and B

48 of the same decorative motifs as those used on icon frames and revetments, they do not have the same composite materiality that characterizes decorated icons. I arranged the catalogue entries in roughly chronological order and grouped works together that are now in the same city or region. The catalogue numbers aid in cross-referencing icons throughout the dissertation. Each catalogue entry includes an image and a brief description of the revetment because detailed analysis of the entire corpus is beyond the limits of this dissertation. By compiling these images and data about revetted icons, I demonstrate the diversity of icon revetments produced in the late Byzantine period and invite other scholars to explore new avenues of research on these works. Following the catalogue, I present an analysis table that gives total numbers of icons made in different centuries, their general size groupings, their subjects, and their original and current locations.

Appendix 2 is composed of indices of the motifs used to decorate late Byzantine icon revetments and frames and that constitute their ornamental vocabulary. These entries are arranged alphabetically under headings and each motif (M) is labeled with a number: M-1

Bead-and-Reel, M-2 Circle Frame, and so on.118 Each entry includes a description of the motif as it appears on surviving revetments and comments about its placement and function in the overall decorative scheme. For example, the hetoimasia (prepared throne) motif (M-

38) is most often placed at the top center of an icon frame, whereas the border pattern of interlace plait (M-22) is often used to adorn the inner beveled edge of an icon’s frame. A few

118 The index of motifs is largely informed by the work of Maguire, Maguire, and Duncan-Flowers in their catalogue of early Christian decorative arts, Art and Holy Powers, 1989. This index also loosely follows the work of Anderson, who indexed the motifs used in the middle Byzantine era on ornamental ceramic tiles and architectural ornament including carved ornament, opus sectile, and mosaic. Anderson, “Introduction to the Ornamental Tiles,” in Gerstel, Lost Art Rediscovered, 89–117.

49 references to such comparanda as relief icons, reliquaries, and liturgical implements are included in the entries. These objects are central to the late Byzantine ornamental vocabulary that was used on other precious metal artworks and on such other relief decoration as pastiglia on icons and wall paintings.119 Small images of each motif cropped from larger photographs of revetments show the design in its context. Some entries also include general comments about the motifs’ occurrence in middle and late Byzantine art. The first index addresses the nonfigural motifs and the second presents the figures and scenes. Because the index prioritizes the three icons that are my case-study subjects, most of the visual references are based on these three works; however, the index also includes motifs found on other icon revetments. Artisans created these motifs using several different techniques, a fact that reinforces the idea that ornament is not bound to technique. By labeling each motif used on revetments from Byzantine, Serbian, and Bulgarian contexts, we create a thorough view of the ornamental vocabulary on icon revetments. As the historiography review in Chapter 1 shows, naming and describing these motifs is a necessary first step toward deeper analysis of ornament. Not only do Byzantine art historians need to redress the inadequate analytical treatment of ornament in Byzantine art and architecture, but we also need to engage the ornamental turn in late Byzantine art by building on a consistent and shared nomenclature.

Through this project, I aim to initiate a reintegration of icon revetments and frames into the discourse of Byzantine icons and a rehabilitation of the methodologies that attend to ornament’s forms. Further, I seek to inject the study of ornament into the wider discourse of

Byzantine art with broader implications for art historical studies as a whole. Ultimately, this

119 Frinta, “Raised Gilded Adornment,” 333–47.

50 dissertation highlights three icons whose revetments, despite being the product of specific historical and cultural settings, function in ways that are representative of the corpus as a whole. I hope that this study will further our understanding of the variety and functions of ornament used to decorate icons, which were designed to operate in and engaged with viewers and their familiarity with Byzantine ornament. The patterns and inscribed prayers used to decorate these revetments inflect the strict repetition of icon types—which is neither shown to be as exact nor as mechanically performed as previously understood—with specific and personal patterns. The designs of these revetments direct viewers in their faithful veneration and mediate between the represented holy figure and the viewer.

Chapter 1: The Pan-Orthodox Ornamental Vocabulary

on Icon Revetments and Frames

The paradox of augmenting the visual experience of a late Byzantine icon by concealing it with decorated revetments, which were more ornamental in the thirteenth and fourteenth century than those made in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, signals an ornamental turn in Byzantine art. The intensification of decoration on manuscripts, liturgical implements, and luxury objects is apparent even in a cursory comparison of late Byzantine art objects produced in artistic centers across the Orthodox world.1 On icons, the increase in aesthetic complexity is observed on micromosaic icons framed in interlace ornament, painted icons on wooden panels revetted with precious metal and enamel plaques, and relief icons made more complex by the addition of precious materials. In architectural history, scholars consider the proliferation of decorated surfaces on late Byzantine buildings to be an attempt to compensate for decreased innovation and complexity in building design and construction.2

I contend that this change in ornamentation was a new mode of embellishment in which artists used familiar decorative motifs to emphasize their formal, iconographic, and social significances. Whether referring to patterns of interlace filigree embedded in an icon frame or

1 Robert Nelson “Palaeologan Illuminated Ornament and the ,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 41 (1988): 7–22, esp. 8. He focuses on this aesthetic change in the field of Palaiologan manuscripts. 2 Jelena Trkulja, “Aesthetics and of Late Byzantine Church Facades, 1204–1453” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2004); Catherine Vanderheyde, “The Carved Decoration of Middle and Late Byzantine Templa,” Mitteilungen zur Spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 5 (2007): 77–98, esp. 91–93. On page 91 she describes the carved motifs on thirteenth- and fourteenth-century templa as “decorative overload.”

51 52 miniature representations of feast scenes stamped into silver strips, these varieties of ornament intensified and altered viewers’ experiences with existing objects and the social networks to which they belonged. Decorated surfaces helped create a heightened spiritual and emotional state of mind in the viewers. Thus, icon frames and covers augment the visual experience of an icon although they typically mask much of the icon itself.

In this chapter, by examining the historiography of ornament, I show that most approaches have inadequately addressed ornament’s social functions, especially in the realm of late Byzantine art in which ornament is a constant feature. Art historians typically focus on a narrow set of issues related to how ornament heightens an object’s grace, beauty, and honor. They rarely treat ornament as an essential aspect of art, relegating ornamented surfaces to a merely decorative status that is peripheral to the true meaning of an artwork.

While the current generation of art historians is trained to eschew hierarchical distinctions between “” and “decorative arts,” much more work needs to be done to weave together our analysis of the ornamental and iconographic aspects of Byzantine art and to examine ideas embedded in these motifs and patterns.3

I investigate the methods art historians use to identify and analyze motifs and patterns and survey the study of ornament by highlighting the research goals of ornament specialists from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whose work broadly defined the central terms and methods that are still used today. Then, I turn to the research approaches to

3 Alicia Walker, “‘The Art That Does Not Think’: Byzantine ‘Decorative Arts’—History and Limits of a Concept,” Studies in Iconography 34 (2012): 169–93. In her historiographic essay, Walker argues that the aspects of decorative art that were used to distinguish and marginalize it from the study of fine art are the seeds for the reinvigoration of scholarship on these under-examined objects. These aspects, namely materiality, ornament, function, and conditions of production, redirect our attention away from treating art as a container for a concept or vehicle for an idea.

53 medieval and Byzantine ornament. I argue that combining an anthropological approach to art with well-established methods of defining and describing ornament’s forms and placement produces rich interpretations of ornament on revetted icons. By distilling this wide range of studies on ornament into a relatively short survey of the field, I hone in on what ornament communicated to its medieval viewers and how its modern interpreters may engage the complexity and interrelatedness of ornament used throughout late Byzantine art and architecture.

The terms used to refer to the design and decoration of icon revetments need to be clearly defined. Some specialists use a narrow definition of “ornament” that refers specifically to nonfigural motifs and patterns and excludes all figural decoration, narrative scenes, and inscriptions.4 That usage places ornament in a subcategory of the wider term “decoration.” In the case of icon revetments, however, surface decoration consists of both figural and nonfigural motifs that are treated in similar ways as repeated patterns and miniaturized emblems. For this reason, I expand the definition of ornament to include both well-known figural compositions and nonfigural patterns. I avoid the term aniconic when referring to ornamental patterns without a figural component because it suggests there may be an ideological motive in the choice to avoid figures and narrative scenes.5 My use of the

4 Peter Van Dael, “Aniconic Decoration in Early Christian and Medieval Churches,” Heythrop Journal 36 (1995): 382–96. He uses Latin terms taken from Plato’s aesthetics, imagines for figures and historiae for narrative scenes. In the field of , Oleg Grabar also differentiates between ornamental and decorative themes based on iconographic significance. He uses the term “ornament” to refer to the motifs that simply beautify and give a monument visual pleasure and he applies the term “decorative” to all motifs including those with symbolic and iconographic significance. Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 179. 5 Van Dael, “Aniconic Decoration,” 382–96; André Grabar, Les revêtements en or et en argent des icônes byzantines du moyen âge (Venice: Institut hellénique d’études byzantines et post-byzantines, 1975), 32–33.

54 term ornament follows Oleg Grabar’s description of the way Islamic art ornamentalized every motif, including inscriptions; his view expands our perception of ornament’s function as that which both changes the significance of the motifs used and beautifies the object receiving the ornament.6 Confusion between the terms decoration and ornament reflects late

Byzantine icon revetment producers’ attitudes toward using figural motifs alongside nonfigural ones. Miniaturized feast scenes, densely textured patterns, saints’ busts, swirling curves, inscribed prayers and other texts, expanses of smooth gilt-silver—all of the motifs used on these revetment plaques are employed in similar ways. Their placement and repetition deemphasize their iconographic significance and integrate them together to form an integrated work of art that supports the function of the icon.

The most common of ornament by art historians—that it merely embellishes a work of art and is itself not imbued with meaning—is inadequate because it fails to engage the complex questions about why a patron would choose to embellish specific icons with costly materials. Icons with precious metal revetments straddle the worlds of figural art and decorative art and thus are a particularly rich subject for the study of decorative patterns. Late Byzantine precious metal icon revetments highlight the way decoration, in all its varied forms and factures, generates meaning; such decoration is a vital component of the social worlds of icons because it guided viewers in how to respond to their revered images. This interpretation, advanced by Alfred Gell in his pioneering book Art and

Agency, prioritizes how decoration actively shapes its audiences’ thoughts and actions rather

6 Grabar, Formation, 179.

55 than how the formal aspects of decoration relate to the whole artifact.7

Ornament is usually ranked as supplementary to the figural, such that studies of ornament are also in danger of seeming trivial. This problem is noted by several Byzantine art historians who argue that scholars should attempt to describe and analyze the range of motifs and techniques used to produce the ubiquitous nonfigural ornament in late Byzantine art.8 This shift in focus from figural elements to ornament requires a change in methodologies.9 Byzantine ornament warrants closer examination at the very least because of its prevalence in Byzantine art.10 Patterns and textures were routinely incorporated on objects, monuments, and manuscript pages, yet these are frequently overlooked in the extensive literature on Byzantine art. The production of ornament was one of the primary tasks for

Byzantine artists; however, we know far less about how artists produced common ornament patterns than we know about the wide range of figural compositions. The labor, skill, and materials used to produce ornament testify to the strength of Byzantine cosmophilia—love of

7 Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). His approach offers a framework for speculative reconstructions of material agency. He de-emphasizes the linguistic and aesthetic aspects of art in favor of the actions and processes surrounding it. See also Robin Osborne and Jeremy Tanner, eds., Art’s Agency and Art History (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007). The essays in this volume demonstrate how Gell’s anthropological theory may be applied in art history. 8 William Tronzo, “The Vagaries of a Motif and Other Observations on Ornament,” in A Lost Art Rediscovered: The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium, ed. Sharon Gerstel and Julie Lauffenburger (Baltimore: , 2001), 143–57; Robert Ousterhout, “Byzantium between East and West and the Origins of Heraldry,” in Byzantine Art: Recent Studies, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Index of /Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2009), 153–70. Tronzo’s essay is the most recent historiographic study of Byzantine ornament. Ousterhout addresses the occurrences of several motifs in the twelfth through fifteenth centuries in Byzantium and across medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. He posits that these signs, symbols, and insignia formed a visual “language of power” used by elites. Both essays are discussed in further detail below. 9 Walker’s recent article describes the methodological challenge Byzantinists must overcome in order to more fully analyze and interpret so-called decorative arts. Walker, “‘Art That Does Not Think’,” 170–73. 10 Walker makes a similar observation about the decorative arts more generally in “Art That Does Not Think.” Her historiographic treatment of decorative arts reflects on the problems of considering all small, shiny, pretty things together regardless of their origins, facture, functions, materials, and kinds of users. Ibid., 190–91.

56 and penchant for adornment.

This study of ornament on Byzantine icons integrates studies of nonfigural patterns and figural emblems together with interpretations of icons as whole objects. Studies of nonfigural decoration in Byzantine art generally isolate individual motifs and patterns used in a single medium during one period of history. The result is that few publications explore such larger issues as how the design and application of ornament changed over time, or what ornamental motifs and techniques connoted for patrons, viewers, and artists.11 No one has systematically synthesized the range of ornamental motifs and techniques in late Byzantine art and architecture with interpretive or analytical studies. Given this paucity of robust analyses of ornament and the limited methods used in its study, it is not surprising that many art historians have concluded—prematurely, in my view—that ornament is either fundamentally meaningless or that interrogating ornamented surfaces yields few insights.

Icons enriched with revetments need to be more fully incorporated into the wider art historical discourse because they expand our conception of what icons looked like in the late

Byzantine era. In order to achieve this goal, I apply several methods of analyzing ornament developed over the past 150 years. Thus, this dissertation, in part, presents an argument promoting the study of ornament more generally. I posit that specialists in Byzantine art history might discover new connections and could ask more complex questions by employing

11 Ousterhout, “Byzantium Between East and West,” 153–70, esp, 157, observes changing trends in the use of ornamental motifs in the twelfth through fifteenth centuries. For example, in the twelfth century manuscript illuminations and textiles are decorated with the same pattern of golden stars, hearts, and palm trees, perhaps indicating an association with the Komnenian imperial family. Later, in the Palaiologan period, such western heraldry as a roundel with a rampant lion was incorporated in imperial monuments as interior decoration of aristocratic family chapels. Vanderheyde, likewise, identifies broad historical trends in her study of ornament on carved templa, but she makes no connections to motifs found on surrounding architectural decoration. Vanderheyde, “Carved Decoration,” 77–98.

57 a wider spectrum of methods that engage the ornamental aspects of late Byzantine art.

Because formal analysis is an exceptionally useful method of analyzing ornament, I present the formal aspects of the motifs used to decorate revetments in the second appendix, combining a description of the motifs with their placement on each revetment. Formal aspects of revetment ornamentation are then integrated with other methods in the case study chapters in which I explore how ornament mediates political messages, amplifies inscribed prayers, and mediates cultural and spiritual ideas. Sociological and anthropological perspectives reveal how motifs and patterns on decorated surfaces augment connections between people and their ornamented objects. Ultimately I aim to show that the ornamental turn is likened to an aesthetic shift that reflects changes in social, political, and religious ideas about how icons function for their patrons and viewers. In particular, the ornamental turn towards embellishing icons reveals a capacity to experiment within the boundaries of orthodox icon theory. While the icon continued to mediate veneration from the viewer to the icon’s prototype, the area surrounding the holy figure became a site for experimentation and votive adornment.

Theories of Ornament

Although the benefit of studying ornament on late Byzantine icons is an easily defensible academic goal, art historians repeatedly reinvent the wheel when it comes to articulating the methods and theories of analyzing nonfigural decoration, perhaps because the methodologies for studying ornament have not yet been sufficiently integrated into the discipline and so seem to warrant justification before they may be employed. Most historians assign the beginning of the modern study of ornament to England in the 1840s as part of

58 broad cultural reform and revival movements.12 These foundational studies generally followed two basic streams of inquiry. First, they were primarily formalist projects that aimed to identify, define, and systematically categorize the motifs used in architecture and on art objects. Such figures as Owen Jones (1809–1874) and (1819–1900) generated theories of ornament intended to be applied to all of art history and to change the way designers used ornament. They were devoted to identifying what ornamental motifs represented: some motifs are loosely based on natural forms while other symbols create visual structure without representing anything in nature.13 The second stream examined ornament’s relationship to changes in artistic style over time and how the eye perceives and the mind beholds ornament. Architectural ornament, in particular, dominated a large share of the discourse on ornament in the nineteenth and early twentieth century because of its attributed high status compared to other arts. These early theorists studied ornament because they believed that ornamental patterns were the most conventionalized manifestations of period style in art and architecture. Jones, Ruskin, and their peers aspired to define styles so they could use them in building construction and renovation. Such projects, they believed, had the potential to manifest perfectly a pure style.

The first group of ornament theorists used philological methods to capture the elusive

12 Ernst Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art, 2nd edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 17–32; Brigitte Buettner, “Toward a Historiography of the Sumptuous Arts,” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), 466–87; and Debra Schafter, introduction to her book The Order of Ornament, the Structure of Style: Theoretical Foundations of and Architecture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1–59. 13 Schafter, Order of Ornament, 2–3.

59 roles played by nonfigural motifs.14 Owen Jones published the best known of the large handbooks of ornament, The Grammar of Ornament, in 1856.15 Based on the botanical systems that classify life forms and grammars that categorize linguistic signs or words,

Jones’s book was a grammar book on ornament that he believed revealed the natural organizing principles of ornament in art and architecture. His primary audience included contemporary architects and artisans whom he wanted to enable to use historical styles of ornament properly.16 Jones believed that artists should use ornament in their working practices to reveal and create order on the surface of an object or monument.17 The main structure of his book followed his subdivisions of historical periods of ornament defined by their stylistic attributes. Each historical period is accompanied by drawings that show an imposed geometric regularity on all forms of ornament because Jones that approach helped reveal the form’s beauty. His short section on Byzantine ornament describes it as having broad-toothed and acute-pointed leaves, thin and continuous running foliage, almost universally gold grounds, a preference for thin interlace over geometric patterns, limited animal or figural motifs, and color reserved for holy figures.18 This description is problematic not only because its generalizations refer only to the earliest works of Byzantine art but also because it relates only to monuments on the Italian peninsula. This unbalanced view of

14 Ibid., 1–59. In her in-depth analysis of the English context for the study of ornament, she includes several additional specialists, notably Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) and Pugin (1812–1852). 15 Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament: Illustrated by Examples from Various Styles of Ornament (1868; repr., New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1972). 16 Ultimately, Jones wanted nineteenth-century designers to produce a style of their own: he wanted a new style that built on historic styles of ornament and that also adapted new building materials such as steel. 17 Jones, Grammar, 1. 18 John Waring, “Byzantine Ornament,” in Jones, Grammar, 53.

60

“Byzantine” art reflects Jones’s limited access to eastern Christian architecture during

Ottoman rule. Indeed, the Victorian definition of Byzantine art leaned heavily on orientalist attitudes toward all eastern cultures.19

John Ruskin also wrote about the meanings conveyed and functions served by ornament, but not with taxonomies. In his first book on architecture and ornament, The Seven

Lamps of Architecture, Ruskin devised a hierarchical arrangement of ornamental forms that he expanded and reorganized in The Stones of Venice according to the sequence of creation found in the book of Genesis.20 He believed ornament must imitate natural forms, that it emblematizes a divinely ordered natural world, that it is beautiful for its own sake, and that it must be complementary and secondary to the fundamental structure of its carrier.21

Because of the moralizing undertones in his theory that an artist’s ornament depends on divinely inspired forms, the full application of Ruskin’s analysis of different periods and styles of art to problematic judgments about other cultures. His views caused him to draw connections between the moral character of a society and the ornament of its art and architecture. His interpretation of the Gothic style demonstrates his view that buildings are statements of faith for their builders. He promoted the revival of the Gothic style because he believed that Gothic ornament possessed integrity and truth due to the Christian craftsmen

19 Mark Crinson, Empire Building: and Victorian Architecture (New York: Routledge, 1996), esp. “Oriental Byzantium: Interpreting , 1840–70,” 72–92. 20 John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849; repr., New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1984); Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (1853; repr., Don Mills: Stoddart, 1989). 21 For further analysis of Ruskin’s writings see James Trilling, Ornament: A Modern (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), 84–6, and 137–68; Schafter, Order of Ornament, 17–22, 63–72; and Gombrich, Sense of Order, 38–46.

61 who produced it.22 This style also exhibited traces of human labor and the individual artist’s touch, another priority for Ruskin.23 To him, the Gothic style both simplified and stylized natural forms. He condemned the industrial production of ornament as inhumane. This view put him at odds with his contemporaries at London’s School of Design who sought ways of marrying art with industrial design, and it countered many of the celebrated achievements in architecture and design featured at the 1851 International Exhibition in London.24 His work established a moralizing trajectory in the scholarship on ornament, yoking it with religious convictions and art criticism.

The study of ornament took an unexpected turn following Ruskin’s moralizing stance on ornamental styles and artistic production. Instead of continuing to philosophize about ornament’s connections to rituals and identity, art and decorative art historians downgraded ornament to “just decoration.” Few medievalists in the twentieth century specialized in ornament, leaving unchecked both the methodological problems inherent in ascribing moral judgment to a society based on its ornament styles and the dangerous conclusions that this

22 also idealized medieval guilds as a model of unified cooperation between designers and manufacturers and imitated this in and Crafts movement he founded. Walker, “‘Art That Does Not Think’,” 171. 23 Margaret Iverson, “The Articulation of Ornament,” in : Art History and Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 49–68. Ruskin, William Morris (1834–1896), and Owen Jones wanted to reform and support the creative labor that produced ornament. Unlike Jones, who believed that industrial mass-production was necessary, Ruskin focused on what he believed was a degradation in taste that resulted from mechanical mass- production. 24 Buettner, “Sumptuous Arts,” 474–76. After the Great Exhibition, which featured a medieval court with nineteenth-century of medieval objects and furnishings designed by Pugin, Ruskin and Morris successfully petitioned the British government to endow museums and schools of applied art. In response, the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) and other European art institutions created medieval art departments thus establishing the institutional base for the study of design through museum collections.

62 approach reached.25 While recent studies have acknowledged the methodological problems inherent in Ruskin’s critique, the field of visual analysis and interpretation is ripe for new studies that fully attend to the ornamented surfaces of art objects.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the study of ornament was also overshadowed by the hegemonic belief in a utopian future made possible by mass production and industrial design. Adolf Loos’s (1870–1933) critique of ornament condemned it as a

“crime.” He wrote in 1908, “The evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects…. Behold the true greatness of our age, that it can no longer bring forth ornament. We have vanquished decoration and broken through into an ornamentless world.”26 Loos envisioned an idealized future consisting exclusively of a modernist industrial design of smooth surfaces in which the random and artificial application of motifs and ornament was banished. He was particularly concerned with changes in ornament’s functions. He saw that ornament was no longer used to help clarify an object or monument’s underlying structure; instead, patterns were stamped or papered onto surfaces without making any connection to the inner structure of the object. Worse, in the view of

Loos and his immediate successors, the modern developed world had no style of ornament of its own, and adopting styles from the past for decorative veneers was only a trap, an artifice,

25 , Orient oder Rom: Beiträge zur Geschichte der spätantiken und frühchristlichen Kunst (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1901). As the most extreme interpreter of ornament, Strzygowski focused almost exclusively on formal analysis of decorative patterns ignoring cultural or historical context. He developed a racialist myth of the so-called Nordic man in his exploration of the work of artists from northern and eastern cultures. He defined this typology of a mythic man as having deep feeling, an urge to express himself, and a propensity for non-objective ornament. In his fantasy, he also argued that all southern or Mediterranean cultures (religion, politics, philosophy, and liberal arts) strive to suppress this mythic Nordic culture from developing and flourishing. 26 Adolf Loos, “Ornament und verbrechen (1908),” in Trotzdem, 1900–1930, ed. Adolf Opel (1931; repr., Vienna: Georg Prachner, 1982), 79–88.

63 and a deception.27 This conclusion—that all ornament has only negative meaning—still inflects the way art historical scholarship reluctantly engages ornamental elements of art and architecture.

Subsequent generations latched onto Loos’s “ornament is a crime” sound bite from his treatise without fully comprehending his position. More than the ornament-structure debate, what Loos opposed was the wasted effort from producing objects that went quickly out of style and a system in which skilled craftspeople were no longer fairly paid. His economic analysis led him to conclude that simplifying daily life by eliminating the materials and labor used to create an ornament could save the money and expense of human labor.

Contrary to the way he is remembered, Loos did not actually call for a complete removal of all ornament; rather, he introduced a new style of ornament that embraced the ready-made natural patterns and random effects found in materials such as wood and stone.28 Loos’s innovative call for natural ornament was not an original idea; artists have exploited the natural properties of wood, stone, metal, and gems for millennia.29 His so-called new style of ornament incorporated modernist interests in unpredictable and inchoate forms and disdain for a contrived sense of order. His contribution to the study of ornament endures in the ways historians and critics describe monuments with little ornament as clean or fresh or as having

27 Loos was particularly critical of the artists, like , who were a branch of artists and architects and who aspired to devise an ornamental vocabulary based on nature and detached from historical ornament. Rykwert, The Necessity of Artifice (New York: Rizzoli, 1982), 68. 28 James Trilling, The Language of Ornament (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001), 183, 186, 190–93. 29 Trilling, Language, 194–99; John Onians, “Abstraction and Imagination in ,” Art History 3 (1980): 1–24. Trilling insightfully comments on how the modernist invention of natural ornament was not innovative. For example, Onians explores how the Byzantines used book-matched marble slabs to face the interior walls of their churches.

64 a kind of rugged honesty in their unadorned surfaces.30 Loos and his followers successfully expunged ornament from the modernist aesthetic.

This short survey of the most foundational voices in the study of ornament highlights their shared goal of improving the artistic production of their contemporaries. Jones, Ruskin, and Loos sought a style for their own generation by reinvigorating and reforming the use of ornament by artisans. Their second point of focus was about the relationship between an ornamented surface and its supporting structure. Yet, the views of Jones and Ruskin are almost opposed to each other. Jones treated ornament as a neutral or arbitrary set of patterns unique to each period style, while Ruskin commented on ornament in each historical period as something imbued with cultural meaning. Loos’s views bring a modern awareness to natural patterns as architectural ornament. His sensitivity to the textures found in natural materials encourages art historians to include them in the larger realm of ornament and art.

These optical and haptic aspects of objects and their ornament are essential properties of art according to Alois Riegl (1858–1905), whose work represents a second stream of inquiry regarding the perceptual psychology of ornament and its relationship to continuity and change in artistic style.31 In his first major publication, (1893), he used formal evidence to compose a universal theory about the development of forms, cultures, and styles

30 Rykwert describes how Loos used semiprecious materials on the surfaces of his architectural projects in Vienna. Continuous surfaces of veined , veneered wood, leather, and metals characterize these works and reflect his obsession with the haptic as a way of constructing a more perfect life. Rykwert, Necessity, 73. 31 Schafter, Order of Ornament, 15–59. She argues that Riegl used his role as the curator of textiles at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna (1887 to 1898) to correct the inflated status given to textiles in the history of ornament.

65 over time.32 He sought to explain how and why artistic styles change over time by interpreting ornament as an index of these cultural changes.33 This book, based on his lectures on the history of ornament presented at the University of Vienna in 1890–91, was influenced by The Grammar of the Lotus (1891), in which William Goodyear attempts to show a unified and continuous history of the lotus motif from its origin in through Western artistic periods.34 Riegl also believes that the entire history of ornament in the stems from an original motif, which he identifies as the or Greek tendril scroll.35 His thesis in Stilfragen is that the history of ornament is built on a series of mental and artistic operations internal to each style that explains the decisions made to produce ornament. He argues that humans’ most basic instinct is to imitate nature in three-dimensional form, and that the process of abstraction leads humans from plastic sculptural forms to relief

32 Alois Riegl, Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament [Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik], trans. Evelyn Kain (1893; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); see also the recent translation of his second important book, Riegl, Historical Grammar of the [Historische Grammatik der bildenden Künste], trans. Jacqueline Jung (1966; New York: Zone Books, 2004). These two translations are essential in exposing his work to English-language scholarship. Paul Crowther, “More than Ornament: The Significance of Riegl,” Art History 17 (1994): 482–94 and Hans Belting, Art History after (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 26; these two critiques of Riegl’s method both argue that his emphasis on ornament as pure form and an indicator of artistic and period style continue to dominate the discipline. Margaret Olin, Forms of Representation in Alois Riegl’s Theory of Art (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992) and Iverson, Alois Riegl; Olin and Iverson both offer rich, in-depth study of Riegl’s ideas and intellectual milieu. For Olin, Riegl’s interest in modes of perception—he distinguishes the optic from the haptic—informed his understanding of how the perception of external sensory data both validates art’s existence in reality and performs a participatory role or relationship with of a viewer. For Iverson, Riegl’s interest in the role of the beholder enabled his way of creating coherence among a picture and its viewers through formal and psychological connections. 33 Schafter describes Riegl’s view that ornament signifies characteristics of a constructed object by appealing directly to viewers’ senses. Schafter, Order of Ornament, 5. 34 William Goodyear, The Grammar of the Lotus (London: Low, 1891); Iverson, Alois Riegl, 49–68. Iverson shows how Goodyear, Riegl, and, in the following generation, Gombrich each approached the acanthus leaf as an emblem of the development of ornament. 35 Riegl, Problems of Style, 242. He traced the roots of this motif back to pre-Classical times and argued it was used by later Byzantine artists because of its flexibility and usefulness. This motif was used both to form continuous bands and to cover large surfaces freely, and such variations as the Greek and half-palmette were paired with the tendril scroll to fill corners.

66 and, finally, to contour lines on a two-dimensional plane. He also shows how motifs and patterns follow decorative conventions that range across media and techniques; this counters the assumption that motifs and patterns are wedded to the materials from which they are formed.36 For example, some have tried to link interlace with basket , but Riegl rejects this. He argues that artists experience an internal motivation or urge to generate ornamental motifs because the human mind seeks to create order and find patterns.

These perceptual experiences are essential to what Riegl defines as art’s power: appealing to and acting on the senses, not making or reproducing an objective reality. When a complex array of sensory data confronts someone, his or her mind subsumes the sensations under existing general terms; in the same way, an artist converts complex natural forms into stylized motifs in order to satisfy the aesthetic needs and facilitate enjoyment. The force behind the creation of these motifs—their forms, structures, and transformations—he calls

Kunstwollen, “that which wills art.”37 Ornament is thus part of the haptic experience of art’s forms, not an index of an idea or the representation of some other reality.38 Riegl’s interest in the spectator’s perception of ornament as a formal and psychological phenomenon established a new way of thinking about ornament; nonetheless, his better-known book

Problems of Style has overshadowed his contribution to the analysis of ornament.

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) followed Riegl’s study of the history of artistic styles

36 See Riegl, introduction to Problems of Style, 3–13. 37 Jas’ Elsner, “From Empirical Evidence to the Big Picture: Some Reflections on Riegl’s Concept of ‘Kunstwollen,’” Critical Inquiry 32 (2006): 741–66. Elsner highlights Riegl’s invention of the concept and term as a unique solution to the problem of constructing generalizations from particular objects. 38 Christopher Wood, “Riegl’s Mache,” Res 56 (2004): 155–72. Wood’s summary of Riegl stresses how our experience of touch conditions the rest of our sensory perceptions. Thus, our contact with ornament precedes structures, and lubricates our engagement with the ideas embedded in pictorial compositions.

67 and its relationship to human psychology. He began his education in art history in Vienna and returned to the relationship between human psychology and nonfigural decoration in order to construct his own interpretive approach. In The Sense of Order, he synthesizes careful visual analysis with new insights about human cognition developed in Gestalt psychology, which emphasizes how humans need to perceive things as whole entities rather than constituent parts.39 After surveying the study of ornament within the larger discipline of art history, Gombrich develops his idea of the perception of order: that humans need to perceive order, especially in the realm of visual sensory data.40 He argues that humans and living organisms construct cognitive maps of their environments and that deviations interrupt one’s awareness. Because humans tend to produce ordered environments, breaks in the continuity of order have aesthetic significance. He focuses on the practical effects of ornamentation, the way it frames, fills, and links other decoration, rather than on the taxonomy of ornamental motifs and other lexical activities.41

Gombrich’s approach to ornament from many cultural traditions reinforces his argument that no single interpretation is valid for motifs that recur throughout art history.

For example, one must guard against interpreting such complicated motifs as interlace solely as apotropaic devices.42 Despite the usefulness of Gombrich’s keen observations of the visual

39 Gombrich, Sense of Order, 1984; Gombrich, “A Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art,” Leonardo 14 (1981): 88. This one-page article helpfully summarizes his book in his own words. 40 Gombrich, Sense of Order, 17–94, 95–170. He summarizes the contributions of Pugin, Ruskin, Semper, Jones, and Loos, in addition to exploring Japanese aesthetics, the elevated status of design in modernism, and abstraction. His third and final part of the book addresses the work of Riegl, Wölfflin, Focillon, and others who used human psychology in their approach to art and decoration. 41 Gombrich, “Towards an Analysis of Effects,” Sense of Order, 117–48. 42 Gombrich, Sense of Order, 262–4; , “Interlace and Icons: Form and Function in Early ,” in The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland, ed. Michael

68 effects exhibited by motifs and patterns, The Sense of Order is rarely explicitly cited, analyzed, or directly applied to art historical scholarship, although this way of seeing ornament as framing, filling, and linking to other parts of a picture or decorated surface could be more productively integrated into such fields as medieval and Byzantine art history.43 Art historians underutilize Gombrich’s Sense of Order because of his focus on psychology and systems for understanding meaning.44

Oleg Grabar succeeded his father, André Grabar, as an art historian, producing his pioneering study of Islamic art The Formation of Islamic Art in 1973.45 Twenty years later, with the publication of his lectures on ornament as The Mediation of Ornament, the younger

Grabar transformed the study of ornament both by integrating Islamic ornament with western art history and by interpreting ornament as a functional aspect of art that intercedes between an art object and its viewer. He treats ornament as a subset of decoration and as something designed primarily to enhance its carrier.46 He also coins several terms, including calliphoric,

Spearman and John Higgitt (Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1993), 3–15. Kitzinger also cautions against always interpreting zoomorphic interlace in Insular art as apotropaic, although his final assessment of these motifs in the Lindisfarne is that they are apotropaic. 43 James Elkins, “Ten Reasons Why E. H. Gombrich is Not Connected to Art,” Human Affairs 19 (2009): 304– 10. For example, Gombrich is not cited once in Trkulja’s 2004 Princeton dissertation on the decoration of late Byzantine church facades. The Sense of Order received very few book reviews when it was first published in 1979, although this omission was remedied later when it was included as a comparison in reviews of Oleg Grabar’s Mediation of Ornament. Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 44 Elkins, “Ten Reasons,” 306–7. 45 Grabar, Formation of Islamic Art, 1973. 46 Oleg Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 45. “Ornament is itself or exhibits most forcefully an intermediate order between viewers and users of art, perhaps even creators of art, and works of art. This intermediate spirit takes many forms, but all of them are characterized by one central feature: while necessary to the comprehension of a work of art, they are not, except in a few extreme cases, the work of art itself.” Eva Baer’s

69 referring to the way ornament brings beauty to whatever it adorns and terpnopoietic indicating ornament’s pleasure-bringing trait.47 Grabar’s expansive definition of ornament explores broad issues of perception, utilization, and fabrication.

Although Grabar’s book centers on Islamic art, his discussion of the universal qualities of ornamental motifs—their potential for beauty and the pleasure they provide viewers—are easy to translate to other artistic contexts.48 He, like Jones, classifies ornament, distilling all varieties down to four types: writing, geometry, architecture, and flora or vegetation. Then he explains how these types mediate meaning in art. For example, architectural thresholds may be represented as an ornament on another object or thresholds themselves may be ornamented with other patterns. Architectural ornament and representations of such architectural features as doors, , and all evoke a sense of passage from one space and time into another. These associations of movement and transition embedded in architectural ornament affect how a viewer may interpret a manuscript page that has this type of ornament.

The way we perceive ornament shapes how ornament mediates meaning and even how ornament may introduce a demonic or spiritual force in the viewer’s encounter with an

earlier book describes many similar monuments without the theoretical interpretation. Baer, Islamic Ornament (New York: New York University Press, 1998). 47 Grabar, Mediation of Ornament, 30, 37. Grabar introduces these terms in his first chapter, but uses them sparingly through the rest of his book. Rudolf Arnheim, review of The Mediation of Ornament, by Oleg Grabar, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (1995): 218–19. Arnheim raises an important critique of Grabar’s return to aesthetics and beautification as the purpose of ornament and for not giving a more concrete definition of ornament. 48 Grabar brought Islamic art to a wider audience as a result of his method of making cross-cultural comparisons with Islamic art and a diverse range of Western examples.

70 ornamented object. For example, calligraphic ornament performs its mediating function by challenging relationships between text and meaning.49 This intermediary power (which

Grabar evocatively describes as demonic) engenders or creates a relationship between a viewer and an ornamented object, but this power is not actually part of the object or its ornament. In other words, the viewer’s engagement with the ornamented aspects of an object activates layers of meaning and power that help enhance the bond between viewer and object.50 Ornament may confuse a viewer’s reading of the text or it may transport the viewer into an imagined space; therefore, ornament intervenes on both the work of art and the viewer.

Grabar’s book and Kain’s translation of Riegl’s Stilfragen combined to create a momentary resurgence of interest in ornament in the early 1990s.51 Yet, at that time, art historians only applied Grabar’s theory of mediation to Islamic art. Likewise, Riegl’s interest in the relationship between ornament and changes in artistic period styles restricted the study of ornament to a symptom or index of conformity or innovation. His interest in human psychology was helpfully expanded by Gombrich’s analysis of the visual effects of ornament, but subsequent studies on phenomenology and human perception have not yet

49 This analysis is not new. For example, Jonathan Alexander examines western medieval manuscripts with letters illuminated like abstract designs and images. Alexander, The Decorated Letter (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978). 50 Grabar hints at, but does not fully develop this notion of ornament as a demon or an intermediary power of art. A second recurrent theme of the book is that ornament is an object of love, which itself has ethical consequences. The notion of the intermediary itself recalls the notion of a person to person encounter which is fundamental to ethics. See also Margaret Olin, review of The Mediation of Ornament, by Oleg Grabar, The AB 75 (1993): 730. She makes a provocative comment, “based on Grabar’s reading, one could argue that the application of ornament, which attracts the gaze without returning it, does not form a relationship, and certainly not a dialogue, but rather makes a thing into an object (of desire).” 51 Note that both were published by Princeton University Press in 1992.

71 penetrated the field of medieval art. Art historians are continually expanding the boundaries of the discipline by refining its range of methods. Looking to the past, and especially to the foundational work of the Vienna School, is one way to advance the discipline’s aims and practices.52 New studies of ornament from across the historical and cultural spectrum are being done in response to the way Riegl and others rigorously engaged nonfigural elements of art. The current resurgence of interest in ornament seems to be the result of a turn in the discipline toward historiography.53

James Trilling is an important voice in recent studies of ornament; he aims to revive a comparative approach to ornament because he believes its study has only declined throughout the twentieth century. His book Ornament: A Modern Perspective reviews almost every aspect, from technical details of various craft traditions to abstract theoretical arguments about ornament’s function and meaning.54 Like Riegl, Gombrich, and Grabar, he assembles a pan-cultural analysis of ornament.55 Trilling is not a neutral observer of history; rather, he follows the theorists in the first stream of ornament studies as an evangelist encouraging the revival of the study of and use of ornament. He urges his readers to devote

52 One of the most important recent publications on the Vienna School is Matthew Rampley, The Vienna School of Art History: Empire and the Politics of Scholarship: 1847–1918 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013). Rampley highlights the recent development of digital libraries and access to online archives as an important catalyst for the increase in interest in the Vienna School. 53 This attention to the history of the discipline is exemplified by the new Journal of Art Historiography, launched in 2009. 54 Trilling, Ornament, 2003; this book closely follows his earlier survey of ornament, Trilling, Language of Ornament, 2001. 55 This approach presents a problematic aspect of his work, which is that he rarely engages ornament’s instability. Its placement and functions change across cultural borders and historical periods, yet Trilling rarely addresses these historical and contextual issues. He also fails to incorporate the work of his predecessors. Riegl and Gombrich are each mentioned once, but Grabar is not even included in his index. Although he aspires to reintegrate ornament with all levels of art and design, his only response to the irony and pastiche of our contemporary design aesthetic is to promote the increase of knowledge of ornament’s history.

72 more time and attention to ornament because he believes the result will be an increase in its use. For Trilling, ornament is a traditional art that must be inherited and reinvented with each generation of artists. He argues that the twentieth-century insistence on originality and the avant-garde undermined these traditions and contributed to so-called cosmophobia as much as the anti-ornament treatises of modernist architects did.56 In summary, his work brings together established approaches to ornament and is especially useful for architects and artists seeking a deeper connection with historical styles.

When Alfred Gell’s book Art and Agency was published posthumously in 1998,

Grabar’s theory of mediation was the primary theoretical lens through which art historians interpreted ornament’s functions. Gell’s anthropological analysis of nonfigural patterns emphasizes the human actors connected to the production and viewing of an artwork.57 His main argument is that ornament on art mediates the agency of the prototype and causes changes in social relations. His second proposition is that ornament draws people into attachments with objects.58 These theories have gained traction among art historians who use his approach (especially his terminology) in their interpretive work on objects that are active

56 Trilling, Ornament, 14. His personal anecdote about teaching textile students about basic ornamental patterns and techniques highlights how students of the craft traditions have been severed from their past. “Refusal to imitate has cut us of from thousands of years of experience, insight, and technical refinements,” 14. Trilling, The Medallion Style: A Study in the Origins of Byzantine Taste (New York: Garland Publishing, 1985). This earlier book represents his first focused study of an ornamental tradition that was inherited and reinvented through many successive generations of textile artists and designers. 57 Although his book deals with many other aspects of art’s agency, his analysis of patterns and nonfigural decoration are the most relevant to this survey. See especially Gell, “The Critique of the Index,” chap. 6 in Art and Agency, 73–95. 58 Gell, Art and Agency, 82. His anecdote about his own attachment to Shaker chairs demonstrates that not all attachments with aesthetically pleasing things are necessarily caused by ornament. Ironically, these chairs were designed without ornament so that one would not form an attachment to a chair, only to Christ.

73 agents in complex social relationships.59 Gell claims that the anthropological/object-centered approach, which involves constructing a biography of an object by describing it and the people who use it, is substantially different from other object-focused studies, including those of art historians. Yet, his method closely parallels the work of some art historians who also prioritize an object’s formal and aesthetic attributes and communicative and symbolic dimensions over the connections between the art object and the people who used or viewed it. Gell identifies agency, causation, result, and transformation as components of a system of actions that change the world. Objects mediate human agency and therefore become secondary agents that distribute that agency. Thus, Gell’s theory that ornamented objects are active sites that exert power and spiritual force echoes Grabar’s notion of the spiritual and demonic power of ornament.60

Gell employs four key concepts in what he calls the art nexus: artist (who is responsible for creating the index), index (work of art), prototype (who is represented in the index), and recipient (viewer). Recipients respond to the index by inferring how it was made in a cognitive process that Gell calls “abduction.” When confronted with visually complex nonfigural decoration—visual puzzles—a recipient becomes trapped in an unending

59 Kelly, “The Material Efficacy of the Elizabethan Jeweled Miniature: A Gellian Experiment,” in Osborne and Tanner, Art’s Agency and Art History, 114–34. The other contributions in Robin Osborne and Jeremy Tanner’s edited collection of essays also put Gell’s theories into practice, although most of the other essays focus on tribal societies. 60 See also Eunice Dauterman Maguire, Henry Maguire, and Maggie Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989). Although much of Gell’s anthropological research centers on non-western tribal art, his theory of social agency has been accepted and applied by historians of western art. His critics note that some of his theories lack the originality that he claims and that he obscures his analysis in overly difficult language. See the commentaries by Ross Bowden, “A Critique of Alfred Gell on Art and Agency,” Oceania 74 (2004): 309–24 and Robert Layton, “Art and Agency: A Reassessment,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9 (2003): 447–64.

74 exchange with the art object as the recipient attempts to untangle it.61 Questions about an intricate pattern’s internal logic and inferences about who produced said pattern trap the recipient who is overcome with awe at the magical, captivating power of the ornament on the art object (secondary agent) that mediates the power of the primary agent (either the artist or prototype). The recipient simultaneously experiences the bright colors and designs of the decorated index and infers a magically charged process or event in which the artist created the visually complex pattern. Thus, the ornamented object is an index of the primary agent regardless of what it visually represents as its prototype. This system allows for an arbitrary relationship between the prototype and index that is not restricted to one of likeness.

A key point in this system of analysis is that recipients want to understand how an artwork is produced. For example, the decoration of a warrior’s shield may instill fear in an enemy who is stunned by its visually complex or technically virtuosic decoration. The enemy

(recipient) thus simultaneously concludes that the shield has demonic or magical origins and experiences the shield’s primary agency as he visually encounters this decoration. Another example of captivation is in the apotropaic function of knot-work and interlace patterns used on thresholds. Gell proposes that creators of these patterns believed that demons are fascinated by them, try following or untangling the bands in the patterns, become stuck in the maze of their complexity, and are thus diverted from crossing the threshold and doing malevolent things to the building or its inhabitants.62 He makes another observation about

61 Gell, Art and Agency, 73–94. 62 Gell discusses attracting and trapping demons in Art and Agency, 84. Medieval art historians have observed the same concept at work in interlace and complex knot-work that were used as defense mechanisms against demonic or evil spirits. See Kitzinger “Interlace and Icons,” and Maguire, Maguire, and Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers.

75 how ornamented objects affect recipients. Complex patterns that repeat in multi-dimensional directions slow down perception because viewers are continually trying to grasp the pattern’s repetitions and transformations. This means that the decorated artifact is always in the process of becoming understood or possessed, yet the recipient never fully controls it.63

Ultimately, Gell’s theory and terminology underscore his emphasis on social agency and perceptual cognition over cultural and symbolic meanings of art objects and ornament. Art historians now use this anthropological approach to art objects to demonstrate how ornament contributes to our understanding of the way objects function within the social practices and beliefs of their cultural contexts. For example, in a 1996 exhibition of ornament’s social history since 1450, the curators showed that ornament occupies and complements various spheres, from printed books to public ceremonies.64

Two anthropologically oriented studies of late sixteenth-century jewel-encrusted

Elizabethan brooches provide a model for studies of ornamented revetments on icons. In the first, Jessen Kelly examines the social contexts of the gift exchange of the Heneage Jewel.

This context is a key factor in an understanding of the brooch’s portrait of the queen and lustrous ornamentation on the jeweled case (figs. 1-1 and 1-2). The queen commissioned the brooch and gave it to her Privy Councilor Sir Thomas Heneage who wore it. The virtuosity of the brooch’s maker Nicholas Hilliard masks evidence of its fabrication. Kelly conjectures that when viewers tried to imagine how the miniaturized ornament was made, the technical virtuosity dazzled and captivated them. The effect of the virtuosic craft through which

63 Gell, Art and Agency, 81. 64 Michael Snodin and Maurice Howard, Ornament: A Social History Since 1450 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).

76

Hilliard produced the brooch mediates the agency and power of the queen to the gift’s recipient, replicating her eminence as “ mover” to his subordinate status.65

Kelly also highlights the materials used on the brooch and their agency as mediators of the queen’s power. Precious metals and colored stones were active subjects of alchemy and natural philosophy that supposedly exerted magical powers on the jewel’s wearer.66 The powers destabilize the correspondence between the queen and her miniature portrait on the royal gift. They articulate the queen’s ascendancy implying an additional prototype, which is not the queen’s visage, but the magical and talismanic properties of the stones themselves.

The jewel that was meant to be displayed on Sir Thomas’s own body seals him as a knight, transforming him into an index of her distributed power.67 It also configures her image as a healer and protector of the wearer, thereby perpetuating the gift-recipient cycle. In the end,

Kelly concludes that the jewel embodies the queen’s political instability more than her power, in the way its hidden interior portrait of the queen as a young woman depends on its wearer and holder to open and reveal her mask of youth.68

The gift of a second medallion brooch, the so-called Gresley Jewel (fig. 1-3), bestowed by Queen Elizabeth on her courtier Catherine Walsingham, also mediates social

65 Kelly, “Material Efficacy,” 116. 66 The classical lapidarian tradition viewed gems as healing and apotropaic devices. Ibid., 120. See also Ittai Weinryb, “Living Matter: Materiality, Maker, and Ornament in the Middle Ages,” Gesta 52, no. 2 (2013): 113– 32. 67 Kelly, “Material Efficacy,” 120. 68 Ibid., 130.

77 relations among the individuals portrayed on its visible and hidden surfaces.69 On the face of the medallion, there is a miniature relief in dark sardonyx of an African woman, and on the reverse, there is a locket that opens to reveal portraits of Catherine and her husband, Thomas

Gresley (fig. 1-4). Koos’s argument centers on the material agency of the jewel with figures of the gift recipient, her spouse, and a foreigner arranged on a horizontal axis that moves in the wearer’s hands and body.70 Wearing this brooch expresses Catherine’s acceptance of the queen’s claim to power, protects her marriage through the amuletic powers of the jewel, and affirms her aristocratic identity defined by her fair complexion.

The symmetrical ornamentation on the jewel sets off the three-quarters view of the three faces and especially that of Catherine whose portrait is hidden under the locket door and is thus only viewed suspended in mid-air standing away from the jewel-encrusted frames around her spouse’s portrait and that of the African woman. Koos, like Kelly, emphasizes how the brooch’s viewers received ideas of power and identity from the jewel itself. Again, the hidden compartment adds a dimension of secrecy and the wearer who controls access to this hidden image gains a degree of agency. Both brooches were imperial gifts of the highest value, yet they also acted like reliquaries, hiding the element with the highest value using materials of a lesser commercial value.71 These two analyses of intricately crafted brooches show how social and material agency is exercised by an object’s ornament. Thus, the gifted brooches enacted the loyalty of the queen’s subjects and demonstrated her control over them.

69 Marianne Koos and Jessen Kelly’s studies of Elizabethan brooches both demonstrate how art historians may apply this method. Koos, “Wandering Things: Agency and Embodiment in Late Sixteenth-Century English Miniature Portraits,” Art History 37, no. 5 (2014): 836–59 70 Koos, “Wandering Things,” 1–24. 71 Koos suggests this comparison with reliquaries. Ibid., 4.

78

The authors of these recent studies zeroed in on the terminology of Gell’s art nexus, highlighting the power exchange between the queen and her courtiers.72 By shifting the focus from ornament’s decorative forms to its agency and effects on viewers, these studies demonstrate how ornament actively mediates social relations with art objects.

* * *

Two centuries earlier, in his Critique of Judgment (1790), Immanuel Kant articulated a way of thinking about decoration in the margins of manuscripts, colonnades on buildings, and gold frames on pictures. His term parergon, based on the Greek παρά “beside” and ἔργον

“work,” refers to such ornamentation as supplementary to the larger work. In section 14 of the chapter “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” he describes ornamentation as that which is not an intrinsic constituent of the work of art and as something that only delights the viewer’s taste. He continues criticizing ornamentation, such as a gold frame designed to appeal to viewers, as mere finery that actually diminishes the beauty of the work of art.73 This separation of ornamentation (a parergon) from the art object parallels the structure in the rest of his work in which binaries such as inside/outside or intrinsic/extrinsic organize his analysis of reason, imagination, and aesthetics. It is this way of thinking about ornament— separated from the work of art itself—that is most acutely opposed in Gell’s reading of art and ornament’s agency.

In the late twentieth century, Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) focused on this bifurcation

72 Kelly, “Material Efficacy,” 114–34; ibid., 1–24. 73 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. James Meredith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 54–7.

79 of art and frame in The Truth in Painting.74 His deconstruction of Kant’s binary approach highlights that the place where Kant separates art from its surroundings is arbitrary. Why not look to the partition between frame and wall, or between wall and gallery? Derrida describes the partition as a cultural and political division, which ultimately means this partition is subjective. Kant’s position pushes ornament to the sidelines, separating it from the work of art or architecture and Derrida’s critique of Kant articulates some of the problems with this idea. In the case of icons with revetments, however, identifying hierarchy, priority, or some other partition between the painted figure and the metal plaques ignores the unity of the icon and its revetment.

Framing and imagery in the margins of art has grown into what is practically a subfield of art history, especially of medieval art, following Derrida’s widely accepted dismantling of Kant and the publication of Michael Camille’s book Image on the Edge.75

Camille explores the margins of manuscripts as a space embedded with commentaries and critiques on representation. He describes the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the “end of the edge” because painters began using margins for depictions of real things, such as jewels, shells, or flowers, which is a kind of commodification by representing things that are bought and sold in a market economy.76 He argues that in response to the development of the art market, marginal imagery was transformed into pictures of things that were valuable in their own right. These historical changes in style and economic conditions are closely related to

74 Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 75 Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). 76 Camille, “End of the Edge,” ibid., 153–60.

80 the development of precious metal revetted icons in late Byzantium, as discussed in detail in chapter 4.

Following Camille’s analysis, the change in manuscript imagery to trompe l’oeil representations of real objects does more than symbolize or decorate; it has social meaning because it denotes valuable objects that bourgeois patrons wanted to buy, mimicking the conspicuous consumption of their upper-class role models. Not all scholars accept Camille’s assessment that marginal decoration commenting on its central image ended by the fifteenth century. For example, Myra Orth analyzes the borders and frames in sixteenth-century

French and Flemish manuscripts.77 She suggests that these decorative borders and architectural frames both enhance the central image and separate the viewer from the subject by diverting one’s attention to the border.78 Although work on framing is not about ornament per se, ornament is a recurring and defining element in marginal imagery. While manuscript margins are a particularly rich site of artistic freedom, many other kinds of objects, including icons, also possess contested spaces where modes of representation and imitation are played out.

Paroma Chatterjee explores the ontological relationship between figural imagery on the frame and the central image on vita icons in her recent book, The Living Icon.79 The small hagiographic scenes on the periphery of vita icons are meant to be seen and interpreted along with the hieratic image of the saint, unlike the miniaturized scenes on icon revetments that

77 Myra Orth, “What Goes Around: Borders and Frames in French Manuscripts,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54 (1996): 189–201, 276–78. 78 Ibid. 79 Paroma Chatterjee, The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

81 are, in such cases as the Ohrid Hodegetria (fig. 1-5), so small that they are barely readable.

Although the decoration on vita icons and revetted icons differs in this significant way, they share in a similar process of reading in which the content of the peripheral decoration overflows onto the central image. On vita icons, the scenes are arranged in a sequence that goes back and forth from the left to the right sides.80 Although viewers may only occasionally have followed this highly structured and mechanical process of reading, all sequences of viewing the central image and surrounding scenes reinforce the viewer’s encounter with the icon’s theme and variations.

On vita icons, the central hieratic image is the theme, and the small-scale images on the frame show variations of the saint’s body in multiple forms, postures, and states of dismemberment or injury. This process of reading helps the viewer construct a more complex way of contemplating a saint’s image by combining different types of images in the viewer’s mind through prolonged viewing, meditation, and memorization.81 On revetted icons, small scenes are also arranged on an icon’s frame in a variety of sequences, which allows a viewer to encounter the saint (usually the Theotokos; see catalogue analysis table on pages 413–14) and her decorative surroundings in a suggested progression. The contrasting modes of representation from clearly delineated iconography to repeating patterns reveals a different approach to representation and the ontology of images, which is discussed in further detail in chapter 2.

80 Ibid., 88–89. See also Tito Papamastorakis, “Pictorial Lives,” for an argument about the sequential reading of hagiographical scenes on vita icons. Papamastorakis, “Pictorial Lives: Narrative in Thirteenth-Century Vita Icons,” Mouseio Benaki 7 (2008): 33–65. 81 Chatterjee, Living Icon, 16–17.

82

Chatterjee argues that hagiographical scenes challenged the established precepts about representation in icons by showing a saint’s body in multiple postures within a single panel. These layers of representation constitute what W. J. T. Mitchell terms “metapictures,” in which images repeat and expand on their own representation.82 Thus, a saint’s image that is surrounded by narrative scenes participates in a shared dynamic of representation through repetition and self-reflection. This type of self-referential imagery is less common on revetted icons. Instead, the painted or mosaic panel of the central image contrasts with the precious-metal ornament on the frame, separating the modes of representation of the central hieratic figure from her or his surroundings. It is more helpful to apply Mitchell’s concept of metapictures to revetted icons by interpreting the relationship between the center and the revetment as an icon and its devotional enshrinement, not theme and variation. These ideas about the complex relationship between the center and periphery underscore the need for analytical approaches to ornament and other framing imagery. Ornament in the frame of an icon actively engages the central image, and these relationships are far from simple or stable, as Chatterjee and others have shown.

Related to the relationship between multiple peripheral images framing a central figure is the visual effect of glittering, small-scale motifs surrounding a single large figure.

Miniaturization characterizes many of the patterns on revetments.83 The reduced scale of the motifs used on icon revetments reveals a change in design principles and attitudes about

82 W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 14. 83 John Mack, The Art of Small Things (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007). In this cross-cultural approach to miniaturization, Mack focuses on the ways miniatures express and influence beliefs. They do more than show aesthetic beauty and technical virtuosity. For Mack, as miniature objects are made smaller, their significance expands.

83 perception and representation. The effects of miniaturization are especially evident in the feast scenes on frame revetments. In order to see these miniaturized scenes on an icon displayed in a church, a viewer must be physically very close to the icon. As a result of this closeness, the viewer becomes more aware of her body and may try stilling her movements and controlling her breath. In this way, the miniaturization introduces another effect of ornament on the viewer and her body. She must slow down in order to see the variety of tiny images surrounding the icon.

Slowing down is also part of the prolonged viewing of complex patterns. Thus, miniaturized images, like the complex ornament and patterns on the Ohrid Hodegetria (fig. 1-

5), produce effects on viewers that support the contemplative and meditative uses of icons for devotional prayer.84 Viewers familiar with the iconographic conventions of Byzantine art have the necessary skills to recognize the subjects of these scenes, whereas viewers who are unfamiliar with this iconography experience great difficulty in making out the figures. Many of these representations are simplified compositions with only a few figures in each scene; thus, accurately identifying these scenes draws more on memory and knowledge than on the momentary experience of seeing the miniatures on the revetment for the first time. The conceptual product of miniaturizing these scenes is a microcosm of the structure of Christian theology embodied in the life of . Through its miniatures, the revetment represents the liturgical year, which itself encapsulates Christian time and history.85 Framing and adorning

84 Note that this link between miniatures and devotion is about perception. In many other cultural contexts, miniatures are more closely linked with votive objects that are used for specific ritual practices. 85 Carl Knappett describes miniaturization as a distillation process that emphasis form over function through which the form is intensified. The link to the original function is maintained, as in the case of toys that are miniaturized versions of utilitarian objects that maintain some of the original definition and function. See

84 an icon with the complex structure of represented in small scale emblems reminds the viewer that the image of the holy figure at the center of the icon is part of a cosmic spiritual realm not bound by earthly and human limits. Miniaturization is an essential feature of the figural decoration on revetments.

This journey from Jones and Ruskin to Camille and Chatterjee highlights how scholars have attempted to account for marginal imagery and ornament. Riegl’s and

Gombrich’s interest in the visual effects of ornament invite scholars to engage all aspects of an artistic object’s surface, not only the areas with well-defined figural imagery. The richly textured plaques concealing the surfaces of many Byzantine icons are especially good examples of objects that invite further interpretive methods that surpass the identification of symbolism and surface decoration.

Approaches to Byzantine Ornament

The history of the study of Byzantine ornament corresponds to the historiography of

Byzantine art more generally. Foundational studies that focused exclusively on Byzantine ornament include catalogues of ivories, jewelry, enamels, textiles, and other so-called decorative arts; these are generally limited to the taxonomical methods of Jones and the stylistic analyses of Riegl. For example, a generation after Jones completed his Grammar of

Ornament, Arne Dehli assembled his Selections of Byzantine Ornament from sixth- and

Knappett, “Meaning in Miniature: Semiotic Networks in Material Culture,” in Excavating the Mind: Cross- sections Through Culture, Cognition and Materiality, ed. Niels Johanssen et al. (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2012), 87–109.

85 seventh-century buildings intended as a reference for architects and students of Byzantine art.86 Unfortunately, like Jones’s work, Dehli’s examples are limited to buildings in Venice and , a fact that reveals a distorted view of Byzantine monuments based on what was known and accessible for westerners to study at that time. Alison Frantz systematically defines and categorizes ornamental motifs used throughout Byzantine art in her monumental

1934 article in The Art Bulletin.87 Her emphasis on form is so strong that she begins with broad distinctions between curvilinear and rectilinear motifs, and then focuses on the morphology of ornament in early, middle, and late Byzantine manuscript illuminations. In this painstakingly detailed study, Frantz establishes many of the chronological benchmarks for the development of ornamental styles and motifs and notes that classical patterns returned to Byzantine art repeatedly.

In recent literature on Byzantine art, there are generally two methodologies for studying ornament. First, there is the widely accepted theory that it functions as a symbolic expression of complex or abstract theological concepts. For example, continuous vines are often interpreted as symbols of eternal life, and gold-leaf backgrounds around holy figures are usually considered evocations of heaven or Heavenly .88 This method tends to isolate particular motifs from their surrounding composition, and the strength of the connection between the ornamental symbol and its referent depends on how the symbol is

86 Arne Dehli, Selections of Byzantine Ornament, 2 vols. (1890; repr. Mineola: Dover, 2005). 87 Alison Frantz, “Byzantine Illuminated Ornament: A Study in Chronology,” AB 16 (1934): 43–101. 88 Henry Franses’s discussion of the mystifying and affective surfaces of gold grounds in Byzantine images translates this symbolic interpretation to a phenomenological one mediated by the materials. Franses, “Partial Transmission,” in Byzantine Things in the World, ed. Glenn Peers (Houston: The Menil Collection / New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 175–87, 182.

86 used.89 An example of this methodology is in Jelena Trkulja’s dissertation on the architectural ornament of late Byzantine church façades, in which she approaches architectural ornament as a mediator of symbolism.90 She argues that the aniconic (her term) decoration of the exterior surfaces of late Byzantine churches has symbolic meaning similar to the way much medieval art is ordered, systematized, and representative of hierarchies. She also shows that many decorative masonry motifs substitute for wall articulation that would be more evident in other building techniques. The cumulative effect of these ornamented façades creates screens that physically and symbolically define sacred space. More specifically, Trkulja argues that the decoration of Byzantine church façades creates a liminal zone that demarcated the sacred space in the church by representing this effect on a church building’s exterior. This symbolic interpretation engages ornament as a theologically driven element of the architecture, and the theology at play was public, dominant, and associated with many other cultural norms.

Two catalogues of early Christian and Byzantine art exemplify a second way art historians study Byzantine ornament. First, the exhibition and catalogue of objects of daily life, Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House, sets forth convincing analyses of the decorative motifs used on domestic objects.91 A small number of these designs were believed to be charged with spiritual powers that defended users from demonic spirits. Eunice

89 Herbert Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2004); Benjamin Tilghman, “The Symbolic Use of Ornament and in the Book of Kells and Insular Art” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2009). These publications both employ this method treating ornamental motifs in almost the same way as iconographic subject matter. 90 Trkulja, “Aesthetics and Symbolism.” Gerstel and Lauffenburger, Lost Art Rediscovered. 91 Maguire, Maguire, and Duncan-Flowers, Art and Holy Powers, 1–33.

87

Dauterman Maguire, Henry Maguire, and Maggie Duncan-Flowers underscore the inadequacy of the term decorative to encompass fully the social and spiritual functions of these few selected patterns.92 The Maguires later extended this apotropaic interpretation to some examples of secular Byzantine art.93 A second example of this method is the catalogue of Byzantine ceramic tiles published by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.94 This study balances empirical data with interpretive analysis. Just as Trkulja argues that masonry ornament articulated architectural components on façades of Byzantine churches, Jeffrey

Anderson demonstrates in his first essay in the Walters catalogue that ceramic tiles articulated interior architectural features.95 In a detailed analytical index he names, describes, and illustrates 72 distinct ornamental motifs painted on ceramic tiles used mainly inside churches, on templon screens and sepulchral monuments. He also includes photographs and drawings of these motifs and comparative studies with other (especially early) Byzantine , book illumination, and jewelry and with and ceramics. He argues that middle Byzantine tiles were used to decorate new buildings and refurbish existing ones because they could provide bright, strong colors in a less technically challenging and labor-intensive way than opus sectile.96

In his second essay in the Walters catalogue, Anderson shows how this new typology

92 Ibid., 32. 93 Eunice Dauterman Maguire and Henry Maguire, Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). 94 Jelena Trkulja, “Aesthetic Symbolism;” Gerstel and Lauffenburger, Lost Art Rediscovered. 95 Jeffrey Anderson, “Introduction to the Ornamental Tiles,” in Gerstel and Lauffenburger, Lost Art Rediscovered, 89–117. 96 Ibid., 93.

88 of ornament was formed from two-dimensional renderings of the deeply carved motifs found in Theodosian and Justinianic buildings.97 This means that tiles were decorated with patterns appropriate to monumental architecture, not ceramic tableware, and not with the patterns made in opus sectile, which they replaced. The tiles were generally flat, not sculptural like early Byzantine architectural ornament. Other motifs formed an aesthetic shared among ceramic tiles, manuscript illuminations, metalwork, enamels, and jewelry: peacocks, decorated with peacock feathers, simulated metalwork as frames or architecture, leaves and foliate patterns.98 Anderson interprets the imitation of metalwork and jewelry found in architectural ceramics and manuscripts as an allusion to the concept of the church as Christ’s bride, a comparison found in scripture, liturgical texts, and middle Byzantine theological reflections.99 Although he notes that Byzantine nonfigural ornament has received more scholarly attention in manuscript studies, both Anderson and William Tronzo, another contributor to the catalogue, call attention to the paucity of studies on Byzantine ornament in all other media.100

In his contribution to the Walters catalogue, Tronzo offers a historiography of

Byzantine ornament, emphasizing connections between Byzantine and Islamic art and architecture. He begins with an article by André Grabar from 1951, which was the first to

97 Anderson, “Tiles, Books, and the ‘Church like a Bride Adorned with Pearls and Gold,’” in Gerstel and Lauffenburger, Lost Art, 119–41. 98 Ibid., 136–37. 99 Germanos (r. 715–730) makes this comparison of the church to Christ’s bride in his commentary, On the , trans. John Meyendorff (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 56–57. The same simile appears in the tenth-century Life of Basil I (830/35–886) in a passage describing the Nea Ecclesia adorned like a bride with pearls, gold, and silver. “Vita Basilii,” in The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: Sources and Documents, ed. Cyril Mango (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 194. 100 Tronzo, “Vagaries of a Motif,” in Gerstel and Lauffenburger, Lost Art Rediscovered, 143–57.

89 propose a tenth-century cross-cultural interchange between Byzantine and Islamic art and architecture based on the study of their ornament.101 Grabar revisits ornament in his two- volume chronological survey of Byzantine sculpture.102 There he addresses ornamental sculpture from late Byzantium in a brief five-and-one-half-page survey that focuses on the ’ locations (on columns, ciboria, lintels, etc.) and refers to sculptural relief on icons only in comparison to monumental architectural sculpture.103 Belting composed an overview of Constantinopolitan sculpture and ornament from around 1300, and Klaus Wessel presented an overview of Palaeologan sculpture.104

Although Byzantine art is most often approached as an extension of Greco-Roman visual traditions but with Christian content and audiences, an increased emphasis on the connections between Byzantium and its Islamic neighbors would better situate middle and late Byzantine art (especially its ornament) in its cultural and historical landscape.105

Byzantine art is most commonly conceptualized as standing between “eastern” Islamic and

101 André Grabar, “Le succès des arts orientaux à la cour byzantine sous les macédoniens,” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 2 (1951): 32–60. 102 André Grabar, Sculptures byzantines de Constantinople: I (IVe–Xe siècle) (Paris: Picard, 1963); André Grabar, Sculptures byzantines du Moyen Age: II (XIe–XIVe siècle) (Paris: Picard, 1976). 103 Grabar, Sculptures II, 159–65. 104 Hans Belting, “Zur Skulptur aus der Zeit um 1300 in Konstantinopel,” Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 3 (1972): 63–93; Klaus Wessel, “Byzantinische Plastik der Palaiologischen Periode,” Byzantion 36 (1966): 217–59. 105 Anthony Cutler asserts that it would be better to conceptualize middle (and late) Byzantium as an exotic “other” in the distant east instead of perpetuating the idea that it merely continued its Hellenistic and Roman heritage. Cutler, “Pathos of Distance: Byzantium in the Renaissance Gaze and Modern Scholarship,” in Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America, 1450–1650, ed. by Claire Farago (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 23–46. The challenge with cross-cultural perspectives that emphasize intersections and interactions between Byzantium and its Islamic neighbors is that too often the Islamic material is insufficiently analyzed. Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom make this point in their historiographic survey of Islamic art history. Blair and Bloom, “The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field,” AB 85, no.1 (2003): 152–84.

90

“western” Christian art.106 As early as the tenth century, the use of pseudo-Kufic decoration on Byzantine luxury items and architectural sculpture bears witness to cultural exchanges between Greek- and Arabic-speaking groups.107 Following the in 1071,

Muslims in the newly formed Seljuk sultanate of Rūm and Byzantine Christians developed strong cultural ties especially among the elite classes.108

These overlapping cultures facilitated the exchange of luxury goods that bore heraldic symbols and other signs of power. For example, a Byzantine emperor, either Manuel I

Komnenos (r. 1143–1180) or John II Komnenos (r. 1280–1297), built a palace on the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Constantinople decorated with tiles and a stalactite muqarnas .109 Muqarnas is also found on the west porch of the church of Hagia Sophia in Trebizond, where it is combined with other Islamic symbols of power including rosettes, bows and arrows, and a triangular three-dot pattern (∴) called çintamani.110 This dot motif is a particularly common Islamic symbol of power, although its appearance on the robes of rulers

106 Blair and Bloom make a similar point about Islamic art standing between ancient and medieval, and eastern and western art. Treating the amorphous category of Islamic art as a placeholder and bridge between historical and cultural benchmarks is obviously loaded with wrong-headed assumptions and an intentional blindness to contradictory evidence. Blair and Bloom, “Mirage of Islamic Art,” 155. 107 Silvia Pedone and Valentina Cantone, “The Pseudo-Kufic Ornament and the Problem of Cross-Cultural Relationships between Byzantium and ,” Opuscula Historiae Artium 62 (2013): 120–36, at 122; Alicia Walker, “Meaningful Mingling: Classicizing Imagery and Islamicizing Script in a Byzantine Bowl,” AB 90 (2008): 32–53. 108 Scott Redford, “Byzantium and the Islamic World, 1261–1557,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261– 1557), ed. Helen Evans (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 389–96. Redford focuses on the cultural exchanges performed by elite Byzantine Christians and Seljuk Muslims in and the Balkans. 109 Ibid., 390. An earlier palace built by Theophilos in 837 in Bryas, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople, imitated Arab palaces following the descriptions by John VII Grammatikos who traveled to Baghdad. Another source for the Islamic artistic and linguistic inspiration in Constantinople during the was the variety of Muslim diplomats, ambassadors, merchants, and prisoners. Pedone and Cantone, “Pseudo-Kufic Ornament,” 127. 110 Redford, “Byzantium and the Islamic World,” 391.

91 in wall paintings of two churches in the Balkans does not necessarily imply that Serbian audiences understood this motif’s power symbolism.111 The çintamani design continued to be used in Byzantine art and Islamic art. It was recognized internationally, as Ruy González de

Clavijo testifies in his description from 1404 of Timur’s armor.112 Likewise, it is visible in the ceremonial robes of Mehmet II the Conqueror (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481), where the three dots form a pattern with wavy parallel lines (fig. 1-6).113 The incorporation of these two decorative motifs from Islamic art in Byzantine monuments shows how these appropriations enlarged the vocabulary of Byzantine ornament.114

Ornament on metalwork appears throughout middle and late Byzantine art and is therefore appropriately drawn into Pentcheva’s recent study of Byzantine icons. In The

Sensual Icon she includes many references to ornament and decorated surface, but she does

111 In the narthex of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchal Church at Peć there is an early fourteenth-century depiction of the royal family in which all wear robes with the three-dot pattern. King Markov of Serbia is also shown in a fresco dated 1376–77 wearing a robe with this pattern in Markov Monastery near . See ibid., 393–94, figs. 12.6 and 12.7. Jaroslav Folda shows how this motif first appears in western art around 800 in the Book of Kells where it indicates important figures and how this motif continues to be used in western manuscript illuminations and fresco painting through the twelfth century. Not only does this motif indicate significant and high-ranking figures but also the garments decorated with this motif are special in some way. He argues that the uses of this motif in thirteenth-century painting in the west and in the Crusader states expands to include less programmatic and more ornamental decoration in the background and margins of manuscripts. It was probably initially transmitted to the west by means of eastern textiles, but not through the trade of Byzantine because they do not exhibit this motif. Folda, “The Use of Çintamani as Ornament: A Case Study in the Afterlife of Forms,” in Byzantine Images and their Afterlives: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr, ed. Lynn Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 183–204. 112 Ruy González de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406, trans. Guy le Strange (1928; repr., Oxon: RoutledgeCurzon, 2006). 113 Scott Redford, “Byzantium and the Islamic World,” 395. See also Folda, “Use of Çintamani,” 183–204. Although Mehmet II’s conquest of Constantinople was a turning point in history, the Byzantine were made vassals to the Ottomans much earlier, in 1383. The 1380s were the beginning of major cultural and political transformation throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, and Levant as the Ottomans expanded into the Balkans and the Mongolian Empire collapsed following the defeat of the Golden Horde (the Tatar and Mongol army) by various Russian principalities in 1380 at the battle of Kulikovo. 114 Eve Baer’s books on Islamic metalwork and Islamic ornament develop taxonomic studies of individual motifs. Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983) and Islamic Ornament (New York: New York University Press, 1998).

92 not expand on the symbolic or allegorical interpretation of ornamental patterns that are commonly used to decode ornament on buildings, icons, and domestic objects; rather, she subsumes variations in motif and technique under the generalized phrase “textured surfaces.”115 She argues that in the ninth century there was a shift in the way icons were made: they were produced in bas-relief, instead of paint or encaustic, thus elevating the plastic arts to the top of the aesthetic hierarchy. Textured and tactile surfaces bore the imprint of the visible characteristics of Christ and other holy figures, and these surfaces were enlivened through the effects of changes in light, air, and the viewer’s body. In other words, she focuses on the experience of precious metal relief icons, not on their specific visual or sculptural details. One could characterize her study as a phenomenological analysis of the sensual perception of precious metal icons, and by extension their revetments, although there is no direct reference to the discipline of phenomenology in her text or bibliography.116 Her work moves from the metallic glitter of middle Byzantine relief icons to the illusionistic depiction of movement and perspective in late Byzantine painting and Renaissance aesthetic theory; she bypasses the more schematized experiments in painting and metalwork on late

Byzantine icons.117

115 Bissera Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 1, 7, 144, 193, and 209. 116 Important theorists in phenomenology who would reinforce Pentcheva’s work include Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Pentcheva’s work reflects on the structures of consciousness and the sensual phenomena that materialize in acts of consciousness. 117 Charles Barber, review of The Painter Angelos and Icon-Painting in Venetian Crete, by Maria Vassilaki, The Hand of Angelos: An Icon Painter in Venetian Crete, by Maria Vassilaki, Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God, by Clemena Antonova, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium, by Bissera Pentcheva, AB 93, no. 3 (2011): 370–73. Pentcheva’s explorations of the sensual, aesthetic, and phenomenological aspects of Byzantine icons represent only the beginning of these research questions. In his book review, Barber articulates specific avenues for further integration of these

93

Finally, there are studies of Byzantine art that approach ornament as a feature of decorative arts as opposed to fine arts. Under the banner of decorative arts, Brigitte

Buettner’s historiography of sumptuous western medieval art examines its major names, research questions, and innovations.118 To this group we may add most museum publications, such as the catalogue of the exhibition of medieval reliquaries.119 Alicia Walker’s recent account of Byzantine decorative arts challenges this methodological bifurcation of “fine” and

“decorative” by examining important objects in the history and discourse of Byzantine “fine” art and their ability to communicate meaning and value.120 One benefit of maintaining a category of decorative art is that it invites the possibility of comparing motifs on a more global scale; some motifs on late Byzantine icon revetments seem to be connected to western medieval and Islamic metalwork, as discussed above, as well as earlier metalwork from the

Byzantine Empire and the classical world. Their functions and meaning may have shifted, but their forms remain the same.

This survey of the study of Byzantine ornament highlights the limits and problems of established methods. Too often, the decorative aspects of objects or monuments are divorced from their context or relegated to the physical description of an object in a museum catalogue without sufficient analysis of the choice, placement, composition, and visual effects of the

themes with the vast literature on icon theory, Byzantine aesthetics, and the phenomenology of visual perception. 118 Buettner, “Sumptuous Arts,” 466–87. 119 Martina Bagnoli, Holger Klein, C. Griffith Mann, and James Robinson, eds Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2010). 120 Walker, “‘Art That Does Not Think’.”

94 ornament. It is possible, however, to uncover dynamic meanings of nonfigural ornament on

Byzantine icon revetments by engaging with the approaches of Gell, Gombrich, and Oleg

Grabar. Gell’s concept of agency in art charges the activity of a reflective metal surface with power and purpose. Gombrich’s observations of the visual effects of patterns focus our examination on the specific patterns and their placement.121 Finally, Grabar’s theory that ornament mediates between a work of art and its audiences unveils the degree and kind of connection it makes between objects and viewers. This survey of approaches to architectural ornament and nonfigural patterns in art shows that defining and describing motifs is incomplete without interpreting the meaning embedded in the design or generated by the viewer’s encounter with ornament.

Although the ornament used on revetted icons produced in the thirteenth through mid- fifteenth centuries was both planned from the outset and added onto the icon at later dates, these additions to icons must be interpreted in tandem with the initial painted image. By using multiple approaches, their social and devotional significance may be more fully understood. The changes in form and materials of these icons and the changes in the social practices associated with them reveal a fundamental shift in the defining characteristics of the concept of “icon.” Visual and material evidence show that revetments are part of the icon, yet this seems to contradict the definitions of icons found in theological texts.122 The discourse of icon theory tends to be removed from the visual and material evidence, but it does underscore

121 Gombrich, “Towards an Analysis of Effects,” Sense of Order, 117–48. 122 The strict definitions of icons that developed out of the Iconoclastic controversy were further expanded in the eleventh century. See Henry Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and their Images in Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); and Charles Barber, Contesting the Logic of Painting: Art and Understanding in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (Leiden: Brill, 2007).

95 the fundamental question: what does an icon represent or resemble? The debates that this question inspires reveal the ontological and metaphysical fluidity of this class of objects.123

Charles Barber shows that the definition of the icon used by Leo the Chalcedon and the court theologian Euthymios Zigabenos in the early twelfth century repeats the formulation developed in the ninth century by Nikephoros of Constantinople and Theodore of Stoudios.124 Leo defends icons and their veneration at a synod at Blachernae Palace in

1194/95, saying that the image or likeness conveyed by the icon, not the material of the icon itself, is divine and worthy of veneration, not adoration.125 Because the icon’s image participates in but is not of the same nature as its prototype, the likeness of the image of Christ may be inscribed in matter, but his divine nature is uncircumscribable.

Zigabenos repeats this formulation in his essay on iconoclasm and image theory, which was part of his larger account of dogmatic theology, the Panoplia Dogmatica written ca. 1111.126

These twelfth-century distinctions of an icon’s image from its materials situates the first textual accounts of icons decorated with silver frames within the wider debates about icon veneration and orthodox theology.127

One way to conceptualize these layers incorporated in the icon is to see them as a

“meta-icon,” a variation of the metapicture that Mitchell discussed.128 He describes three

123 Chatterjee also comments on the complex and elusive relationship between icon and prototype in her introduction, Living Icon, 1–29, esp. 9. 124 Charles Barber, “The Return to the Past,” in Contesting the Logic of Painting: Art and Understanding in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 131–57, esp. 147–48 and 150–51. 125 Barber, “The Return to the Past,” 147–48. 126 Barber, 149–51. Euthemios Zigabenos, Panoplia Dogmatica, XXII, PG 130:1164–73. 127 See page 6. 128 Mitchell, Picture Theory, 42.

96 kinds of metapictures that all apply to revetted icons. First, when the revetment plaques are added, the icon doubles itself—it becomes a new representation of itself—as the adornment merges with and appears as part of the whole icon. The integration of revetment and icon is especially evident in the way all revetted icons have at minimum plaques adorning the nimbus of the holy figure. This indicates an ontological shift in the icon’s prototype as it now manifests an image of a venerated icon. In this way, revetments are similar to reliquaries that define the as a sacred fragment and reveal the relic as a holy spectacle.129

Second, icon frames and covers may be seen as containers that relocate and recontextualize the icon within a larger picture (see the discussion of the Ohrid Hodegetria in chapter 2). On some icons, the revetment creates a microcosm of church decoration by exhibiting a similar axial flow of iconography connecting the top and bottom, inside and outside surfaces.130 In other words, the inner icon is reframed and nested within a portable microcosm of a church interior. (This idea is argued in detail in chapter 3 on the Mother of

God in Prayer in Freising.) Third, the revetment reframes its icon in a new discourse about veneration and adornment. The discourse includes the inscriptions on the revetment itself, as

129 See pages 26–27 above. 130 See page 76–78 below. The directionality integrated in the interpretations of the sequential flow of iconography in church decoration depends on one’s (unspoken) ecclesiology or theological doctrine relating to the function of the church within Christianity. Otto Demus’s view that the decorative programs of churches moved from top to bottom and inside to outside demonstrates a view that emphasizes God’s condescension or revelation through the incarnation. It also reinforces the church’s instrumental role in mediating the divine presence into creation. Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decoration: Aspects of Monumental Art in Byzantium (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1948). By contrast, Thomas Mathews argues for a reversal of the sequence in his article, “The Sequel to II in Byzantine Church Decoration,” in Art and Architecture in Byzantium and : Liturgical and Exegetical Approaches (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995), 263–98. In this view, the church and its decoration transform the churchgoer, transporting her mind and soul from earth to heaven. In this scheme, the church is both a repository and mediator of artistic and spiritual power.

97 well as other texts that reflect on the nature of icons, their agency, and their veneration (see chapter 4 on the Fermo Virgin).

Revetted icons, or “meta-icons,” manifest the ornamental turn in the late Byzantine period. This turn represents a change in viewers’ attitudes toward their own iconographic and decorative heritage. Thus, the ornamental turn is not just a change in the formal or visual characteristics of icons, nor was it a set of new technical and artistic skills used to realize these characteristics. Rather, the ornamental turn was a change in the conceptualization of how ornament works with the figural decoration on icon revetments to guide viewers in their response to their icons. Ornament played an active role in the devotional lives of icon viewers.

Excursus: Interlace Roundels

Interlace roundels (M-8) are one of the most dominant nonfigural components of icon revetments. In the corpus of surviving icon revetments and frames, they are a prominent feature of twenty icon frames and covers, and Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos has more revetments with this decoration (nine) than any other monastery or city. The motif is used on the revetments and frames of icons of all sizes and subjects, including the Mother of God,

Christ, and individual saints. Icons of the Mother of God are by far the most popular subject with this motif decorating both the frame and nimbi elements. The icon of the Mother of God

Hagiosoritissa, Freising (cat. 2) is the only work with interlace roundels on the nimbus alone

(five of them) and none on the frame revetments. Seven icons have interlace medallions

98 incorporated into the decoration of both the nimbi and frame revetments.131 There are twelve icons with interlace roundels incorporated into their frame decoration alone and not as part of the nimbi.132 It is characteristic of the decoration on icons from the late thirteenth to mid- fourteenth century, and the openwork technique stands apart as an especially distinctive aspect of the later fourteenth-century revetments.

In this section, I present an analysis of this motif, the visual effects it produces, and the meanings it conveys as the culmination of my analysis of ornament’s methodologies (fig.

1-7, M-8). Unlike the case studies below that address individual icons and their revetments as unified objects, this discussion synthesizes the appearances of one motif on several different icons from different times and locations. Grabar referred to these as “boutons,” noting their rounded shape protruding from the surface of the revetment and their perforated and

131 Mother of God Hodegetria with Annunciation Figures, Melnik, cat. 28a (6 on upper frame plus 1 that is now missing, 5 on Mother of God’s nimbus, and 4 on Christ’s nimbus); Mother of God and Child, Sofia, cat. 30 (7 on the sides of the frame, 7 on the Mother of God’s nimbus alternating with 6 clusters of 6 small interlace roundels, 7 on Christ’s nimbus); Christ Psychosostis, Ohrid, cat. 44a (8 on frame plus 1 that is now missing, 4 on nimbus); Mother of God Psychosostria, Ohrid, cat. 45a (9 on frame, 7 on Mother of God’s nimbus); Mother of God Hodegetria, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 4 (10 each grouped with four small roundels on 3 sides of the frame, 5 on the Mother of God’s nimbus); Mother of God and Child, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 54 (1 on frame, 5 on Mother of God’s nimbus, 3 on Christ nimbus); and Mother of God and Child, Moscow, cat. 68 (8 large roundels on frame gruoped with pairs of small roundels on either side, 4 on Mother of God’s nimbus). 132 St. Theodore Spearing the Dragon, St. Petersburg, cat. 22 (4 on the 2 surviving sides of the frame); Mother of God Nicopeia, Venice, cat. 34 (10 on 3 surviving sides of the frame); Mother of God Hodegetria Eleovrytissa, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 53 (4 on the frame); Mother of God Vimatarissa, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 55 (10 on left and right sides of frame); Christ Pantokrator, cat. 56 (10 groups of 4 small interlace roundels, 12 small interlace roundels on the revetment covering the background); , Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 61 (2 on right side of frame); Annunciation, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 62 (14 on sides of the frame); St. George, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 64 (3 on top of frame); St. Anne with Mary, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos, cat. 66 (8 on frame, each enclosed wihtin a square compartment with more interalce); Mother of God Hodegetria, Moscow, cat. 5 (7 on frame plus 3 that are now missing); Mother of God and Child, Moscow, cat. 69 (10 on entire frame); and St. Nicholas, Kiev, cat. 71 (8 on frame).

99 embossed interlace. 133 Alice Bank calls them “openwork bosses” and notes their prevalence in silver chasing and other materials, including stone and woodcarving.134 The visual effects of this motif resonate with other designs on revetments and with the decoration of other objects, including reliquaries, and such architectural sculpture as the architraves and pilasters on templon screens.

Raised interlace roundels have two bands crossing in the center and looping back and forth to form an interwoven mesh. Additional bands may be interwoven around the central cross, adding complexity to the design. The metal is sculpted into a spherical relief forming a rounded protrusion that contrasts with most other textured surfaces on revetments, which remain flat. Several techniques were used to produce these rounded forms: embossing and chasing, casting and openwork, filigree, and enameling. In most settings, a thin band or a narrow strip of guilloche circumscribes the round protrusion.

Grabar attributed a select group of high-quality icon revetments with this motif to workshops in Constantinople. He postulated that these works represented the finest metalwork in Byzantium and thus were made in Constantinople, the wellspring of artistic achievement.135 However, even if the production of these roundels was linked to highly skilled silversmiths or workshops in the capital, their distinct form and widespread use on icons outside of the capital suggest that they were part of a wider ornamental vocabulary.

133 Grabar, Les revêtements, 32–33, 49. 134 Alice Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of Soviet Museums (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1985), 24, figs. 256–58. She uses this phrase in her description of the Mother of God Hodegetria in Moscow, cat. 5. 135 Ibid., 32–3. He did not attribute all icons with this motif to Constantinople; two of the icons he excluded from his Constantinopolitan group include the Mother of God Hodegetria in Melnik (his cat. 5, p. 25) and the Mother of God Hodegetria in Sofia (his cat. 7, pp. 28–29).

100

To put revetment roundels in context, it is helpful to consider how they decorate other late Byzantine objects. On book covers, bosses helped protect the leather binding of books that were shelved horizontally. 136 For example, the surface of a silver-gilt and leather cover (fig. 1-8) is punctuated by small bosses at the corners and outer edges of the four gammata plaques and the central cross with medallions. This design has 40 small bosses— many more than any icon revetment. Their placement at the corners of the decorative silver plaques ensures they are distributed across the entire surface of the book cover to create a thin buffer at the surface of the book. In another example, roundels are incorporated into the frame of the staurotheke in Esztergom, ca. 1150–1200 (fig. 1-9). Eight interlace roundels are inscribed in squares and surrounded on both sides with rectilinear compartments of continuous interlace (M-20). Unlike the bosses on the book cover, these roundels are much more similar in size and number to the interlace roundels on icon revetments. They are incorporated in the pattern of decorative motifs in the frame, not at the corners of the central cross or even in the corners of the frame. In other words, these roundels are not primarily designed as spacers that create a protective buffer around the relic at the center of the panel.

They simply add visual interest and complexity to the frame, complementing the rectilinear compartments filled with interlace and contrasting with the cross-shaped recess at the center of the work.

In monumental decoration, similar roundels are used on the elaborate frames of proskynetaria icons mounted on either side of the templon screen in middle and late

136 Because medallions of saints and feasts are arranged hierarchically on book covers and manuscript frontispieces, Anna Ballian points out that they frequently resemble revetted icons, following the iconography of the sanctuary and neighboring areas of the church. Ballian, “Liturgical Vessels,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 117–24, 121.

101

Byzantine churches. For example, in the church of the Virgin at Hosios Loukas, two twelfth- century proskynetaria icon frames have two roundels formed from carved stone in a six- lobed interlace pattern (fig. 1-10).137 On the fourteenth-century carved wooden doors from

Rila Monastery near Sofia (fig. 1-11), five roundels with variations of interlace are spaced along the central vertical axis of both door panels.138 Knot-work decorates almost every other surface of the door, including the square compartments that circumscribe the roundels and the vertical rectangular compartments, which are also inhabited by a variety of beasts, including lions and griffins.

Interlace is pervasive throughout Byzantine art, and in the early and middle Byzantine eras it was most commonly understood to be an apotropaic pattern that ensnared demons or other malevolent spirits. If Solomon’s knots were used to guard entranceways to sacred places, then related forms of interlace on icon frames could be used in the same way to inhabit the liminal zone between the sacred image and its surroundings.139 In addition, its use on nimbi suggests that these plaques encircling the heads of divine beings were also considered liminal zones in need of spiritual or magical defense. Although there is no explicit

137 Kalopissi-Verti, “The Proskynetaria of the Templon and Narthex: Form, Imagery, Spatial Connections, and Reception,” in Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West, ed. Sharon Gerstel (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2006), 107–33, 111, fig. 5. 138 Elka Bakalova, Trésors d’art médiéval Bulgare, VIIe-XVIe siècle (Geneva: Musée d’art et d’histoire and Editions Benteli, 1988), 121–22, no. 121. 139 Kitzinger links interlace patterns to the so-called Solomon’s knot and its uses on early Christian floor mosaics. He argues that a Solomon’s knot at the threshold to the stairway leading into the grotto at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was used as a protective device. Ernst Kitzinger, “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine: Observations on Floor Mosaics at Antioch and Bethlehem,” in Kyriakon, Festschrift Johannes Quasten II, ed. Patrick Granfield and Josef Jungmann (Münster: Aschendorff, 1970), 639–47, esp. 642–43 and figs. 2 and 4. Maguire applies the same interpretation of the Solomon’s Knot to other mosaic floor motifs and expands on the magical and apotropaic qualities of various repeating geometric patterns. Henry Maguire, “Magic and Geometry in Early Christian Floor Mosaics and Textiles,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 44 (1994): 265–74.

102 textual evidence in which an icon’s patron, owner, or user connected the icon’s decoration to these magical properties, a few texts do show that other beliefs in the supernatural and medicinal properties of stones and metals did endure into the final centuries of Byzantium. In the eleventh century, Michael Psellos (1018–1081) wrote about the healing properties of different stones in his text On the Property of Stones, and Nicephorus Blemmydes (1192–ca.

1270) wrote an alchemical text On Making Gold.140 Without a specific link that attributes these mystical properties to interlace on icons, however, only visual analysis can be used to connect this protective function with icon frames. Even in the doctrinally ordered context of the Orthodox Church, beliefs and practices related to magic continued in the late Byzantine period.141

Interlace roundels are distinguished from other interlocking motifs by their uniform design and placement within framing elements. They help establish patterns in the decoration by alternating with other motifs. For example, protruding bosses on an icon frame reinforce an icon’s rectilinear form. They make strong visual accents that contrast with the shallow

140 Michael Psellos, Philosophica Minora, ed. John Duffy and Dominic O’Meara (Leipzig: Teubner, 1992), 1:3.125–55; see also Katerina Ierodiakonou, “The Greek Concept of Sympatheia and Its Byzantine Appropriation in Michael Psellos,” in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, ed. Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavoudi (Geneva: La Pomme d’or, 2006), 97–117, esp. 108–9. Berthelot, Marcellin, and Charles Ruelle, eds., Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (Paris: G. Steinheil, 1888–89), 1:452–59, 2:423–29; a new translation and commentary of the text by Nicephorus Blemmydes, “On Making Gold,” will be published in the edited volume, Medieval Texts on Byzantine Art and Aesthetics: From to the Rise of (1081–ca. 1330), ed. Charles Barber and Foteini Spingou (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 141 Richard Greenfield, “Contribution to the Study of Palaeologan Magic,” in Maguire, Byzantine Magic, 117– 54, esp. 129; Hermes Trismegistus, Die Kyraniden, ed. Dimitris Kaimakis (Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1976). The Kyranides, the earliest version of which is a Latin copy from Constantinople made in 1169 (the earliest Greek copy is from 1272), is one example of the many sources that testify to the continued belief in and practice of magical powers in Byzantium.

103 relief decoration on the surrounding surfaces.142 These effects are clearly visible on the

Vatopedi Hodegetria (fig. 1-12) where the enameled bosses on the Mother of God’s nimbus attract and reflect more light than the rest of the revetment. In the church where such an icon was displayed, the limited daylight and flickering light of lamps and candles would exaggerate the effects of reflection and shadow. These reflective protrusions would also help a viewer determine an icon’s position relative to its surroundings, especially when the icon was seen from a distance or at an angle.

On the Vatopedi Hodegetria, the Mother of God’s nimbus has five projecting interlace roundels that accentuate her and focus the viewer’s gaze on her face. The bosses are distributed evenly around her nimbus, and a hypothetical line drawn between the terminating roundels passes through her eyes (upper white line in fig. 1-12). By helping to focus the viewer’s eyes on the Mother of God’s face, the interlace roundels help prolong contemplation of the icon. This line at an oblique angle complements another hypothetical line drawn from the lower left corner through the Mother of God’s gesturing left hand to

Christ’s scroll (lower white line in fig. 1-12). Her gesture to Christ is one of the two important actions in the composition. Her hand also points towards Christ’s gesturing right hand positioned on the central vertical axis directly below the Mother of God’s face. The tilted semicircle of her nimbus also creates a pattern in which Christ’s small head is positioned near where a sixth roundel could have been placed. His head is only slightly larger than the roundels, which helps integrate his face into the design. Christ’s nimbus is richly decorated, but not with deep relief or protruding bosses; its visual and sculptural complexity

142 This visual effect is discussed by Gombrich, Sense of Order, 110–11.

104 is surpassed by the Mother of God’s nimbus.

The primary visual effect of interlace roundels is the sense of symmetry and balance.

For example, on the Moscow Hodegetria (fig. 1-13), interlace roundels are positioned at regular intervals around the entire frame; there are two on the top and bottom and three on the sides. The evenness of this distribution is contrasted with the asymmetrical arrangement of the central figures: the light ochre color of Christ’s garment and its golden chrysography attract the eye away from the dark red and shadows of the Mother of God’s clothing and face.

Likewise, the figural elements in the frame are arranged hierarchically. These begin with the hetoimasia at the top center of the frame, then the apostles Peter and Paul in the upper corners, the four evangelists, and the physician saints (Kosmas, Damianos, and Panteleemon) at the bottom. The figures of Constantine and Maria Akropolites are also placed at the bottom of the revetment. The figural elements of the icon and frame are ordered according to their iconographic significance, but the interlace roundels are evenly arranged on the perimeter.

The even distribution of these interlace roundels emphasizes repetition as a characteristic of the icon’s decoration. Duplication does not dilute the power of the device and its ability to ensnare malevolent spirits; rather, the repetition functions to increase its power.143 Just as the multiplication of holy figures depicted in the icon’s frame serves to heighten the spiritual potency of the image of the Hodegetria, so too the multiplication of interlace bosses increases their power to defend the image from evil.144

143 Kitzinger, “Interlace and Icons,” 12. He uses the example of an evangelist portrait from an eighth-century Insular manuscript, the St. Gall Gospels, in which interlace and interlocking animal ornament surrounding the evangelist intensifies the potency of the icon of the saint. 144 This is the same argument offered by Maguire in his analysis of early Christian floor mosaics, “Magic and Geometry,” 25–90. Repetition of circular motifs was a well-established feature of early Christian art. See

105

In summary, interlace roundels are a distinctive element in the ornamental vocabulary of Byzantine icon covers and frames, used to invoke a protective power at the spiritually porous boundaries of the icon. By examining this cross section of the corpus of icon revetments, I show that this specific motif is consistently designed and placed on the nimbi and frame—the liminal zones of the icon. Their form draws on older decorative elements that were specifically used as apotropaic devices, including interlace and bosses used on book covers. The impression of interlace's magical power that defends its bearer from evil spirits is implied in the way interlace is employed in these liminal areas. Moreover, interlace roundels help reinforce the visual regularity and symmetry of an icon's revetment, especially when viewed—as it must have been originally—in a visually complex space with limited light. In particular, the deep sculptural quality of the motif increases the overall perception of the icon as a three-dimensional object and not simply a flat, painted image. Studies of such additional motifs as circles enclosing flowers (M-10), interlace plait (M-22), the hetoimasia (M-38), and compositions (M-42) would show similar variations in the motifs’ design and consistency in their placement and visual effects. By studying how the ornamental vocabulary of revetments enshrines its icons, we see that revetments recontextualize their icons in a microcosm of Byzantine religious objects and monuments. Revetted icons are nested inside a matrix of motifs that were representative of Orthodox religious objects and their concomitant beliefs and practices.

Trilling, Medallion Style, especially his conclusion, 69–74. He claims that medallion style—a textile pattern of repeated motifs within roundels—disappeared from Byzantine decorative art after the eleventh century.

106

Conclusion

In this chapter, I argued that our failure to analyze nonfigural ornament as an integral part of an icon is an oversight rooted in the historiography of Byzantine art. Ornament performs several significant functions as part of an icon’s decoration. Whereas iconography interprets the potential meanings embedded in images, the approaches developed to study ornament focus on patterns, visual effects, and symbolism. I identify ornamentation as a conceptual paradigm—a pattern of engaging with and experimenting—evident in revetted icons and other works of art in Byzantium. While methods of studying icons that emphasize iconography and icon theory highlight their figural representations, symbolic identifications, and devotional functions, a contemporaneous approach examines nonfigural imagery and conceptualizes it in terms of their relation to environment and audience. Rather than evaluating how an icon adheres to defined icon types, I argue that this paradigm shift is evident in and expressed through the language of ornament.

Adding decorative motifs to icons expanded their ability to mediate personal concerns and theological concepts. Ornament and the ornamental turn shaped late Byzantine visual culture, informing the commissioning, production, and viewing of Byzantine icons in churches, monasteries, domestic spaces, and funerary monuments. Ornament emerges as a central concept for Byzantine visual arts. The practice of enhancing the visual experience of an icon by covering its surface with decorative patterns indicates that artists, designers, and patrons were just as interested in the relation between an icon and its environment and audience as with an icon’s iconographic content.

The artistic techniques used to form ornament on Byzantine revetments are the same as those used to fabricate other objects of gilt-silver and enamel. Sequences of nonfigural and

107 figural motifs used on icons were also used to decorate book covers, reliquaries, and architectural sculpture. Raised interlace roundels on twenty late Byzantine icons, in particular, are symptomatic of the ways ornament visually controlled an icon’s cladding while also echoing the nonfigural patterns used on nearby architectural sculpture. The relief that these roundels introduce to the icons’ surfaces helps structure the ways viewers see and experience them. While interlace medallions echo the ornamental motifs used on nearby templon screens and liturgical implements, the deep relief of these roundels helps them stand out from their surroundings. They add dramatic light effects as the surface reflects bright points and casts shadows against the surrounding revetment. Thus, what emerges is more than a distinct ornamental vocabulary for icons; ornament is evidence for a distinct set of practices that inform how and why these motifs were used to ornament specific icons.

Chapter 2: Ornament and the Icon of the Mother of God

Hodegetria, Ohrid

According to Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, an ambassador from the Castilian court who recorded his eyewitness descriptions of his travels in the early fifteenth century, the famous bilateral icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria and Crucifixion in Constantinople was set in a finely carved frame and covered with a revetment inlaid with jewels. It had a glittering surface of “a silver plate in which are enchased numerous emeralds, sapphires, turquoises and great pearls with other precious stones.”1 Another eyewitness, Pero Tafur, who visited

Constantinople in 1437, describes the icon as “painted on stone, and with the frame and stand it weighs, they say, several hundredweight.”2 This large, heavy icon was destroyed when it was cut into four pieces in 1453 during the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, but its image was known throughout Byzantium thanks to the many copies that were made.3 Its title means, “she who points the way.” This refers to the depiction of the Mother of God’s hand

1 Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane 1403–1406, trans. Guy le Strange (London: Routledge. 2004; first published by Harper in 1928), 46. Clavijo also emphasizes the weight of the carved frame on the icon saying that it requires three or four men to carry it, and that it was a miracle when an old man could lift the picture by himself. Ordinarily the icon is kept in an iron chest, but on Tuesdays, it is carried out and set up in the middle of a court where many people come and pray at the icon. He says that the picture is a square measuring six palms high and wide. 2 Pero Tafur, Travels and Adventures, 1435–1439, trans. Malcolm Letts (London: Routledge, 2014; first published by RoutledgeCurzon in 1926), 141. Tafur also underscores the icon’s weight of the icon saying that it required six men to lift it. For discussions of both accounts, see Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “Servants of the Holy Icon,” in Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, ed. Christopher Moss and Katherine Kiefer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 547–65. 3 Bissera Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 114.

108 109 gesturing to her child and, in a more abstract sense, to her role in Christian theology as both prophet and fulfilled prophecy. Through her agency, the prophecies of a Messiah came to be and she bore witness to that reality. The title is also rooted in the name of the Hodegon

Monastery where the icon was housed, displayed, and carried in processions.4 Scholarship on the dissemination of this famous icon typically emphasizes its iconographic characteristics: the Mother of God cradling the Christ Child in her left arm and pointing to him with her right hand.5

This chapter concentrates on a copy of the Constantinople Hodegetria that is now in

Ohrid (present-day Republic of Macedonia). Copies of the Constantinopolitan icon distribute some of the social agency of that icon to new contexts.6 I argue that the decorative form and social context for the bilateral icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria and Crucifixion in

Ohrid (figs. 2-1, 2-2; cat. 1a and 1b) reflect the complex cultural moment when Serbia claimed its own status in what Dimitri Obolensky called the .7

4 In Icons and Power, Pentcheva analyzes the ritual traditions associated with this icon during the middle Byzantine period. Clavijo, Embassy, 46–47, briefly describes the feast-days and processions with this icon to the courtyard at the Hodegon and to the church of Hagia Sophia. 5 Doula Mouriki, “Variants of the Hodegetria on Two Thirteenth-Century Sinai Icons,” CahArch 39 (1991): 153–83. 6 Alfred Gell’s theory of the distributed person helps analyze the relationships between icons and copies of icons in Byzantium. Gell, “The Distributed Person,” Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 96–154. For Byzantine icon theorists, the most provocative element of Gell’s theory is that he labels it idolatry, a practice that theorists and theologians have long argued against. His fundamental assertion that works of art are in themselves social practices helps widen the list of agents to include recipients or viewers, the artwork itself, and its prototype. 7 Nikodim Kondakov, Ikonografija Bogomateri (St. Petersburg: Tip Imperatorskoĭ akademii nauk, 1914–15), 102, 209–11; Mirjana Corović-Ljubinković, The Icons of Ohrid (Belgrade: Jugoslavija, 1953), pl. 4; Vojislav Ðuric, Icônes de Yougoslavie, trans. Mila Djordjevic (Belgrade: International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 1961), 84–85, pl. III; André Grabar, Les revêtements en or et en argent des icones byzantines du moyen âge (Venice: Institut hellénique d'études byzantines et post-byzantines, 1975), 39–40, fig. 37, cat. 14; Milco Georgievski, Icon Gallery–Ohrid (Skopje: Institute for the Protection of the Monuments of Culture and National Museum-Ohrid, 1999), 31–3, nos. 8 and 9; Musée de Cluny, Trésors médiévaux de la République de

110

Icons of the Mother of God Hodegetria are paradigmatic examples of the widespread diffusion of icon copies throughout and beyond Byzantium. In late Byzantine art, copies of the Hodegetria and other icon types were produced in the eastern Mediterranean region and were known by new epithets.8 Although there are several other surviving icons of the Mother of God Hodegetria with revetments, the icon in Ohrid is the only such bilateral icon with the revetment decoration on Hodegetria and the Crucifixion on the reverse.9 I argue that the

Ohrid icon creates a visual and ritual link that connected the Serbian rulers in Ohrid with the

Byzantine capital.10 These aspects of the icon suggest that icon reproduction was more than a process of imitation or simulation. They reveal a cumulative dimension in which successive additions to the icon in Constantinople were represented in a new context in Ohrid.

I approach this icon first by examining the motifs and emblems that form the decoration on the revetment. A close examination of these patterns suggests that Serbian

Macédoine (Paris: Musée National du Moyen Âge, 1999), 62–63, no. 19; Dimitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453 (New York: Praeger, 1971). Obolensky’s model of the relationship between Slavic states and the Byzantine authorities of the church and state still form a basic framework for cultural and political analysis of the Balkans and Eastern Europe. 8 Manolis Chatzidakis and Gordana Babić, “The Icons of the Balkan Peninsula and the Greek Islands (I),” in The Icon, ed. Kurt Weitzmann (New York: Dorset Press, 1987), 139. They give some examples: the Bogorodica Studenička, the Chilandar Mother of God, the Bogorodica Ljeviška at Pizren, and Mother of God of . For further bibliography on this question of iconography and epithets in copies of icons, see Ivan Drpić “The Patron’s ‘I’: Art, Selfhood, and the Later Byzantine Dedicatory Epigram,” Speculum 89, no. 4 (2014): 895–935. 9 See Appendix 3 for more information on these bilateral icons of the Mother of God Hodegetria with revetments: catalogue numbers 9, 25, 40, 42, and 48. Of the surviving revetted icons, the closest parallel is the bilateral icon of the Passion and Hodegetria from Melnik, cat. 25. That work does not include a Crucifixion scene, but it does have many scenes from the Passion Week. Elka Bakalova suggests that the icon was paired with a second one that showed the Crucifixion. Bakalova, “A Two-Sided Icon from Melnik,” in Λαµπηδών: Ἀφιέρωµα στή µνήµη τής Ντούλας Μουρίκη, ed. Maria Aspra Vardavakē (Athens: Panepistēmiakes Ekdoseis, 2003), 113. 10 Ihor Ševčenko draws a clear picture of the imitation and emulation of Byzantium by Serbians and . Ševčenko, “Byzantium and the ,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 8 (1984): 289–303.

111 rulers commissioned the same patterns on several additional icons. I compare the decorative program on this icon with other revetments, especially those in Ohrid, in order to identify specific motifs that may reveal further evidence about this icon’s production and functions.

Second, I expand on the place the city of Ohrid occupied in the fourteenth century and connect the architectural history of its churches with this bilateral icon and other revetted icons. These works were produced during the ascendancy of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan (king

1331–45, emperor 1345–55) and Nicholas, his appointed archbishop in Ohrid (consecrated

1346); the decorative program of this particular icon gave form to their beliefs and aspirations that were intertwined with this emergent Serbian government.11 In the third part of this chapter, I examine Dušan as the pivotal leader in the creation of the second Serbian

Empire. Fourth, I look for evidence regarding the role Nicholas played as archbishop of

Ohrid. I argue that when Archbishop Nicholas brought the icon to the cathedral of St. Sophia around 1345 or 1346, he was instrumental in the design and production of this revetment. I also evaluate his role as Dušan’s appointed leader in this important city and analyze other evidence of his involvement in the manufacture and decoration of icons. Finally, I turn to the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria in Constantinople and its place in the social and

11 The identification and dating of this and the other in Ohrid is part of a thorny debate concerning the foundation of the archbishopric in Ohrid in 1018. On the one hand, Mitko Panov argues that Samuel (976– 1018) founded a separate Macedonian state and that the archbishopric in Ohrid was not a Bulgarian church. Panov, “The Creation of the Medieval State in Macedonia,” in The History of the Macedonian People, ed. Todor Chepreganov (Skopje: Institute of National History, 2008), 95–107, esp. 102–107. On the other hand, Eleonora Naxidou stridently argues that the archbishopric was in fact incorporated as part of the Bulgarian when its head shifted from Dristr to Ohrid after the establishment of Samuel’s state. Naxidou, “An Aspect of the Medieval History of the Archbishopric of Ohrid,” Byzantinoslavica 64 (2006): 153–67, esp. 159, n. 34. These modern ethnic distinctions are ahistorical, yet continue to influence the history of the city and surrounding region. Andrew Rossos addresses the so-called Macedonian Question about the existence of a medieval eponymous political entity in Rossos, Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2008), 19–22.

112 liturgical spectacles of the capital city. A of caretakers processed the icon through the city, marking feast days and observing memorials. Likewise, several different audiences viewed the Ohrid Hodegetria. The form, decoration, and audiences of the Ohrid

Hodegetria emulated those of the Constantinopolitan icon.

Motifs and Emblems on the Revetment

The revetment on the Ohrid Hodegetria deserves particular attention for its silverwork techniques and decorative vocabulary. Almost every other late Byzantine icon revetment is composed of irregularly shaped repoussé plaques, casting, or filigree, whereas this icon is covered with numerous mass-produced small silver strips that are decorated in repoussé with several different patterns. On the ground or open space around the central holy figures, one pattern of strips shows rectangular compartments filled with interlocking shapes (fig. 2-3, M-

29). A simplified variation of this motif with four, not six, circles is also used on the frame

(fig. 2-4, M-29). The pattern on these strips shows the rectangular compartments of interlocking circles alternating with Feast Scenes (fig. 2-5, M-37). Thin bands of overlapping split hearts and fleurs-de-lis separate the strips with interlocking circles from neighboring patterns (fig. 2-6, M-18). A pattern of rectangular compartments with symmetrical palmettes

(M-28) alternating with the hetoimasia (M-38) and miniature saints’ busts (M-41) is also used on the ground (fig. 2-7). The inscribed names on the saints’ busts are very small, but it is possible to make out the names of two military saints, George and Demetrios. On the frame, a smaller version of the symmetrical palmettes (M-28) alternates with miniature saints’ busts (fig. 2-8, M-41). Gilt-silver plaques also decorate the nimbi of the Mother of

God and Child; their ornament motifs are discussed further below. Because most of the

113 revetment is composed of these strips, the emblem of the Mother of God enthroned holding her child (fig. 2-9) at the bottom center of the frame stands apart. She is labeled “Υ

Ἐπισκέψις,” Episkepsis, meaning the shelter or protection.

To appreciate better the connections between this icon and the other revetted icons in

Ohrid, it is necessary to analyze the relationships between the icon paintings themselves and their place within the wider artistic milieu of the Balkans. The majority of publications on the

Ohrid Hodegetria focus exclusively on its painting, as is the case for most revetted icons.

Both sides were painted in the early fourteenth century (as I discuss below), decades before the revetment plaques were produced and attached. Scholars assume the painting was produced in Thessaloniki, where many artistic workshops were strengthened or revived after the end of the Latin kingdoms in Thessaloniki and Constantinople, but based on stylistic and technical grounds a few suggest that it may have been painted in Ohrid itself, where

Byzantine painters were producing frescoes and portable icons around 1300.12 Attributing

12 In Ohrid at the beginning of the fourteenth century, artists painted frescoes in the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos and in the cathedral of St. Sophia. Scholars have examined these frescoes, but the wall paintings in many of the small churches in Ohrid remain unpublished. Slobodan Ćurčić notes that Macedonia was a very active site for architectural production after 1280 with an influx of builders from Thessaloniki and Epiros influencing works in Ohrid. Ćurčić, “The Role of Late Byzantine Thessaloniki in in the Balkans,” DOP 57 (2003): 65–84, esp. 84. When the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos was founded in 1294/95 by the military officer Progonos Sgouros, it was painted with the cycle of Christ’s Ministry in the northwest and southwest corner bays. Thalia Gouma-Peterson compares its iconography to the slightly later fresco cycle in the parekklesion of St. Euthymios in the of St. Demetrios in Thessaloniki from 1303. Gouma-Peterson, “Christ as Ministrant and the Priest as Ministrant of Christ in a Palaeologan Program of 1303,” DOP 32 (1978): 197, 199–216. The painters Michael Astrapas and Eutychios each signed full-length figures in their work in the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos, as discussed by Miodrag Marković, “The Painter Eutychios—Father of Michael Astrapas and Protomaster of the Frescoes in the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos in Ohrid,” Zbornik Matice srpske za likovne umetnosti 38 (2010): 9–34. At the cathedral of St. Sophia, the Archbishop Gregory added the external narthex in 1313/14. Not only did this addition include complex brickwork with an inscription, but also the interior galleries were painted with an extensive cycle of imagery. See Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 898–99. Drpić also discusses the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos and an icon veil from that church on pages 902–906.

114 these paintings to Ohrid explains their distinct character and brings Ohrid into focus as a center of artistic production.

The bilateral icon painting belongs to the so-called second or mature Palaiologan style that reached its full development in the 1320s. The style is characterized by a heightened sense of drama with strong emotions conveyed by the gestures and movements of the figures.13 Works in the second Palaiologan style also have a stronger sense of space created by the addition of background architecture. On the Crucifixion side of the Ohrid icon

(fig. 2-2), each figure is isolated and withdrawn into his or her own pain, which heightens the emotional violence of the event.14 The rocks at the base of the cross are drawn in reverse perspective with shadows and highlights that position them in space. The dark horizontal band across the bottom further contributes to the spatial context. In the Crucifixion, the modeling of the figures with dark brown shadows and white highlighting on the draperies resembles the approach used by the Byzantine painters who produced the portable icons of the liturgical feasts in the church of the Mother of God Peribleptos in Ohrid. For example, in the Baptism of Christ from that series (fig. 2-10), the central figure of Christ has a similarly stylized body with thin arms and a few curving lines indicating his abdominal musculature.15

13 The frescoes of the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos (now St. Kliment) in Ohrid and the mosaics and frescoes in the Chora Monastery in Constantinople exemplified this style. Thalia Gouma-Peterson includes three additional fresco cycles in this stylistic grouping from around 1300: the Parekklesion at the Church of the Virgin Pammakaristos in Constantinople, the Protaton at Mount Athos, and the Parekklesion of St. Euthymios in the Basilica of St. Demetrios in Thessaloniki. Thalia Gouma-Peterson, “The Frescoes of the Parekklesion of St. Euthymios in Thessaloniki: Patrons, Workshop, and Style,” in Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in the Late Byzantine Empire, ed. Slobodan Ćurčić and Doula Mouriki (Princeton: Department of Art and Archaeology / Program in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University, 1991), 111–29. 14 Pentcheva briefly analyzes the emotional and theological connections between the two depictions of Christ on the icon. Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 117. 15 Georgievski, Icon Gallery, 38, inv. no. 6. The Baptism of Christ is one of several icons that survive from the Twelve Feasts. Other surviving icons from this series include Descent into , Incredulity of Thomas,

115

The white highlighting on the angels’ outer cloaks follows the edges of the folds and creases, just as on the Crucifixion icon Christ’s loincloth and St. John’s garments are defined and modeled with bright whites.

Comparisons with two additional Crucifixion icons from the Balkans further situate this icon among other paintings from around the beginning of the fourteenth century. In a

Crucifixion icon from Croatia by a Byzantine painter, the physical and emotional pain of the event is heightened by red blood flowing from Christ’s wounds on his hands and feet (fig. 2-

11).16 The masses of each figure are flat and defined by a dark outline. In both the Ohrid and

Croatia icons, St. John holds his head in his hand and angels gesture to Christ on the cross.

The modeling of facial features and draperies on the Ohrid icon is much more similar to those elements on a second bilateral icon in Ohrid (fig. 2-12).17 Both show a similar treatment of dark shadows on the faces and bodies of the figures, and bright highlights accentuating the many folds in the draped fabric.

The Hodegetria side of the icon (fig. 2-1) uses warm colors in the shadows and bright flashes of orange peeking out from under the Mother of God’s mantle. The modeling on the

Preparation of the Cross, Dormition of the Mother of God. Chatzidakis and Babić, “Balkan Peninsula and the Greek Islands,” in Weitzmann, The Icon, 136, 137. Chatzidakis and Babić suggest that these icons may have been gifts to that church from the Byzantine general Progon Zgur. The artists from Thessaloniki were Michael Astrapas and Eutychios and they may have painted them around the same time they painted frescoes in that church in Ohrid. 16 Chatzidakis and Babić, “Balkan Peninsula and the Greek Islands,” in Weitzmann, The Icon, 140, 162. Chatzidakis and Babić emphasize the western elements of this icon, including the crown of thorns, Christ’s rough face and thick beard, and no cross in his nimbus. 17 Georgieveski, Icon Gallery, 56–57, no. 20. The reverse of this icon shows Christ Psychosostis. This icon and its mate, the Mother of God Psychosostria with the Annunciation, were probably painted and given their silver revetments in Thessaloniki. This third Crucifixion also incorporates architectural ornament on the dull grey wall behind the figures, which suggests a specific place and time for the event.

116

Mother of God’s face shows smooth contours around the shadow of her chin and the deep eye socket. The drawing places the Mother of God’s right hand near the center, directly next to the Christ Child’s knee, while her left hand is in the lower right corner of the icon holding the child. This icon is very closely related to another bilateral icon of the Mother of God

Hodegetria with the Annunciation on the reverse, now in Belgrade, Serbia (fig. 2-13).18

Neither icon has been the subject of in-depth analysis. The Belgrade Hodegetria also has a gilt-silver revetment that I think was made in either Thessaloniki or Ohrid. It is slightly larger than the Ohrid Hodegetria, although the bottom edge was trimmed and now measures 99.5 x

73 x 5 cm, which is very close to the Ohrid icon (95.5 x 65 x 2.6 cm). It shows similar modeling in the face but with warmer colors in the shadows. The drawings or general outlines for both icons, especially the Mother of God’s right hands, are almost the same. On the Ohrid panel, Christ’s enlarged forehead is similar to another icon of the Mother of God and Child from the early fourteenth century, made in Asia Minor but displayed in Athens

(fig. 2-14).19 The face of the Christ child on the Ohrid Hodegetria distinguishes it from the rest of the icon. The child’s face differs from the Mother of God’s; stronger olive greens in the shadows, pinks on the cheeks and forehead, and the pop of a dark pink shadow on the

18 This icon is now in the Serbian National Museum, Belgrade, Serbia, no. 2316. On the reverse, there is a depiction of the Annunciation in which the Mother of God is shown seated and in a simple space defined by the city wall. The icon is not well understood or studied. Chatzidakis and Babić, “Balkan Peninsula and the Greek Islands,” in Weitzmann, The Icon, 182. Sofija Kajtez and Aleksandra Nitić, “Two-sided Icon with the Virgin Hodegetria and Annunciation,” Byzantium 330–1453, ed. Robin Cormack and Maria Vassilaki (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2009), 267, 439, no. 236. These authors draw attention to the iconography of the Hodegetria and Annunciation emphasizing the role of the Mother of God in the Incarnation. They also refer to the revetment as further evidence of the incarnational theme of the icon because it directs prayer to Christ thorough the Mother of God and the archangels and apostles who are shown on the frame with interlacing tendrils. 19 Chatzidakis and Babić, “Balkan Peninsula and the Greek Islands,” in Weitzmann, The Icon, 135, pictured on 178.

117 base of the nose give more depth to his face and suggest that it was repainted later in the fourteenth century or even in the fifteenth. Aside from this part of the Ohrid icon, the close similarities between these two icons in Ohrid and Belgrade suggest that they were painted by the same artist or at least around the same time. The characteristics of the second Palaiologan style are less helpful in an analysis of these icons; rather, the drawing of the figures and the coloristic modeling connect them. Their gilt-silver revetments are very different, however, which distinguishes them from each other. Nevertheless, an analysis of silver work in Ohrid helps situate them in the wider visual context of icons in the city.

Two motifs on the Belgrade Hodegetria revetment appear on other icons from Ohrid.

First, the motif of rectangular compartments with interlocking shapes (fig. 2-15, M-29) used on the upper arm of the frame of the Belgrade Hodegetria is also used on the ground and frame of the Ohrid Hodegetria. 20 The icon frame at the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on

Mount Athos (fig. 2-16, cat. 57) also has this motif interspersed with feast scenes, which suggests that there was a connection between the makers of these icon covers. This motif was also used on other Serbian works from the early fourteenth century. For example, compartments with three, four, and six interlocking circles are carved on the lid and sides on the shrine of King Stefan Uroš III Dečanski (fig. 2-17). In 1343, twelve years after he died,

Dečanski was pronounced a saint, and in his monastery at Dečani (Kosovo) his body was moved from the southwest corner and placed inside this ornamented box, which was

20 Aleksandra Nitić, “Two-Sided Icon with the Virgin Hodegetria and Annunciation,” Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. Helen Evans (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 254–55, no. 152. This icon was probably painted and giving its revetment around the same time as the icons in Ohrid.

118 positioned next to the templon screen.21 This reliquary casket was a focal point for the veneration of the king-saint. The repeated use of this motif on this important shrine and on these two icons suggests a deliberate choice of this unique decorative motif in early fourteenth-century .

A second motif on the ground of the Ohrid Hodegetria repeats a pattern well known in Byzantine art: a pair of palmettes forming a symmetrical flourish in a rectangular compartment (fig. 2-7, M-28). Two curving bands swell apart in the middle and converge at both ends, where they curve back toward the center of the compartment and terminate in palmettes. In the middle, where the two bands are farthest apart, another palmette flows out from the bands and fills the central zone. Unlike the hetoimasia used on the same strip, there is no sense of top or bottom. This scroll motif is not common on icon revetments, although there is an early example of this design on the enamel nimbus from a revetment dated to the late eleventh or early twelfth century (fig. 2-18, cat. 13).22 On that work, the scrolls are contained and repeated in medallions, and the form is elaborated with far more detail and contrasting colors than the linear motif embossed in the silver sheet. These symmetrical scrolls also appear on earlier Byzantine metalwork, including the dome of the church-shaped

21 Danica Popović, “Shrine of King Stefan Uroš III Dečanski,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 114–15. In addition, a portrait of the king-saint was painted in fresco on the wall above the shrine. 22 Helen Evans, “Revetments from an Icon of the Virgin Hagiosoritissa,” in The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A.D. 843–1261, ed. Helen Evans and William Wixom (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), 348–9, no. 236. In addition to the five fragments in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there are also fragments of this cloisonné enamel work in the Musée du Louvre and the Georgian State Art Museum, T‘bilisi.

119 artophorion now in Aachen (fig. 2-19).23 This gilt-silver and niello container originally held the reserved for use in a church in or near Antioch in the tenth century. The ornament motifs used on the central and apsidal repeat the same spiraling bands that swell apart in the middle where another flourish unfolds. Compared with the Ohrid revetment, the motif on the artophorion is larger in scale and has a more complex arrangement of spirals. It is also symmetrical on both axes, whereas on the revetment it is slightly asymmetrical on the vertical axis because the central flourish connects with the two main bands only on one side.

The similarities in the appearance of these two motifs—symmetrical palmettes (M-

28) and interlocking shapes (M-29)—in compartments on the icons in Ohrid suggests that they were produced by artists who were working with the same patterns at the same time.

There are two emblems on the Ohrid Hodegetria revetment that distinguish it from other icons of the Mother of God: the hetoimasia and the Mother of God enthroned with Christ.

Silver strips with the miniature hetoimasia emblem cover the ground of the icon (fig. 2-7).

The motif shows the seat and backrest of a throne draped with a cloth and surmounted by a cross with two bars, a symbolic representation that connects Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection with his and the final destiny of humankind when Christ is seated on the throne. The title “η ἑτοιμασία” is inscribed in minuscule letters at the top of the compartment. Two other icons have the same mass-produced silver strips with the hetoimasia as part of their decoration. They cover the ground around the figure of Christ on

23 A dedicatory inscription refers to a Byzantine military commander who was based in Antioch. Holger Klein, “Artophorion (Reliquary of St. Anastasios the Persian),” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. Martina Bagnoli et al. (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2010), 118, no. 55.

120 the monumental icon of the Pantokrator in Ohrid (fig. 2-20, cat. 48) that, along with the same-size monumental icon of the Mother of God Psychosostria (fig. 2-21, cat. 49), was made for the templon screen of St. Sophia (fig. 2-22).24 Clearly, a silversmith produced a sizable supply of strips to adorn these two icons.25 The hetoimasia strips were also used to frame a small steatite icon of the Twelve Feasts in Sofia (fig. 2-23, cat. 52).26. The use of these strips on three icons from Ohrid suggests that they were produced and readily available in that city.

The hetoimasia is an unusual image to repeat in miniature scale on an icon revetment.

Small saints’ busts and feast scenes are more common throughout the late Byzantine period.

On all other revetments, the hetoimasia is represented only once, at the top center of an icon frame where the empty throne mediates between the subject of the icon and the spatial- spiritual realm above. For example, on the frame of the icon of the Mother of God

Hagiosoritissa now in Freising (fig. 2-24, cat. 2), the enamel medallion of the hetoimasia is positioned directly above the Mother of God’s head between two plaques of the icon’s dedicatory prayer. It transports these words from their base material form into the spiritual realm of the eschatological world beyond time. The prepared throne is the same size as the medallions of saints’ busts on the frame (fig. 2-7), which creates a unified harmony that is

24 Georgievski, Icon Gallery, 64–5, no. 24; and Georgievski, “Icon with the Virgin Psychosostria,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 255–56, no. 153. This revetment of the icon of the Mother of God was produced using repoussé, a far more common technique for revetment sheathings; this work is discussed further below. 25 Georgievski, Icon Gallery, 62–3, no. 23; and Georgievski, “Icon with Christ Pantokrator,” Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 256, no. 154. 26 Ioli Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, Byzantine Icons in Steatite (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985), no. 159, pl. 153. Kalavrezou only addresses the steatite in her catalogue, not its silver frame.

121 clearly visible to viewers reading the prayer. On the Ohrid revetment strips, however, the motif is repeated fourteen times on the ground around the Mother of God. Its placement creates a visual field in which the Mother of God’s image is situated inside a frame that represents promise of a perfect and complete world at the end of time. The feasts shown on the frame create a unified and complete narrative of Christ’s soteriological mission. Together these emblems express the perfect completion of salvation through Christ, both as it is experienced in the cycle of feasts in the liturgical year and in the fullness of time at the

Second Coming.

These core concepts of orthodox theology embedded in the motifs are muted in certain ways when the revetment is viewed from a distance. Their miniature scale and repetition transforms them from theologically potent images into ornament and texture.27

Their small scale, repetition, and placement among nonfigural ornament dulls their theological charge; instead of making metaphysical claims about ultimate reality, these images form an intricate surface that draws in the viewer.28 Repetition transmutes these

27 John Mack develops a sustained discussion of the ways in which miniaturization transforms recognizable emblems into ornament in the chapter “Private Pleasures” of his book The Art of Small Things. Their smallness allows the maker to embed or esoteric knowledge in an object made for personal adornment or decoration. Mack, The Art of Small Things (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). Smallness or scale is not a central issue in the general theories of ornament. Ernst Gombrich debated the visual effects of repetition and meaning in with Ruskin’s ideas in The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art, 2nd edition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984; first published 1979 by Phaidon), 151–55. Oleg Grabar describes how, in Islamic art, motifs were ornamentalized in the way they were applied and repeated without iconographic significance. Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 178–202. 28 Gombrich writes about intricate surfaces that draw in viewers. See especially Gombrich, “Towards and Analysis of Effects,” Sense of Order, 117–48. Gell also writes about intricate patterns and virtuosic ornament as a tool that draws in and entraps viewers. Gell, “Critique of the Index,” Art and Agency, 73–95. Spyros Papapetros comments on the way ornament does not have an inherent sense of scale. It is this resistance to being bound by physical limits in the real world that gives architectural miniatures the freedom to experiment. Papapetros, review of From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernity by Alina Payne, Journal of Art Historiography 7 (2012): 1–12.

122 emblems into ornament and situates them in patterns that appear to extend infinitely beyond the bounds of this icon.29 The hetoimasia’s mediating function is constrained because for most viewers, who saw the icon from afar, it is too small to make out among other motifs on the textured strips. The ornamented surface itself mediates the wholeness of the promise of salvation in Christian theology; it draws viewers closer to the icon as they try to recognize and understand the arrangement of motifs, yet they remain too far to see the motifs. Viewers are pulled closer to the icon for a prolonged examination of the figural motifs that are hidden by their smallness: the feasts from Christ’s life (M-37), the hetoimasia (M-38) saints’ busts

(M-41).30 Thus, these motifs are perceived in two different ways for two separate audiences.

The privileged audience who has close access to the icon can examine the tiny motifs and draw theological connections among the Mother of God, the saints’ busts, the empty throne, and the feast scenes, while the wider general audience who only views the icon from a distance simply sees the shimmering surface of patterns and textures surrounding the faces and bodies of the Mother of God and Child, anticipating a future opportunity to view the detailed decoration.31

Unlike the repeated hetoimasia emblem on the ground of the revetment, the emblem of the Mother of God labeled Υ Ἐπισκέψις was incorporated only once, at the center of the

29 Gombrich deals with repetition within the more general concept of laws and orders that define and constrain how patterns are repeated and either frame or fill spaces. These sequences have different effects that both guide and arrest the eye as it moves across the surface of a decorated object. Gombrich, Sense of Order, 67–83. 30 It is this double action of intricate ornament that underscores Gell’s theory about the way in which virtuosic artistic objects entrap their viewers who become mesmerized by the object through their attempt to understand rationally how the art object is made or decorated. Gell, “Critique of the Index,” Art and Agency, 73–95. 31 This mode of viewing textures and glittering surfaces is the main backdrop Pentcheva’s analysis of icons activated by the candlelight, music, and the viewer’s own body. Bissera Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010).

123 bottom arm of the frame. Photographs of the icon from 1917, 1975, and 1983 (figs. 2-9, 2-25, and 2-26) show this small plaque of the Mother of God and Child integrated with the surrounding frame although the plaque with this depiction of the Mother of God and Child is now missing.32 The emblem showed the Mother of God enthroned holding her child with outstretched arms and seated on the bottom folds of her veil. Her lyre-backed throne was decorated with crosshatching that indicates a richly textured textile. Above the Mother of

God, the epithet episkepsis highlights her active role as protector.33 This frontal image of the

Mother of God enthroned holding her child is a unique occurrence in the decorative vocabulary of icon revetments; it does not appear on other revetments from Ohrid or the wider Byzantine sphere.

This frontal arrangement and its variants were well known, and they appear on icons, coins, seals, and wall paintings from the eleventh century onward.34 For example, in the well- known icon of the Mother of God Nikopeia in the north of the church of San Marco in Venice, the half-length Mother of God holds her child in front of her, and his hands are in front of his body in his lap (fig. 2-27, cat. 37).35 The emblem on the Ohrid Hodegetria differs in its depiction of Christ’s gesture with his hands outstretched beyond the frame of the

32 Kondakov, Ikonografija Bogomateri, 102, 209–11, fig. 30; Grabar, Les revêtements, fig. 37; Kosta Balabanov, Freske i icone u Makedoniji, IV–XV vek (Belgrade: Izdavački zavod Jugoslavija, 1983), 81, fig. 41. 33 There is a spelling mistake in the initial article. It should be an eta, not an upsilon. This could indicate that the silversmith was not fluent in Greek and made this orthographic error in his attempt to copy the Greek characters from another source. 34 Bissera Pentcheva, “Rhetorical Images of the Virgin: The Icon of the ‘Usual Miracle’ at the Blachernai,” Res 38 (2000), 35. Pentcheva emphasizes the theological basis for this iconographical innovation. 35 This work is closely related to a smaller icon of the Mother of God Nikopoios in the treasury of San Marco (cat. 31). The name Nikopoios comes from the seventeenth century, not from the Byzantine period. Deborah Walberg, “The Cult of the Nicopeia in Seventeenth-Century Venice,” in Reflections on Renaissance Venice: A Celebration of Patricia Fortini Brown, ed. Mary Frank and Blake de Maria (Milan: 5 Continents, 2013), 200–7.

124

Mother of God’s body. It also includes a distinctively ornamented throne. In wall painting in the apse of the church of St. Panteleimon, in Nerezi, the Mother of God is shown half-length in an orant pose and her child appears to hover before her in a light-colored mandorla (fig. 2-

28).36 This church is approximately 40 km north of Ohrid. It was built and painted in the twelfth century, but the apse was repainted in the sixteenth century. In this later variation, both figures are shown in half-length with outstretched arms. The Mother of God is not seated on an ornamented throne and the ample folds in her red maphorion draped across her arms and beneath the hovering mandorla emphasize its thick material. She is simply titled

“ΜΡ ΘΥ,” Mother of God.

This iconographic type is linked to the Blachernitissa icon of the Mother of God, housed at the Blachernai church in Constantinople, and its neighboring soros, or reliquary chapel. That name refers less to an icon type or configuration and more to the holy site where the Mother of God’s presence was particularly powerful.37 The icon was best known for its appearances in the “usual miracle” on Fridays at the basilica, during which a decorated veil was miraculously lifted to reveal the icon itself. Bissera Pentcheva argues that the veil

36 Ida Sinkević, The Church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi: Architecture, Programme, Patronage (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2000). 37 Annemarie Carr, “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constantinople,” DOP 56 (2002): 75–92, at 78. Icon types are not fixed by their names. In this article, Carr refers to the Blachernitissa and its range of types and arrangements. The Blachernai was famous for its relic of the Mother of God’s maphorion and for its weekly Friday all-night vigils and as the beginning point for processions across the city to the church of the Mother of God Chalkoprateia (near Hagia Sophia) where another soros housed additional relics of the Mother of God’s garments. In 1075 Michael Psellos described the “usual miracle” at Blachernai when a veiled icon of the Mother of God was miraculously and radiated light from dusk on Fridays to Saturday evenings. Anthony of Novgorod in 1200 is the final witness to this miracle before the soros at Blachernai was destroyed during the Latin occupation. The basilica remained until 1434 when it was destroyed by an arson attack. Pentcheva discusses the development of several iconographical types related to the “usual miracle” at Blachernai. These include the half-length Mother of God who holds the medallion with Christ and the full- length Mother of God orans with Christ in a medallion hovering on her chest. Pentcheva, “Rhetorical Images,” 35–53.

125 presented the Mother of God holding her child at her chest, and that the icon itself depicted the Mother of God orant with her child in his mandorla miraculously hovering.38 The name

“Blachernitissa,” however, is generally used for icons of the Mother of God that are not in the orant pose.39 Icons of the frontal Mother of God holding her child in front of her appear throughout Byzantine art. Earlier icons show both figures with their hands in front of their bodies, while later examples elaborate on this composition, depicting Christ with his hands outstretched—as he appears on the Ohrid revetment—or the Mother of God orant with the mandorla surrounding her child and hovering miraculously in front of her body. As further evidence of the confusion between epithets and icon types, the title episkepsis appears on a mosaic icon from around 1200 (fig. 2-29) in which the Mother of God is depicted at half- length holding her child in her right arm while their cheeks are pressed together. 40 Not only is this icon not frontally and symmetrically composed but also neither of the figures spread their arms in a gesture of protection or benediction. There is insufficient evidence about the figural composition of the Blachernitissa icon to warrant linking the Ohrid icon with that one.

The placement of the episkepsis emblem on the Ohrid Hodegetria emphasizes the icon’s active role in its ritual uses. It covered the protruding part on the bottom of the frame where there is a slot for a pole on which the icon was mounted and displayed, as is the design

38 Pentcheva, “Rhetorical Images,” 52–53. 39 Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Threads of Authority: The Virgin Mary’s Veil in the Middle Ages,” in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. S. Gordon (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 59–93, at 66 and notes 39–40. 40 Kalliopi-Phaedra Kalafati, “Mosaic Icon with the Virgin Episkepsis,” Heaven and Earth, ed. Anastasia Drandaki, Demetra Papanikola-Bakirtzi and Anastasia Tourta, vol. 1, Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, (Athens: Benaki Museum, 2013), 135, no. 55. This icon type is called Glykophilousa; it shows the Mother of God holding her child close to her cheek. Kalafati regards the title Episkepsis as a more general reference to the Mother of God’s ability to help in a crisis.

126 of many bilateral icons. The extra thickness in the wooden frame at this section helps support the panel despite the hole that weakens the structure of the board. This slot and pole design allowed the icon to be raised, displayed, and carried in processions. By placing the image over the protrusion, the emblem emphasizes the icon’s function, yoking the small depiction of the enthroned Mother of God and her role as protector to the much larger and more complex visual spectacle of the bilateral icon in procession. Its singular occurrence on the

Ohrid revetment draws attention to this intersection where the icon’s decoration and display meet. Because the small frontal depiction of the Mother of God enthroned holding her child is unique on icon revetments, it suggests a connection with imagery in other media, including the monumental decoration of the churches in Ohrid. There is one instance of this image among the many frescoes of Ohrid: in the apse of St. Sophia (figs. 2-22, 2-30). An analysis of the visual and conceptual relationships between the icon and the cathedral helps us draw new connections between the historical and political conditions in Ohrid in the fourteenth century and the role that the decorated icon may have held at that time.

The Ohrid Hodegetria in Context: Cathedral–City–Empire

In the first half of the fourteenth century, there were two large churches in the urban heart of Ohrid: the cathedral of St. Sophia (Sveta Sofija), and the church of the Mother of

God Peribleptos (fig. 2-31).41 These monuments represented a polarity in Ohrid, divided between the ever-evolving yet venerable cathedral and a new monument built at the end of

41 St. Kliment was a scholar and teacher who worked closely with Methodios in the late ninth and early tenth centuries. He may have been responsible for inventing the Cyrillic alphabet, which was instrumental in the establishment of Slavonic literature. See Obolensky’s biography for further detail. Dimitri Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 8–33.

127 the thirteenth century on the ruins of an old monastery. St. Sophia is the oldest Byzantine monument in the Balkans. It is located near the base of the hill on the main corridor that connects the lower gate and waterfront to the market-lined streets of the older sections of

Ohrid. Numerous small churches are also positioned in the vicinity of the cathedral. In the eleventh century, the cathedral was built atop the ruins of a Roman basilica that probably had been used as the marketplace.42 Most of its frescoes date to the eleventh century, when the cathedral was built and decorated by Byzantine artists after the Byzantines defeated the

Bulgarians in 1018. This phase of the cathedral is also closely associated with the Byzantine archbishop Leo (r. 1037–56), who reinforced ties between Ohrid and the wider Byzantine

Orthodox tradition and hierarchy.43 The independent status of the Ohrid diocese made this a key territory at the time of the eleventh-century . Its place on the boundary between the Roman- and Byzantine- churches is especially evident in its eleventh-century frescoes, which include depictions of both ecumenical patriarchs and Roman .44

St. Sophia’s eleventh-century apse fresco shows an uncommon depiction of the

Mother of God enthroned holding her child who is surrounded by a light-colored aureole (fig

42 Boris Čipan, St. Sophia: The Cathedral Church of the Ohrid Archbishopric: A Chronology of the Architecture, trans. Rajna Koška and Konstantine Koška (Skopje: Sigmapres, 1996), 16–8. The basilica is approximately 18º off the east-west axis, which helps confirm the hypothesis that the eleventh century basilica was built the foundation of an earlier monument that was not deliberately oriented to the east. 43 Chatzidakis and Babić, “Balkan Peninsula and the Greek Islands,” in Weitzmann, The Icon, 129–35. It is very likely that, as Chatzidakis and Babić suggest, the same artists produced both monumental and portable paintings in the thirteenth century. At St. Sophia on the pilasters flanking the templon screen, there are two different depictions of the Mother of God and Child and none of Christ alone. 44 Čipan, St. Sophia, 44, 87. Branislav Cvetković identifies the gestures of the figures of the of the Apostles fresco on the eastern wall of the apse directly beneath the enthroned Mother of God and Child as evidence of this church’s place in the eleventh-century negotiations with Rome. He interprets St. Peter’s gesture of repentance within the context of Archbishop Leo and St. Sophia’s relationship with Rome. Cvetković, “Intentional Asymmetry in Byzantine Imagery: Communion of Apostles in St. Sophia Ohrid and Later Instances,” Byzantion 76 (2006): 74–96.

128

2-30). Her lyre-backed throne is richly decorated with jewels. A windowpane pattern covers the white cloth back of her throne, and black spades on a white ground adorn the fabric behind her legs and the footrest. She is identified as “ΜΡ ΘΥ” by the initials on either side of her head. A comparison of this image to the emblem on the Hodegetria icon frame (figs. 2-

9, 2-25, and 2-26) shows similarities in the two depictions. In the fresco, the Christ child sits in the Mother of God’s lap, and on the gilt-silver plaque his pose is clearer because his bent knees angle out away from his body. In both images, at least one hand extends beyond the aureole that frames his body. In the fresco, his right hand touches the Mother of God’s where she holds the mandorla around his body and the scroll rests on his lap. On the revetment, the child spreads both arms and his fingertips extend past the aureole and the contour of the

Mother of God’s body. The parallels between the fresco and the small emblem suggest that the artist who made the emblem intended a specific reference to this depiction of the Mother of God and Child. This visual correspondence between the small emblem and the apse fresco suggests that the icon and church were closely linked. By connecting the small emblem with the cathedral apse painting, I argue that the icon revetment helps reinforce the independent status of St. Sophia at a time when Serbian authority was establishing its territory yet was still rooted in the Byzantine tradition.

There are nonetheless a few differences in these depictions. The revetment only shows a half-length figure of the seated Mother of God, whereas on the wall painting her whole figure is shown. On the revetment emblem, there is no medallion encircling Christ whereas on the fresco the medallion encircling Christ makes a direct reference to eleventh- century depictions of the Mother of God Blachernitissa. Icons of the frontal bust of the

Mother of God holding her child who was not encircled by a medallion were generally called

129

“Kyriotissa,” perhaps because of a link with another icon in a monastery of that name in

Constantinople.45

Scholars have associated this and most other icons in the Icon Gallery of Ohrid with the church of the Virgin Peribleptos because that is where these icons have been housed and displayed at least since the mid-twentieth century. Yet, this icon may originally have been in

St. Sofia until the fifteenth century, when the Ottomans conquered the city. When they converted the church into a in 1466, they dismantled the bishop’s throne, the choir, the over the altar, and the templon screen.46 These pieces were reused in the paving and furnishing for the converted mosque. At that time, it is very likely that the smaller and more portable objects from the cathedral were moved to the Peribleptos, which continued to be used as a church. This would explain how the Hodegetria-Crucifixion icon came into the collection of icons at the Peribleptos church.

Unlike the cathedral, the Peribleptos was a relatively new monument in Ohrid.

Progonos Sgouros and his wife, Eudokia, built the church in 1294/95 near the city’s highest close to the upper gate (fig. 2-31). Sgouros was the son-in-law of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 1282–1328), whom he served as the megas hetaireiarches, a semi-military official.47 In strict chronological terms, their church is more

45 ODB, s.v. “Virgin Nikopoios,” by Nancy Ševčenko. This confusion between icon types and their titles emphasizes the need for further studies that will clarify the relationship between the titles and the iconography. 46 Ferdinando Forlati, Cesare Brandi, and Yves Froidevaux, Saint Sophia of Ohrida: Preservation and Restoration of the Building and its Frescoes (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 1953), 7. In the fifteenth century, the primary modifications made in the conversion from church to mosque included the fabrication of the minbar and paving stones out of the existing church furnishings. 47 Andronikos II maintained a favorable attitude toward Ohrid Archbishopric until Serbian rule in Macedonia gained strength. Sgouros’s connections with the Byzantine capital in the east were eventually in conflict with the consolidating Serbian empire. Čipan. St. Sophia, 71.

130 contemporary with the fourteenth-century metalwork on the revetment, but the church and icon were products of two different families and cultural groups. Sgouros and his wife are also credited with donating to the Peribleptos an embroidered silk cloth that probably served as a veil over a highly venerated icon of Christ.48 The veil has an image of the Crucifixion

(fig. 2-32) and is inscribed with a straightforward statement about the reciprocal relationship between the Sgouroses and Christ—their precious gift in exchange for the pardoning of their sins. The Peribleptos is best known for its frescoes, especially those painted by two famous artists from Thessaloniki, Michael and Eutychios.49 The fresco in the apse of the full-length

Mother of God orans is surrounded by a series of medallions showing Christ’s predecessors

(fig. 2-33). Below is an image of the Communion of the Apostles in which Christ is depicted twice. The icon of the Baptism of Christ, mentioned above (fig. 2-10), is one of the group of twelve feast icon panels that these artists also painted for the church. Most of the icons with revetments in Ohrid are also associated with the Peribleptos, and many were likely commissions or gifts associated with the Sgouros family.50 Artists working in fourteenth- century Thessaloniki likely produced a group of revetted icons at the Peribleptos;

Thessaloniki emerged as one of the primary artistic centers in the Balkans and was an

48 Andreas Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst: nebst Addenda zu Band 1 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 369–71. Ivan Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 895–935, at 902–3. The veil is now in the National History Museum, Sofia. 49 Marković, “The Painter Eutychios—Father of Michael Astrapas,” 9–34. These artists were identified by their signatures in the paintings. They were also responsible for the frescoes in several other churches including the King’s Church in Studenica and in Gračanica monastery. 50 Katia Loverdou-Tsigarida, “Αργυρές επενδύσεις εικόνων από τη Θεσσαλονίκη του 14ου αιώνα.,” Δελτίον τὲς Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής ‘Εταιρείας 26 (2005): 263–72.

131 important source for icons and metalwork at this time.51 The icons were then brought to

Ohrid. This “Thessaloniki group” includes the two bilateral icons of Christ Psychosostis paired with the Crucifixion (figs. 2-34, 2-12; cat. 44a/44b), and the Mother of God

Psychosostria with the Annunciation (figs. 2-35, 2-36; cat. 45a/45b).52 These are the same size (93 x 68 x 4 cm), and their revetments include many similarities in design and ornamentation. The icons in this group are decorated using repoussé and niello techniques on large silver plaques shaped according to the contours of the figures. On the two icons of

Christ Psychosostis and the Mother of God Psychosostria, there are raised medallions with interlace on the frame, and the nimbi of the holy figures are both convex. On the frames, small rectangular plaques of saints are interspersed with the interlace medallions. The nonfigural motifs on the plaques covering the ground and frame are uniform in size and spacing; this gives the revetments a sense of controlled stability. The names and epithets of the holy figures are inscribed in large, flat letters on circular and rectangular shapes on either side of their heads. Patterns of spiraling curves fill the spaces around the inscribed names and set off the letters from the revetments’ decorative surfaces. The ornament on the revetments in this group exhibits regularity, with patterns repeating in straight rows with motifs of varying scales and sizes. Thin bands separate the frame from the inner beveled edge, from that edge to the ground, and the ground from the figures’ bodies. These icons also retain the

51 Ćurčić, “Religious Settings,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 65–77, esp. 70 and note 31. See also the papers published as a special issue from the Symposium on Late Byzantine Thessalonike held at Dumbarton Oaks, especially the article by Sharon Gerstel, “Civic and Monastic Influences on Church Decoration in Late Byzantine Thessalonike,” in “Symposium on Late Byzantine Thessalonike,” ed. Alice-Mary Talbot, special issue, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 57 (2004): 225–39. 52 Georgievski, “Mother of God Psychosostria” and “Jesus Christ Psychosostris,” Icon Gallery, 50–51 and 52– 53; and Loverdou-Tsigarida, “Αργυρές επενδύσεις εικόνων,” 263–72. The group also includes the bilateral icon of the Mother of God Peribleptos with the Presentation of the Mother of God on the reverse (cat. 43a/43b).

132 rounded plaques that form the holy figures’ nimbi. These are covered with medallions and interlocking circles. Although there is no evidence directly linking these icons to Progonos

Sgouros and Eudokia, the production of these icons and revetments in Thessaloniki reinforces the ties to the Peribleptos and its icons and, by extension, to Byzantine officialdom.53

The ornamental vocabulary employed on both the revetments of Christ Psychosostris and the Mother of God Psychosostria connects them to each other and differentiates them from the Ohrid Hodegetria and other revetted icons that I argue were produced in Ohrid in the early to mid-fourteenth century. This group includes the monumental Christ Pantokrator

(fig. 2-20, cat. 48), the monumental Mother of God Psychosostria (fig. 2-21, cat. 49), and the

Belgrade Hodegetria (fig. 2-13, cat. 50a/50b).54 The patterns on this “Ohrid group” repeat in angled rows radiating from the central figure. There is a concentration of miniature motifs in the “Ohrid group,” and no lines or bands define the edges of the surfaces on the Ohrid revetments. On the Ohrid Hodegetria, the Mother of God’s epithet “Η ὁδηγήτρια” is embossed into two separate plaques that are attached to the icon surface and overlap the strips covering the ground (fig. 2-37). In the “Ohrid Group,” only the nimbi of the

Hodegetrias in Ohrid and Belgrade are preserved, but these show a very different approach to ornament, with a single pattern repeating around the semicircle of the Mother of God’s nimbus and, on the Ohrid Hodegetria, an unskilled attempt to combine ornament motifs on

53 Loverdou-Tsigarida, “Αργυρές επενδύσεις εικόνων,” 263–72. 54 The Mother of God and Child (cat. 46) and St. Nicholas (cat. 47) were also likely produced in Ohrid, but later in the fourteenth century.

133

Christ’s cross-nimbus. The comparison reveals clear differences in the artistic character and style of these two groups of revetments.

The contrast between these groups further demonstrates the stylistic and cultural differences between the church of the Virgin Peribleptos and the cathedral St. Sophia. The church was a private foundation whose donors had close connections with the Byzantine imperial family. The cathedral, by contrast, was continually modified by archbishops and other patrons. The fabric and decoration of the building, including in the decades preceding the production of the bilateral icon, is my focus here. In 1313/14, Archbishop Gregory added a monumental two-story exonarthex to the west side (fig. 2-38) that was wider than the original eleventh-century church. Two towers surmounted by domes mark the ends of the addition. Its façade includes open arcades, blind niches, and a variety of decorative patterns formed in . A Greek inscription above the second-story arcade commemorates the archbishop’s work (fig. 2-39) and underscores the long arm of the Greek emperor reaching westward into the Balkans. Andronikos II Palaiologos had sent Gregory from Constantinople to Ohrid to oversee the local Slavic community.55 The inscription says:

Μωςῆς ὁ Γρηγόριο[ς Ἰσρα]ὴλ νέῳ σκηνὴν ἐγείρας, τὸν θεόγραφον νόµον ἔθνη τὰ

Μυσῶν ἐκδιδάσκει πανσόφως.

Having erected a tabernacle for the New , like Moses, Gregory teaches the

Mysian peoples the divinely written law in an all-wise fashion.56

55 See Drpić, “‘The Patron’s I’,” 898, note 9 for further bibliography on the publication history of this inscription. 56 Transcription and translation from Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 898.

134

The inscription compares Gregory to the prophet Moses as he teaches his people, New Israel or the Christians, about divine laws. The term Mysian is an archaism and metaphor for the

Slavic communities.57 The placement of this long poetic inscription high on the façade of the church invites literate viewers standing outside to read it. The text also reveals a larger change in the immediate urban environment around the cathedral. It is likely that in the early fourteenth century this space was an open courtyard that had a role in the liturgical and processional life of the church.58 The addition of this exonarthex redefined the connections between the cathedral and the surrounding courtyards enclosed by the archbishop’s palace. In the current setting, the west end of the church faces a narrow street and buildings (fig. 2-40), but Boris Čipan’s speculative reconstruction shows how the exonarthex could have provided private entrances between the palace and the gallery of the exonarthex (exonarthex outlined in red in fig. 2-41 and 2-42).

In the 1330s and , the cathedral continued to be a site where archiepiscopal authority in the Ohrid see was expressed in visual language.59 For example, in 1345, a year before his consecration as archbishop, Nicholas commissioned fresco paintings on the north

57 Fore more scholarship on the use of this term that consciously imitates older Slavic style of language and sets up this complimentary analogy between Gregory and Moses, see ibid, 10n. 58 Ćurčić also notes that a tall belfry once stood above the inner narthex and would have added to the grand impression of the cathedral on its city square. The belfry was destroyed when the Ottomans converted the cathedral into a mosque in the fifteenth century. Ćurčić, “Religious Settings,” 70. 59 In 1347–50 in the upper story of the narthex, the John Oliver commissioned a cycle of paintings from his life and the life of St. John the Baptist. The upper zone shows scenes from the saint’s life and the lower zone shows scenes from John Oliver’s life and family. Branislav Todić argues that Oliver was granted the title despot from John VI , not Stefan Dušan. Todić, “Natpis uz Jovana Olivera u naosu Lesnova: prilog hronologiji lesnovskih fresaka,” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog institute 38 (1999–2000): 373–84.

135 and east walls of the gallery level of the exonarthex.60 These frescoes include an image of the penitent David (fig. 2-43) and an empty throne, which resonates with both the throne imagery in the apse and on the revetted icon.61 Based on the narrative in 2 Kings 12 (and 2 Samuel

12), David kneels prostrate before the prophet as he confesses his sins—sending

Uriah to be killed in the front lines of battle after sleeping with his wife Bathsheba—and pleads for God’s forgiveness. Psalm 50 gives David’s prayer, referring to the story with

Bathsheba.62 Below are depictions of eight monks, shown as emaciated figures in perpetual prayer. Their presence indicates that this space served a penitential function.

In a program of frescoes from the 1350s in the open gallery of the exonarthex,

Archbishop Nicholas had several scenes depicted: the , an extensive cycle of forty scenes from the story of Joseph, and the act of separation of the soul and body.63 It is likely that Nicholas was involved in the conceptualization and design of these mosaics as well as in providing financial support for the painters. The Act of Separation of the Soul and

Body is a monastic cycle of prayers and that was sung shortly before death; its

60 These frescoes on the first floor of the cathedral include a range of subjects: the Dormition of the Mother of God and the Ecumenical Councils. Later, in 1355, additional frescoes were added to the exonarthex with scenes of the story of Joseph and the separation of the soul from the body based on a text by St. . Aneta Serafimova, Medieval Painting in Macedonia, 9th–18th Centuries (Skopje: Ministry of Information of the Republic of Macedonia, 2000), 76–9. 61 Svetozar Radojčić, “Freska Pokajanja Davidovog u Ohridskoj Svetoj Sofii,” Starinar 9–10 (1958–1959), 133–36; Cvetan Grozdanov, Ohridskoto dzidno slikarstvo od XIV vek (Ohrid: Naroden Muzej, 1980), 69, 75, fig. 48. The painter John Theorian signed these works on the Archangel Michael’s sword. Sophia Kalopissi- Verti, “Painters in Late Byzantine Society: The Evidence of Church Inscriptions,” CahArch 42 (1994): 139–51. 62 There are several miniatures depicting the David kneeling at an altar, praying to God, and confessing his sins to the prophet Nathan (fol. 65r, 85v, 143v, 158r 206r) in the Walter’s (W.534) from mid-fifteenth century Crete. Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “The Walter’s Horologion,” The Journal of the Walters Art Museum 62 (2004): 45–59. On page 54, Ševčenko notes that no other horologion contains images of the penitent David, although these scenes are found in marginal and in monumental programs, including the upper story narthex of St. Sophia in Ohrid (see her note 19). 63 For more on the frescoes from ca. 1355 in the upper story of the exonarthex, see Grozdanov, Ohridskoto dzidno slikarstvo, 87–91.

136 illustration is rare in Byzantine art, and its inclusion here reflects Nicholas’s erudition.64 Of the three surviving depictions of the service, only the fresco in Ohrid includes a scene of the hetoimasia with two demons attacking the soul while two angels intervene (outlined in red on fig. 2-44). These frescoes are positioned on the west and south walls of the gallery. Scholars are not certain about the function of this and other gallery spaces, but it is possible that it was used for particularly penitential moments or gatherings.

Stefan Uroš IV Dušan consecrated Nicholas as archbishop in 1346, after he conquered Ohrid, Prilep, and the Strymon region in a war in Macedonia against the

Byzantine emperor Andronikos III (r. 1328–41) and his successors. Dušan selected Nicholas to represent his interests in the Ohrid because Nicholas was a hesychast and was actively involved in the religious and political struggles in Byzantium. At that time, the Byzantines were fighting in the Civil War (1341–47) over the succession to the throne following

Andronikos III’s death. The conflict had religious overtones with the two sides holding opposing views on hesychasm in Orthodox doctrine. Initially, the hesychast John VI

Kantakouzenos served as guardian and regent of the nine-year-old son of Andronikos III,

John V Palaiologos. Then, the troika of , Patriarch of Constantinople John

XIV Kalekas, and megas doux Alexios lead a coup d’état while Kantakouzenos was travelling, and they soon controlled Thessaloniki and other cities in and

Macedonia. Kantakouzenos reversed their gains, recapturing those territories with the help of

64 Vasileios Marinis, “‘He Who Is at the Point of Death’: The Fate of the Soul in Byzantine Art and Liturgy,” Gesta 54, no.1 (2015): 59–84, esp. 63–64. Marinis discusses three depictions of this iconographic theme, including a horologion in Leimonos Monastery, Lesbos, and a wall painting in a tower at Hilandar Monastery, Mount Athos. The manuscript is probably from the late twelfth century, and the chapel tower is dated to the first half of the thirteenth century.

137

Stefan Dušan, but in 1345 Dušan defected and conquered Albania, , and Macedonia, forming his own domain. After securing the support of other allies, Kantakouzenos was crowned emperor of Byzantium in 1346 in Adrianople and in Constantinople in 1347. The

Byzantine church adopted Hesychasm in 1351 as official teaching, despite its controversial status. For Dušan, the Byzantine Civil War began as an opportunity to forge a relationship with emperor Kantakouzenos, but when he observed the extent of Byzantium’s instability in

1345, he seized the opening to conquer territories in the Balkans for himself.

Ohrid’s geographical and historical status in the fourteenth century developed from its long history as a cultural center. The city has Roman foundations, including and amphitheaters, and it was built next to an ancient lake of the same name.65 Small monasteries and cave churches dug into the rocky hills surround this lake.66 Ohrid was an urban and military center of the region because the Via Egnatia, which was originally constructed in the second century BC and linked the Adriatic to Constantinople, passes near it and through

Thessaloniki (fig. 2-45).67 The Via Egnatia terminates at Constantinople and Dyrrachium

(Durres, Albania) on the Adriatic Sea where, on the opposite shore, the Via Appia continued

65 It was inhabited as early as the fifth century BC. The fortress at the city’s highest elevation has ruins dated to the third to fourth century AD based on masonry comparisons. Its Roman name was Lychnidos and its Byzantine name was Achrida. Čipan, St. Sophia, 23. 66 Saška Bogevska, “Les églises rupestres de la région des lacs d'Ohrid et de Prespa: milieux du XIII, milieu du XVI siècle” (PhD diss., Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2010). 67 Several other great roads also supported long-distance trade and communication through central Europe. For example, the Danube road was built by the Romans and followed the right bank of the Danube River. In the early eleventh century, King Stephen I (r. 1000–1038) of Hungary reopened the road for pilgrims to travel towards the . Magdolna Szilágyi, On the Road: The History and Archaeology of Medieval Communication Networks in East-Central Europe (Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2014), 89, 108, and note 118. She also refers to the via Latinorum that connected northern Italy with Slovenia and the Balkans. See also Mario de Matteis, ed., Via Egnatia: von Durrës und nach Ohrid: fotografische Dokumentation (Oberhausen: Athena, 2001).

138 directly from to Rome. In the medieval period, this road was used for overland trade, pilgrimage, and military travel between western Europe and Constantinople.68 The Via

Egnatia went through phases of disrepair but both the Romans and the used the road to travel across the Balkans.69 This road was an important route across the Balkan

Peninsula because it gave Dušan and other military leaders access to Thessaloniki. In cultural terms, Ohrid maintained its independence because it was autocephalous, independent from the authority of both the patriarch in Constantinople and the in Rome.70 Only the

Byzantine emperor had authority over the archbishops of Ohrid, challenging Dušan’s authority over Macedonia.71 Although Serres was considered one of the most important

Macedonian cities (second only to Thessaloniki), and Skopje became Dušan’s capital where he was crowned emperor, Ohrid remained one of the most important cities that defined his expanding territory of the emerging Serbian realm.72

68 According to , Emperor Justinian made much-needed repairs to the road in the sixth century, especially in the western sections, and by the sixth and seventh centuries, the road was virtually impassable with potholes and other problems with its surface. A western chronicler states that a cousin to the emperor Isaak II Angelos (1185–95) ordered that all roads be repaired and widened for the knights and horse-drawn carts traveling on the Third Crusade. Elena Koytcheva, “Logistical Problems for the Movement of the Early through the Balkans: Transport and Road Systems,” in Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, ed. Elizabeth Jeffreys (London: Ashgate, 2006), 2:54. After the , the control of this road was just as important as the control of surrounding territories for the competing successor states of the Empire of Nicaea and . John Haldon, Warfare, State, and Society in the Byzantine World (London: UCL Press, 1999), 51–54. 69 Čipan, St. Sophia, 21, 46. 70 Čipan, St. Sophia, 67 and 87. King Samuel negotiated this independence from the patriarch and pope. Dušan supported the independence of the Ohrid archbishopric because this helped him gain the support of the clergy throughout his territory. He sought to help clergy and monasteries detach from Constantinople and recognize his authority. George Soulis, The Serbs and Byzantium during the Reign of Tsar Stephen (1331–1355) and his Successors (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Library Collection, 1984), 84. 71 Čipan, St. Sophia, 44 and 87. The inclusion of Roman popes in the frescoes of St. Sophia epitomizes the city’s position at the intersection between the Byzantium and Roman Churches as they battled for control over religious authority in the Balkans in the eleventh century. 72 Soulis, Serbs and Byzantium, 26–31.

139

Dušan Creates the Serbian Empire

Stefan Uroš IV Dušan rose to power through a fraught series of agreements and conflicts with his own father, King Stefan Uroš III Dečanski, and with the Byzantine emperors Andronikos II, Andronikos III, and John Kantakouzenos. Dušan was an important member of the Serbian royal family that traced its origins to his ancestor (r.

1165/68–96). It is worth reviewing this lineage in order to understand the Serbian relationship with Constantinople and the artistic milieu in the Balkans. In the late twelfth century when Nemanja retired as a monk at his monastery at Studenica, he took the name

Symeon and then traveled with his second son, Sava, to Mount Athos. He began building

Hilandar Monastery and eventually died there in 1199. Symeon was regarded as the first national saint of the Serbs after his death. St. Symeon’s relics were brought from Mount

Athos to Studenica where they were preserved in a casket next to the templon screen of his church, the katholikon dedicated to the Mother of God. Frescoes in the exonarthex from ca.

1233/34 show four scenes from his life, including the translation of his body to Studenica.

His legacy formed the foundation for the Serbian ruler ideology that continued through subsequent generations. In this worldview, the Serbian ruler belongs to a divine imperial family with sacred roots.

St. Symeon’s descendants were also venerated as sacred kings. For example, King

Stefan Uroš II Milutin (r. 1282–1321) is honored at Studenica Monastery in the independent chapel known as the King’s Church, dedicated to saints Joachim and Anna. The interior frescoes from 1314 show this king holding a model of his church, standing with his wife,

Simonis, who was the daughter of Andronikos II, and wearing full regalia as a member of a

140 royal family. Thus, Studenica developed as both a pilgrimage church and a national shrine.

Likewise, King Stefan Uroš III Dečanski (r. 1322–31) continued this imagery of a sacred royal family. After he died in 1331, he was buried with his second wife, Maria Palaiologina, who was the daughter of John Palaiologos, governor of Thessaloniki, in the royal mausoleum at the church of the Pantokrator at Dečani Monastery (Kosovo).73 Twelve years later, in 1343, his body was exhumed and found to be completely intact. It was then placed inside a new wooden reliquary box (fig. 2-17) and displayed at the templon screen under a portrait of him holding the model of his church.74

At Dečani, on the southern wall of the narthex next to the , there is a large fresco of the Nemanjid genealogical tree (fig. 2-46). Similar family-tree frescoes are painted in three other Serbian churches: Gračanica, Peć, and Matejić. These depictions further underscore the continuity of rule through this sacred family. The tree imagery reiterates the Serbian royal ideology from its divine origins in its founder St. Symeon at the bottom up through several generations to the living ruler Stefan Dušan IV at the top.75 Thus, the royal ideology incorporated both the belief in a sacred genealogy and the practice of relic cults honoring the bodies of deceased Nemanjid rulers. This ideology also informs Dušan’s interest in the throne as a symbol of earthly and divine power. As a member of the Nemanjid

73 She was the daughter of the panhypersebastos (one of the highest titles for nobility, based on sebastos) John Palaiologos and granddaughter of . 74 A story of his martyrdom soon developed after his death: Dečanski was blinded by his father and strangled by his son, Dušan, although the facts are unclear how Dečanski died after Dušan imprisoned him in 1331. Additional tombs of other high-ranking members of the court are placed in the northern aisle of the narthex. 75 Ćurčić, “Religious Settings,” 73–74. He emphasizes the stylistic choices in this mausoleum that combine western and Byzantine elements in ways that are particularly common in Serbian architecture in the fourteenth century.

141 dynasty, his authority to sit on the throne was amplified by the legacy of his ancestors who augmented his earthly power by becoming saints.

As a young man, Dušan spent seven years in Constantinople with his exiled father

Stefan Uroš III Dečanski. This gave him ample time to experience the rhythms and prominence of the Hodegetria icon in the life of the Byzantine capital. By the early fourteenth century, that icon had assumed the maphorion’s traditional role as a sign of the

Mother of God’s protection of the capital.76 When Dušan claimed the imperial title in 1346, he introduced new strategies to reinforce his claim to authority over the region while also strengthening his ties to the Byzantine world, on which he modeled his leadership. He aspired to supplant the Byzantine emperor by putting himself on the formerly Byzantine throne of Serbia. His leadership emphasized a type of Hellenization in which he adopted

Byzantine administrative and fiscal policies and even levied some taxes based on Byzantine financial models. Emulating the Constantinopolitan icon by revetting the Ohrid Hodegetria and Crucifixion further exemplifies Dušan’s Hellenizing ambitions.

The Ohrid revetment was, in my view, designed to evoke the bejeweled and glittering adornments on the famous icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria in Constantinople. Both icons are bilateral with the Mother of God and Child on one side and the Crucifixion on the other, and the Ohrid icon is the only surviving icon with this arrangement. I also think that the specific motifs used on the Ohrid revetment were intended to make explicit connections with imagery in the cathedral of St. Sophia (itself an imitation, at least in name, of

Constantinople’s Hagia Sophia). The key leaders in the social and political world of Ohrid

76 Carr, “Threads of Authority,” 68.

142 were the same people who either would have commissioned or received this icon revetment as a gift: Stefan Dušan IV and his Archbishop Nicholas. The image of the Mother of God

Episkepsis on the revetment works in concert with the cathedral’s apse fresco, underscoring the presence of divine authority. The repeated hetoimasia emblem situates the icon in the context of the Second Coming, echoing the fresco in the exonarthex.

Two fourteenth-century frescoes with empty in the narthex and exonarthex galleries at St. Sophia introduce the temporal dimension of this symbol of power. David, whose back is turned to the empty throne (fig. 2-43), kneels at the feet of the prophet Nathan and confesses to committing adultery with Bathsheba and then deliberately sending her husband, Uriah, into the front lines of battle, where he was killed (2 Kings 12/2 Samuel 12).

Two angels, like attendants at court, flank the throne in the fresco. It is square with a flat backrest and high, curved arms, and its shape is similar to the one depicted in the cycle of the separation of the soul from the body (fig. 2-44). This throne also has a square seat and flat backrest, although there are no arms. It supports an orthodox cross, with two horizontal bars near the top, similar to the one on the revetment’s hetoimasia (fig. 2-7). In both frescoes, the throne signifies authority and judgment. In the scene with David, we are reminded that his kingship depends on Nathan, who mediates God’s authority to appoint a king, whereas in the depiction of the soul separating from the body, the soul is beaten and dragged to Hades by demons in front of the throne prepared for Christ.77 Nathan’s blessing of the penitential, kneeling David may parallel the Serbian political context in which Archbishop Nicholas’s consecration resulted in the sanctioning or condoning of Dušan’s military actions. On the

77 Marinis, “‘He Who Is,’” 64.

143 right, the powerful archangel dressed in military garb holds his sword half unsheathed which conveys a threat of punishment unless David confesses and is forgiven.78 The appearance of these empty thrones in two very unusual fresco cycles in the Ohrid cathedral, along with the enthroned Mother of God in the apse, repeat different conceptualizations of enthronement that link divine authority with earthly power. These images were part of the wider visual culture of the designers of the Ohrid Hodegetria revetment who chose the emblems of the hetoimasia and Mother of God Episkepsis to elaborate on the icon’s visual and social function.

The ability to realize these conceptualizations of authority depended on the financial resources of the Serbian leaders who produced the Ohrid Hodegetria revetment. Before

Dušan’s coronation as emperor in 1346, Serbia built a strong economy by opening silver mines and restoring roads. This financial base and infrastructure investment helped support future military successes, contrasted with the impoverished coffers and depleted armies of the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople.79 The rich silver mines in Novo Brdo (fig. 2-45) north of Skopje created Dušan’s wealth.80 During his reign (king 1331–1346, emperor 1346–

78 Ševčenko does not interpret the same scene in the Walters’ Horologion (fol. 85v) with any connection to contemporary politics in fifteenth-century Crete; rather, she traces the varying gestures and arm movements of David and suggests that these scenes modeled the positions for prayer. Ševčenko, “Walters’ Horologion,” 50– 51, 56, fig. 12. 79 The Serbian prince Jovan Oliver (d. ca. 1355) also operated a silver mine at Kocani. His wealth and leadership was instrumental to Dušan’s rise to the Serbian throne. In addition, he married Maria Palaiologina, who was the daughter of John Palaiologos, granddaughter of Theodore Metochites, widow of Dečanski and Dušan’s stepmother. In 1341, he built the monastery of Lesnovo that he also had decorated with extraordinarily rich frescoes. 80 Novo Brdo is 40 km east of Priština (Kosovo). In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it was the largest mining and marketplace settlement during Serbian rule. The laws give privileges to the miners and provides for their security in their work. This manuscript shows twenty secular figures seated in rows wearing a variety of hats and clothing. Đjordje Trifunovié, “Novo Brdo Mining Law,” Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 54–56, no. 26.

144

1355), there was a broad monetary reform that depended on silver extracted from this site.

The yield of larger quantities and a higher quality of silver at this time was closely linked with the increase in production of silver dinars and the proclamation of a new imperial iconography in the coinage of Dušan from 1346 onward. On a silver dinar minted in 1346, this new Serbian coronation imagery is evident on both faces (fig. 2-47).81 On one, Christ sits on a high-backed throne blessing with his right hand and holding the Gospel book in his left.

On the other, there is a full-length image of Dušan; he is shown in the ceremonial attire and insignia of a Byzantine , crowned by two angels, and his title inscribed in Slavonic.82

He wears the decorated kamelaukion (crown) with pearl prependulia (pendants) on the sides, a divetesion (long silk tunic) and (long jeweled scarf), and he holds a scepter with a cross and pearls.83 Vesna Radić describes this issue as “coronation dinars” because of their role in the popularization of an ideology that linked the new Serbian empire with Byzantine imperial ideology.84 The coin shows both sides of authority: a ruler on earth robed in

Byzantine garments and Christ seated on his throne in heaven.

Although much of the silver mined at Novo Brdo was used to mint coins, several silver objects from Ohrid and nearby sites suggest that there may have been a silversmith or a

81 The dinar was the standard monetary unit of Serbia and was divided into 100 paras. Vesna Radić, “Dinar of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, no. 13B, 43. 82 Basileus was the main title used for Byzantine emperors. In the fourteenth century, the Serbian king used the title “basileus of the Rhomaioi and Serbs” in official documents. 83 Warren Woodfin, The Embodied Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 137. The divetesion and loros were only worn on a few occasions throughout the year, especially on the Sundays of and . See also Woodfin, 148, for further discussion of the symbolism of the imperial costume and 168 for a discussion about Dušan. 84 Radić, “Dinar of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan,” 43 and 44. A second type of coin was minted later during Dušan’s reign. This coin shows the triumphant emperor on horseback with Christ Pantokrator on the reverse. This imagery reflects the military expansion of the new empire into formerly Bulgarian and Byzantine territories and is also linked with the increased use of coins in these new territories.

145 small workshop producing these objects in the city. It is possible that a small portion of the silver from the mines was diverted away from trade and minting coins in

(Ragusa) and brought to Ohrid for artistic projects such as icon revetments and cups, although chemical analysis of the silver needs to be done to confirm whether these objects were made from the same raw materials.85 Artisans working in the same area may have produced a silver cup for Dušan (fig. 2-48).86 It has a shallow bowl with a medallion in the center that shows a double-headed eagle encircled by a Serbian inscription. The handle is damaged, but the shallow relief decoration of floral motifs in curling lines and dots is still visible, and incised on the handle are spiraling vines encircling three groups of lines that form a leaf. These are very similar to the irregularly shaped spirals, loops, and leaves on the nimbus revetment for the Christ child on the Ohrid Hodegetria (fig. 2-49). If a silversmith working in Ohrid produced icon revetments and other objects, it would help negate the common yet unsatisfactory assumption that almost every art object of aesthetic merit in

Ohrid was made in Thessaloniki.

In 1334, Dušan conquered Ohrid and used the city as his southern base. Ohrid was on the frontier of the Serbian Empire as the Nemanjid rulers expanded territorial control to the southern and eastern territory of the Balkans. It was an attractive hub because it was positioned on a lake and was thus both accessible and defensible. He continued to expand his

85 No chemical analysis has been done on these silver works. A panel on the lay people and clergy in Ohrid is scheduled for the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Belgrade, August 2016. 86 Branka Ivanič, “20. Cup of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan,” Byzantium: Faith and Power, 49, no. 20. Ivanič conjectures that this work was made in , a town on the Adriatic coast south of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) that was controlled by Serbian rulers. It was found, however, in the church of St. Nicholas, Drenovo, in the Tiveš region of Macedonia, which is about 100 km northeast of Ohrid. On the central medallion, Dušan is named in the Slavonic inscription, “Stephan, Emperor Faithful in Christ,” that encircles the heraldic double-headed eagle.

146 territory eastward by incorporating formerly Byzantine territories. Joannice II was elevated from metropolitan of Peć and archbishop of the Serbs to Serbian patriarch on 6 April 1345.

In the following week, on 16 April 1345, in Skopje, Patriarch Joannice crowned Dušan as

Emperor with witnesses in attendance: the Bulgarian patriarch Simeon; the archbishop of

Ohrid, Nicholas; and the protos of the Athonite monasteries that were now under Serbian control.87 The two representatives of the two Orthodox churches—Bulgarian and

Byzantine—consecrated Joannice as the Serbian patriarch even though the Byzantine church was flatly against these acts, and the patriarch of Constantinople, Kallistos I, had already excommunicated the Serbian king, patriarch, and .88

Archbishop Nicholas in Ohrid

Nicholas’s (1346–?) position of authority was closely associated with that of his friend Emperor Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, but his influence was tightly focused within the diocese of Ohrid. He was responsible for the design and financial support for several projects, including the monastery of Treskavec near and Prilep. In Ohrid he was depicted with Dušan and his wife, Queen Helen the Uroš, and Serbian saints Sava and

Symeon in the donation fresco on the south wall of the church of St. Nicholas-Bolnicki,

87 Soulis, Serbs and Byzantium, 32. The extent of Serbian control over the Athonite monasteries may help explain some of the wealth available to those monasteries in the later decades of the fourteenth century. It suggests that perhaps some of the silver wealth available to the archbishop of Ohrid was also available to the protos of the Athonite monasteries and that they may have used this silver for their numerous icon revetments. 88 Kallistos held a synod in Constantinople in 1351 and accepted Hesychasm as doctrine. He refused to crown Matthew Kantakouzenos as co-emperor with his father John VI Kantakouzenos and was thus deposed and retreated to Mount Athos. After John VI abdicated, Kallistos returned as Patriarch in Constantinople. His excommunication of Stephan Uroš was motivated by a desire to strengthen centralized patriarchal control over other jurisdictions within the various Orthodox churches.

147 where he also financed the construction of a porch.89 Nicholas is portrayed in his cathedral,

St. Sophia, in a fresco from 1347–50 in the annex chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist

(fig. 2-50). In this composition, he stands flanked by additional figures identified as donors:

Jean Olivier and his wife, Anne-Marie, and their son.90 In the naos of St. Sophia, Nicholas is included in a fresco of the Mother of God as a small figure with an inscription that identifies him: “Νικόλαος ἀρχιεπίσκοπος τῆς πρῶτης Ἴυστινιανῆς καὶ πάσις Βουλγαρίας”

(Nicholas archbishop of Justiniana Prima and all Bulgarians).91 Finally, Nicholas is shown on the frame of the revetment on the monumental icon of the Mother of God Psychosostria (fig.

2-21, detail fig. 2-51) originally on the icon screen in St. Sophia; he is placed on the lower part of the right side next to Christ’s left arm.92 His is one of six figures of clerics, saints, and prophets shown on the vertical sides of the icon. He wears the , richly ornamented with many crosses, and extends his hands in prayer to Christ. An inscription that fills the ground of the plaque gives his name and title:93 “Νικόλαος ἀρχιεπίσκοπος [τῆς] πρώτης

Ἰουστινιανῆς [καὶ] πάσης βουλγαρίας” (Nicholas archbishop of Justiniana Prima and all

89 Nikolai Ovcharov, “L’archevêque d’Ohrid Nicolas II et l’expansion serbe en Macédoine du milieu du XIVe s,” Etudes balkaniques 3–4 (1996): 123–26, esp. 123. See also Čipan, St. Sophia, 124. 90 Ovcharov, “L’archevêque d’Ohrid Nicolas,” 124. This small image of Nicholas measures 12.5 cm. 91 Ibid., 125. This is the proskynetaria icon painted on the to the right of the templon screen. An image of this fresco that includes the depiction of Nicholas is not available. 92 Georgievski, “The Mother of God Psychosostria,” Icon Gallery, 63. Carr, “Donors in the Frames,” 194. Carr connects this representation of Nicholas with two other icons with figures in the frame that are also from the fourteenth century. She does not transcribe the inscription. She calls this a portrait that shows the figure venerating the icon they claim as a gift. The figure of Nicholas is on the right side of the frame. 93 The inscription is not an epigram and is not included in Rhoby’s catalogue or addendum to the catalogue of epigrams inscribed on icons.

148 of Bulgaria).94 Not only does this title parallel the inscription in fresco in the same church, but it also repeats the formulation used by archbishops in Ohrid from the twelfth century.95

The most suggestive evidence of Nicholas’s work in Ohrid is a Serbian graffito on the gallery walls of the exonarthex at St. Sophia (fig. 2-52).96 The Serbian graffito fragment stops abruptly in the word “temple,” but its meaning is clear: “Ohrid is happy because Archbishop

Nicholas came and repaired all the icons everywhere in the temple(s).”97 Nikolai Ovcharov emphasizes the implications of Nicholas’s patronage for the Serbian clans who saw their influence gaining ground in the region. Clearly, his leadership helped consolidate the Serbian presence in Ohrid and was very useful to Dušan. The graffito is unclear in its reference to

“icons,” however, because it may refer to panel paintings or to wall paintings.

That Nicholas “repaired” these icons further demonstrates his intentions for Ohrid and Serbia more generally. The graffiti text does not explain which icons the archbishop restored or in what way this restoration changed the icons; however, it is very likely that the revetments and repainting on the two large icons from St. Sophia (figs. 2-20 and 2-21) are

94 Kind thanks to Naomi Pitamber for her helpful contributions to this transcription. 95 Radmila Radić clearly presents the evidence for the adoption of this title by the archbishops of Ohrid. Archbishop of Ohrid John Komnenos (1143–1160), who was a member of the Byzantine imperial family, referred to Ohrid as Justiniana Prima in his signature on a document in 1156/57, perhaps as a way to bring prestige to his remote location. Although his immediate successors did not use this title, later archbishops, beginning with Demetrios Chomatianos (1216–1234), adopted this title and continued using it until 1767 when the church was abolished. The Bulgarian patriarchate was founded in the tenth century in Drister and then was moved to Ohrid after the Byzantines conquered the first Bulgarian kingdom in 1018. A sigil from Basil II (976– 1025) established Ohrid’s status as patriarchate of the Bulgarian church. Radić, “Serbian Christianity,” in The Blackwell Companion to , edited by Ken Parry (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 231–48, esp. 159–61. In note 34 on page 159, Radić refutes the claim that Tzar Samuel founded the Archbishopric of Ohrid as a Macedonian Church. 96 Ovcharov, “L’archevêque d’Ohrid Nicolas II,” 125. 97 See Ovcharov, “L’archevêque d’Ohrid Nicolas II,” 125, for the Serbian text and debate on the interpretation of a word.

149 examples of this investment in the artistic and spiritual fabric of the city. Nicholas was also very likely responsible for the addition of the silver sheathing on the bilateral icon of the

Mother of God Hodegetria and Crucifixion that was made in the mid-fourteenth century and is the focal monument of this chapter (figs. 2-1, 2-2; cats. 1a, 1b). Based on stylistic comparisons, both painted sides of the icon were likely painted in the late thirteenth or very early fourteenth century, predating the revetment by at least two decades. Modifying the appearance of this bilateral icon was a deliberate attempt to emulate the visual form and ritual traditions of its prototype in Constantinople.98 The newly revetted icons mediated

Nicholas’s social agency: viewers and inhabitants of the city saw the “restored” icons as evidence that he supported their newly formed Serbian community. In addition, the series of representations of Nicholas in frescoes and on icons demonstrates his deep involvement with the artistic community in his see. The revetment on the Hodegetria icon was apparently one of several projects that he commissioned in St. Sophia and Ohrid.

Icons in Constantinople

The Ohrid icon was both an iterative and cumulative copy of the famous

Constantinopolitan Hodegetria with the Crucifixion on the reverse. I argue that Nicholas’s addition of the silver cover emulates the successive additions to the Constantinopolitan icon whose richly encrusted surface was an essential part of its spectacle and ritual traditions. In

98Pentcheva observes the visual similarity between the Ohrid Hodegetria and the descriptions of the Hodegetria in Constantinople in her essay, Pentcheva, “The Activated Icon: The Hodegetria Procession and Mary’s Eisodos,” in Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 195–207, esp. 196–97. Not enough is known about Nicholas’s life before becoming archbishop to determine whether he spent any time in Constantinople where he could have acquired first-hand knowledge of the Hodegetria’s cult.

150 other words, the accumulation of its jewels, gold, and silver changed the Constantinopolitan icon such that its copy in Ohrid also bears a sumptuous revetment. The Ohrid icon’s revetment demonstrates the additive nature of its highly venerated predecessor.99

Two rituals, the subjects of several recent publications, used the Constantinopolitan

Hodegetria icon as their centerpiece, and I think they were the prototypes for Nicholas’s patronage in Ohrid.100 As Tafur described in the fifteenth century, the Constantinopolitan icon was large, heavy, and richly decorated with silver sheathing, precious stones, jewels, and pearls. He drew attention to the bearer who places the icon on his shoulders, carrying it around the square outside of the Hodegon monastery fifty times. I posit that the Ohrid

Hodegetria (fig. 2-1) was also displayed and processed in the square outside St. Sophia north of the church. Tafur observed the visual effect of the weekly Tuesday procession on the gathered crowd in Constantinople: “By fixing one’s eyes upon the picture, it appears to be raised high above the ground and completely transfigured… There is a market in the square on that day, and a great crowd assembles, and the clergy take cotton-wool and touch the picture and distribute it among the people who are there, and then, still in procession, they

99 Michele Bacci, “The Legacy of the Hodegetria: Holy Icons and Legends between East and West,” in Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God, 321–36. John Wortley treats the Hodegetria as a relic in his article Wartley, “The Marian Relics at Constantinople,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 45, no. 2 (2005): 171– 87; Pentcheva presents the evidence for the rituals in “The Hodegetria Icon and Its Tuesday Procession,” in Icons and Power, 109–43. 100 Aleksei Lidov, “The Flying Hodegetria: The Miraculous Icon as Bearer of Sacred Space,” in The Miraculous Image in the and Renaissance, ed. Erik Thunø and Gerhard Wolf (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2004), 291–321, at 273–304 and Lidov, “The Miraculous Performance with the Hodegetria of Constantinople,” in Hierotopy: Creation of Sacred Spaces in Byzantium and Medieval Russia, ed. Alexi Lidov (Moscow: Progress-Tradition, 2006), 311–316. Pentcheva has also explored the ritual uses of the Constantinopolitan Hodegetria in Pentcheva, “The ‘Activated’ Icon,” in Vassilake, Images of the Mother of God, 195–207 and Pentcheva, “Hodegetria Icon,” Icons and Power, 109–43.

151 take it back to its place.”101 The images on the icon are subsumed in the spectacle of the procession with bearers and clergy contributing to the visual impact of the event.

Little is known about the depiction of the Crucifixion on the Constantinopolitan icon, but a fresco depicting the Tuesday processions in the Blachernai monastery near Arta, Greece

(figs. 2-53 and 2-54), reveals a subtle reference to the shape that the icon-bearer’s body formed with his arms outstretched like Christ’s on the cross. The apostle Luke was believed to have painted the Hodegetria, and thus its authority was rooted in its apostolic origins. The Hodegetria was also thought to have protected the city of Constantinople from the Avar siege in 626.102 At that time, the patriarch carried the Hodegetria around the city walls, demarcating a sanctified space defended by the Mother of God through her image. By the fourteenth century, the Hodegetria’s remarkable history and power were at the center of a complex network of cultic activities. Devoted members of a confraternity bore the responsibility of protecting and displaying the icon according to its traditions.103

The Arta fresco also shows a red-clad icon-bearer at the center of an adoring crowd

(fig. 2-53). Here, the icon shown is huge, almost square, and richly revetted with colorful stones and white pearls. Among the crowd participating in the “usual miracle” in

Constantinople are specific individuals who have been identified as women in the ruling

101 Tafur, Travels and Adventures, 141–42. 102 Pentcheva discusses the debates concerning the second prooimion, or introduction, added to the Akathistos sometime in the seventh or eighth century. The two questions are whether the new prooimion referred to the Avar or Arab sieges and whether an icon or relics of the Mother of God were processed around the city for protection. Pentcheva emphasizes the importance of icons in Rome and Jerusalem in the mid-eighth century whereas in Constantinople Marian relics were the dominant public expression of the cult. Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 47–9. 103 Ševčenko, “Servants of the Holy Icon,” 547–65 “547–65.

152 family of Arta: Anna Palaiologina and her mother, Eirene-Eulogia.104 These women are part of the crowd that congregated in the marketplace, drinking, walking, and talking together.

The inscriptions refer to the “Hara (Joy) of the most holy Virgin in Constantinople” who is the Theotokos and the Hodegetria. Lidov interprets this scene as an iconic image of this important ritual within Byzantium.105

The most famous ritual associated with the Constantinopolitan Hodegetria was the

“usual miracle”, in which the icon was carried from its monastic home to the city square nearby every Tuesday.106 This cult tradition of carrying the icon into the urban environment was such a pregnant and charismatic event that it was represented in other works of art, including an icon from Moscow from the second half of the fourteenth century (figs. 2-55).107

The Moscow icon shows the “usual miracle” to the right of the central image of the enthroned Mother of God (fig. 2-56). The icon-bearer is dressed in red with his arms outstretched, and the surrounding crowds reach out in supplication toward the icon. On the left, a second scene shows the icon carried in procession through Constantinople with bishops and clerics gathered around it (fig. 2-57). These scenes help us visualize the material and spatial qualities of the rituals that incorporated this icon. For example, the scene of the

“usual miracle” emphasizes the central role played by the devoted supporters clad in red. A

104 Anna was Basilissa of Arta, cousin of Andronikos II, and wife of the Despot of Epiros, and her mother was sister of the late Michael VIII. Myrtali Achimastou-Potamianou, “The Basilissa Anna Palaiologina of Arta and the Monastery of Vlacherna,” in Les femmes et le monachisme byzantin [Women and Byzantine Monasticism], ed. Jacques Perreault (Athens: Institut Canadien d’Archéologie, 1991), 43, figs. 9–14. 105 Lidov, “Flying Hodegetria,” 280. 106 Pentcheva expands on the late antique metaphorical associations in the Akathistos Hymn that focus on civic- imperial images. Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 12–16. See also Lidov, “Flying Hodegetria.” 107 Lidov “Flying Hodegetria,” 276–80, discusses both the Moscow Icon of the Praise of the Virgin and the Arta frescoes.

153 parasol above the icon and a rhipidion (liturgical fan) being waved to one side expand the sacred space around the icon. In the procession scene on the left, the icon is again elevated above the crowd’s heads, accompanied by a parasol and rhipidion; however, here the artist also includes two sides of a building. The built environment and crowd—with what seems to be a disproportionately large number of clergymen—set the scene for this liturgical spectacle. Unlike the Arta fresco, neither episode gives the impression that the icon was a monumental panel mounted on a complex contraption designed to support the panel. This contradicts the claims of the fifteenth-century sources, which emphasize the icon’s large scale.108 It also suggests that the painter of the Moscow icon was primarily interested in the processional display of the Constantinopolitan icon, not its monumentality. It is possible to speculate that the icon maker in Ohrid had this same conceptualization of the prototype; this may explain why the icon in Ohrid does not copy the monumental size of the prototype in

Constantinople. In any event, the contrast between the minute scale of the decorative motifs on the Ohrid revetment and the overall panel contributes to a visual effect that makes the icon appear larger and more impressive.

Scholarship on the processional appearances of the Constantinopolitan Hodegetria, represented on the icon in Moscow and the fresco in Arta, emphasizes its important place at the center of its cult. However, as Lidov argues, the cult practices themselves manifest an iconic image of ritual process in which the urban fabric of food markets, churches, aristocrats, clergy, and grocers are assimilated into one religious and social world. This

108 Tafur, Travels and Adventures, 141–45; Clavijo describes leather straps and cramping-irons that support the icon. Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane, 46.

154 hierotopy—the image of an icon activated by its rituals moving through space—was fully integrated into the history of Byzantium by the fourteenth century.109 For example, a historian and priest at Hagia Sophia, Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopulos, describes a Tuesday night service at the Hodegon Monastery in the early fourteenth century that involved carrying the icon.110

The Ohrid Hodegetria and Crucifixion icon re-manifests this hierotopy in the city conquered by Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1334. It creates a mirror image of the

Constantinopolitan icon and its cult for an emergent Serbian entity seeking its own legitimacy by emulating Byzantine cultural phenomena. The icon and its new revetment helped Emperor Dušan (crowned in 1345) and Archbishop Nicholas (consecrated in 1346) define a vision of authority based on the Byzantine model. Nicholas’s investment in his icons—especially in the revetment for the bilateral Hodegetria and Crucifixion (cat. 1a/1b) and the revetment on the monumental Mother of God Psychosostria (cat. 49)—serves as a medium for the ambitions of the emperor by re-creating the Constantinopolitan hierotopy in and around the cathedral of St. Sophia, itself named after the cathedral in Constantinople. It reproduces the Constantinopolitan icon as a bilateral icon of the Hodegetria and Crucifixion richly decorated on one side. My hypothetical scenario of this Ohrid icon being used in processions in and around St. Sophia and the archbishop’s palace draws on the power of the

Constantinopolitan prototype. These comparisons emphasize the features of this icon that

109 Christine Angelidi, “Un texte patriographique et édifiant: le ‘Discours narratif’ sur les Hodègoi,” REB 52 (1994): 113–49. 110 His account links the icon to the apostle Luke and credits Pulcheria for establishing the litania (vigil) to be carried out with the icon on Tuesdays. Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopulos, Ecclesiastical History, PG 147: 41– 44, quoted and translated in Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 120–21 and n. 30.

155 were visible to the general public in Ohrid; however, the very small motifs inscribed in the gilt-silver make an even more specific argument about power and enthronement for a select audience who had close access to the icon at other times. The images of the Mother of God enthroned and of the prepared throne in heaven exemplify a vision of spiritual authority that underscores the legitimacy of Dušan’s enthronement in the earthly realm. The revetted icon also helped bolster the importance of St. Sophia in contrast to the other churches of the city, especially the Virgin Peribleptos.

Conclusion

Icons are iterations of an image that mediate the presence of the depicted holy figure.

The image always has material substance, and copies of an icon do more than repeat the appearance of the holy figure; they also re-present that holy figure in the materiality of each new icon. The revetment on the bilateral Hodegetria and Crucifixion icon in Ohrid (figs. 2-1 and 2-2) was made to evoke and re-present the well-known icon and cult of the Hodegetria in

Constantinople for an emergent Serbian polity seeking its own legitimacy. The new revetment and processional function of the Ohrid icon distances it from the artistic milieu of the immediate predecessors of the Serbian rulers, who were Byzantines closely associated with the emperor Andronikos II. I argue that the Serbian Archbishop Nicholas was instrumental in the addition of this revetment around 1345, and that he brought the revetted icon to the cathedral where he and the new Serbian rulers exercised its authority.

For those who viewed this icon as an object of devotion, the decorative motifs on the revetment make complex and intricate connections with late Byzantine metalwork and church decoration. This includes the interlocking circles, paired palmettes, repeated hetoimasias, and emblem of the Mother of God Episkepsis. In reconfiguring this icon by

156 adding its revetment, Archbishop Nicholas staked his claim on the cathedral of St. Sophia.

The link between the apse fresco in the cathedral and the emblem of the Mother of God

Episkepsis on the base of the frame suggests that there was a ritual and spatial relationship between the cathedral and the icon. The quality of the miniature motifs encouraged special viewers to examine the icon more closely, thus assuring that it was an object of devotion and prayer.

Most viewers saw this icon from a distance, as a processional object. The small scale and repetition of the revetment motifs transform the decorative surface from recognizable symbols into surface texture. Their theological meaning and their place in the political rhetoric of Ohrid is transmuted into ornament because their scale and repetition would have prioritized attracting viewers to examine the icon more closely over the act of presenting a single, clear message. Its decorative form helped create a new spectacle that was part of a wider political theater in the city. By examining this icon in its material, ritual, and political contexts, we gain more insight into how this revetment augmented the role that an icon played for its audiences and patrons.

Chapter 3: Inscriptions and the Mother of God

Hagiosoritissa, Freising

The complex interplay between an icon’s inscriptions, revetments, the main image, and other decoration is the subject of this chapter. It focuses on the Freising Mother of God’s dedicatory prayer and material form that will serve as an initial case study (fig. 3-1, cat. 2).

The small icon (27.8 x 21.5 x 1.5 cm) shows a half-length figure of the Mother of God with her two hands raised in supplication. After it was initially painted in the twelfth century, the icon was overpainted and embellished with inscriptions, medallions, and gilt-silver claddings in subsequent centuries. Although the identities of the icon’s patrons’ are debated, close study of its revetment reveals many aspects that are typical of other icon frames and revetments. This chapter examines how epigrams interrelate with the icon they decorate to construct visually the identity and prayerful intentions of the epigram’s speaker and the revetment’s patron (not the same individual); how the visual, material and spatial aspects affect the inscriptions’ legibility; and how the inscriptions inflect, transform, and guide viewers’ responses to the icon. Because most revetments were often made after the icon was completed, the visual design and placement of these texts reveals the careful attention paid by designers and silversmiths to integrate these new elements with the existing image.

Lengthy inscriptions on icon revetments express a “sense of an audience” beyond the person

157 158 who commissioned the revetment.1 This publicizing quality of the inscription complicates our interpretation of the devotional scale of small icons intended for single viewers.

Inscriptions on revetments address four key characteristics of the icon: the revetment’s materiality, the patron’s body, the patron’s soul, and the holy figure in the icon.

As formulaic compositions, these texts begin by introducing the donor’s devotion to the holy figure, who is usually the Mother of God. Next, the donor offers gifts using the materiality of the gift (the icon and/or its decoration) as a medium for his or her own purification and protection. They conclude with the donor’s request for a life free from pain or a soul purified from sin.2

The Freising Mother of God demonstrates that inscriptions on revetments are part of the figural and ornamental decoration of an icon. These decorative programs situate the depicted holy figure in a complex visual and conceptual program. All icons are inscribed with the name of the saint near their heads; only a few, however, are also inscribed with lengthy metrical epigrams and non-metrical dedicatory texts.3 Annemarie Weyl Carr draws attention to the presence of donors and supplicants on icon frames, stating that their

1 This phrase comes from Ramsay MacMullen in his study of the increases and decreases in numbers of Latin inscriptions in the . Ramsay MacMullen, “The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire,” American Journal of Philology 103 (1982): 233–46, 246. 2 Andreas Rhoby, “The Structure of Inscriptional Dedicatory Epigrams in Byzantium,” in La Poesia tardoantica e medievale, ed. Clara Burini de Lorenzi and Miryam De Gaetano (Alessandria: dell’Orso, 2010), 309–32. Inscriptions on other works of art share parallel structures and functions, revealing the identity of the patron and connecting the patron’s piety to the object’s form or function. Brad Hostetler explores the textual and visual features of dedicatory inscriptions in his recent dissertation on epigrams inscribed on middle Byzantine reliquaries. Hostetler, “Reliquaries as Sacred Gifts,” chap. 6 in “The Function of Text: Byzantine Reliquaries with Epigrams, 843–1204” (PhD diss., Florida State University, 2016), 136–59. 3 Henry Maguire, The Icons of their Bodies: Saints and their Images in Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 16–17. After the period of iconoclasm all Byzantine icons were inscribed with the saint’s name as part of the definition of an icon.

159 depictions “locate the devotee outside the icon yet within the image.”4 The presence of donors and supplicants is expressed through their inscribed prayers.

The study of Byzantine epigraphy is growing as both new corpora and new interpretive studies are published, and my analysis follows this trend by adding insight into the placement of inscriptions.5 The Austrian Academy’s multi-volume corpus of inscribed epigrams is an especially important contribution to Byzantine studies because it provides specialists clear and edited versions of texts.6 Analyses of inscriptions tend to emphasize their literary qualities, especially their content and word choices.7 Some scholars use inscriptions as evidence for the function and meaning of gift exchange.8 Others interpret epigrams inscribed on art objects that survive only in manuscripts to reconstruct what lost artworks

4 Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Donors in the Frames of Icons: Living in the Borders of Byzantine Art,” Gesta 45 (2006): 189–98, 195. Their presence makes the frame a rhetorically active space that changes how the icon is viewed. Carr argues these donor figures transform the icon into an icon of a site where the holy figure was and is present. In other words, these are icons of icons, or icons of a higher order. I argue that enshrining these icons with texts and precious metal cases pulls these icons closer to the realm of relics in which the matter and materiality of these icons (which survive from an earlier time) are revered for their origins, histories, and spiritual power. 5 Rhoby’s history of Byzantine epigraphy outlines the efforts made in this discipline. Andreas Rhoby, “A Short History of Byzantine Epigraphy,” in Inscriptions in Byzantium and Beyond: Methods—Projects—Case Studies, ed. Andreas Rhoby (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015), 17–32. 6 Andreas Rhoby, ed. Byzantinische Epigramme in inschriftlicher Überlieferung, vol. 2, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst: nebst Addenda zu Band 1 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009). 7 Alice-Mary Talbot, “Epigrams in Context: Metrical Inscriptions on Art and Architecture of the Palaiologan Era,” DOP 53 (1999): 75–90; Liz James, ed., Art and Text in Byzantine Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Ivan Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’: Art, Selfhood, and the Later Byzantine Dedicatory Epigram,” Speculum 89, no. 4 (2014): 895–935. 8 Nicolas Oikonomides, “The Holy Icon as an Asset,” DOP 45 (1991): 35–44; Anthony Cutler, “Uses of Luxury: On the Functions of Consumption and Symbolic Capital in Byzantine Culture,” in Byzance et les images, ed. Jannic Durand (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1994), 289–327; and Titos Papamastorakis, “The Display of Accumulated Wealth in Luxury Icons: Gift-Giving from the Byzantine Aristocracy to God in the Twelfth Century,” in Byzantine Icons: Art, Technique, and Technology, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Heraklion: Crete University Press, 2002), 35–49.

160 may have looked like.9 Ittai Weinryb addresses framing inscriptions on the tympana of church portals in Adriatic coastal towns in Italy and argues that these were created in response to a Byzantine relief icon that appeared miraculously in Ravenna in 1100.10 In another study, the unusual incorporation of metrical inscriptions in the murals of the

Phorbiotissa at Asinou, Cyprus, underscores the twelfth-century patrons’ appeals to the

Mother of God’s intercessions.

Methodologies used to analyze inscriptions attempt to reveal how the intended audiences may have read their icons. For example, some focus on the meaning of the text and its interaction with the visual image. These written prayers condition a viewer’s reception of and interaction with an image.11 Others engage with the materiality and tactility of inscribed epigrams that are fundamental to the expression of the donor's desire to express the ineffable.12 Others, still, examine reading practices, noting that inscriptions on monuments and on smaller objects may have been read aloud, a mode of engagement that activates the inscribed text and brings the viewer closer to the donor and into the divine world beyond words.13 They control viewers’ responses to the icon by literally putting words in their

9 Bissera Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons,” in James, Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, 120–38, 4n and 5n. 10 Ittai Weinryb, “The Inscribed Image: Negotiating Sculpture on the Coast of the Adriatic Sea,” Word & Image 27 (2011): 322–33. 11 Henry Maguire, Image and Imagination: The Byzantine Epigram as Evidence for Viewer Response (Toronto: Canadian Institute of Balkan Studies, 1996); Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons,” 120–38; and Andreas Rhoby, “Interactive Inscriptions: Byzantine Works of Art and their Beholders,” in Spatial Icons: Performativity in Byzantium and Medieval Russia, ed. Alexei Lidov (Moscow: Indrik, 2011): 317–33. 12 Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons,” 120. 13 Amy Papalexandrou, “Text in Context: Eloquent Monuments and the Byzantine Beholder,” Word & Image 17 (2001): 259–83. Several contributors explored the recitation of inscriptions and other texts in Byzantium in James, Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, 2007. For example, Pentcheva incorporates this hypothesis in her interpretation of epigrams that activate multi-sensory experiences of an icon’s surfaces in Pentcheva, “Epigrams on Icons,” 122.

161 mouths. These methods are limited in two ways. The study of inscriptions on icons and their revetments should engage all of the texts on the icon, not just the lengthy poetic epigrams.

Nomina sacra and epithets are also important parts of the textual and visual decoration on the icon. In addition, inscriptions have visual and symbolic meanings beyond their semantic meanings as texts. Texts do not have to be readable or comprehensible to carry weight.14

The varieties of inscription and textual decoration and their relationship to the revetment of the well-known Mother of God Hagiosoritissa in the treasury of the cathedral of

Freising are the focus of this chapter (3-1, cat. 2). This icon is one of the most widely published Byzantine decorated icons and also one of the most frequently cited examples of late Byzantine inscribed epigrams.15 The poetic forms, placement on the frame, and the decorative qualities of the inscription make it a paradigmatic example of inscriptions on

14 See also the work of Stefano Riccioni, who interprets the inscriptions and accompanying images in the apse of San Clemente, Rome, as part of a compact and interconnected visual display that goes beyond the denotations of texts and images. Although his work does not address the question of whether these texts were read, the inscriptions and images are interpreted together as interrelated and interdependent elements. Additionally, the different levels of literacy and size of the texts may create two separate audiences for the mosaic: the canons who had close access and lay congregation on the other end of the . Stefano Riccioni, Il mosaico absidale di S. Clemente a Roma: “exemplum” della chiesa riformata (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2006). Alexander Nagel’s exploration of pseudoscripts explores the reasons for incorporating unreadable texts into art. For example, illegible marks appear to convey an encrypted message. Nagel, “Twenty-five Notes on Pseudoscript in ,” Res 59/60 (2011): 229. 15 Marinos Kalligas, “Βυζαντινὴ φορητὴ εἰκὼν ἐν Freising,” Ἀρχαιολογικέ Ἐφήµερις (1937): 501–506; André Grabar, Les revêtements en or et en argent des icones byzantines du moyen âge (Venice: Institut hellénique d'études byzantines et post-byzantines, 1975), 41–43, no. 16; Reinhold Baumstark, ed. Rom und Byzanz: Schatzkammerstücke aus bayerischen Sammlungen (Munich: Hirmer, 1998), 171, no. 84; Talbot, “Epigrams in Context,” 82–83, fig. 12; David Buckton, “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,” Mitteilungen zur spätantiken Archäologie und byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 2 (2000): 93–105; Peter Steiner, “Die Freisinger Hodegetria in den Sammlungen des Diözesanmuseums,” in Die Freisinger Hodegetria, ed. Anthony Cutler (Freising: Diözesan Museum, 2002), 33–52; Katia Loverdou-Tsigarida, “Thessalonique, centre de production d’objets d’arts au XIVe siècle,” DOP 57 (2003): 241–54, at 248, fig. 9; Maria Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation of the Empire?,” in Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 263–74; Edmund Ryder, “Micromosaic Icons of the Late Byzantine Period,” PhD Thesis (New York: New York University, 2007), 189–90, 192, and 201 n. 392; Andreas Rhoby, ed. Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst, 2:64–68, no. Ik12; Cecily Hilsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 227–36; see also Ivan Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 915, 60n, for additional earlier bibliography.

162 icons. Such inscribed texts bear witness to the personalities and beliefs of those who owned, viewed, and displayed these works.

I agree with the view that the inscriptions on the icon are the product of two separate interventions. Conservation work on the icon revealed the original painting, and the contrasting metalwork techniques on the frame and revetment indicate that different artists produced these decorations. First, the Manuel Dishypatos added the framing inscription in the mid-thirteenth century. The epigram on the frame explicitly refers to

Dishypatos by name and title, which suggests that these inscribed plaques were created during his lifetime in the mid-thirteenth century. Second, the emperor Manuel II (r. 1391–

1425) added a revetment to elevate the icon’s status as a diplomatic gift for his trip to western Europe.16 He probably obtained the icon while he was in Thessaloniki as despot from

1369 to 1373 or as Byzantine co-emperor from 1382 to 1387. This intervention included repainting, adding the plaques to the Mother of God’s nimbus and covering the icon’s background. The eleventh or twelfth-century enamel medallions that alternate with the inscription plaques may have been incorporated into the frame at this time. These additions not only enhanced the beauty of the icon but also fundamentally changed the way viewers interacted with it.

I begin my analysis by examining the inscriptions and how the text and image of the icon interrelate. By adding the frame and revetment plaques with their inscribed texts, the producers of this assemblage have changed the panel from a straightforward icon into a

16 Vassilaki’s theory that the revetment was created and adapted at two different times is generally accepted. Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation,” 263–74; Alice-Mary Talbot, “Epigrams in Context,” 75–90, esp. 85–88, and Hilsdale, Art and Diplomacy, 231–35.

163 discursive object that continually (re)negotiates between the holy figure, the speaker and the epigram, and the viewers who behold these texts and images. The visual and material aspects of inscribed epigrams distinguish them from other poetic texts that survive in manuscripts and separated from their intended works of art.17

This small icon was probably intended for individual devotional use when it was initially painted in the twelfth century, which was at least a century before any of the revetments plaques were attached. The X-ray image of this earliest layer of painting shows a half-length figure of the Mother of God turned to the right with her hands outstretched in supplication and her name inscribed in the upper corners (fig. 3-4). She covers her heart with one hand, which is aligned with the central vertical axis of the icon, and touches the side of the panel with her other hand. Her eyes meet the viewers in a melancholy gaze, drawing spectators into her mediation expressed by her hands that gesture toward the framing prayer.

This iconography depicts the Hagiosoritissa icon type, which emphasizes the Mother of

God’s hands making her intercessory entreaty rather than holding her infant child. It was a common image type found in many media including marble relief plaques, steatites, enamels, coins, and lead seals.18

The epigram on the icon’s frame dominates the decorative program and stands out as a uniquely rich example of textual decoration presenting several key issues for the study of

17 Rhoby addresses some of these differences in, “Interactive Inscriptions,” 317–33. Talbot also speculates about the placement of epigrams that survive only in manuscripts, Talbot, “Epigrams in Context,” 75–90. 18 OBD, s.v. “Virgin Hagiosoritissa,” by Nancy Ševčenko. See also Annemarie Weyl Carr’s discussion of this icon type in her article Carr, “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constantinople,” DOP 56 (2002): 75–92, esp. 78–80; for additional examples of revetments for icons of this iconographic type, see cat. 13, Panels from a Revetment of the Mother of God Hagiosoritissa, and cats. 35 and 36 that are revetments that adorned small icons of the full-length figure of the Mother of God Hagiosoritissa.

164 inscriptions on revetments. It expresses the clear intentions of a patron who wished to benefit from his gift, and it models careful integration of text and image that heightens the meanings of both the prayer and the Mother of God’s praying gesture. It has been transcribed and translated many times, including most recently by Andreas Rhoby in his catalogue of epigrams on Byzantine icons and other objects.19 Reading the text follows a standard path around the frame. It begins in the top left corner and continues down the right side, then moves down the left side and finally concludes along the bottom of the frame. Within each rectangular plaque, the text is presented on four lines; this keeps the viewer’s eye focused on each of the small plaques of the frame as he or she reads each one in sequence around the icon. The text is inscribed in large majuscule letters with some breathing marks and accents to enhance legibility.20 Many words are compressed with ligatures, and small letters are stacked on top of one another to fit the verses into the plaques. The epigram is written in the well-known dodecasyllabic verse form, which has twelve lines with twelve syllables in each line and a stress on the penultimate syllable.21 Two crosses set off the first two lines of the epigram, and a three-dot punctuation mark appears at the beginning and ends of the lines on the plaques, showing how carefully the poet and artist planned the inscription to fit into these panels.

19 Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 64–68. See Rhoby for references to earlier editions of this epigram. 20 The deliberately archaizing quality of this majuscule script is a well-established feature of Greek scripts in the Palaiologan period from ca. 1280 to 1331. Nigel Wilson gives only a pithy description of this script in “Greek Palaeography,” in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, eds. Robin Cormack, John Haldon, and Elizabeth Jeffreys (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008; online edition, 2012), 101–15. 21 This poetic meter was commonly used for epigrams in the later Byzantine period. ODB, s.v. “Dodecasyllable,” by Michael Jeffreys.

165

The current arrangement was likely created in the mid-thirteenth century when

Dishypatos added this prayer to the frame, although it is also possible that around 1399 when

Manuel II added elements to the icon the arrangement of the textual plaques was reconfigured. I use the term “speaker” to refer to the voice in the inscription because that term makes room for the additional viewers who were praying through the epigram to the

Mother of God.

top row:

+ Ψυχῆς πόθος, ἄργυρος καὶ χρυσὸς τρίτος

+ σοὶ τῇ καθαρᾷ προσφέρονται παρθένῳ·

ἄργυρος µέντοι καὶ χρυσοῦ φύσις ὄντως

δέξαιντο ῥύπον ὡς ἐν φθαρτῇ οὐσίᾳ·

right side:

ἐκ δὲ ψυχῆς ὁ πόθος ὢν ἀθανάτου

οὔτ’ ἂν σπίλον δέξαιτο οὔτε µὴν τέλος·

κἂν γὰρ λυθῇ τὸ σῶµα τοῦτ’ Ἅιδου τόπῳ,

left side:

τοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς οἴκτου σε δυσωπῶν µένει·

κανστρίσιος ταῦτά σοι προσφέρων λέγει

Μανουὴλ Δισύπατος τάξει λεβίτης·

bottom row:

καὶ ταῦτα δέξαι συµπαθῶς, ὦ παρθένε,

τὸν ῥευστὸν τοῦτον ἀντιδιδοῦσα βίον

ταῖ[ς σαῖ]ς δειλθεῖν ἀνώδυνον πρεσβείαις,

166

ὡς ἡµέρας δείξειας καὶ φωτὸς τέ[λος].22

top row:

The desire of my soul, and silver, and thirdly gold

are [here] offered to you, the pure Virgin.

However, silver and gold by nature could be stained

since they are of perishable material,

right side:

whereas the desire, from the immortal soul,

could not be stained nor come to an end.

For even if this body should dissolve in Hades

left side:

it continues to entreat you for the mercy of my soul.

Thus speaks the kanstrisios [priest]

Manuel Dishypatos of the order of Levites [a deacon]

offering these [gifts] to you.

bottom row:

Receive them compassionately, O Virgin,

22 This is the rectified version of the Greek text taken from Rhoby’s catalogue of epigrams on icons and other works of art. Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 64–68. Earlier editions have alternatives for the final word where the plaque is badly damaged, but τέλος works well with the sentiment of the poem and complies with the rhetorical conventions of these epigrams. See Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 916, 61n.

167

and grant in return that through your entreaties I may traverse this ephemeral life free

from pain,

until you show the end of the day and light.23

The text is a flowery poem extoling the Virgin’s purity and the speaker’s desire. It begins by linking the speaker’s desire with the gold and silver offered to the Virgin on which his prayer is inscribed. The gift of gilt-silver compounded with his prayer further heightens his desire for the Virgin’s compassion. The speaker then expresses his plea for a life without pain. The verb δέχοµαι (accept or receive) repeats three times on the top, right, and bottom—a fact that underscores the speaker’s πόθος (desire) for the Virgin’s attention.

The visual arrangement of the inscription on the frame shows a deliberate placement of specific words and their interaction with the central image. On the top of the frame, the patron’s longing for the Virgin is introduced and presented in lofty company, punctuated with medallions of archangels and the hetoimasia (fig. 3-2). His presentation of his gifts of desire, silver, and gold refer to his plaques on the icon frame, which are made of precious materials that give tangible form to that desire. The archangels witness this donation, and the hetoimasia symbolically represents the ultimate fulfillment of his desire. Christ’s second coming is the implied transformational and teleological moment in which the speaker’s immortal soul—through the intercession of the Virgin—is brought into eternal life in Christ.

The placement of these sentiments flanking the hetoimasia also suggests a more involved interpretation. The image of the prepared throne was composed from the same costly

23 Translation is mine but based on that in Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 917, and Talbot, “Epigrams in Context,” 82.

168 materials, and it recalls additional gifts offered to God in the celebration of the Eucharist.

The decorated throne evokes an altar equipped for the Eucharist with a jeweled book, candlesticks, and cross. Although the Eucharistic bread and wine will decompose (unlike the silver and gold that may endure for a longer time), they are transformed into eternal substances through the prayers of the Eucharist and by the grace of God. The Eucharist gives the believer a taste of eternal life. In this way, by combining the speaker’s prayer of offering with the hetoimasia, the arrangement underscores the spiritual transformation of impermanent materials.

The inscription continues down the right side, where the plaque in the middle holds a special place in the overall epigram. It is positioned next to the Mother of God’s outstretched hand, and she gestures directly to the phrase “οὔτ’ ἂν σπίλον δέξαιτο οὔτε µὴν τέλος.” This line refers to the speaker’s soul’s unending, unblemished desire for the Virgin contrasted with the way the gold, and silver of his gift may be damaged or destroyed. His desire and emotional appeal to the Virgin are central to both the meaning and efficacy of the prayer. He must express a ceaseless entreaty to the Virgin for mercy and mediation because, until

Christ’s return, his immortal yet sinful soul is in constant need of attention and her merciful intercession. By placing this phrase about his pure desire next to her gesturing hand, the artist realizes the speaker’s desire long past the speaker’s death, just as his entreaty to the Virgin is preserved in the untarnished gold. His desire is permanently suspended in gold letters, although in his prayer he admits earlier that, “ἄργυρος µέντοι καὶ χρυσοῦ φύσις ὄντως,

δέξαιντο ῥύπον ὡς ἐν φθαρτῇ οὐσίᾳ,” silver and gold are perishable and may be stained.

The speaker reveals his identity as the deacon (τάξει λεβίτης, in the order of Levites)

Manuel Dishypatos in the lower left plaque as the epigram continues to the left side. It is not

169 surprising that the artist did not use the common ligature for the ου in Μανουὴλ—carefully spaced and readable letters ensures that future viewers would easily read his name on the icon. The placement of his name creates an important formal relationship expressed on the frame’s plaques and through the figural composition of the icon itself. The formal composition of the icon directs the eye from the patron’s name in the lower left corner to the

Virgin’s outstretched hands, ending at the plaque on the right side where Dishypatos states his eternal desire for the Virgin (fig. 3-3). By connecting the patron and his prayer with the

Virgin’s gesture of entreaty, the arrangement gives physical and visual form to the sentiment of the prayer. The integration of text and image on this revetted icon shows how the author of the text, the beneficiary of the prayer, and the designer or artisans who produced the icon and frame collaborated to create an icon that functions in a very specific ode of discourse and devotion.

On the bottom of the frame, the speaker calls attention to his gift of the precious frame asking her to receive it with compassion, “καὶ ταῦτα δέξαι συµπαθῶς,” and asks the

Virgin to reward his offering of the silver and gold with a life free from pain. Despite the relative importance of the eternal fate of his soul compared with the ephemerality of his body, he explicitly prays for the Virgin’s help in this life, not the life to come. He was a man of wealth, and he hopes to use that wealth to ameliorate life’s pains. Despite the shortcomings of such a gift, it is, nonetheless the best he can offer to the Virgin.

In this arrangement, the epigram expresses a unique aspect of the speaker’s desire and devotion on each of the four sections of the frame. All of the lines of the epigram work together to express a coherent message that frames and therefore mediates the image of the

Mother of God, who in turn mediates between Christ and the speaker in the epigram. The

170

Mother of God herself is a frame for the incarnation of Christ who is neither included in the texts nor represented in the images. Christ as the ultimate source of the Mother of God’s power to intercede is unspoken but well understood in this context. Through her mediatory intercessions, the speaker gains access to Christ’s eternal mercy. She straddles the boundary between the created world—the world of things that are perishable like the silver and gold of this gift—and the eternal world of immortal and divine beings. The epigram’s speaker is only signified by his name and, by extension, the materiality of the revetment itself. The poem is a framing device that contains and directs the Mother of God’s intercessory actions toward the speaker’s “best side,” his unending and unblemished desire for her.

In this analysis of the icon and its inscription, the Virgin mediates on behalf of the speaker—Manuel Dishypatos—who proclaims his passion and entreats the Virgin for mercy.

This narrow interpretation unites the prayer and Dishypatos and focuses on the creation of the prayer in the historical moment when he framed this icon with this inscription. Yet, the inscription exists in perpetuity as viewers continue to animate his prayer by re-reading it and imagining his piety. They see, study, and respond to the gold frame that materializes his enduring passion.

Viewers who read Manuel’s prayer and meet the Virgin’s gaze also embody his passion. The use of the second-person pronoun in the opening line of the prayer pulls viewers into proclaiming their passion for the Virgin and entreaty for intercession. The phrase ψυχῆς

πόθος (the desire of my soul) may refer to the soul of whoever is reading this prayer, which means that faithful viewers who look to this icon in their devotion also pray for her intercession on their behalf. Because the verb προσφέρονται (are offered) is used in a passive voice, it also creates ambiguity in the identity of the one who is doing the offering. This

171 allows viewers to participate in the offering of the prayer and the gifts of silver and gold to the Virgin. Thus, in these opening lines of the inscription, the prayer becomes participatory as it expresses the desires of many viewers who are included, albeit obliquely, in the giving of these gifts.

There is a second way that the artist has visually reiterated this parallel between the meaning of the inscription and the Mother of God’s embodiment. The inscribed letters are carefully filled in with a dark blue organic compound similar in its dark hue to the Mother of

God’s garments.24 These dark letter forms and her body are both sunk into the surface of the luminous gold of the revetment on the background and frame as though the prayer and her body share in the recessed embodiment. The way that the revetment overshadows or creates a recess for the Mother of God’s figure is echoed in the way the inscription is hollowed into the revetment’s surface; this further manifests the dynamic in the prayer between desire and fulfillment and in the Mother of God’s body between the empty cavity and incarnation.

The identification of Manuel Dishypatos in the epigram with the mid-thirteenth century deacon and kanstrisios from Thessaloniki is debated, although the evidence suggests that the thirteenth-century cleric is the most likely patron.25 Titos Papamastorakis advanced an alternative patron from mid-fourteenth century Serres based on a document of 1365 that includes the name Manuel Dishypatos.26 While it is possible that this fourteenth-century

24 Buckton, “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,” 97–99. The organic compounds used to fill in the letters on the central panel are different from the niello used on the frame. The variation in color in the epigram is probably the result of firing the metal and color fill at too low a temperature. 25 Kalligas proposed that Dishypatos composed the inscribed verses himself. Kalligas, “Βυζαντινὴ φορητὴ εἰκὼν,” 501–6; Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation?,” 263–74. OBD, s.v. “Dishypatos, Manuel,” by Anthony Cutler. A kastrisios is a patriarchal official. See OBD, s.v. “Kastresios,” by . 26 Drpić accepts this attribution. See Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 917 and 65n for sources on this figure.

172

Manuel was responsible for the inscription, the theory does not account for the variety of decorative techniques used to create the composite revetment, treating the repainting of the icon and assemblage of the enamels, gilt-silver, and openwork interlace as a singular event.

A more convincing attribution is assigning the inscription alone to the thirteenth-century patron, Manuel Osparas Dishypatos who served as a deacon in Thessaloniki until 1258 when he became the metropolitan, an office that he held for two years, until 1260/61.27 He must have completed commissioning these inscribed plaques while he was still a deacon, before his consecration as bishop.28 It has also been suggested that Manuel Dishypatos composed the inscription himself.29

Maria Vassilaki proposed that Manuel II repainted and adorned the icon with the gilt- silver revetment covering the recessed ground of the panel in preparation for his trip to the

West between 1399 and 1403.30 Cecily Hilsdale recently incorporated this attribution into her analysis of art and late Byzantine imperial diplomacy.31 After Manuel II obtained the icon while he was in Thessaloniki, he used its emotionally charged prayer on the frame to show his European counterparts something of the passion and despair of a devoted leader. His revetment was inscribed with the epithet, “Hope of the Hopeless.” This rare phrase was well suited to Manuel’s message and plea for Western interventions to save the endangered

27 Kalligas, “Βυζαντινὴ φορητὴ εἰκὼν,” 501–6; See Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 67 and 139n for further bibliography on Bishop Dishypatos. 28 Rhoby also cites the evidence of a letter from Theodore II to his friend Georgios Muzalon that refers to an icon of the Theotokos, an epigram, and Dishypatos. Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 67, 145n. 29 Kalligas, “Βυζαντινὴ φορητὴ εἰκὼν,” 505. 30 Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation?,” 269. His trip occurred during the siege of Constantinople by Bayezid I (1399–1402). 31 Hilsdale, Art and Diplomacy, 231–36.

173 capital.32 Not only does the epithet convey the military challenges he faced at the end of the fourteenth century, but it also expresses his pessimistic view of survival to his European counterparts. When he chose to embellish this icon, preparing it to become a diplomatic gift, he used this epithet to update and focus the icon’s meaning for its new audience of non-

Byzantine military leaders and financiers.

The evidence for attributing this act of patronage to Manuel II is convincing. First, an inscription on the seventeenth-century altarpiece in Freising Cathedral (fig. 3-5) in which the icon is displayed refers to an “Emperor of the East” (ab imperatore Orientalis) who gave the icon to Giangaleazzo Visconti, duke of Milan (1385–95).33 Manuel visited Milan in 1399 on his way to Paris. His meeting in Milan with Visconti was successful: Visconti promised military aid to defend Constantinople, and the leaders exchanged gifts as part of their compact to protect Constantinople.34 The icon remained in Milan for several decades. Then it circulated among several subsequent noblemen including Bronorio della Scala, who then sent it to his brother Nicodemus, who was bishop of Freising in 1421. The icon was presented to

32 Ibid., 234; and Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation?,” 266 and 269. The phrase appears on the Freising icon, the small icon of the Mother of God from Vatopedi (cat. 69), and on a fourteenth-century icon displayed on an icon stand in the narthex of the church of the Acheiropoietos in Thessaloniki. See also Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 923, note 83 for extensive bibliography on the epithets used on icons and their relationship to iconography and function. 33 For further discussion of the gifts and relics that emperors including Manuel II bestowed on his hosts and counterparts, see Anthony Cutler, “From Loot to Scholarship: Changing Modes in the Italian Response to Byzantine Artifacts, c. 1200–1750,” DOP 49 (1995): 237–67. Cutler (253, 103n) discounts the theory that Manuel prepared the icon with its gilt-silver revetment for the Italian duke; rather, he asserts the icon was already famous and therefore richly decorated in the century before it was taken from Byzantium to Milan. Holger Klein also addressed the export of relics from Byzantium to the West. He gives a detailed account of Manuel II’s diplomatic mission and describes many of the relics that were eventually distributed to western leaders. See “Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West,” DOP 58 (2004): 283–314, esp. 310–12. 34 Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation,” 267 and 14n.

174 the Freising cathedral in 1440 and it has been on display there since then, according to the inscription on the altar where it is mounted (fig. 3-6).35

This icon was one of many diplomatic gifts that Manuel presented to leaders in the

West. Much more is known about the relics he gave away, including a thorn from the Crown of Thorns and portions of the Tunic of Christ.36 The Freising Mother of God is another kind of relic; it represents the remains of a robust spiritual and artistic culture that existed in a fragmented and beleaguered state when Manuel used it to guarantee Milanese military aid. Its decoration is saturated with longing archaisms, from the paleography of the epigram and enamel medallions evocative of the eleventh century to the saints (Peter, Paul, George,

Demetrios, Kosmas, and Panteleimon) who bear witness to the eastern roots of Christianity.

These aspects of the icon evoke the visual sphere that predates the Fourth Crusade and was thus known and still desired by some Westerners.

At one time, a relic’s authenticity was linked to its Eastern origins. As Hilsdale writes, “in earlier periods, Byzantium constituted the very guarantor of a relic’s authenticity and the emperor’s close association with the Passion relics in particular had long been acknowledged throughout the medieval Mediterranean.”37 The authenticity of this icon also lies in its origins in Byzantium. It is no wonder that the icon soon became known as a

“Lukasbild,” celebrated as an authentic image and object that survived from the first

35 Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 66. See also Vassilaki “Praying for Salvation?,” 266–68. 36 Manuel also gave portions of Christ’s tunic to Pope Boniface IX, anti-Pope Benedict XIII, Queen Margaret of Denmark, Henry IX of England, and Martin I of Aragon. Hilsdale, Art and Diplomacy, 227–36, with further bibliography. Holger Klein wrote about the western European desire for Byzantine relics, especially in the centuries before the Fourth Crusade. Klein, “Eastern Objects and Western Desires,” 310–1. 37 Hilsdale, Art and Diplomacy, 231.

175 generations of Christianity.38 The Latin inscription engraved on the altarpiece describes it as such:

This icon of the Virgin of Virgins, painted by St. Luke, was received from the

Emperor of the East by Giangaleazzo Duke of the Insubres [Insubria, that is

Milan], and from him by the Earl of Kent in England, and from her [sic] by

Brunoro della Scala, who sent it as a gift to his brother Nicodemo, the bishop

of Freising, on 23 September 1440. From henceforth it is an object of

veneration, and not a gift: nor would others have given it, if they had been

sufficiently knowledgeable. Viet Adam, the bishop of the Church of Freising,

placed the Mother of God on behalf of the Mother of God, 1629.39

The altarpiece was made in 1629 under the patronage of Bishop Veit Adam Gebeck, who hired the goldsmith Gottfried Lang to construct this new frame for the icon (fig. 3-5).40 The

Latin inscription is in the base. Cast statues in the niches and attic expand on the icon’s iconography with the Virgin and Christ on the sides and in the attic above. In

38 The earliest evidence for this legend is in the Latin inscription on the seventeenth-century baroque altarpiece that probably repeats what had become a well-known legend about the icon’s origins. Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation?,” 270, note 40. 39 This is Vassilaki’s translation; she also includes a full transcription of the Latin text. Vassilaki, “Praying for Salvation?,” 266. Vassilaki also published a full transcription of the Latin text: “Hanc Virginum Virginis Iconem Penicili St Lucae ab Imperatore Orientis Ioannes Galeacius Insubrum Dux Accepit, ab isto Comes Anglade Chent, ab hac Bronorius de la Scala, qui dono misit fratri Suo Nicodemo Frisingensium Episcopo A[nn]o 1440 23 Septemb[ris]. Ex inhic, colitur, non donatur; Nec alij donassent, si satis novissent Vitus adamus Frisingensium Episcopus Ec[clesiae] Dei Matrem Dei Matri posuit A[nn]o MDCXXIX.” 40 Steiner, “Die Freisinger Hodegetria,” 47.

176

1627/28, the entire ensemble was installed in the funerary chapel for the bishop in the

Freising Cathedral (fig. 3-6).41

The icon is currently displayed above an altar. Manuel Dishypatos’s frame began this enshrining trajectory by embellishing the icon with his prayer for divine aid. Manuel II’s revetment continued this course by embellishing the icon that contained an inscribed prayer and archaizing medallions. He used the give-and-take theology in the prayer of his homonymous predecessor to draw attention to the significance of the gold and silver; if it is worthy of the Virgin, surely it is suitable for the mortal Western diplomats.42 At the same time, Manuel II echoed the desire by the speaker of the epigram, Dishypatos, for divine aid from the Virgin, possibly in the form of a Western military intervention.

Inscriptions on Three Icon Frames

Like the Freising Mother of God, a similar arrangement of inscribing a prayer around the perimeter is used on three other icons, showing how artists made a deliberate effort to utilize the arrangement of the central figure to emphasize specific aspects of the inscribed text. A small thirteenth-century icon of the Mother of God holding Christ in the Benaki

Museum, Athens (fig. 3-7, cat. 27),43 measures 30.5 x 22.5 x 1.8 cm. It was restored and re- gilded twice before being given its revetment in the early fourteenth century by Georgios

41 Ibid., 47–48. The sculptor Philipp Dirr designed the chapel for Bishop Gebeck in 1627/28. Steiner expands on the reception of this image by subsequent artists and patrons including Martin Luther and Lucas Cranach. 42 The reference to Mary as Παρθένε, not Θεοτόκος or Μήτηρ Θἐου, also helps makae this image more accessible to western audiences. 43 Anastasia, Drandaki, “Icons in the Devotional Practices of Byzantium,” in Heaven and Earth, vol. 1, Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, ed. Anastasia Drandaki, Demetra Papanikola-Bakirtzi, and Anastasia Tourta (Athens: Benaki Museum, 2013), 112–13, fig. 56. A technical analysis on the icon by Kalypso Milanou is forthcoming in Μουσεὶο Μπενάκη.

177

Saravaris, whose name is inscribed on the lower arm.44 This frame is dominated by its inscription but also has small stars (M-33) in the top left corner, a three-lobed palmette

(based on the palmettes in M-28) at the top and bottom right corners, and crosses in the corners setting off the beginnings of key phrases in the text. The plaque covering the icon ground includes the second half of the Mother of God’s monogram, ΘΥ, and her Child’s monogram, ΙϹ ΧϹ. Split hearts with feathery leaves (M-17), cross-stars (M-33), and a floral motif are on the background, and the symmetrical palmettes are used on the two nimbus revetments. The frame is inscribed in large majuscule letters worked in deep repoussé to enhance the legibility of the text, although this quality is lessened somewhat by the way the words are broken into fragments of three to five letters, which is all that can fit into the narrow space.

top row:

+ Οἶδας µὲν οἶδας τῆς + ψυχῆς µου τὸν πόθον

right side:

ὃν ἐτρέφω, πάναγνε, πρός σε, Παρθένε·

+ ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τύπον δέδεξο καὶ χειρὸς δόσιν

χρυσαργυροῦσαν σὴν σεβαστὴν εἰκόνα·

left side:

ὡς ἄργυρον οὖν τὸν βίον λεύκαινέ µοι

τῶν ἄρετῶν σκέπουσα χρυς[ίῳ, κόρη]·

44 Drandaki, “Icons in the Devotional Practices,” 112–13, fig. 56. Drandaki links the iconography in the painting to the Kykkotissa, an icon type made famous by the miraculous icon from Kykkos Monastery in Cyprus that was also popular in twelfth-century Constantinople.

178

bottom row:

ἐκ Σαράβαρη ταῦτα τοῦ Γεωργίου.45

top row:

+You know well + the desire of my soul

right side:

That I nourish for you all-chaste Virgin;

+ But accept the gift to your image,

[presented] by [my] hand

that covers your reverend icon with gold-plated silver,

left side:

thus whiten my life like silver

covering it with the gold of virtues.

bottom row:

These [are] from Georgios Saravaris.46

Saravaris relies almost entirely on his inscription to demonstrate his desire for the Virgin; almost no additional decoration is used to supplement or intensify his wishes for a

“whitened” life. The word χειρὸς (hand) appears at the center of the right side of the frame directly next to Christ’s head. Just as Christ’s hands hold the scroll and the Virgin’s hand in

45 I use the corrected text transcribed in minuscule from Rhoby, ed. Byzantinische Epigramme auf Stein nebst Addenda zu den Banden 1 und 2, vol, 3, Byzantinische Epigramme in inschriftlicher Uberlieferung (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2014), 843. 46 Translation from Drandaki, “Icons in the Devotional Practices,” 112–13.

179 the icon, the viewer also holds the small icon in her or his hands. The paleography of the inscription suggests that the frame postdates the Freising icon. For example, the formation of the majuscule nu is much more like Η than , as found on the Freising inscription. There are almost no breathing marks or accents on the majuscule letters, and only a few ligatures are used, all of which would support a later date, perhaps in the fourteenth century. The letters ΠΡ, ΟϹ and ΠΑΡ are combined in the upper right corner in the words ἐπρός and

Παρθενέ. Five of the six ligatures are on the right side of the frame, where the artist squeezed more text into twenty lines, than in the spacious arrangement of fifteen lines on the left side.

Even if the missing section in the lower left corner were still attached, it would only add two more lines to that side. This division follows the shift in the epigram from one topic to the next. On the right side Saravaris offers his gift and describes its materials, and on the left side he asks for divine help, using the silver and gold as metaphors for his life and the virtues from God.

This textual frame exemplifies Saravaris’s high-level of self-awareness.47 His self- representation as gift giver is embedded in the gift itself. We see the icon through his prayer on the frame, where he compares his aspirations to silver and virtue to gold. Thus the frame concretizes the promised fulfillment of his prayer. The inscription is also part of the icon.

Implied by the epigram, the distance between Saravaris and the Virgin collapses in the placement of the prayer on her icon. The gift was accepted, visually, and has become part of the materiality of the icon.

47 Seeta Chaganti explores inscriptions, textual frames, and the poetics of enshrinement in her book about medieval reliquaries. Chaganti, The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary: Enshrinement, Inscription, Performance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 1–19.

180

A second icon with a framing inscription is the small fourteenth-century Mother of

God and Child in Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos (fig. 3-8, cat. 60).48 The icon (25.5 x 22 cm) shows the Mother of God tenderly holding her Child to her cheek while gazing out to the viewer. The revetment is in good condition, but only fragments of the frame with the inscription on the top and right sections remain. A transcription of a larger portion of the inscription was recorded in an eighteenth-century manuscript in Vatopedi.49

top row:

Βεβαία ἐλπὶς ἠπορηµέ[ν]ων, κόρη,

σ[κέπη γενοῦ] µ[ου καὶ ψυχῆς] σω[τηρία·

right side:

οἶδα σε καὶ γὰρ ὀρφανῶν τε καὶ ξένων]

τὸν βόρβορον πλύνουσα<ν> τῶν ἁµαρτάδων·

[…………………]

Φιλανθρωπηνὴ Ἄννα ταῦτα σοι κράζει.50

top row:

O Maiden, sure hope of those in need,

48 Euthymios Tsigaridas and Katia Loverdou-Tsigarida, Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονή Βατοπαιδίου: Βυζαντινές Εικόνες και Επενδύσεις [The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi: Byzantine Icons and their Coverings] (Mount Athos: The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi, 2006), 191–95, no. 44–45. According to legend, this icon and the similarly sized icon of Christ Pantokrator (cat. 59) belonged to Theodore, wife of the last iconoclast emperor, Theophilos (r. 829–42). The empress was a secret iconophiles who venerated these icons as her νινία, “dolls,” in her bedchamber. One day, when she was venerating her icons, a court jester surprised her by entering her room. She defended her behavior by saying she was simply playing with her dolls. See Tsigaridas for further bibliography. See also Alice-Mary Talbot, “Female Patronage in the Palaiologan Era: Icons, Minor Arts and Manuscripts,” in Female Founders in Byzantium and Beyond, eds. Lioba Theis, Margaret Mullett, and Michael Grünbart (Vienna: Böhlau, 2014), 259–74, esp. 260–62. 49 See Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 922 for further bibliography. 50 I use the edited transcription by Rhoby in Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 92, no. Ik26.

181

be my protection and the salvation of my soul,

right side:

and wash away the dirt of my sins.

I know that you ... of both orphans and strangers.

... Anna Philanthropene cries out these to you.51

This prayer to the Mother of God for protection, salvation, and redemption echoes the themes in the epigram on the Freising icon. Like that prayer, this one is inscribed on plaques interspersed with saints’ busts that position the request within the realm of holy figures. The speaker in this framing prayer gives her name, Anna Philanthropene. She is also represented at the bottom left of the icon; the painting is badly damaged, but the figure bends forward with her head turned slightly toward the viewer so both eyes are visible. Her hands are outstretched in a gesture of entreaty (figs. 3-9 and 3-10). To the right is inscribed “Δέησις τῆς

δούλης τοῦ Θεοῦ Ἄννης Παλαιολογίνης Καντακοθζηνῆς τῆς Φιλανθρωπινῆς,” Prayer of the servant of God Anna Palaiologina Kantakouzene Philanthropene.”52

The design of the surviving revetment suggests that the alternating pattern of plaques with the prayer text and saints’ busts continued around the frame. It is possible that Anna’s figure was duplicated in repoussé on the bottom of the frame. Such a plaque would obscure her painted representation and it would need to include her name in order to carry over this votive image onto the revetment. The representation of just her face and shoulders would help harmonize her image with the saints’ busts in the rest of the mount. Her figure and name

51 Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 922. 52 Ibid., 920–21.

182 represented in the gilt-silver would have helped perpetuate her sentiments, although paradoxically it is this part of the border that is missing.

With such fragmentary remains, it is difficult to draw any conclusions about the placement of these texts. In fact, their current placement is likely the result of a restoration effort: the plaque with Anna’s name is not connected to the one above it with the saint bust.

In other words, there is no evidence to indicate that the panel with her name was placed on the right side of the frame or that they were originally juxtaposed. I think the plaque with

Anna’s name was very likely affixed either on the left or bottom of the frame. Placing her name plaque in either of these locations would accord with the arrangement on other icons where dedicatory inscriptions give the names and titles of donors. In this case, however, there is no evidence on the icon or in the inscription to support the assumption that Anna is the patron of the icon or revetment.53 She makes no claims about gift giving or wealth in the inscriptions, and someone else may have made this revetment in her honor or memory.

The frame inscription connects with the Mother of God’s monogram and epithet inscribed on the two rectangular plaques attached on top of the filigree revetment on both sides of her head. They present the nominum sacra: ΜΗΡ ΘΥ on the left and right, plus

ΙϹΧϹ, Η ΕΛΠΙϹ ΤΩΝ Α “the help of,” (L) and ΠΕΛΠΗΙϹΜΕΝΩΝ, “hopeless,” (R). The

Mother of God as the “sure hope” in the opening line of the epigram echoes the “hope” in her epithet.54 These letters are very carefully spaced on the plaques, but they do not follow the

53 Linda Safran helpfully expanded on the problems with the assumption that figures shown below or beside a holy figure are necessarily patrons or donors. See Safran, “Deconstructing ‘Donors’ in Medieval Southern Italy,” in Theis, Mullett, and Grünbart, Female Founders, 135–51, esp. 135–36 and 151. 54 Drpić, “The Patron’s ‘I’,” 923.

183 correct spelling, which should be ἡ ἐλπὶς τῶν ἀπελπισµένων, “Hope of the Hopeless.” In this revetment, we see a clear attention to legibility in the text with letters spaced evenly and the addition of breathing marks and accents. There are almost no ligatures in the text on the frame and only one on the plaques with the epithet (it joins the letters τω into a single unit).

This fragmentary frame with Anna Philanthropene’s name painted in red and engraved in gold underscores the importance of names of supplicants as part of the decorative program for revetted icons. The two smaller rectangles with the Mother of God’s name have the same rectangular form as the text panels on the frame where Philanthropene is named, thus visually and conceptually uniting her prayer to the Mother of God.

A third example of a framing inscription is a now lost icon of Christ from Ohrid, which has a very limited publication history (fig. 3-11, cat. 83). The epigram is positioned along the left and right sides of the curved beveled edge of the frame next to the icon itself.

On the top and bottom, the frame’s diagonal diaper pattern continues from the frame to the bevels. The letters are very similar in size to the diaper pattern, creating a continuous texture in the relief decoration.

left side:

Κόσµος, κοσµῆτορ τοῦ κόσµου, σῆς εἰκόνος

ἐκ Δηµητρίου ποιµενάρχου Βουλγάρων·

right side:

σὺ δὲ βράβευσον τῷ κατ᾽εἰκόνα κόσµον

δύσµορφον αἶσχος τῶν παθῶν µου καθάρας.55

55 Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 74–75, Ik16, fig. 6

184

left side:

Orderer of the cosmos, the adornment of your icon

[comes] from Demetrios, prelate of the Bulgarians

right side:

But You bring an adornment [made] in [your] image

and you cleanse the shameful disgrace of my passions.56

This inscription uses alliteration in the first line to connect Κόσµος τοῦ κόσµου, the creator of the cosmos, with κόσµος, meaning an icon decoration or revetment.57 This phrase draws a parallel between the Creation in Genesis and the artistic impulse to continue creating. The photographs of the icon taken before it went missing are hard to discern, but it is possible to see that the name of the speaker in the inscription, Demetrios, is placed on the left side of the frame precisely where Christ’s fingertips touch the edge of the icon. On the right side of the frame, the word αἶσχος, shame or disgrace, is positioned where Christ’s two left fingers are pointing, clearly putting an emphasis on Demetrios’s “ugly passions.” The entire icon was overpainted and modified to include Christ’s staff, an attribute of Christ not found in

Byzantine iconography. While the position of Christ’s hands could have been modified at this time to accommodate the staff, the formal arrangement of these elements shows a careful integration of the framing inscriptions with the figural composition.

As I have shown, the names of patrons and supplicants are emphasized on icons in

Freising (fig. 3-1) and Ohrid (fig. 3-11) by their visual relationship to the holy figure

56 My translation. 57 See discussion of κόσµος in the terminology section of the Introduction, pages 4–6.

185 depicted in the icon. Pointing hands and text placement unite image and inscription. The patron/petitioner on the Athens icon is placed on the bottom of the frame below the holy figure, and the original location of the plaque with the name of the supplicant on the

Vatopedi icon is unknown. All four of these icons show that artists made deliberate efforts to inscribe the texts as clearly as possible, making them easily legible. In particular, the artist who inscribed the epigram on the Freising icon further accentuated the inscription with dark niello that contrasts with the luminous gold surface on the rest of the revetment.58 The legibility ensured by their careful execution in the gilt-silver underscores the importance of reading these inscriptions as part of the reception of the icon.

Inscriptions beneath Icons

Depictions of donors and supplicants on icons and their frames are a notable innovation in the Komnenian period.59 On one example, an inscription also names its patron, but in this case, the name is inscribed within an epigram on two plaques on the bottom of the icon revetment. This icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria at Vatopedi, Mount Athos, measures 56.5 x 42 cm, which is larger than the previously mentioned ones and was already discussed in the context of interlaced roundels in Chap. 2 (fig. 3-12, cat. 4). The revetment includes champlevé enamel and niello in the inscription and ornamental patterns. This text on two panels at the bottom is a prayer offered by two sisters. The panels were reversed in restoration, so the epigram now begins on the top of the right panel and then continues on the

58 The varying tones of the niello used on the frame inscription are due to an improper firing technique that resulted in blacks, blues, and even dark greens. Buckton, “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,” 97–99. 59 Carr, “Donors in the Frames,” 189–98; Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “The Representation of Donors and Holy Figures on Four Byzantine Icons,” Δελτίον τὲς Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής ‘Εταιρείας 17 (1993–94): 157–64.

186 top line of the left panel; in other words, the lines of the epigram continued across the entire width of the frame, instead of wrapping within each plaque as on the Freising frame. The epigram as it was written and originally placed on the icon reads as follows (fig. 3–13):

Οὐκ ἄρα πᾶςα χάρις ἀνθρώπου χάρις

οὐδ᾽αι φύσεις ἔχουσι τὴν σχέσιν µίαν·

τὴν σύγγονον γὰρ ἡ Παπαδοπουλίνα

τὴν Ἀριανίτισσα, ᾖ κλῆσις χάρις,

οὐκ ἀπὸ κοιν(ῶν) δεξιοῦται πραγµάτων,

ἀλλά τὸν ἁγνόν τῆς Θ(ευ)ῦ νύµφης τύπον,

ὂν ἀγγέλων φάλαγγες ὀκνοῦσι βλέπειν,

ἒρωτι κοσµήσασα ἐκ χρυσαργύρου

[δι]δωσι αὐτῇ ζώπυρον φίλτρου ξένου·

γένοιτο λοιπὶν ταῖς ἀδελφαῖς ἡ χάρις

[...... ]ς εὐστοργίας

βίου τε συντήρησις ἀσφαλεστάτη.60

Not all grace is grace of man

Nor do all natures have only one kind of relationship

For Papadopoulina honors her sister,

Ariantissa, whose name is Grace

60 Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, Ik25, 88–91, esp. 89. This is Rhoby’s edited version of the transcription in the original arrangement.

187

Not with some ordinary object

But the chaste figure of the divine bride

Which the angelic host hesitates to behold

Having lovingly adorned it with gold and silver

She gives to her [the Virgin] this

Resplendent-in-life object of wondrous love

May now Grace descend upon the sisters

… of contentment

and the most secure preservation of life.61

The names of the two sisters are on the second line of the inscription. When these plaques were in their original location, their names would have appeared on the inside edges next to the feast scene or saints’ bust that was most likely there. The color, technique, and size of the letters are strikingly similar to the rest of the decoration on the revetment. The letters are the same size as the fleur-de-lis pattern on the background and they are filled in with the same color of blue enamel. These artistic choices emphasize the speaker’s or the designer’s intention that the inscription be integrated with the decorative program. It complements the rest of the revetment decoration of fleur-de-lis (M 12) on the ground around the central figures and has meaning even without being read.62 This inscription directs our attention to

61 This is Ihor Ševčenko’s English translation of this epigram from Grabar, Les revêtements, 50. 62 There are many ways that inscriptions convey meanings without being read. For example, Andreas Rhoby suggests that the use of acronyms in inscriptions on icons was a strategy used to make these texts more accessible for illiterate and semi-literate viewers. Rhoby, “Interactive Inscriptions,” 317–33, esp. 326.

188 the similarities between writing and ornament, not by ornamentalizing the letters or rendering them illegible but by mimicking the pattern of horizontal rows of shapes covering the entire icon. The paleography and placement of this majuscule inscription is very similar to the monogram and epithet in the cartouches on either side of the Mother of God’s head.

The placement of donors’ names and inscriptions on the lower sides or corners of an icon is so familiar that many art historians assume that all figures in these positions are donors. This is not necessarily the case. For example, the well-known icon of the Mother of

God Hodegetria now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, shows two full-length figures with their hands outstretched in the lower corners of the frame revetment (fig. 3-14, cat. 5).63 The figures are identified as: δούλος του Θεού Χριστό, τον Κωνσταντίνο Ακροπολίτη the servant of God Christ, Constantine Akropolites, and Μαρία Κοµνηνή Tornike Ακροπολίτισσα, Maria

Komnene Tornikina Akropolitissa. Their bodies are worked in deep repoussé relief, deeper than that used for the saints’ busts and hetoimasia that decorate the rest of the frame. The inscription identifying the figures is compressed into the space surrounding their heads (fig.

3-15). Their desire for the Mother of God’s intercession is expressed through their hand gestures toward the center of the icon, but their prayers and intentions are not explicitly requested. Identifying these figures as the patrons or financiers of this revetment overstates the visual evidence. On other icons, especially other small and moderate-size icons (this one measures 40 x 32 cm) with similar decorative programs on their revetments, donors make their gift and request for divine aid explicit in their inscriptions. On this icon, a short

63 Talbot, “Epigrams in Context,” 83, fig. 13; Ekaterina Gladysheva, “Revetted Icon with the Virgin Hodegetria,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557, ed. Helen Evans (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 28–30, no. 4; Carr, “Donors in the Frames,” 189–98.

189 statement of their gift of the silver decoration for the icon could have been included in the available spaces around the figures, but they are simply shown in supplication to the Mother of God. There is no prayer text to frame the viewer’s experience and the Mother of God’s intercessions on behalf of Constantine and Maria, no request for aid in exchange for this rich gift.

The small size and shallow relief of the inscription suggest that these deictic inscriptions were designed to work as a horizontal pattern. They add visual interest and texture around the two heads, just as the areas around the sacred figures in the frame are filled with inscribed names. The placement of these two mortals interrupts the pattern on the frame of interlace roundels (M-8) alternating with saints’ busts (M-41). They express a connection with the holy figures in the frame in another way by repeating—even exaggerating—the deep relief of the figures and textured surfaces on their clothing and in their inscribed names.

In another example, the revetment of the large icon of Christ Pantokrator, Ohrid, bears a dedicatory inscription on the bottom of the frame (fig. 3-16, cat. 46).64 The inscription was likely intended for another icon because the shallow etching of this text into the silver panel contrasts noticeably with the deeper relief on the other silver plaques. Its placement here reinforces the idea that these inscribed panels add a visual and material quality to the icon that did not depend on their being read. Unlike the small and moderate-size icons used for personal devotion discussed earlier in this chapter, this large icon (158.5 x 125 x 4.5 cm)

64 Milco Georgievski, “Icon with Christ Pantokrator,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 256, no. 154. Georgievski cites Balabanov who argued that the inscription originally belonged to another icon. Kosta Balabanov, Ikonite vo Makedonija (Skope: Tabernakul, 1995), 201; Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 71–74.

190 was probably hung on or from a templon screen. Milco Georgievski suggests that it hung on the screen in the cathedral of St. Sophia, Ohrid.65 The inscription reads:

[……………………………..]

Ὕµνον ἐπικίκ<ι>ον ὠς Θ(ε)ῷ φέρει

αὐτὸς δ᾽ἔνυλος κ(αὶ) χοϊκὸς τυφχάνων

Δούκας Ἰσαάκιος σεβαστοκράτωρ

[………] ἔπλασεν <τὴν> εἰκόν[α

έξ άρ]γύρου χρυσοῦ τε τεχνουργηµέν(ην)·

Ἣν κ(αὶ) δέχοιο, πάµµεδον Θ(εο)ῦ γ[όνε.

...... ] ἐξίλασµα τῶν ἀµαρτά(δων).66

As a triumphant hymn he delivers to God—since he is of substance and earthly—

Isaak Doukas the , for the merciful, this icon made from gold and silver

and receive thy, all sovereign state of God, as a redemption for the sins.67

The text mentions the sebastokrator Isaak Doukas Kersak, commander of Stefan Uroš IV

Dušan’s cavalry. Dušan conquered the Byzantine lands of southern Serbia in the early 1330s and Epirus, Albania, and Thessaly in the 1340s. The revetment on this icon may be interpreted as artistic evidence of the so-called Hellenization of Serbia following Dušan’s

65 Milco Georgievsi, Icon Gallery–Ohird (Ohrid: Institute for the Protection of the Monuments of Culture, 1999), 9. He suggests that the large icon of the Mother of God Psychosostris also accompanied this icon on the St. Sophia templon screen. 66 Rhoby, Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, IK15, 72. 67 Translation from Georgievski, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 256, no. 154.

191 self-declaration as emperor of the Serbs and Rhomaioi in 1346. The adoption of Byzantine administrative structures, titles, and taxes show how the new Serbian entity modeled itself on

Byzantium. This icon revetment, and the revetments on several other icons in Ohrid, are part of this cultural moment of emulation while also exhibiting a new approach to silverwork and icon decoration.

The inscription follows the usual conventions of giving this precious gift to God in exchange for the redemption of sins. Stamped patterns of miniature feast scenes and the hetoimasia on strips of silver dominate the revetment decoration, as also seen on the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria (cat. 1a) discussed in chapter 2. The incorporation of feast scenes is further evidence for the display of this icon in the nave of the cathedral and its integration into the visual decoration of the cathedral’s interior space. Although the small dedicatory inscription panel at the bottom is hard to read, its connection to Dušan helps situate this icon in Serbian history, yet it was not vital that the lay congregation in the cathedral be able to read it. By reusing this plaque, the producers responsible for attaching the panel to this icon sought to connect this monumental icon with the sebastokrator Kersak and thus with Dušan.

Inscriptions on icon frames follow clear conventions. On small and moderate-size icons, they are written in the voice of the penitent shown venerating the icon. In some cases, the inscription makes an explicit connection between the donor who financed the fabrication of the costly revetment and the revetment itself. Donors offer some of their wealth in the form of the revetment in hopeful exchange for protection in this life and redemption for their sins.

192

Inscriptions and the Decorative Program

On the Freising icon (fig. 3-1), additional design choices connect the text of the epigram with the rest of the frame. The artist carefully arranged the letters in each plaque into four lines uniform in height. In the plaques at the top and bottom, the letters and lines are placed more closely together, whereas on the sides, the rows are taller and the letters are wider. This pattern of four lines reinforces the horizontal division of the revetment. The medallions are arranged in four registers. The top register includes the archangels and hetoimasia. The upper parts of the side arms have the medallions of SS. Peter and Paul.

Below them are the great warrior saints Giorgios and Demetrios. Finally, on the bottom arm of the frame are three medallions of the doctor saints Kosmas, Panteleimon, and Damianos

(heavily damaged, but identified by the surviving letters of his name).68 This careful arrangement of rows of text and registers of decoration is unique among surviving revetments; none of the other surviving inscriptions are so well integrated into the structure of their surrounding design.

The enamel medallions in the frame are another unusual feature of this revetment.

Unlike many other thirteenth-century examples in which saints or small figural scenes are shown in silver repoussé, the enamels add color and formal rhythm to the revetment. Enamel medallions were produced in large quantities in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. While

68 Wessel and Buckton both regard the compositional wholeness of this program of medallions as evidence that the medallions were produced in the mid-thirteenth century when the rest of the revetment was also made. Klaus Wessel, Byzantine Enamels from the 5th to the 13th Century (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1967), 30–31; and Buckton, “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,” 97–99. Margaret English Frazer notes the similarity of this program in comparison with other icon frames including the Lavra icon, of the Annunciation in Ohrid (cat. 19), and the bookcover with Crucifixion and Anastasis in San Marco. See her catalogue entry on the bookcover in The Treasury of San Marco, ed. David Buckton (Venice: Olivetti, 1984), 174–75, no. 20.

193 scholars some have postulated that these examples were made in the twelfth century and then reused on this mid-thirteenth-century work, chemical analysis of the glass shows that tin was used to make the glass opaque, not the antimony used in earlier enamels.69 Kurt Wessel speculates that the enamel workshop active in Thessaloniki in the early thirteenth century continued producing medallions like these through the middle of the century.70

If these medallions were made at the same time as the rest of the frame in the mid- thirteenth century, then they exhibit an archaizing character in the work. Likewise, if they were produced in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and reused on this frame in the mid- thirteenth century, the frame would still appear antiquated. Medallions such as these are old- fashioned compared to the repoussé panels used on other revetments. The patron may have wanted to use these antiquated medallions on his icon frame because they add an aura of authority and antiquity. Interestingly, the inscription on the frame refers specifically to the gold and silver of the inscribed frame, not the colors, materials, or subjects of these medallions. Because the precious metal inscription was his priority, not the enamels, then it is possible that the enamels were not included with the patronage of Dishypatos. In fact, it is possible that in the mid-thirteenth century some other decorative elements were combined with the inscribed rectangular plaques to form the icon frame and that later the enamel medallions were added to the icon, replacing those pieces.

69 Buckton dates these enamels to the thirteenth century based on his scientific analysis of the glass. Buckton, “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,” 97–99 and David Buckton, “Enamelled Metal Icons of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Vassilaki, Byzantine Icons, 313–16. Wessel also dates the enamels to the thirteenth century and, because he accepts the earlier attribution to Manuel Dishypatos in Thessaloniki, also postulates that there was an enamel workshop in Thessaloniki that produced these medallions. Wessel, Byzantine Enamels, no. 65. 70 Wessel, Byzantine Enamels, 30–31. Wessel believes these medallions were made around the same time as the frame in the thirteenth century. See also Buckton, “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,” 98.

194

The ten medallions and ten text plaques create a pleasing dynamic contrast between rectilinear and circular forms and between flat text panels and rounded medallions in deeply ornamented compartments of interlace vine scrolls (M-23). Almost every photograph of the icon shows its appearance from the front, which conceals the undulating relief created by these rounded medallions. An oblique photograph of an eleventh-century icon frame in the

Dumbarton Oaks Museum reveals the depth of similar enamel medallions (fig. 3-17, cat. 84).

The enamels on the Freising icon have a similar convex shape. In formal terms, they are part of the same visual tradition in which many decorated icons have bosses or raised medallions on the frame and nimbi of the central holy figure (for a few examples see cats. 4, 5, 28, 44a,

45a, and the excursus on interlace roundels Chapter 1). Rhythmic patterns of surface and relief are integral to the ornamental vocabulary of these late Byzantine icons. The cast openwork interlace around the medallions and on the inner beveled edge of the frame unites the elements, not the messages in the inscription or an iconographic link between familiar saints and the patron’s prayer.

In addition to the enamel medallions, the inscriptions on the revetment that covers the central panel also bear color. These texts were part of a second intervention on the icon directed by Manuel II in ca. 1399. All three types of inscribed texts on this surface are filled with different colors of niello and organic compounds.71 The dark letter forms increase the legibility of these inscriptions. The Virgin’s epithet ΜΗ[ΤΗ]Ρ Θ[ΕΟ]Υ (Mother of God) is inscribed in two raised medallions on either side of her head. Reddish-orange organic compounds fill these letters and echo the skin tones used on her face and hands. The

71 Buckton, “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,” 97–99.

195 additional epithet ἡ Ἐλπὶς τῶν Ἀπελπισµένων (Hope of the Hopeless) is inscribed below the medallions in dark brownish-grey niello. The distinct colors and the circle outlining the

Virgin’s nomen sacrum but not her epithet suggest that these texts are coded and read in different ways. Her name is linked with her flesh, a sealed container, and her epithet is linked to her garments, which are fully embedded in the undulating floral surface of the ground.

The placement of the Virgin’s epithet invites an additional reading. The phrase ἡ

Ἐλπὶς τῶν (the hope of) descends from the abbreviation ΜΗΡ, linking her role as divine mother with the idea of someone who helps or saves. In front of her face, the word

Ἀπελπισµένων (Hopeless [ones]) descends from the second half of her title, the genitive of

God, Θ[EO]Υ. Placing the genitive plural “of the hopeless ones” next to God creates an antithesis that underscores faith in God’s promise to save.

Conclusion

The revetments on the icon of the Virgin in Freising construct the identity of its patrons through a formal relationship among the framing elements. The mid-thirteenth- century plaque with Manuel Dishypatos’s name and the plaque with his prayer create a line that follows the angle of the Virgin’s arms outstretched in a gesture of entreaty (fig. 3-3). The careful letter spacing enhances the epigram’s legibility with even rows of letters on each plaque and dark niello that fills each letterform. The personal theology of the supplicants who pray through these inscriptions is familiar: he/she gives this beautiful thing to the divine person represented in the image and hopes for divine protection in return. By analyzing the placement of these texts in relation to the painted icon, I show that the patrons, poets, and artist who designed these works planned and created complex and meaningful relationships between the image and texts. This suggests that in some cases, such as the framing

196 inscription on the Freising icon, the text was composed and arranged on the frame with a clear image of the icon’s composition.

On the Freising frame, the enamel medallions that alternate with the inscription introduce an archaizing quality. Regardless of whether they are reused twelfth-century medallions or were fabricated in the mid-thirteenth century to look like older medallions, they add color to the work, populating the frame with nine holy figures who bear witness to the speaker’s prayer and the Mother of God’s intercessory prayer. On the revetment from the late fourteenth century, the inscriptions work with the icon to construct a new identity of an unnamed patron. I agree with the theory that Manuel II acquired this icon and added more elements to the revetment because he intended to give this work as a diplomatic gift. He harnessed the prayer of the homonymous patron for his own purposes. Manuel expressed what he perceived to be a hopeless political situation for Byzantium by transforming the epigram about personal salvation into a plea for delivery from a dire political situation. He is one of the “hopeless” who needs divine help to survive unblemished and unconquered.

Revetments were made years, sometimes decades, after the icons were initially painted; this chronological gap is exemplified by the mid-thirteenth century framing epigram on the Freising Virgin and the ca. 1400 inscribed revetment. The combination of text and image shows careful planning and deliberate choices in the literary and visual rhetoric of patrons and artists. The inscriptions point to anterior moments that memorialized the gift of the revetment to the holy figure and the icon. These past moments become physical, spatial, and material elements of the revetments. Inscriptions thus have a visual and artistic relationship with the icon. They become the outer surface, concealing and enshrining the icon with a concrete form of the speaker’s prayer.

Chapter 4: Materiality and the Virgin in Prayer, Fermo

May 6, 1473 was a significant day for the people of the city of Fermo, on the east coast of Italy. On that day, the Franciscan preacher Giacomo della Marca gave the small icon of the Virgin in Prayer with its glittering Byzantine revetment to the cathedral of Fermo, where it was put on display as a cult icon for the benefit of the entire town (fig. 4-1, cat. 3).1

The Gothic tabernacle inscribed “ANNUNTIATIONIS V” (fig. 4-2) was very likely attached to the bottom of the frame at this time as a way of connecting the picture to local religious communities and devotional traditions associated with the Virgin. The results of these actions included the popularization of a new iconography of the Virgin of the Annunciation: rather than stand to greet the Archangel , she bows her head slightly and folds her hands over her chest like a demure young woman.

1 The icon has been published in several studies of Byzantine icons and silverwork. André Grabar, Les revêtements en or et en argent des icônes byzantines du moyen âge (Venice: Institut hellénique d'études byzantines et post-byzantines, 1975), 44–45, no. 17, fig. 42. Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 346–48. There are two in-depth studies of this icon. Bonfioli focuses on the archival record of the icon in fifteenth- century Fermo in “Problematica di un’Icona,” in L’Arte di Bisanzio e l’Italia al Tempo dei Paleologi, 1261– 1453, ed. Antonio Iacobini and Mauro della Valle (Rome: Argos, 1999), 267–83. Daila Radeglia reports on the most recent conservation and restoration work that was done on the icon in Radeglia, “Il restauro dell’icona della Madonna di Fermo: Problematiche di un manufatto polimaterico,” Bollettino ICR 1 (2000): 86–127. Wolfgang Volbach compares the metalwork on icon revetments with Byzantine reliquaries in, Volbach, “Venetian Byzantine Works of Art in Rome,” AB 29 (1947): 86–94, at 93–94. For the early twentieth-century bibliography on this icon, see Angelo Lipinsky, “Introduzione tecnica all’arte orafa bizantina,” Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 12 (1966): 275–352, note 21, and Lipinsky, “Ori, argenti e gioielli nella romana: Ori e smalti bizantini in Ungheria dall’avvento degli Arpadi,” Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 16 (1969): 213–44. Alice Bank dates this revetment to the early fourteenth century based on her comparisons with other fourteenth-century Byzantine works in, “L’argenterie byzantine des Xème–XVème siècles: Classification des monuments et méthodes de recherches,” Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 17 (1970): 335–53, and fig. 3.

197 198

In this chapter, I analyze the materials and materiality that comprise the icon of the

Virgin in Fermo.2 This revetment is representative of many other thirteenth- and fourteenth- century revetted icons in terms of its materials and techniques.3 It exhibits many of the figural and nonfigural motifs used on contemporary icons: interlace roundels on the Virgin’s nimbus (M-8), circles enclosing flowers (M-10), and feast scenes on the frame (M-37).4 As is the case for all late Byzantine decorated icons, the Fermo revetment is intimately integrated with its icon and its cultural setting. The icon and revetment were both material copies of a spiritual prototype, meaning that the revetment acquired its own material .

I posit that this icon and its revetment were created to satisfy the desire of an Italian audience or patron for a Byzantine decorated icon. In the late thirteenth century, many

Franciscan and Dominican communities in Italy fostered strong connections with Byzantine artists and imagery because they recognized the power of decorated icons as objects of devotion. The icon wedded Italian devotional imagery with the material and ornamental vocabulary of Byzantine revetted icons. Although my analysis of the creation of this decorated icon places it in Italy, I argue that its materiality is contingent on the ornamental vocabularies and changing conceptualizations of icons that were developed by Byzantine artists and audiences. Moreover, I think that Byzantine artisans produced the revetment

2 Tim Ingold, “Materials against Materiality,” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (2007): 1–16. Ingold’s object lesson of studying a wet stone while reading his article offers a useful method for thinking about the shifting materiality of the Fermo Virgin over time. As its surrounding environment and society changes through time, its materiality takes on different meanings and associations. 3 See Appendix 2 for an analysis of the nonfigural and figural aspects of these motifs. Several regions have been proposed for the painting’s origins: Constantinople/Byzantium, a Byzantine Greek painter in Venice, an Italian painter in Umbria, the Adriatic, or the Marches. 4 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 95. Radeglia and the ICR restoration team believe this icon revetment is one of the best examples of icon revetments from the end of the thirteenth century with its contrasting figurative and ornamental decoration combined with the painted image.

199 plaques covering the ground, the Virgin’s nimbus, and the frame. These gilt-silver panels made by Byzantine silversmiths constitute one of the most carefully designed and crafted icon revetments that survive from this period. The painting was very likely produced in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, as the most recent conservation work suggests, by an artist working in Italy who was proficient in the artistic styles and techniques of Byzantine icon painters. Working for an Italian audience, he thus introduced several non-Byzantine elements. A few scholars have attributed the painting to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century and to an Italian painter—perhaps one working in Venice or the Adriatic, or in central Italy (Umbria or the Marches)—but the implications of this attribution have been left unexamined. I discuss this problem below.5

My revised attribution to an Italian painter is significant for two reasons. First, this icon is more commonly (and erroneously) interpreted as a fully Byzantine work, one that such painters as Antonello da Messina used as a model for his paintings of the Virgin

Annunciate.6 Second, it invites scholars of Byzantine and Italian to engage further with cultural and stylistic mixing and with such terms as maneria greca, Italo-

Byzantine, and cult icon. The icon appears to be a Byzantine production, and audiences have assumed this to be the case up to the present day. Because the revetment is intimately integrated with the icon and its cultural setting, separating these things is very complicated.

5 Ibid. Belting hypothesized that this was an Italian painting and initiates an analysis of this complicated culture mixture, but he refrains from attempting to explain how it came to be or from exploring the implications of this insight. He calls the icon, “one of the greatest riddles in icon painting,” and then asks, “How did the Italian image come by its Eastern metal frame?” Belting, Likeness and Presence, 346. 6 Lorenzo Pericolo, “The Invisible Presence: Cut-In, Close-Up, and Off-Scene in Antonello da Messina’s Palermo Annunciate,” Representations, 107 (2009): 1–29. Pericolo (28, 35n) notes that in Antonello’s Munich painting, the Virgin is turned towards something happening beyond the setting of the painting, unlike the Virgin’s posture in the Fermo icon.

200

Although this chapter focuses on the icon’s medieval elements, its post-medieval additions reveal much about how later audiences interpreted this work. The icon continued to acquire new adornments from its patrons in the centuries following its creation. These accretions include the Gothic tabernacle reliquary that was attached to the bottom of the frame sometime around 1473. Later, an eighteenth-century oil painting by Alessandro Ricci

(1750–1829) with four scenes of the icon’s history was taped to the back of the panel (fig. 4-

3). This depiction of the icon’s origin story suggests that questions about the icon’s meaning, origins, and authenticity endured into the eighteenth century. The four scenes show the icon’s legendary origins, its transfer through the trustworthy channels of papal and Franciscan ownership, and its final destiny as a devotional image displayed on an altar. Photographs of the icon from the nineteenth or early twentieth century show it adorned with necklaces and enamel flowers. At that time, the icon was inserted into a wood and glass display box that concealed the reverse of the panel. During the icon’s most recent conservation work, in the late 1990s, a sixteenth-century woodcut of the Mysteries of the Rosary was discovered sandwiched between the Ricci canvas and the back of the icon panel (fig. 4-4).7 This post- medieval woodcut together with the eighteenth-century oil painting emphasize the icon’s continued devotional status and indicates a connection with features of the cult of the Virgin in Europe that included her coronation in heaven. The icon and its revetment are now on display in the cathedral of Fermo in a glass case positioned next to a side altar.8 Over the

7 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 88, 121–23. 8 Ibid.,” 88.

201 course of several centuries, additional images were attached to the icon, which suggests that the icon’s devotional function and meaning continued to be in flux.

In the same way that relics were enclosed by precious metals rich with ornamentation, revered icons were enshrined and encrusted in a matrix of decorative elements that bear witness to a legacy of veneration. On one level, these materials are part of an economic system, with monetary values, culture, and trade relationships embedded in their use. On a second level, they are part of a wide range of social and ritual worlds in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, in Byzantium and neighboring communities around the

Mediterranean. The enriched surface and material complexity express the icon’s elevated social status and value in devotional practices. On a third level, the material presence of the icon revetment, with its added heft, volume, and textured relief, reinforces the objecthood of the icon itself. The icon’s material characteristics contrast with the immaterial features of its prototype to which its likeness adheres. By transforming this painted image of the Virgin into a decorated icon through the addition of a costly, reflective, and heavily ornamented covering, I argue that this decorated icon represents a subtle ideological shift in the definition of icons, especially highly revered and miraculously powerful icons. The Fermo icon thus functions as both an image of a divine prototype and as an index of icon veneration itself.

Because icon revetments are best understood in relation to the icons they adorn, this chapter necessarily addresses some aspects of late thirteenth-century painting in Byzantium and Italy. Artists in both regions used egg tempera, but there were subtle differences in technique. I use the evidence from the latest conservation report to evaluate the painting and gilding techniques. In addition, I address what may be called style in Italian and Byzantine painting and consider the concept of the maniera greca as it relates to this icon. Its revetment

202 plaques call to mind adorned icons that evoke nostalgia for an earlier age, closer in time to the life of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and his apostles. Their placement on this icon helps legitimate it for its audiences in western Europe who shared their admiration for Byzantine icons in the form of this revetment, and the addition of this revetment reflects a definition of icons in which ornamentation complements adherence to prototypes.

The Virgin in Prayer in the Late Thirteenth–Early Fourteenth Century

The Fermo Virgin’s revetment (fig. 4-1) is composed of small pieces of gilt-silver decorated with a combination of motifs and emblems and nailed onto the painted wooden panel. It surrounds the central figure, covering the Virgin’s nimbus, the background and frame. There are openings in the revetment in the upper corners for the archangels Michael

(left) and Gabriel (right); their nimbi and names are engraved on separate plaques attached to the background cladding. A small indentation in the contour of the revetment near the lower right corner, where the painted panel shows the Virgin’s finger protruding past the edge of her shoulder, interrupts the smooth lines and symmetrical balance of the silverwork surrounding the central figure. The revetment extends to the perimeter of the panel, where the frame and its inner beveled edge complete the decorative ensemble. This beveled surface bears a puzzling inscription that is discussed below. Examining the techniques used to fabricate and decorate these plaques helps clarify how this work compares with others discussed in this thesis and catalogue.

The Byzantine Revetment

The revetment exemplifies excellent design and technical craftsmanship by a

Byzantine silversmith, although several small features distinguish it from other works.

Repoussé, chasing, and openwork are used to form these decorative patterns in thin sheets of

203 silver, just as these techniques form the decorations on the Ohrid Mother of God and Freising

Mother of God, among others. The first step in the process of creating these decorative sheaths was to acquire enough silver to form thin plates in the desired shapes. Silver was obtained either through mining or by recycling old objects of silver.9 On such icons as the one in Freising (fig. 3-1, cat. 2) and the Vatopedi Hodegetria (fig. 1-12, cat. 4), the plaques with figural decoration are separate from the nonfigural pieces, which suggests that artists who specialized in the separate genres probably made them. The Fermo revetment is composed of irregularly shaped pieces of silver that are fitted together to cover the panel. The combination of nonfigural and figural decoration on same many of the metal segments suggests that the same artist produced all of these pieces.

In the latest conservation and restoration work, Energy-Dispersive-X-Ray-

Fluorescence analysis (ED-XRF) on the icon’s revetment confirms that it is composed of nearly pure silver and gold, similar to the 92–95% purity used for the silver revetments on church furnishings and ciboria in the fourth through seventh centuries, which is the only period studied.10 ED-XRF confirms that this revetment is indeed formed from silver and gold of the highest level of purity, not from alloys made with other, less costly materials.

9 There is limited research on the sources for these raw materials. In the thirteenth century, there was an increase in mining in the Balkans by Saxon miners, but it is unlikely that it extended to Constantinople. Because coins from Trebizond in the thirteenth century are known to have a higher content of silver, there is speculation that there were silver mines in that region of Asia Minor. Klaus-Peter Matschke, “Mining,” in The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. Angeliki Laiou (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 1:115–20. 10 The absence of copper, tin, zinc, rule out the possible use of less valuable false gilding. For a succinct introduction to silver on church furnishings, see ODB, s.v. “Silver,” by Marlia Mango, Laskarina Bouras, and Anthony Cutler. Fine or highly pure silver alloys with 1.5–10% copper were commonly used for late antique silver objects, but the softness of these metal objects rendered them susceptible to wear and damage and many were likely melted down and recycled in the middle and late periods. Anthony Cutler, “Industries of Art,” in Laiou, Economic History of Byzantium, 2:571. This non-invasive chemical analysis evaluates the X-ray

204

The ED-XRF analysis found that other elements such as copper, tin, and zinc are absent in the Fermo revetment, which eliminates the possibility that less costly faux gilding was used for the plaques. Thus, the conservators conclude that the gilding was probably made using the gold amalgam technique, although this hypothesis can only be confirmed through other analyses that require taking samples from the revetment.11 Although the ED-

XRF analysis did not detect mercury, an essential element in this technique, it still may have been used. The mercury is typically burned away in the finishing or fixing process of heating the gilded work in a closed furnace.12

There are three primary decorative areas on the Fermo icon revetment: the ring forming the Virgin’s nimbus, the background around her head and shoulders, and the rectilinear frame with the beveled inscription. On the nimbus six interlace roundels (M-8) protrude from the surface, as do six pairs of canted squares with interlace. The plaque on the nimbus was the first one added to the icon, as discussed below. On the background, circles enclosing flowers (M-10) are embossed into the plaques, and this design decreases in diameter in the narrow areas between the nimbus and the frame and in the lower right corner between the Virgin’s body and the frame (figs. 4-5 and 4-6). Two round cartouches with the

Virgin’s title ΜΡ ΘΥ are embedded in the silver-gilt panels on either side of her neck. The

fluorescence of metallic materials and analyzes their radiant wavelengths. Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 100–101, 104. They did not perform micro-sampling of the silver cover. 11 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 104. 12 Kilian Anheuser, “The Practice and Characterization of Historic Fire Gilding Techniques,” Journal of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society 49, no. 11 (1997): 58–62, esp. 59. Although the mercury would evaporate if the object were left at room temperature, heat is necessary to create the bond between the substrate and the buttery gilding paste.

205 names of the archangels, ΜΙΧ/ΑΗΛ and ΓΑΒΡ/ΙΗΛ, are embossed on two small rectangular plaques next to their painted representations (fig. 4-6). These inscriptions are distinguished from the rest of the silver-gilt revetment by the use of blue enamel applied to the recesses around the letters, which increases the inscriptions’ readability. Other revetments from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries have either niello or enamel embedded in the letterforms to improve their legibility. For example, there are blue enamel highlights the inscription letters on the Freising Mother of God (cat. 2) and on the Vatopedi Hodegetria

(fig. 1-12, cat. 4) as well as the nonfigural patterns that decorate the frame and background.

On the Fermo Virgin, the frame is formed from four strips of gilt-silver decorated with a pattern of rectilinear compartments containing feast scenes (M-37) alternating with square interlace plaques (fig. 4-7). These squares are separated by narrow rectangles with three interconnected mounds formed in an openwork technique very similar to the interlace used on the pairs of canted squares in the Virgin’s nimbus. Along the top and bottom arms of the frame, additional narrow strips of interlace plait (M-22) are positioned between the openwork strips. The closest comparison to the design and placement of these dividing strips is the frame on the small but important diptych in the Museo del Duomo, Florence, dated to the fourteenth century (cat. 41).13 Nicoletta da Antonio Grioni is believed to have given this diptych and a collection of saints’ relics to the baptistery in Florence in 1394, and the frame was likely produced by Italian artisans.14 Besides this Italian work, no other revetment has short plaited bands separating the decorative segments on the frame.

13 Edmund Ryder, “Micromosaic Icons of the Late Byzantine Period” (PhD diss., New York University, 2007), 210–14. 14 Ibid., pl. 18a and b, 119–23, with extensive earlier bibliography.

206

The twelve feasts scenes form the dodekaorton and are arranged in a circuit around the perimeter of the Fermo icon, beginning in the upper left corner and continuing clockwise:

Annunciation, Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, Baptism of Christ, Resurrection of

Lazarus, Entrance into Jerusalem, Crucifixion, Transfiguration, Anastasis, Ascension,

Pentecost, and Koimesis (fig. 4-8).15 For artisans this cycle of feasts coalesced in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and was used to decorate icons and other objects, but because it continued to be a very popular theme into the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the fact that it was used to decorate our icon does not help with dating the silverwork.16 The cycle is also well known in Byzantine church decoration, where it is usually placed on the upper walls of a church and arranged according to the Gospel narrative with the Annunciation at or near the entrance to the sanctuary, although the complete cycle of twelve scenes is not always depicted.

The dodekaorton appears on several other icons either as the subject or as a decorative element of the repoussé frame. The Florence mosaic diptych of the Twelve Feasts is a key example of this theme. The structure of the diptych separates the scenes into two sets, which reinforces their devotional function by suggesting thematic or spiritual parallels in the left and right panels. The left panel focuses on the life of Christ, and the right on

Christ’s Passion and the events following his Crucifixion. On the Fermo icon frame,

15 OBD, s.v. “Great Feasts,” by John Cotsonis connects the increased preference for narrative scenes on seals through the eleventh and twelfth century to liturgical developments in Gospel , the establishment of a standardized calendar for celebrating feasts in the life of Christ and the Mother of God, the creation of calendar icons, the use of these scenes on templon screens, and the establishment of a standardized iconographical program in middle Byzantine churches. John Cotsonis, “Narrative Scenes on Byzantine Lead Seals (Sixth–Twelfth Centuries): Frequency, Iconography, and Clientele,” Gesta 48, no. 1 (2009): 55–86, esp. n. 34 for bibliography on the dodekaorton cycle. 16 Ernst Kitzinger, “Reflections on the Feast Cycle in Byzantine Art,” CahArch 36 (1988): 51–52.

207 however, the sequence of scenes places the Transfiguration after the Crucifixion, which contradicts and confuses the logical flow in the Gospel narrative.

The dodekaorton is used on several other icon revetments as a framing device. The cycle distills the complexity of God’s presence in the world in feasts placed on the liminal zone of an icon, creating a window through which the viewer sees the image of the holy figure. Ten scenes compose the repoussé gilt-silver frame around the Vatopedi Hodegetria

(fig. 3-12, cat. 4).17 Each one is contained in a separate piece of gilt-silver with four studs securing it to the panel (see detail, fig. 4-9); additional studs are visible on the surrounding silver plaques. The lower edge of the frame includes two panels with a lengthy inscription.

These detailed scenes show a high degree of volume and depth, with architectural features adding a sense of spatial relationship between the figures. Greek titles are carefully inscribed above each scene, which is typical for these emblems. Although it is likely that repoussé punches were used to produce these feast scenes, the scenes on the Fermo and Vatopedi frames are different in size, and the Vatopedi scenes have more detail, which indicates that they were not produced using the same punches.

On a second example, the feast scenes on the frame of the Crucifixion mosaic icon at

Vatopedi (cat. 65), also from the fourteenth century, show an even greater expansion with additional figures and architectural details included in each episode. A second plaque of the

Annunciation is placed in the lower right corner of the frame, replacing the Crucifixion scene, which may have been deliberately eliminated because the Crucifixion is the subject of

17 Jannic Durand, “Precious Metal Icon Revetments,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. Helen Evans (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 248, fig. 8.8.

208 the icon. Both Annunciation scenes in diagonally opposite corners are on plaques separate from the surrounding decoration, and the Ascension and Annunciation scenes in the lower left and right corners fit awkwardly into the space created by the surrounding metalwork where the edges of an interlacing motif are still visible on the vertical plaques on the frame’s sides. The Annunciation in the upper left corner is smaller than the surrounding scenes; it was possibly added later to repair the frame. In other words, this adaptation of twelve scenes required making changes to existing metalwork.

A third comparison for the feast scenes used at Fermo is found on the Ohrid

Hodegetria discussed in chapter 2 (fig. 2-1 and 2-5). Unlike the examples given above, there the silversmith created miniature “thumbnail” depictions of the scenes and repeated them in small strips used to cover the frame of the icon. Instead of using a pattern of twelve distinct emblems interspersed with nonfigural plaques in the frame, the strips of tiny scenes convey less of a sense of discrete episodes and instead create the effect of fine texture and pattern.

The scenes are recognizable at a distance because of their conformity to visual traditions, but only by examining the icon at very close range do the details become recognizable. Their miniature size effectively privatizes the revetment decoration, limiting its legibility to the viewers who could have access to examine it closely.

The dodekaorton used on icon revetments shows that silversmiths continually used the scenes as a design unit or grouping, although they were also at liberty to vary the sequence and iconography of these feasts. When used on icon frames like the one in Fermo, the feast cycle creates a spatial, visual, and liturgical context for the icon that accompanies it

209 regardless of where it is positioned.18 The cycle creates a sacred perimeter around the icon by evoking well-known figural compositions that were recognizable from a distance; thus, this figural frame situates the Fermo icon in an Orthodox liturgical space and time. These feasts are the events that punctuate the annual cycle of liturgies and offices in the church.

Celebrating these feasts by retelling their narratives and performing the requisite prayers, chants, and rituals are an important component of Orthodox liturgical practice. Thus, placing this cycle of feasts on the Fermo icon frame transposes these events from the liturgical world of corporate worship in the church into a more private visual and devotional world of the icon and the Latin west.

The Transfiguration scene in the bottom of the frame is part of a group of images aligned on a central vertical axis. Reading vertically from the top to bottom they are: the feast of the Nativity, text in the inscription on the frame, the Virgin’s halo and face, additional text in the inscription, and the feast of the Transfiguration. These axial elements show a close integration of the painting with the revetment. In the ninth century, Theodore of Stoudios

(759–826) linked the Nativity and Transfiguration in his “Third Refutation Against the

Iconoclasts,” arguing that the Transfiguration event itself proved that “the invisible one had an appearance of likeness, the formless one had a form, and the measureless one came encompassed within a measure.”19 These feasts are both theophanies, during which God

18 Icons with revetments like this one were carried in processions and mounted on stands for special veneration. They were generally not displayed on templon screens as part of that decorative program. 19 Theodore of Stoudios, Antirrheticus adversus iconomachos, III, PG 99:413, i.53.

210 became visibly manifest to humans.20 That these scenes are aligned on axis with the Virgin’s face reinforces her role in salvation history as the bearer of God. Although by the end of the thirteenth century the philosophical and theological arguments about Christ’s humanity and visual depiction had long been resolved, the theology visually encoded here through the icon and its costly gilt-silver revetment was about the materialization or reification of the manifestation of God in the world. Because the soteriological efficacy of Christ’s suffering in the Passion is predicated on his being both human and divine, his incarnation and humanity are emphasized through this combination of images. The icon and revetment were made as an affirmation of the Virgin’s connection to Christ’s humanity. The scenes in the vertical axis, together with the rest of the dodekaorton cycle, make a strong visual claim that this is a true likeness and an effective, authorized, Orthodox image.

Other aspects of the decoration of this icon indicate its unique status from the outset.

The ring forming the Virgin’s nimbus was probably the first decorative relief added to the icon. Beneath the halo, the panel was only painted orange-red, not covered with gilded silver leaf like the rest of the area around the Virgin, which suggests that the halo plaque was affixed to the icon from the beginning.21 On the silver halo, the depth of the rounded medallions is higher than the depth of all other elements of the revetment.22 It was originally

20 Leslie Brubaker has written about the emphasis on theophanies in the second half of the ninth century as part of the revival of image making in Byzantium in, Brubaker, “Byzantine Art in the Ninth Century: Theory, Practice, and Culture,” BMGS 13 (1989): 23–93, esp. 40–42. 21 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 96, 101, and 103. Colorimetric analysis of the various shades of red confirms that the same hue is used throughout the painting despite the differences that developed over time and as result of cleaning. The mineral layers on the panel behind the halo include gypsum, aluminum, and a little cinnabar mixed with red lead. 22 Ibid.,” 99. The filling material on the back supporting these medallions was thicker and more conspicuous in this part than on the rest of the revetment.

211 designed as a single ring of gilt-silver with openwork scrolls and canted squares arranged around six interlace roundels. In the chasing stage, very thin chisels were used to create deep imprints in the metalwork. The effect of this high relief and rich surface is to pull the viewer’s eye to the Virgin’s head and face. It also suggests that the Virgin’s likeness is to be honored with costly materials. The plaque has a rich and complex texture that distinguishes the Virgin’s head from her body and the surrounding decoration.

Inscriptions on the Revetment Frame

The Greek inscription separates the alternating sequence of figural and nonfigural plaques on the frame from the ornamented field covering the icon’s background (figs. 4-5, 4-

6, 4-7). The lettering increases the strongly Byzantine character of the revetment, and even if a viewer could not decipher the text, it makes a strong claim that this icon is Byzantine and thus imbued with the authority and antiquity that Byzantine icons were thought to possess and that Italian patrons and clergy sought to acquire. The inscription was not designed in a way that would increase its legibility, unlike most other inscriptions on icon revetments that employ large letters accentuated with enamel or other surface treatments.23

On the Fermo revetment, the characters are irregularly spaced and darkened only by tarnish where the gilding has worn off. The inscription’s readability is further hindered by the way the characters are given different orientations around the frame. Andreas Rhoby determined that this epigram probably has ten verses and that it follows the usual sequence of verses arranged on icon frames: it begins across the top, continues on the right side, then

23 See Chapter 3 for a broader discussion on inscriptions on icons revetments and frames.

212 moves down the left side and finishes across the bottom.24 Because the top has two verses, one expects the bottom also to have two verses. On the top of the frame, the characters are upright and read from left to right. On the right, the characters are upright, stacked in a , and the inscription reads top to bottom. In the lower half of this strip, characters are paired side by side as though the silversmith realized he needed to squeeze more text into this section than he anticipated when he began inscribing the verses. On the left side the characters are rotated ninety degrees counter-clockwise and read left to right, bottom to top.

This orientation alters the usual downward direction of the inscriptions on icon frames. On the bottom bar, the letters are placed upright again, and the inscription continues left to right.

There are no other icon revetments with a similar treatment of characters, separating words into two- and three-character fragments, although a similar configuration is found on the right side of the frame on the thirteenth-century bas-relief icon of the Virgin Episkepsis at the Makrinitissa Monastery in Thessaly (fig. 4-10).25 In sum, the verses on the left and right are harder to read because on the right side the character placement does not follow word divisions and on the left side the viewer must read the Greek sideways.

On the Fermo inscription, the letterforms change from one style in the top part of the frame to another style on the other three sides. The characters in the top bar appear to have

24 Andreas Rhoby, ed. Byzantinische Epigramme in inschriftlicher Überlieferung, vol. 2, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst: nebst Addenda zu Band 1 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 110. This same reading direction for the inscription of top–right–left–bottom is found on many other objects including a -gilt cross now in the cathedral of Alessandria, Italy, that has a badge on each arm of the cross forming an epigram with two dodecasyllables. Andreas Rhoby, “Epigrams, Epigraphy and Sigillography,” in Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium of Byzantine Sigillography, ed. Christos Stavrakos and Barbara Papadopoulou (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011), 65–80, at 69. 25 Alice-Mary Talbot, “Epigrams in Context: Metrical Inscriptions on Art and Architecture of the Palaiologan Era,” DOP 53 (1999): 75–90, at 81.

213 small lines, like serifs, at the ends of each stroke. The letters in the other three bars do not have these small strokes. Rhoby notes that the inscription begins in partially accentuated majuscule but does not mention the change and simplification in writing style on the other bars of the frame.26 Comparisons with other icon revetments in my catalogue (appendix 3) confirm that this is a unique choice to use different lettering styles for two sections of a long inscription.

Several scholars have unsuccessfully attempted to read, transcribe, and translate this inscription, hoping to uncover the names of patrons or their intentions. Grabar’s transcription was the first published version, although he confessed to being unable to read most of it and offered no explanation for its illegibility.27 In the 1990s restoration, the specialist tasked with deciphering the inscription, Augusta Acconcia Longo, was unable to read it and did not include her findings in the restoration report.28 The author of the epigram is unknown, and the text exists only in this inscription. Rhoby included it in his recent publication of epigrams on Byzantine icons. He transcribes the epigram as follows:

Upper part: (1) Οὐδέν τι καινόν, εἰ βραχὺς θεῖος τόπος

τῶν οὐρανῶν φέρει σε τὴν πλατυτέραν·

26 Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen der Kleinkunst, 110. 27 Grabar writes, “Je n’ai pu lire que ceci.” Grabar, Les revêtements, 44. His transcriptions are as follows: Left part: ΑΥΤΗ Δ'ΕΜΕ ΠΛΑΤΥΝΟΝ ΕϹΤΕΝΟΜΕΝΟΝ … ΛΥΚΗΝ ϹΧΟΙΝΟΙϹ ΤΩΝ ΣΩΝ ΘΑΥΜΑΤΩΝ Π…ΣΩ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤ. ΤΑΣ…; Upper part: ΟΥΔΕΝ ΤΙ ΚΑΙΝΟΝ ΕΙ ΒΠΑΧΥϹ ΘΕΙΟϹ ΤΟΠΟϹ ΤΩΝ ΟΥΡΑΝΩΝ ΦΕΡΕΙ ϹΑΙ () ΤΗΝ ΠΛΑΤΥΤΕΠΑΝ. 28 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 90, 97. The report suggests that the inscription may have been added at a later date, perhaps around the same time as the Gothic tabernacle was attached in the second half of the fifteenth century, but the inscription is part of the frame plaques, not a separate strip, which means a silversmith would have taken the highly unlikely steps of removing the frame plaques, reworking the interior beveled edges, and reattaching them to the icon. Longo’s transcription and translation efforts are recorded and further discussed in an article by Mara Bonfioli, “Problematica di un’Icona,” 274.

214

......

......

(5) ......

Left part: αὐτὴ δ᾽ἐµὲ πλάτυνον ἐστενωµένον

[. . .] λυκὴν σχοίνοις τῶν σῶν θαυµάτ(ων)

[. . .] πνευµάτ(ων) τάς [...... ]

......

...... 29

Upper part: There is nothing new at the small divine place

Bring that which is wider than the heavens

......

Left part: Make me myself wide open having been contracted

[. . .] bound by your wonders [. . .] of the spirit [. . .]

Rhoby determined, based on the still-legible verses, that the epigram follows the common

Byzantine dodecasyllable meter. In verse 1, the phrase οὐδέν τι καινόν, “there is nothing new,” is a popular phrase in other epigrams from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, including those of Manuel Philes. The next phrase, εἰ βραχὺς θεῖος τόπος, “at the small/humble divine place/site,” seems to refer to the icon. In verse 2, the phrase τῶν

οὐρανῶν φέρει σε τὴν πλατυτέραν ends with the word platytera. This word ties directly to the imperative πλάτυνον, “open or broaden me,” in verse 6. These two closely linked words are positioned in diagonally opposite corners: the upper right and lower left.

29 Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 110–11.

215

Rhoby presents a hypothesis that connects the terminology in the decipherable portions of the inscription with biblical texts. The term πλάτυνον is an allusion to Isaiah 54:2,

“Enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.”30 The context is a song about

God’s promise to give a childless woman descendants and to be compassionate with her. It describes enlarging a tent in anticipation of a great increase in the number of occupants.

Interpreted as a prophetic metaphor, it refers to the way the Virgin became “more spacious than the heavens” by containing the creator of the universe in her womb. The Fermo Virgin does not show the typical figural arrangement of the Virgin Platytera, which is characterized the Virgin standing frontally with her hands stretched up in the orans position and with an image of the Child, sometimes portrayed within a mandorla, placed against her chest.31 This suggests that the term in the epigram does not refer to an icon type or the icon itself, but rather to an idea separate from the icon. Rhoby explores possible readings of the verses on the left and bottom, but his analysis is inconclusive.32

It is curious that such a richly ornamented revetment would have an inscription that was so unevenly executed and poorly designed. It is possible that the inscription was added later, but the beveled edges of its frame are part of the same gilt-silver plaques used on the

30 Isaiah 54: 2, πλάτυνον τὸν τόπον τῆς σκηνῆς σου καὶ τῶν αὐλαιῶν σου, πῆξον, µὴ φείσῃ· µάκρυνον τὰ σχοινίσµατά σου καὶ τοὺς πασσάλους σου κατίσχυσον. 31 This is Rhoby’s hypothesis, although in his discussion of the epigram and icon he offers no further analysis or comparison between this term inscribed on the revetment and the type of icon it adorns. Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten, 110–11. 32 For example, Rhoby explores the possibility that the barely decipherable letters at the beginning of verse 7 contain a noun in the accusative and that the to-λύκης ending in the nominative is matched with ἐµὲ... έστενωµένον in verse 6 and refers to the patron of the icon in more detail.

216 frame itself. Modifying these surfaces would have damaged the frame plaques, and there is no evidence of that occurring. The placement of this inscription on the beveled surface between the outer frame and inner panel is also unique. The only other icon with an inscription in the same place is the now missing icon of Christ from Ohrid (cat. 79). All other icon revetments show nonfigural motifs decorating this strip, separating the background from the decorative program on the frame. Interlace plait (M-22) is the most common motif used on the beveled edges. That an illegible inscription decorates the part of this icon that would customarily be adorned with interwoven bands heightens the mystifying effect of the inscription to its Italian audience. If the interlace motif was designed to have the visual effect of trapping its viewers in an unending puzzle, then it is possible that the Byzantine artist who produced this inscription used this zone for a similar visual puzzle that invites viewers to attempt to read and untangle it. Alfred Gell calls this effect “abduction”; as a viewer’s attempts to untangle and comprehend a visual puzzle are thwarted, she or he becomes increasingly attached to the index (art object).33 This experience of becoming enchanted by textual ornament on the art object is the effect of the power mediated by the primary agent through the ornament. The two primary agents of the inscription are the Byzantine artist who produced the inscription and the Virgin who is represented on the icon. This an interpretation highlights their agency as they mediate authority by presenting an inscription that the viewer would assume they (artist and Virgin) could comprehend but that remains hidden and inaccessible to the viewer.

33 Alfred Gell, “The Critique of the Index,” chapt. 6 in Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 73–94.

217

The marked difference in the letter style between the top bar and the other three bars is also notable, as though different artisans, worked on the inscription or the silversmith hurried to finish the rest of the inscription after completing the top part first. The bottom edge and right side of the frame are particularly hard to read, and the characters on the bottom bar are so badly formed or damaged that some appear to be upside-down.

Even if the inscription were decipherable in the fifteenth century when the ensemble was first displayed as a public cult icon in Fermo, its foreign characters would have been seen more as a textual ornament than as a meaningful text or prayer. As such, its illegibility may have been interpreted as a kind of encrypted language that was exclusively legible to foreign readers, such as the Greek scholars and philosophers who had recently immigrated to

Italy.34 In a recent article, Alexander Nagel proposed a spectrum of interpretive approaches to such “pseudoscripts.”35 Inscriptions with limited or no decipherable meaning were commonly used to decorate objects and paintings in Italy from 1300 to 1500. They evoked a connection to antiquity or the Holy Land. If this was an Italian-painted icon with a Byzantine revetment made for an Italian community, then the badly formed inscription on the bottom and right bars may never have been fully legible. Even a gibberish inscription in Greek characters adorning an icon would have increased the importance of this icon to its viewers who were unschooled in the language.

34 By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many Greek émigrés had relocated to Italy. Jonathan Harris discusses the movement of people and their knowledge to the west in his book on Greek emigres, especially in chapter 5, “Cultural Transmission from East to West: 2, Technology,” Greek Emigres in the West 1400–1520 (Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995), 180–87. His sources straddle the time period discussed in this chapter. 35 Alexander Nagel, “Twenty-five Notes on Pseudoscript in Italian Art,” Res 59/60 (2011): 227–48.

218

In the two medallions, the writing style of the Virgin's title contrasts with the illegible inscription on the frame, which suggests that they were produced by different artists or at different times. The medallions are slightly larger than the circles in the repoussé motif on the background, but they are integrated into the flow of circling tendrils as though her name is another blossoming plant in this pattern. The macrons over the letters add to the effect by imitating the curves of the tendrils on the background. Their placement flanking her neck is highly unusual: on every other revetment, the medallions or boxes with the Virgin’s title are placed either above her head or aligned with her eyes. On the ground, the ornamented plaques are cut away in the upper corners where the archangels are painted on the panel, similar to the Mother of God Psychosostria in Ohrid and the Vatopedi Hodegetria (cats. 45a and 4). A thin band along the edges of these contoured openings appears to push the nonfigural pattern away from the corners. Small openwork haloes that are slightly raised are part of these background plaques. The archangels’ names are inscribed in rectangular boxes that seem to be embraced and supported by the circling tendrils of the background pattern

(fig. 4-6). The panels covering the background between the Virgin’s halo and body and the frame show how the silversmith carefully shaped them to fit into these oblong areas, corners, and narrow passages (figs. 4-1 and 4-5). The repoussé motif of circles enclosing flowers (M-

10) shows a variety of symmetrical vegetal motifs. The effect is like a botanical garden, with different blooming plants evenly spaced across this surface.

The most unusual aspect of the Fermo Virgin’s revetment is the small recess in the lower right corner for the Virgin’s extended middle finger (fig. 4-11). Not only does the thin band around the contour edge continue along the interruption of an otherwise smooth line but also the circles in the background are staggered and spaced around this bump so that none are

219 interrupted or cut off by this indentation. This accentuates the important notch and further shows how the silversmith carefully planned the design of the plaques. By adapting how the pattern unfolds on the background plaque, the designer further distinguished this revetment from others. The plaques on the ground of most icons were decorated with patterns that repeated without any customization. Even on the Vatopedi Hodegetria (fig. 1-12, cat. 4) on which the fleur-de-lis motif is highlighted with dark green-blue enamel, no manipulations to the motif were made to follow the contours of the central figure. The Fermo revetment, however, is the work of a careful master craftsman who draws attention to the Virgin’s pointing finger.

The notch in the plaque suggests that the revetment has a relationship with its icon different from that found on other icons. W. J. T. Mitchell’s concept of metapictures is applicable here as the revetment repeats and expands on the icon’s representation.36 Because the revetment echoes the contours of the Virgin’s finger extending past her shoulder, it also reframes her finger and the rest of the Virgin’s image in an ornamented window that re- presents the icon as a venerated and adorned image. The revetment adds a new layer that responds to the extended finger and situates the panel within the specific visual tradition of decorated icons that were celebrated for their authenticity and efficacy.

The Panel Painting

The indentation in the revetment for the Virgin’s finger is important for the analysis of the icon itself, which presents several challenges to an analysis of its iconography, its

36 W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 14. See also the discussion of how Paroma Chatterjee uses Mitchell in her analysis of vita icons, 80, 93–95.

220 technical execution, and its place among painting styles around 1300 (fig. 4-12). The assumption that this is an image of the Virgin Annunciate has cast a shadow over its original iconographic significance. Likewise, the icon’s adornment in a Byzantine revetment has complicated its interpretation so that no clear cultural context has been proposed for its facture. Based on assumptions about the iconographic significance of this image, scholars have made additional conjectures about the relationship between the painting and its revetment and Italian depictions of the Annunciation. In this section, I situate the icon within

Byzantine and Italian painting of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries by addressing iconographic comparisons, painting and gilding techniques, and stylistic choices evident in this picture. I contend that this is not a Byzantine painting; rather, it was an Italian depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin created to emulate a Byzantine icon for Italian viewers who were familiar with this Western European theme in art and devotion. On the one hand, the painting appears to be a Byzantine icon based on the tradition of inherently authentic images copied from ancient prototypes of the Virgin herself; on the other hand, the picture reveals a relatively new theme in devotional imagery and practice known only in the Western

European medieval world and popularized by in the thirteenth century. By cloaking an image of the Virgin’s Coronation in these Byzantinizing features and by emulating adorned Byzantine icons—using painting techniques suggestive of icon painting methods and adding a gilt-silver revetment—the makers of this image successfully transformed an image belonging to Italian medieval devotional culture into a panel that passed for a Byzantine icon for its Western European audience.

Any association with Byzantine or Italian Annunciation iconography of the thirteenth century may be ruled out based on comparisons with other depictions of that scene. The

221 small image of the Annunciation in the upper left corner of the icon’s revetment clearly shows the Byzantine way of depicting this scene. The Virgin stands and turns to the

(viewer’s) left as the archangel Gabriel strides toward her to announce that the will visit the Virgin and she will conceive a son (fig. 4-13). Although the revetment was probably made in the early fourteenth century (several years, even decades, after the painting was completed), the emblem demonstrates that the established iconography of Annunciation scenes continued to be used past the thirteenth century. The Virgin’s hands are raised and appear to be covered by the hem of her cloak, which is a sign of her humility. A mostly illegible inscription with the words of the archangel’s message or the title of this scene,

ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙ[Σ]ΜΟ[Ϲ] [ΤΗΣ ΘΕΟΤΌ is inscribed in the space between the figures, just as short inscriptions are incorporated into the other small scenes on the icon frame. A cursory glance at additional Byzantine depictions of the Annunciation from the catalogue in the appendix confirms that this iconography continued to be used in the fourteenth century (see cats. 28b, 33a, 41, 45b, 50b, 62, 65).

This same arrangement of figures is used in the well known painted icon of the

Annunciation from twelfth-century Constantinople, now at St. Catherine's Monastery on

Mount Sinai (fig. 4-14).37 The springtime symbols of Mary's role as the bearer of new life with flowers, nesting birds on the rooftops of her house, and a river teeming with fish and more birds are included in the Sinai icon. Likewise, important doctrinal elements realized through the Annunciation are incorporated into this scene, with the dove of the Holy Spirit

37 Anne Labatt, “Annunciation,” Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai, ed. Robert Nelson and Kristen Collins (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006), 153, no. 13.

222 descending on the burnished gold beam of light impregnating Mary and the faint mandorla enclosing the miniature Christ child hovering over her chest (fig. 4-15) suggestive of the

Blachernitissa icon type.38 In contrast, the Fermo panel shows none of these symbols of

Annunciation iconography. The only symbol included is the 4-pointed star on the Virgin’s mantle over her forehead. Stars like this one are sometimes understood as a Byzantine symbol of Mary's virginity at the three stages of her life: before, during, and after Christ's birth.39 They are commonplace in Byzantine depictions of the Virgin in various narrative and devotional compositions.

In the Fermo icon painting (fig. 4-12), not only are the Virgin’s head and body turned in the other direction but also her gaze is directed down to the right, not toward the face of an angelic messenger. In addition, her hands are clearly shown crossed at her chest, not veiled or outstretched to her visitor. The only inscriptions on the painted panel are the four letters of the epithet ΜΡ ΘΥ, painted in large red letters above Mary’s shoulders. The names of the two archangels, ΜΙΧ/ΑΗΑ and ΓΑΒΡ/ΙΗΑ, are in white letters against a blue enamel background on the revetment layer; they are not part of the painted image. To create an association with the Annunciation one would expect a strong visual connection between the

Virgin and Gabriel, whose bust is painted in the upper right corner, but there is none. Instead,

38 The Blachernitissa type was only developed later in the thirteenth century; perhaps on this twelfth-century icon, it is more helpful to think of this placement of the miniature Christ Child simply as an innovative way to depict a complicated and metaphysical narrative. 39 Jaroslav Folda, Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 138–43. For an involved discussion of this symbolic interpretations, see Virginia Kimball, “Theotokos, Ever- Virgin, Bearer of the Life-Giver, a Patristic, Iconographic Image of Virginity,” Marian Studies 58 (2007): 115– 42.

223

Gabriel and Michael are both shown holding globes and looking down at the Virgin in adoration.

Comparisons with thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century depictions of the

Annunciation in Italian painting show similar compositional structure and iconographic elements. For example in the Annunciation attributed to Guido da Siena, active 1262–70s, the Virgin is shown again on the right side of the panel with her body facing away from

Gabriel as she reluctantly twists to face both the angel and the three golden rays of the Holy

Spirit (fig. 4-16).40 The two figures are pictured against a walled city painted in greyish greens, and a pink tower is placed directly behind the Virgin’s figure. The outline of this structure frames her body and shows how the only force that can penetrate her fortress of purity is the triad of beams from heaven carrying the Holy Spirit to impregnate her. The same composition is repeated in another panel, which is part of the left wing of the Altar of St.

Peter also attributed to Guido (fig. 4-17).41 In this work, the Virgin’s head is not pressed as closely to her shoulder as she turns back toward Gabriel. In addition, she stands on a platform at the foot of a cushioned throne suggestive of her regal place in heaven, and the tower is positioned slightly to the right of her body. Pink is used on the clothing of both figures, uniting them to each other, to the tower, and to the figures depicted in other scenes on the , including Christ, shown in the panel beneath this one as he calls his apostles Peter

40 Norman Muller, “Guido da Siena’s ‘Annunciation’ in Context,” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 63 (2004): 28–39. Muller re-examines the possibility that this Annunciation was part of the Madonna del Voto in Siena Cathedral along with the Courtauld Coronation panel (discussed below), which was placed at the apex of the altarpiece. 41 Diana Norman, Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, 1260–1555 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 63, fig. 30. She includes a full image of this altarpiece and a discussion of its place in early Sienese painting.

224 and Andrew. These two examples of Italian Annunciations from the later thirteenth century confirm the difference between our icon and that iconography.

The more general identification of this icon as the Virgin in Prayer implies a connection to deesis imagery or other icon types in which the Virgin’s prayerful intercession is emphasized. For example, the Freising Virgin (fig. 2-1, cat. 2) has her hands held out in an entreaty with the words of her prayer inscribed on plaques encircling her image. Icons of this type often include an image of Christ in the upper corner or on a second panel, forming a pair that was displayed flanking the templon screen. In a second icon type emphasizing the

Virgin’s prayerful work, exemplified by the Mother of God in Spoleto (cat. 15), she holds up a scroll with the text of her prayer embossed into the metal revetment. On the

Fermo icon, not only is the Virgin’s gesture of crossed hands different but also no identifying epithet was included on the panel or in the revetment linking her to the Paraklesis type or to a church with a soros from which this type originates. In Fermo she does not hold a scroll with the words of her prayers, and because the inscription in the beveled edge of the frame is both later in date and barely legible, it is unclear whether that inscription is her message to God or some other text. In sum, the vague label “Virgin in Prayer” gives the wrong impression that our icon has a connection with the other types in which her intercessory work is more clearly shown; however, the idea that a second icon of Christ was sometimes paired with these prayerful-Virgin icons is relevant for our understanding of the original design of the Fermo icon.

The Virgin’s body turned to the right and pointing with her fingers are the interpretive clues to the panel’s iconography. These features suggest that she is addressing a second figure on a separate panel that was paired with this one, forming a diptych. For example, the

225 early fourteenth-century diptych of the Madonna and Child with the Man of Sorrows by

Simone Martini shows the Virgin’s glance and angled fingers directing the viewer’s attention to Christ on the right panel (fig. 4-18). This small diptych (each panel measures 28 cm x 23 cm) was used for private devotion. Although our panel is somewhat larger (48 x 36 cm), it too may have been intended for devotional purposes. Other painted diptychs with the Virgin on the left and Christ on the right from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century repeat the use of gestures and gazes to connect the figures and emphasize the Virgin's role as the mediator between the diptychs’ viewers and Christ.

My interpretation of the Fermo icon as a component of the Virgin’s Coronation is the only one that accounts for both her pose and the direction of her gaze. The three-quarter view of her head and shoulders, her hands crossed over her chest, and the incline of her head are all features common to late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century paintings of this subject from central Italy. For example, in the Coronation of the Virgin by Duccio painted in 1308–11

(fig. 4-19), she is shown with an almost identical pose, gesturing even more strongly with her right hand to the figure of Christ, whose presence is indicated by his two hands holding the crown over her head, but whose body was cut from the panel. A second example, by Paolo

Veneziano from 1324, shows a similar inclination of the Virgin’s head (fig. 4-20). Here, her hands are not crossed over her chest and her gaze is not directed down past the viewer.

Instead, her hands are outstretched to Christ, who sits on the right side of the jeweled throne draped by a rich red textile suspended by angels who encircle the throne. Her eyes look directly out to the viewer, reinforcing the sense of immediate access viewers have to her compassionate intercession on their behalf.

226

In a third painting of the Coronation of the Virgin, this one by Vitale da Bologna from ca. 1340–45, Mary’s pose and bowed head are almost identical to those in the Fermo icon (fig. 4-21). In both paintings, the Virgin’s right hand is placed over her left, pointing toward Christ. In Vitale’s work, however, Christ’s hands are close to her halo, whereas on the Fermo her finger extends past the silhouette of her shoulder, suggesting Christ’s presence on a juxtaposed second panel. In Vitale’s Coronation, Christ holds a delicate crown to be placed on the Virgin’s head, although her larger golden halo revetment camouflages it, whereas on the Fermo icon there is no explicit indication of a crown on either the painting or revetment. A final example from the fourteenth century, the Coronation of the Virgin by

Paolo and Giovanni Veneziano from 1358 (fig. 4-22), includes many of these subtle details.

Mary’s hands are crossed over her chest and the tips of her fingers extend past her shoulder, directing the viewer’s attention to the figure of Christ on the right. Her gaze meets the viewer’s, and she wears the jeweled crown held by Christ. These fourteenth-century examples show that the Virgin’s Coronation consistently involves her body turned toward

Christ, her head bowed in humility and reverence as Christ crowns her, and her hands either held together to her chest or reaching out to her son. The Fermo icon repeats these details; a second panel showing Christ and the crown would have completed the narrative.

Examples of this composition from the late thirteenth century demonstrate the emerging popularity of this subject in art and devotion and provide a context for the thirteenth-century painting of the Fermo icon. The gable-shaped panel attributed to Guido da

Siena (fig. 4-23) from around 1260, now in London, is one of the earliest depictions of the

227

Coronation of the Virgin in Italian painting.42 Until this point, the narrative was only common in northern European art and architectural sculpture. A technical examination of the London panel confirms that it was indeed originally painted in the latter half of the thirteenth century and that the techniques and materials are similar to those used in other paintings from

Tuscany.43 This study also shows that much of the figure of Christ, the text on Christ’s book, the shape of the Virgin’s crown, the feet of both figures, and the footstool were added in a nineteenth-century restoration. The painter-restorer based these revisions and additions on the apse mosaic of the same subject at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, completed in 1295 by

Jacopo Torriti, but which was also restored (fig. 4-24).44 In particular, the shape of the

Virgin’s crown and the inscription on Christ’s book were modified to imitate the . The inscription reads, “Veni electa mea et ponam in te thronum coro,” and it is taken from the Roman Office of the Assumption of the Virgin.45 The Torriti mosaic was commissioned by Pope Nicholas IV (1288–92) to replace the church’s early Christian mosaics.

42 This panel is now in the Courtauld Institute in London. 43 Caroline Villers and Astrid Lehner, “Observations on the Coronation of the Virgin Attributed to Guido Da Siena in the Courtauld Institute Gallery, London,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 65, no. 3 (2002): 289–302. Villers and Lehner’s 2002 study of this panel includes stratigraphic analysis of the paint layers and other scientific methods of analyzing the materials and techniques used. 44 Villers and Lehner, “Observations,” 292. The authors of the study believe the original crown was more similar to those shown on a reliquary with the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew (now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena) and an Adoration of the Magi (now in Lindenau-Museum, Altenburg). Julian Gardner also discusses the connection between Pope Nicholas IV, the Franciscans, and images of the Virgin’s heavenly Coronation. Gardner, “Pope Nicholas IV and the Decoration of Santa Maria Maggiore,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 36, no.1 (1973): 1–50. 45 Gertrude Coor-Achenbach, “The Earliest Italian Representation of the Coronation of the Virgin,” The Burlington Magazine 99 (1957): 328–30. Coor-Achenbach first observed these similarities and argued that the apse mosaic was based on this panel, which was a logical hypothesis made without the benefit of this more recent scientific analysis of the physical history of the panel.

228

The Fermo icon fits into the emerging visual tradition in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries of depictions of the Virgin’s Coronation in mosaic, stained glass, fresco, and panel painting. Cimabue’s fresco of The Virgin beside Christ on the Heavenly Throne in the upper church of San Francesco, Assisi, from about 1277–80 (fig. 4-25) and Duccio’s stained-glass window in Siena from 1287/88 (fig. 4-26) exemplify this iconography.46

On the Fermo icon, the Virgin’s gesture of pointing with her hand and fingers, which emphasizes Christ’s (now absent) presence on the right side of the image, closely resembles the two mosaics and stained-glass windows. That gesture lures viewers into the picture and toward Christ. Another comparison can be made with the fourteenth-century mosaic of the

Coronation of the Virgin by Gaddo Gaddi in the Florence Duomo (fig. 4-27). This mosaic in a lunette over the inside wall of the Porta del Paradiso (or main entrance, fig. 4-28) into the cathedral shows the Virgin’s Coronation by Christ attended by two seraphim, trumpeting angels, and the four symbols of the Evangelists. Comparing the Virgin’s head and shoulders in the Gaddi mosaic with the Fermo Virgin, we see in both cases that she turns her body toward Christ and crosses her hands over her chest, extending the fingers of her right hand past the outline of her body into the field of golden tesserae between her and Christ. In addition, the mosaic shows the Virgin looking directly out at the viewer, which suggests that she has a panoptic view of the people inside the cathedral from her position above their heads at the main entrance.

In 1302, the Florence cathedral was named Santa Maria del Fiore. No documents confirm this dedication, but two stone tablets from the early fourteenth century immured on

46 Villers and Lehner, “Observations,” 292.

229 the exterior of the cathedral state that the building was made to honor the Queen of Heaven, the dedicatee of other Italian at Pisa, Siena, Orvieto, and elsewhere.47 This suggests that the idea of the Virgin as queen and her Coronation may have been more important in the construction of these cathedrals than is generally assumed.

Techniques

Because artists working in Tuscany, the Crusader territories, and Byzantium used similar materials and techniques, it is not possible to localize the production of the Fermo icon based on material composition alone. Techniques described in painting manuals from

Byzantine, post-Byzantine, and Western medieval artists specifically in the way that egg tempera must be applied in small strokes and by building up layers of pigment.48 Several well-known paintings from this time have been variously identified as Byzantine, Crusader, and Tuscan, a fact that exemplifies the challenges in attribution. For example, the Mellon

Madonna has been ascribed to Constantinople, Venice, , Siena, Cyprus, and

Thessaloniki (fig. 4-29).49 Likewise, the Kahn Madonna has been identified both as a work made by a non-Italian artist working in Italy and as a Palaiologan work (fig. 4-30).50 In

47 For further discussion about the dedication of the Florence cathedral, see Eve Borsook’s contribution to the recent exhibition catalogue about art in Florence and Siena. Borsook, “Painting for ‘The Most Noble City in the World’,” in Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350, ed. Christine Sciacca (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012), 11–23, esp. 17 and note 43. 48 Georgi Parpulov, Irina Dolgikh and Peter Cowe, “A Byzantine Text on the Technique of Icon Painting,” DOP 64 (2010): 213–16. 49 Rebecca Corrie, “Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 476–77, no. 286. 50 Rebecca Corrie, “The Kahn and Mellon Madonnas and Their Place in the History of the Virgin and Child Enthroned in Italy and the East,” in Vassilaki, ed. Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, 293–304.

230 combination with the iconographic analysis, however, the icon’s materials and techniques reveal a strong connection to Italian painting.

The Fermo icon was painted on a panel cut from poplar with the grain running longitudinally.51 Poplar was used on 90% of the panel paintings in Italy. The surface has a shallow rectangular recess in the central area where the Virgin was depicted, which is consistent with Byzantine icon painting techniques. The thicker frame around all four sizes indicates that the panel was not cut down from a larger composition. 52 Narrow 1 cm strips of linden wood were attached to the perimeter.53 The panel has a canvas interlayer over the entire wood surface to reduce the unevenness of the wood and add elasticity to the support.54

The canvas was then prepared with a base layer of gesso. Then a layer of gilding bole or minium (also called red lead) was applied over the background, around the figure, and under the halo revetment.55 According to radiographic analysis, there are no earlier drawings or painted layers beneath the current figure.56 On contemporary panels from Tuscany, it was common for artists to incise on the gesso ground the general contours of a composition and to draw the halo with a compass. The absence of a preliminary drawing under the painting cannot be used as evidence for either an Italian or Byzantine painter.

51 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 118. 52 Ibid., 118, 113. 53 Ibid., 99. 54 Ibid., 116. 55 Ibid., 104. Stratigraphic analysis of the samples taken from the background area also confirm that the protective varnish shifted the 56 Bonfioli included her radiograph analysis in her article about this work, “Problematica di un’Icona,” 267–83.

231

A layer of silver leaf that was subsequently gilded with a layer of gold in either leaf or powder form was applied to the entire background except the area of the halo. This peculiar technique allowed the artist to use thinner sheets of gold foil that would make the icon less expensive. The technique may have been used because it helps achieve a certain shine effect from the gilding.57 In addition, the Virgin’s monogram and the names of the archangels are painted on the panel. A double line painted in two shades of red marks the outer perimeter of the panel. The figural elements in the painting are discussed in more detail below, but based on these observations about the panel’s surface beneath the revetment, it is clear that the painted image of the Virgin was completed for a display consisting of one plaque covering the halo area and no revetment plaques covering the background and frame.

The placement of the Virgin’s hands is vital to the identification of this panel as a

Coronation image. Technical examination of the paint layers shows that the Virgin’s right hand was painted over a green ground that is visible in some small traces where the surface has been abraded, whereas her left hand was painted over the red of her garment, but before the gold striations indicating highlights in the fabric were added (fig. 4-12).58 The study also confirms that the hands were painted at about the same time, which eliminates the question of whether they were added later, as proposed by scholars who observed a dark green discoloration of the hands in images of the unrestored icon. In addition, stratigraphic analysis of paint samples taken from the hands and face show that the artist used different techniques to create these different flesh tones. The Virgin’s face was first painted in a green tone and

57 This technique is also used on many Russian icons and polychrome wooden sculptures. Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 116. 58 Ibid., 98. A sample was taken from the left hand to examine the stratigraphic sections.

232 then covered with pinks to create the effect from dark to light. In the lighter parts, the brushwork is denser, whereas in the darker areas the brushwork is thinner and more transparent. Olive green underpainting shows through the warm flesh tones of the Virgin’s eye sockets, nose, chin, and neck where the paint is abraded. After the face was painted in the light pinks and flesh tones, it was given a layer of dark red varnish to enhance the effect of the modeling and to further separate it from the gilded background and halo.

The use of dark green underpainting for the flesh tones of the face and hand is consistent with the painting techniques observed in Tuscan works of the thirteenth century; green underpainting for flesh tones was rarely done in Palaiologan painting in which icons are usually painted on a pink-brown ground.59 The short discussion of painting techniques included in MS Vaticanus Palatinus graecus 209 from the mid-fourteenth century instructs artists to use a mixture of Constantinopolitan ochre, perhaps with some cinnabar, and a little green and white to make the underpainting of the face.60 After drawing the facial features using a mix of purple and black, the artist is instructed to return to painting the flesh using

Constantinopolitan ochre, white and cinnabar, adding a little green for the shadows of the cheeks.61 The Italian method of putting down a green undercoat that creates contrast and

59 Emily Spratt, “Toward a Definition of ‘Post-Byzantine’ Art: The Angleton Collecion at the Princeton University Art Museum,” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 71/72 (2012–13): 2–19, esp. 4 and 16n. Spratt supports this distinction between Italian and Byzantine painting using Cennino Cennini’s Il libro dell’arte The Craftsman’s Handbook for evidence about Italian panel painitng and the eighteenth-century Greek text on icon painting by Dionysios of Fourna, The Painter’s Manuel of Dionysios of Fourna. 60 The complete text that covers the verso of folio 284 is transcribed in Greek and translated into English in Parpulov, Dolgikh, and Cowe, “Byzantine Text on Technique,” 203. 61 Ibid.

233 shadow and helps neutralize bright pinks and oranges of the skin tones was not used in

Byzantine panel painting.

Drapery techniques are not as dissimilar between Italian and Byzantine painters at this time. The drapery was painted in an even base color and then given darker areas for shadows and gilding for highlights. The conservation report includes almost nothing about the golden highlights on the Fermo icon except that they were made with . In

Byzantine art, chrysography was used to enrich drapery highlights and was first seen on small-scale mosaic icons from Athens and Mount Athos.62 Artists also used the gold cloisons that form the cells in cloisonné enamels to indicate highlights that radiate over an entire figure.63 Painters created this effect by applying gold foil over the surface of their egg tempera panel paintings, using animal-skin glue and then laying the foil on top. Mordant gilding is another technique used to paint on the golden highlights. In the thirteenth century,

Italian artists adopted this technique, as seen first in the Madonna and Child of about 1265

(fig. 4-31) by Coppo di Marcovaldo (ca. 1225–1275). 64 This monumental painting of the enthroned Madonna with angels shows an extensive use of thin lines and patches of gold as contours in the flowing fabric hanging over her body. On the Child, golden starbursts on his body and legs reinforce the sense of divine radiance emanating from these two figures rather

62 Hans Belting, “The ‘Byzantine’ Madonnas: New Facts about Their Italian Origin and Some Observations on Duccio,” Studies in the History of Art 12 (1982): 12. 63 Jaroslav Folda, “Sacred Objects with Holy Light: Byzantine Icons with Chrysography,” in Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice Mary Talbot, ed. Denis Sullivan, Elizabeth Fisher, and Stratis Papaioannou (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 157. 64 For a recent discussion of the political and religious context of this important painting see Gianna Mina, “Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone: Political Statement or Profession of Faith?,” in Art, Politics and Civic Religion in Central Italy 1261–1352: Essays by Postgraduate Students at the Courtauld Institute of Art, eds. Joanna Cannon and Beth Williamson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 237–93.

234 than any attempt to represent naturalistic light effects. This treatment of gold highlights shows how Italian artists tend to use a more rigid or schematized pattern to indicate folds, highlights, and shadows. In some works, like the Mellon Madonna (fig. 4-29), the artist used darker tones to model the creases and folds of the fabric, while golden striations fan out from large patches on her knees and elbows. This formulaic use of golden lines continues in Italian painting until Duccio, working in Siena, introduced a different way of modeling draperies, as seen in the Rucellai Madonna (fig. 4-32). In this work, Duccio uses rich, dark pigments including azurite blue to model the folds and creases in the fabric and reserves only the edge of the garment for gilding. The supple folds gathered around the Virgin’s feet show how he uses gilding to mark the edge of her robe, and this creates a golden line that encircles her face, descends down her torso to the Child, and then picks up again at her knees, drawing the viewer’s attention to the dense mass of fabric at her feet. Rather than covering her body with golden lines that cut across her clothing and the painted surface, Duccio preserves the painted expanse of expensive blue pigment and reserves the haloes and background for gold leaf.

This sinuous gilded band finishes the edge of her cloak, reinterpreting the fanning sprays of gold lines that seem to sit on top of the draperies in earlier Italian examples of chrysography into a part of the textile garment.

On the Fermo Virgin this unusually extensive use of chrysography covering the

Virgin’s clothing was added to the icon sometime after the painting was complete (fig. 4-12).

In addition to the overall pattern of chrysography forming clusters of parallel lines and radiating sprays on her red garments, and the golden four-pointed star on her forehead, in the lower left corner a large patch of gold leaf emanating golden rays emphasizes the Virgin’s right index finger. The golden splash and stripes stress the contrast between the gilded

235 surfaces around her and her bare skin, which is the only unadorned surface of the icon, except for her body and the two archangels. On her left shoulder golden rays spray out from a series of swooshes that curl up on the right end. This curled shape contrasts with the other golden lines on her garment, which are all straight and many of which are parallel to one another. The swoosh leads the eye to the Virgin’s index finger and extended middle finger.

Chrysography in the lower right corner emphasizes her pinky finger against the folds in her garment.

Chrysography on the Virgin’s mantle and maphorion is not seen on other surviving

Byzantine revetted icons.65 Golden highlights and striations are understood as a visual representation of the holy figure’s spiritual radiance and the dematerialization of the body.66

The golden highlighting covers the Virgin’s entire garment, suggesting that her entire figure is suffused with the radiant holiness. In this case, the icon’s patrons understood chrysography as an essential aspect of Byzantine icons, and therefore used as much gold as possible to adorn the Virgin’s garments.67 This unique example of an icon with two kinds of precious metal decoration—silver-gilt revetment and chrysography—engages contradictory notions of materiality and dematerialization. It is as though the icon straddles the boundary between two artistic concepts in which the one style uses chrysography to indicate spiritual radiance and

65 See Folda’s discussion on chrysography in Italian and Byzantine painting in the thirteenth century in “Sacred Objects,” 157. He notes that all of the major Italian paintings before the Ruccelai Madonna by Duccio (1285) have chrysographic striations and that these striations are rarely seen in Byzantine art. 66 Ibid., 155–71. According to Folda, this is the main idea behind chrysography: the golden light has no source and enhances the spiritual significance of the event portrayed.. 67 Although chrysography was meant to enhance the “Byzantine” appearance of this icon, in this case it betrays the icon’s Italian origin. See David Bomford, Art in the Making: Italian Painting before 1400 (London: National Gallery, 1989) 43–47 for further discussion of Italian painting and chrysographic techniques. His discussion includes color photographs of the cross-sections of paintings with different mordant gilding methods.

236 the other style uses decorated gilt-silver sheathing to indicate venerability. These two decorative uses of precious metal show how the icon was transformed by the “ornamental turn” in late Byzantine art that emphasized textural decoration (revetment) over surface decoration (chrysography) on the painted figure.

It is tempting to categorize the Fermo image as an example of the maniera greca style, a label invented by Vasari to identify works by Italian artists in the and

Trecento who showed what he regarded to be a close affinity with Byzantine painting.

Vasari’s invention of this term betrayed his contempt for medieval and Byzantine painting.68

Many icons from Constantinople are believed to have been brought to western Europe after the Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204 and around the time of the fall of

Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.69 Italian painters emulated Greek icons in their choices of figure and drapery styles, the use of gold grounds, and linear or stylized drawings. It may be more accurate to define this term as a way of describing things that looked old or medieval to Vasari and his contemporaries, in contrast to the techniques and visual effects developed by and other early Renaissance painters.

Modern scholars use maniera greca to describe the work of Italian painters in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries who were directly influenced by the influx of Greek icons,

68 Anthony Cutler, “The ‘Maniera Greca’ in Italy and Serbia: Art and Society in Two Byzantine Spheres of Influence” (PhD diss., Emory University, 1963). Cutler now stridently rejects his dissertation: Gudrun Buehl and Alice-Mary Talbot, Dumbarton Oaks Oral History Project, “Anthony Cutler,” http://www.doaks.org/library-archives/dumbarton-oaks-archives/oral-history-project/anthony-cutler. 69 Angeliki Lymberopoulou and Duits, introduction to Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe, eds. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 1–8. This summary introduces a wide range of literature on the exchange and movement of artistic traditions between Byzantium and its neighbors. Cutler argues strongly against assuming that Byzantine objects in Italian collections were all plundered in 1204. Anthony Cutler, “From Loot to Scholarship: Changing Modes in the Italian Response to Byzantine Artifacts, ca. 1200–1750,” DOP 49 (1995): 237.

237 although Cutler argues that Italians refused to distinguish local Italian painting from

Byzantine works that share the same iconography.70 The term prioritizes the innovations of

Renaissance painters who resisted this so-called style and who developed a strong sense of perspective and three-dimensional modeling of figures in space. The term’s meaning has changed and now is used to refer to Byzantine influences on visual effects and iconography in Italian painting from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

As I have shown, the Fermo icon has both Byzantine and Italian elements. Its overall appearance as a half-length portrait of the Virgin with its richly textured revetment plaques covering the ground and frame makes an immediate connection with other decorated icons used by Orthodox Christians in the eastern Mediterranean in the late thirteenth century. The underlying Italian painting techniques and the subject of the Virgin’s Coronation were unknown in the Byzantine world, however; these characteristics indicate that the icon was painted by an artist who knew both Italian painting traditions and Byzantine icon revetments.

Perhaps this artist made the icon for a patron who brought it with him on a journey east where it was given this Byzantine decoration. At a minimum, the patron was familiar with and appreciative of Byzantine icon traditions that inform almost every aspect of its creation and decoration. It is possible that the patron was a mendicant; were frequent travelers and emissaries of the pope to the Orthodox East in the thirteenth century, although they held

70 Anthony Cutler, “The Pathos of Distance: Byzantium in the Gaze of Renaissance Europe and Modern Scholarship,” in Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America, 1450–1650, ed. Claire Farago (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 23–46. The most recent analysis on this term is by Anastasia Drandaki in “A Maniera Greca: Content, Context and Transformation of a Term,” Studies in Iconography 35 (2014): 39–72.

238 a paradoxical view of Orthodox Christians.71 On the one hand, they aspired to convert all

Christians to the Church, but on the other hand, they revered some of the traditions and practices of Orthodox Christians, especially their emphasis on images in

Christian worship and devotional life. Franciscans established a convent in Constantinople at the Kyriotissa church (Kalenderhane) during the Latin occupation, and between 1296 and

1307, another group of Franciscans returned to Constantinople and established another convent there until they were expelled again.72

If the Fermo icon were a Franciscan invention melding the form and function of decorated Byzantine icons with an Italian perspective on the cult of the Virgin, it helps us to appreciate more fully how Franciscans understood icons as both ancient and new images.

Each new icon was a new representation of an old image, which itself was a representation of a divine figure. Annemarie Weyl Carr calls these “icons of icons” because they reveal the artifice in making new icons.73 For Franciscans to invent a new “icon” of the Virgin’s

Coronation and to adorn it in gilt-silver in the same way that highly revered and miraculous icons were adorned in Byzantium demonstrates their willingness to use the artifice of icons to help legitimate their evangelistic attitudes.74 Not only would the Fermo icon appear authentic

71 Anne Derbes and Amy Neff, “Italy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Byzantine Sphere,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 449–61. Derbes and Neff present new analysis about the attitudes and artistic practices of the mendicant orders who were connected to Byzantine Christians in the thirteenth century. 72 Nickiphoros I. Tsougarakis, The Latin Religious Orders in Medieval Greece, 1204–1500 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012). See especially chapter 3 on the Franciscans, 103–67. 73 Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constantinople,” DOP 56 (2002): 76. 74 Paroma Chatterjee discusses the adoption of Byzantine imagery in western Europe in The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 24–29, 81.

239 to Italian viewers who were familiar with imagery of the Virgin’s Coronation and with other half-length icons of the Virgin but the addition of the revetment also would help reinforce the idea that the icon was a true image of the Virgin.

The story of the Marian icon in the Franciscan church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli,

Rome, exemplifies how Franciscans manipulated art’s artifice for their own purposes.75 The icon (fig. 4-33) was made as a precise copy of the Madonna of San Sisto (fig. 4-34, earlier known as the Madonna Temuli), which was a famous icon in Rome brought to the

Dominican convent of San Sisto in a solemn procession by Dominic himself in 1221. The

Franciscan copy was promoted as a rival to the Dominican icon, and the Franciscan concoction demonstrates a willingness to ascribe an ancient pedigree to a new image.76 The

Office of Regina Coeli was developed and popularized by Franciscans in the first half of the thirteenth century. By the end of that century, the Franciscan Pope Nicholas III (r. 1277–80) had replaced all of the Roman with new editions that included this office.77 In the arts in central Italy, most of the depictions of the Virgin’s Coronation were made for

Franciscan patrons and the cathedrals dedicated to the Virgin as Queen of Heaven were closely linked to Franciscan patrons and houses. In sum, the cultural conditions in late thirteenth-century Italy supported the promotion of this theme in Christian devotion and the

75 Derbes and Neff, “Italy, the Mendicant Orders,” 458. 76 Claudia Bolgia, “The Felici Icon Tabernacle (1372) at S. Maria in Aracoeli, Reconstructed: Lay Patronage, Sculpture and Marian Devotion in Rome,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 68 (2005): 27–72. 77 The anthem Regina Coeli and three other Marian anthems were included in the Minorite Office popularized by Franciscans. Corrie also discusses Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna and Child in Siena and the appearance of Maria Regina in Sienese contexts. Her focus on images of the enthroned Virgin (but not images of the Virgin’s coronation in heaven) underscores the interconnectedness of Byzantine and Italian paintings around 1300. Rebecca Corrie, “The Political Meaning of Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna and Child in Siena,” Gesta 29, no.1 (1990): 61–75.

240 arts, as well as the emulation of a Byzantine icon by Franciscans eager to promote their message using images. Although the connection between the icon in Fermo with these thirteenth-century Franciscan devotional practices is tentative, the popularization of the idea of the Virgin as Queen of Heaven helps contextualize the icon’s hypothetical origins.

Post-Medieval Additions

Fifteenth-Century Display

Several elements were added to the Fermo icon in subsequent centuries. These items all reflect a similar interest in the icon’s origins and history. Each addition added a new layer of interpretation and gave its audience new ways of understanding its subject matter. Indeed, the icon’s original subject—the Virgin’s Coronation—was obscured by these embellishments. Its materiality continued to serve devotional functions in the fifteenth century. The donation of this icon to the city of Fermo by Giacomo della Marca in 1473 was aimed at suppressing a new popular devotion.78

The first record of the Fermo Virgin is from 1473 when Giacomo delle Marche

(1391–1476, later Saint) presented it to the Fermo Cathedral, which was dedicated to the

Virgin Annunciate.79 A small rock crystal and gilt-silver tabernacle inscribed

“ANNUNTIATIONIS V” was attached to the lower edge of the frame (fig. 4-2). A gable embellished with four small crockets covers two trefoil arches. These ornamental details were common in architecture and microarchitecture at the end of the thirteenth century and

78 Belting, “Likeness and Presence,” 345. 79 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 92, n. 7. See also Tito Tomassini for a reprint of the deed of this gift from 147 in his article Tomassini, “La citta di Fermo e S. Giacomo della Marca,” Picenum seraphicum 13 (1976): 171–198, esp. 171, 181, and 198.

241 are another example of embellishing the icon with old-fashioned ornament that predates and therefore authenticates its historical value. This reliquary container was most likely connected to the dedication of the church where the Fermo Virgin was located before it was brought to the cathedral, and it reveals a new interpretation of the icon in the fifteenth century. While the tabernacle is finely crafted, its attachment to the revetment obscures the left side of the Transfiguration scene on the frame. Evidently the icon’s symbolic value and its new devotional purpose as an image of the Virgin of the Annunciation was more important than the visibility of the Transfiguration scene as part of the dodekaorton on the frame.

Rock crystal containers like this one were frequently reused from older works. There are several larger examples of reliquaries from the late fourteenth century that have a relic encased in a rock crystal vessel. For example, the reliquary with the tooth of John the Baptist now in the Art Institute of Chicago shows a similar container on a pedestal with a golden tabernacle (fig. 4-35).80 Thin columns on either side support pinnacles, and a Crucifixion surmounts the tall central spire. A second reliquary of a tooth, this one of St. Mary

Magdalene from the fourteenth–fifteenth century, has a similar form; however, this work also includes figural decoration in baldachins and a niello disk with a Crucifixion and inscribed prayers (fig. 4-36).81 The tabernacle attached to our icon is much smaller than these examples, which are 45.5 cm and 55.9 cm high, respectively.

80 Martina Bagnoli, Holger Klein, C. Griffith Mann, and James Robinson, eds., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2010), 84, fig. 41. 81 Bagnoli, Treasures of Heaven, 196, no. 110.

242

There are several other icons with small containers attached to their frames similar to this one. The mosaic icon of the Man of Sorrows or Akra Tapeinosis (cat. 38) now in Rome was installed in a large case with numerous small compartments containing relics. The icon was likely made in Constantinople in the fourteenth century, but an eighteenth-century source says Raimondello Orsini del Balzo took it from the Monastery of St. Catherine on

Mount Sinai in 1380. He allegedly gave it to the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in

1385–86, and the relic case was created sometime in the late fourteenth century with several additions made as late as the seventeenth century.82 The mosaic of St. Demetrios in

Sassoferrato with a lead ampulla attached to the top of the frame is another example of this kind of adornment. It was created in Constantinople in the fourteenth century and the ampulla was produced separately in Thessaloniki in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The ampulla and the gilt-silver revetment were attached after the icon was brought to Italy.83 The

Fermo icon shows a similar impulse to intensify the spiritual power of the icon by embedding a relic into its frame. Italian patrons, not Byzantine ones, embellished all three icons with attached relics in this way. They show a willingness to elide the distinctions between icon and relic, whereas Byzantines maintained the distinction between their materiality and representation.

* * *

82 Evans, “Mosaic Icon with the Akra Tapeinosis (Utmost Humiliation), or Man of Sorrows,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 221–22, no. 131 83 Durand, “Mosaic Icon with Saint Demetrios and Reliquary,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 231–33, no. 139.

243

Giacomo delle Marche was a student of St. Bernardino of Siena and a well-known

Franciscan preacher who frequently traveled east during the Crusades. After his preaching success in Fermo, Giacomo and his community of friars settled in St. Martin in Varano, a small city about 65 km north of Fermo, where they built their new church and convent. This construction began in 1462 and the church was consecrated on August 25, 1473.84 A few years earlier, in 1470, a citizen of Fermo named Petrus had founded an icon cult that drew visitors and donations from all over, but only he benefited from the contributions made to the icon. Giacomo’s donation of this icon to Fermo was made on the condition that his icon of the Virgin would replace the other one and that the town should hold a solemn procession for the new icon.85 The town readily accepted and soon began to benefit from the proceeds to this new cult. Giacomo then traveled to Naples, where he died in 1476. A seventeenth-century document describes the icon as a work donated by Pope Sixtus IV to St. Giacomo delle

Marche who mounted it for veneration and entrusted it to the custody of the Franciscans.86

The icon’s significance shifted from the Virgin’s Coronation to the Annunciation when it was put on display in the Fermo Duomo dedicated to the Virgin Annunciate.

Someone, perhaps Giacomo himself, attached the rock crystal tabernacle to the icon and thereby introduced and reinforced a new visual association of this iconography with the

Annunciation. This puzzling byzantinizing icon with its Greek revetment and Gothic reliquary then became a model for Italian painters depicting the Annunciation. For Belting,

84 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 92–3. 85 Belting, Likeness and Presence, 345. 86 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 93, n. 9.

244 this icon is the model for the moment of conception, which begins the inevitable sequence of events leading to Christ’s death and resurrection and thus to Christian salvation.87

Artists based new works of the Virgin Annunciate on the Fermo icon, which demonstrates how successful this composite icon was. For example, the Sicilian painter

Antonello da Messina likely have visited Fermo and studied the icon on his way to Venice in

1475. Scholarship on this icon has also reinforced the identification of the icon as an

Annunciation image. Nagel, repeating Belting’s analysis, sees Antonello’s Annunciate Virgin in Munich (fig. 4-37) as both an innovative painting and a close interpretation of the Fermo icon, depicting the final moment of the Annunciation.88 Antonello’s related panel in Palermo

(fig. 4-38) distills the image even further, with no halo, inscription, or angel to indicate what is happening as the young woman sits at her desk, pressing her mantle closed at her neck with her left hand while her right hand is suspended in mid-air. For many art historians, it is impossible not to see hints of the Annunciation in this icon because its copies and descendants are so numerous.

Sixteenth-Century Woodblock

One of the biggest surprises during the conservation work was the discovery of a woodblock print on paper sandwiched between the canvas painting taped to the back of the icon and the icon itself. The woodcut shows an image of the Madonna of the Rosary (fig. 4-

4). This print suggests that later generations, from the sixteenth century when this print was

87 Belting also suggests that this iconography has ties to eastern types that show the Mother of God lamenting her dead son: Likeness and Presence, 346. 88 Radeglia, “Il restauro,” 98. The conservation report focuses on Belting’s analysis of this gesture and later depictions of the Madonna Annunziata in Italian painting.

245 made through the eighteenth century when another painting was attached, continued to associate this icon with a wide spectrum of devotional themes. In other words, the introduction of the Annunciation theme did not totally obscure the Virgin’s Coronation. The

Virgin’s Coronation in heaven is the culminating mystery in the fifth and final cycle of meditations. The print shows the Virgin enthroned with the Christ child in her lap encircled by three rings of five medallions showing the joyful, sorrowful, and glorious episodes from her life.

Eighteenth-Century Oil Painting

In the eighteenth century, an oil painting on canvas was attached with fabric tape directly onto the reverse side of the panel (fig. 4-3). The painting is composed of four scenes arranged counter-clockwise depicting episodes in the icon’s history. First, beginning in the upper right, St. Luke is shown sitting at his easel in his studio with a window open to the sky as he paints an icon of the Virgin. Next, a pope sitting on a throne with a canopy and accompanied by another cleric receives the icon from a monk wearing a dark robe.89 Third, a pope presents the icon to a Franciscan , presumably Giacomo delle Marche, identified by his and brown robes. A prelate again accompanies the pope, and another friar accompanies Giacomo, bearing witness to the gift. In the final scene, the friar is shown kneeling as he places the icon on the altar of the church.90 The depiction of the icon in all four scenes corresponds to our icon in many ways. It shows a bust of the Virgin wearing a red mantle with a dark triangular shape at her chest, indicating either her hands or the dark

89 Ibid., 98. Radeglia refers to unnamed hagiographic sources that this monk was a who brought the image to safety from Constantinople after its fall to the Turks. 90 Ibid.

246 garment under her mantle. The nimbus and the background of the depicted icon are painted in two different shades of golden , similar to the contrasting textures in the relief of the nimbus and background revetments. Although Ricci does not portray the revetment on the icon, he does depict many other aspects of this icon’s legendary history and privileged status.

An inscription on the bar that divides the upper and lower quadrants of the painting helps explain these scenes: “COPIA DEL ORIGINALE ANTICO A.R. FECIT,” or “Copy of the antique original made by A.R.” Based on these initials in the dividing bar, the picture has been attributed to the Italian painter Alessandro Ricci (1750–1829).91 The hagiographic tradition about Giacomo identifies the pope as Callixtus III (r. 1455–58), who ostensibly received the icon from a Byzantine hermit who was protecting it from destruction and then gave it to Giacomo.92

The attachment of this painting to the icon in the eighteenth century shows how the icon’s legendary origins remained with the work over time. Its alleged pedigree as a product of St. Luke’s hand suggest that it is more than a representation; rather, it is a relic of the apostolic age, when Luke bore witness to the lives of the Virgin and Jesus by writing his gospel and painting their image. Likewise, the icon’s more recent history as an artifact from the Byzantine Empire supposedly brought to Italy by Callixtus is juxtaposed with the story of

Luke. Both stories work together to create a narrative about the icon, asserting that it is an authentic image and an authentic memento of icon veneration itself. This painting does not

91 Stefano Papetti and Massimo Papetti, ed., Filippo e Alessandro Ricci: Pittori nella Marca del Settecento (Milan: Federico Motta Editore, 2009), 85. 92 This contradicts the seventeenth-century source that identifies the pope who gave the icon to Giacomo as Sixtus IV (r. 1471–84).

247 indicate either Coronation or Annunciation as the icon’s meaning: what matters here is the icon’s origins and therefore its genuineness.

The legendary history of the Fermo icon is reminiscent of other icons that are believed to be closely connected to Christ, the Virgin, and the earliest Christians. An archetypal story of a relic-image of Jesus is that of the Mandylion. Christ’s features were impressed on a towel that was sent to King Abgar in Edessa. Later, in the tenth century, the

Byzantines took the image with them to Constantinople where it was placed in the Pharos

Chapel. Then, in 1247 during the Latin occupation of Constantinople, many relics, including perhaps the Mandylion, were brought to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris by King Louis IX.

Images of the Mandylion proliferated in Byzantine church decoration and in Italian painting, including one by Alessandro Ricci in Fermo Cathedral. The legend of the Mandylion continued to authenticate icons of Christ, just as the legend of the Fermo Virgin reinforced the idea that it was an ancient image and obscured the novelty of its iconography for an audience committed to the cult of the Virgin.

The earlier understanding of this image as a Coronation was lost when a Byzantine metalworker applied the revetment. Its semblance to a Byzantine icon bearing signs of its age and power in the form of revetment plaques was a rich starting point for Giacomo. He easily transformed this image from a likeness of the Virgin’s Coronation—an important theme in

Italian devotional life in the late thirteenth century—to a likeness of the Annunciation, which was the most important episode of the Virgin’s life in regional cult practices.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I described how the materials used to adorn the Fermo icon amplified its significance as an important picture of the Virgin’s Coronation for an Italian audience. In

248 the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century when this icon was painted, its perceived closeness to established iconographical models was far less important than the abundance of ornament on the icon’s revetment. These decorative plaques signaled its venerability, authenticity, and supposed Byzantine origin. Byzantinizing images in Italian painting in the thirteenth and fourteenth century are a well-known aspect in the development of Italian devotional images, especially . This icon, however, in its late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century form did more than emulate a Byzantine icon: it deliberately used the artifice of a revetment—the type known to decorate important Byzantine icons—for a non-

Byzantine devotional theme. From its earliest days, the work was very likely combined with a second, now lost, image of Christ that would have been displayed on the right and would have completed the Coronation composition. Adding the gilt-silver revetment with its cycle of liturgical feast scenes and other decorative elements the composition an aura of authenticity, antiquity, and eastern exoticism and was the most convincing element of this ersatz Byzantine image. Its Italian patrons viewed the image of the Virgin through the ornamentation on the revetment, which diverted their attention away from icon’s dissimilarity to known .

In the late fifteenth century, the identification of this image with the Virgin’s

Coronation dissolved when the icon was put on display in Fermo. In this new context, the icon acquired a new identity as an image of the Annunciation, and legends developed about its origins and provenance—legends that suggested that the icon was more than a sacred image. The icon’s materiality bore witness to its importance, just as the oldest icons, such as the Mandylion, were artifacts that linked Jesus, Mary, and the apostles with believers in much later centuries. The eighteenth-century painting by Ricci shows the icon displayed on

249 an altar for veneration, an arrangement that was alien to Byzantine icon veneration but known in western European and Crusader contexts.

The addition of the gilt-silver revetment draws attention to the materials and materiality of this and other icon revetments. Such complex and miniature images and ornaments draw a viewer into a prolonged examination of the object, delaying or de- emphasizing her/his contemplation of the immaterial and heavenly prototypes for this image and others like it. Eventually the Byzantine revetment on the Fermo Virgin lost its cultural and historic significance, yet it remained attached to the devotional image, persuading its viewers that the icon was a genuine Byzantine work.

Although art historians no longer describe the transmission of icons, reliquaries, and other works of art between Byzantium and Italy in the thirteenth century as only a one-way flow from east to west, examples of movement like the story of this icon help expand our understanding of dynamic cultural exchange. The infusion of Byzantine objects into Italian collections and treasuries after the Fourth Crusade of 1204 provides only one, simplified explanation for the Byzantinizing styles used by Duecento and Trecento Italian painters.93

Recent research shows that distinctions between Greek and Italian artists are far from simple: some artists imitated and emulated the work of their Byzantine contemporaries, giving their work an archaic and anachronistic style.

The close study of the Fermo icon expands our understanding of cultural interaction and emulation. It shows that Italian and Byzantine artists contributed to the evolving design and decoration of a single work of art. In particular, the evidence of Franciscan patronage

93 Cutler, “From Loot to Scholarship,” 237–67.

250 stands out as an unexpected aspect of this icon’s history. By demonstrating that this icon was intended to represent the Virgin’s Coronation and by showing that associations with the

Virgin Annunciate only began when the icon was put on public display in Fermo in 1473, I interpret the icon as an example of byzantinizing painting that was used as a precedent for

Italian painting. By analyzing the artistic choices made by the producers of this icon and revetment, we see how the relationship between an icon and its decorative frame may be born out of other motivations besides decoration. In this case, the revetment plaques were designed to inspire veneration of the icon in the same way that wholly Byzantine icons were revered for their spiritual power and material splendor.

Conclusion: The Ornamental Turn and Material Splendor

Although few late Byzantine individuals had enough personal wealth to commission or buy gold or silver art objects, a small number of patrons acquired decorated icons either on their own or collectively through an institution such as a monastery.1 Commissioning art made with expensive materials was a way for patrons to display their wealth, or at least to invest their resources in something that satisfied their own pious desires in a socially and religiously acceptable form. Precious metal cladding and enamels emphasize the social and monetary value of an icon’s materials and decoration over its authenticity and likeness, which are foundational concepts for debaters of icon theory.2 Archival documents show that the owners of decorated icons regarded these works as valuable items given and received as payment for annual commemorations in monasteries and as spectacles that could attract visitors who would give votive offerings to the icon. Adding these precious materials to a

1 The paradox between the financial constraints of the weak economy in the late thirteenth through fifteenth centuries and the surge of artistic production at several moments in the late Byzantine period has prompted several explanations. Sophia Kalopissi-Verti highlights the flurry of renovations between the recovery of Constantinople and the financial problems of the state in the mid-fourteenth century in Kalopissi-Verti, “Patronage and Artistic Production in Byzantium during the Palaiologan Period,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture, ed. Sarah Brooks (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006), 67–97. Most recently, Hilsdale redefines the weakened economic and political status of Palaiologan Byzantium as an opportunity for Byzantines to reinvest their cultural and artistic heritage with power. Neighbors in stronger economies invested in Byzantine artistic works because of its prestigious legacy. Cecily Hilsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 2 By contrast, two centuries later in fifteenth-century Italian painting there was a shift from this emphasis on costly materials to the skill of the painter and his workshop. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century contracts for altarpieces and frescoes specified how much gold, silver, or ultramarine blue to use, whereas fifteenth-century contracts named painters and their special talents. Michael Baxandall, “Conditions of Trade,” in Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 1–27.

251 252 painted panel exemplifies the ornamental turn in late Byzantine art because these embellishments change the form and social significance of icons from likeness to ornament as a medium for individual devotion.

The design and fabrication of icon revetments were among the most innovative artistic projects undertaken during the late Byzantine period. Although revetments have been included in catalogues of icons and Byzantine art for over one hundred years, few scholars have attempted to analyze their decorative qualities, which has left a veil over their significance. Given the growing corpus of scholarly literature that analyzes multivalent and multimedia icons in the late Byzantine period, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to the frames and sheathing that decorated many of these works. Without close examinations of the ornamental vocabulary and design conventions that characterize the general features of late Byzantine icon revetments, it is not possible to analyze the similarities and differences that connect these icons. In order to construct a coherent system of engaging this ornamental vocabulary, I present indices of the nonfigural and figural motifs used on icon revetments in Appendix 2. By attending to the formal design as well as placement of each motif in both the catalogue of icon revetments (Appendix 3) and in each case study, I show how these motifs recontextualized icons into a larger picture of motifs and patterns drawn from other Byzantine objects. While some motifs such as the interlace roundels (M-8) create visual structure punctuating the holy figure's nimbus and the frame with deep relief, others frame the icon within a microcosm of Orthodox time using emblems of the feasts celebrated through the liturgical year (M-37).

Over eighty decorated icon revetments survive, most of which date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. My checklist and catalogue of these revetments in

253

Appendices 1 and 3 include photographs, descriptions, and bibliographic information to aid future study of these works. One result of cataloguing icon revetments is that the number of surviving icon revetments is almost twice what Grabar published in his 1975 catalogue.

Byzantine art historians agreed that revetments were a neglected topic long before I began this research; the size of the new corpus developed with this dissertation highlights the widespread distribution of revetments and the importance of their functions and meanings for the wider spectrum of late Byzantine icons. While a detailed examination of the entire corpus is beyond the scope of this dissertation, I have referred to the works throughout each case study, drawing connections between them. An analysis table follows the catalogue, showing that the Mother of God both alone and with her Child (31) was the most popular figure to receive a revetment—more than doubling the number of icons of Christ (13) that were revetted. Icons of all sizes were adorned with revetments. Most were originally located in

Constantinople or Ohrid, although Thessaloniki and Mount Athos were important artistic centers and icon revetments were likely made there.

The designs and materials used to ornament these works give some idea of the dazzling appearance of icons that no longer survive, including the large bilateral processional icon of the Virgin Hodegetria and Crucifixion in Constantinople. This famous work was at the center of civic icon cults, corporate worship, and personal devotion in the capital, and other revetted icons were used throughout the Byzantine cultural sphere for private prayer and public veneration. Stories of decorated icons displayed for public veneration tell us that these works inspired financial offerings and thus generated significant income for their guardians.

254

One reason icon revetments have not been studied in depth previously is that a significant component of their decoration consists of nonfigural ornament—decoration that is not easily described in words and does not convey iconographic significance. Ornament, especially nonfigural motifs, expresses the ineffable dimensions of holiness, prayer, and devotion in ways that transcend figural literalism. Thus, while Byzantine icons have been the archetypal subjects of iconographic analysis, the method of iconography is inadequate to the task of attending to the particular ornamental vocabulary of revetments. Studies of revetted icons that systematically pursue iconography and theological interpretations of their figures overlook or minimalize patterns and embellishments and thus underestimate their significance and cultural implications. Whereas much of the debate about icons during the era in question and during our own age focuses on such iconographic matters as the faithfulness of an icon to its prototype—these ornaments materialized different arguments, namely about veneration and spiritual power.

The first goal of this dissertation was to emphasize how the visual and material aspects of ornament inflected how icons were seen, used, and interpreted. Some designs, like the interlace roundels (M-8), are particularly effective at reflecting the flickering glow of candles and lamplight. Other effects such as rounded nimbi and interlace plait (M-22) on the inner beveled edges of the frame help structure a viewer’s perception of the eyes and body of the central holy figure. Miniature images of saints’ busts (M-41) and feast scenes (M-37) are displayed in repeating patterns alternating with such nonfigural motifs as rectangular compartments with symmetrical palmettes (M-28) or concentric and chain-linked circles with flowers (M-7). These emblems are an index of the high status and central importance of the holy figure, as may be seen on icons of the Mother of God (especially cats. 1a, 4, 5, and

255 many others). On some icons (cats. 1a, 3, 4, 14d, 48, 57, 65, and 69), the central figure is surrounded by miniaturized depictions of other saints and depictions of events from the life of Christ. These emblems mediate between the central holy figure and the pious viewers, contextualizing the icon’s presence within the spatial and temporal structure of the Orthodox

Church.

Using case studies to explore three individual icons in depth, I situated revetted icons in their particular historical, artistic, and religious contexts. These studies reveal some of the changing conceptualizations of icons during the late Byzantine period. For example, the revetment on the bilateral icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria and Crucifixion in Ohrid

(cats. 1a and 1b) evokes a specific set of cultic associations attached to the

Constantinopolitan Hodegetria. Previous studies have emphasized the iconography and painting style of the Ohrid Mother of God; I situate the work in a specific cultural moment in the first half of the fourteenth century when Serbian rulers were consolidating power.

Analysis of the mass-produced revetment plaques on the icon reveals that this work was adorned with the same silver strips as are found on the monumental Christ Pantokrator (cat.

48) and small steatite icon of the Twelve Feasts (cat. 52), also from Ohrid. I have determined that the connection between the Ohrid Virgin and Church of the Virgin Peribleptos in

Ohrid—the latter of which is assumed by scholars to be the hub of late Byzantine art in that city—is not substantiated. Instead, the icon and its revetment draw on a different set of sources and traditions associated with the city’s cathedral, St. Sophia. By emphasizing the cultic context of the Constantinopolitan icon and not its relationship to divine prototypes, I argue that the revetment on the Ohrid Mother of God underscores for both Byzantines and

256 modern scholars its status as an artifact of religious practice and cultural identity. This revetment reveals how ornament activates and broadcasts spiritual and political messages.

On the Mother of God in Freising (cat. 2), the Mother of God in Athens (cat. 27), the

Mother of God and Child in Vatopedi (cat. 60) and the now lost icon of Christ from Ohrid

(cat. 83), prayers and other texts were inscribed on their decorative sheathing. These texts reveal the careful artistic integration of text and image, connecting the gestures and gazes of the central figures to specific phrases in the inscribed text. I have shown how the Mother of

God’s arms on the Freising icon (cat. 2) connect the donor’s name in the lower left corner with his plea for divine aid on the right side of the frame. Designed to participate actively in the representation of the gestures of prayer and supplication, the inscriptions on revetments offered a visual map that was activated by viewers as they read the text; in highlighting these compositional nuances that shape reception, I have considered the attitudes and expectations conveyed through these inscriptions. As pleas for help, comfort, and security from the holy figure, these texts show how some individuals hoped the Mother of God or another holy figure would intervene on their behalf. Some of these icons ornamented with text were given to monasteries (cats. 4 and 28a); in return for their gifts, donors were memorialized in special liturgies and feasts. Thus, these inscribed prayers on the icon both reflect the witness of the individuals who were devoted to venerating the icon and remind future viewers to pray to the holy figure for mediation and protection. They augmented the icon’s likeness to its prototype and ensured veneration by future viewers.

In chapter four, the materials and materiality of icon revetments become artistic agents in my study of the Virgin image in Fermo (cat. 3). Underlying this case study was my interest in reversing the dematerialization of icons, which is a common result of iconographic

257 studies in which the image alone, not its materials or substances, are addressed. In my account of an Italian icon decorated with a Byzantine revetment, I show how the identification of the picture changed over time with the addition of the revetment, Gothic tabernacle, and postmedieval accretions. Although the work has long been interpreted as a depiction of the Virgin of the Annunciation, I argued that originally it was an Italian painting depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, a devotional theme unknown in Byzantium. The addition of a revetment to the icon helped validate the Coronation image as an authentic work, possibly even a Byzantine image, although Italian artists and patrons created it for an

Italian audience. The ornamented revetment plaques signaled prestige, authenticity, and spiritual power in the icon.

By embracing what I have called the ornamental turn in late Byzantine art, and by focusing my analysis on the nonfigural and miniaturized aspects of icon revetments, I have demonstrated that revetments are constituent elements of their icons, not mere adjuncts or embellishments. Ornament reveals relationships between icons that differ from what we know based on iconographic and stylistic studies. Using this approach to ornament, it is possible to draw additional connections among icons and other works of art with similar ornament motifs. These patterns are used on a variety of other artistic works from the late

Byzantine period, and I hope that further studies of those works will be aided by the nomenclature I have developed in the indices in Appendix 2.

The ornamental turn in the late Byzantine period signaled a new paradigm of icon decoration that manifested a conceptualization of icons as artifacts in which the prototype was fully embodied by its materiality. Icon revetments shift the focus away from the painted or mosaic surface to the material contrast—and material conglomeration—of the icon and its

258 gilded silver cover. In addition, its historic accumulation of layered embellishment emphasized the historicity of an icon. My analysis of the Ohrid Mother of God demonstrates that producing this copy of a well-known icon type was shaped more by political and polemical goals than has previously been appreciated by art historians. The changes in the decoration on the Freising and Fermo icons demonstrate new ways of approaching cultural interaction in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As audiences of revetted icons changed over time, revetments were adapted to convey specific messages about their icons. The material splendor of these works demonstrates that figure, inscription, and ornament work together to mediate the desires, power, and prestige of their makers and viewers.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Actes de Saint-Pantéléèmôn. Edited by Paul Lemerle, Gilbert Dagron, Sima Ćirković. Archives de l’Athos 12. Paris: Lethielleux, 1982.

Actes de Vatopédi II, De 1330 à 1376. Edited by Jacques Lefort, Vassiliki Kravari, Christophe Giros, and Kostis Smyrlis. Archives de l’Athos XXII. Paris: Peeters, 2006.

Actes de Vatopédi. Edited by Jacques Bompaire, Jacques Lefort, Vassiliki Kravari, Christophe Giros. Paris: Editions du CNRS and P. Lethielleux, 2001.

Actes de Xénophon. Edited by Denise Papachryssanthou. Archives de l’Athos XV Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1986.

Astruc, Charles. “L’inventaire dressé en septembre 1200 du trésor et de la bibliothèque de Patmos: Édition diplomatique.” Travaux et mémoires 8 (1981): 15–30.

Artefacts and Raw Materials in Byzantine Archival Documents/ Objets et matériaux dans les documents d’archives byzantins. Ludovic Bender, Maria Parani, Brigitte Pitarakis, Jean-Michele Spieser, and Aude Vuilloud, eds. University of Fribourg. http://www.unifr.ch/go/typika.

Bandy, Anastasius, trans. “Eleousa: Rule of Manuel, Bishop of Stroumitza, for the Monastery of the Mother of God Eleousa.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 1:167–91.

———, trans. “Machairas: Rule of Neilos, Bishop of Tamasia, for the Monastery of the Mother of God of Machairas in Cyprus.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 3:1107–75.

Bandy, Anastasius, with Nancy Ševčenko, trans. “Eleousa Inv.: Inventory of the Monastery of the Mother of God Eleousa in Stroumitza.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 4:1667–78.

Barber, Charles, and Foteini Spingou, eds. Byzantine Texts on Art and Aesthetics. 4 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

Baur, Ch. “Le Typikon du monastère de Notre-Dame tes bebaias elpidos.” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 29 (1933): 635–36.

Berthelot, Marcellin and Charles Ruelle, eds. Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs. Vols. 1 and 2. Paris: G. Steinheil, 1888–89.

259 260

Clavijo, Ruy González de. Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406. Translated by Guy le Strange. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2006. First published by Harper in 1928.

Delehaye, Hippolyte, ed. Acta sanctrum novembris. Vol. 3. Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1910.

———, ed. Deux typica byzantins de l’époque des Paléologues. Brussels: Académie Royale de Belgique, 1921.

Dennis, George, trans. “Skoteine [Boreine]: Testament of Maximos for the Monastery of the Mother of God at Skoteine near Philadelphia.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 3:1176–95.

Diehl, Charles. “Le trésor et la bibliothèque de Patmos au commencement du 13e siècle.” BZ 1 (1892): 488–525.

Eustathios of Thessaloniki. The Capture of Thessaloniki. Translation, introduction, and commentary by John Melville Jones. Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1988.

Gautier, Paul, ed. “La Diataxis de Michel Attaliate.” REB 39 (1981): 5–143.

———, ed. “Le typikon de la Théotokos Kécharitôménè.” REB 43 (1985): 5–165.

———, ed. “Le typikon du Christ Sauveur Pantocrator.” REB 32 (1974): 1–145.

———, ed. “Le typikon du sébaste Grégorie Pakourianos.” REB 42 (1984): 5–145.

Gedeon, Manuel, ed. “Διαθήκη Μαξίµου κτίτορος τῆς ἐν Λυδίᾳ µονῆς Κοτινῆς.” Μικρασιατικὰ Χρονικά 2 (1939): 271–90.

Germanos. On the Divine Liturgy. Translated by John Meyendorff. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

Hermes Trismegistus. Die Kyraniden. Edited by Dimitris Kaimakis. Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1976.

Jordan Robert, trans. “Pakourianos: Typikon of Gregory Pakourianos for the Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bačkovo.” In BMFD, Thomas and Hero, 2:507– 63.

———, trans., “Kecharitomene: Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God Kecharitomene in Constantinople.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 2:649–724.

———, trans. “Pantokrator: Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ Pantokrator in Constantinople.” In BMFD, 2: 725–81, no. 28.

Kallikles, Nikolaos. Nicola Callicle Carmi, ed. Roberto Romano. Naples: Bibliopolis, 1980.

261

Karlin-Hayter, Patricia, trans. “Galesios: Testament of Lazarus of Mount Galesios.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 1:148–66.

Manaphes, Konstantinos. “Paratereseis eis ta ‘Kypriaka Typika.’” Epistemonike Epeteris tes Philosophikes Scholes tou Panepistemiou Athenon 20 (1969–70), 155–68.

Mango, Cyril, ed. and trans. The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: Sources and Documents. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986.

Migne, Jacques-Paul, ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca. Paris: Geuthner, 1857–1904.

Miklosich, Franz, and Josef Müller, eds. Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana. 6 vol. Vienna: Carolus Gerold, 1860–1890. Reprinted by Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Oikonomides, Nicolas, ed. Actes de Docheiariou. Archives de l’Athos 13, Édition diplomatique. Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1984.

Parani, Maria, Brigitte Pitarakis, and Jean-Michel Spieser, eds. and trans. “Un exemple d’inventaire d’objets liturgiques: le testament d’Eustathios Boïlas (avril 1059).” REB 61 (2003): 143–65.

Petit, Louis, ed. “Le Monastère de Notre Dame de Pitié en Macédoine.” Izvestija Russkogo Archeologičeskogo Instituta v Konstantinopole 6 (1900): 69–93, 114–25.

Psellos, Michael. Philosophica Minora. 2 vols. Edited by John Duffy and Dominic O’Meara. Leipzig: Teubner, 1992.

Reinert, Stephen, trans. “Prodromos: Testament for Neilos for the Monastery of St. John the Forerunner (Prodromos) on Mount Athos.” BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 4:1389–95.

Symeon of Thessaloniki. St. Symeon of Thessalonika: The Liturgical Commentaries. Edited and translated by Steven Hawkes-Teeples. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2011.

Tafur, Pero. Travels and Adventures, 1435–1439. Translated by Malcolm Letts. London: Routledge, 2014; first published by RoutledgeCurzon in 1926.

Talbot, Alice Mary, trans. “Attaleiates: Rule of Michael Attaleiates for his Almshouse in Rhaidestos and for the Monastery of Christ Panoiktirmon in Constantinople.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 1:326–76.

Talbot, Alice-Mary, trans. “Bebaia Elpis: Typikon of Theodora Synadene for the Convent of the Mother of God Bebaia Elpis in Constantinople.” In BMFD, edited by Thomas and Hero, 4:1512–78.

262

Theodore of Stoudios. Antirrheticus adversus iconomachos, III, 1860, PG 99:328–436.

Theophanes Continuatus: Theophanes Continuatus, Ioannes Cameniata, Symeon Magister, Georgius Monachus. Edited by Immanuel Bekker. Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae, 33. Bonn: Weber, 1838.

Theophilus. On Divers Arts: The Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking, and Metalwork. Translation and introduction by John Hawthorne and Cyril Stanley Smith. New York: Dover, 1979.

———. Theophilus: The Various Arts. Edited and translated by Charles Reginald Dodwell. Oxford: Clarendon, 1986. First published in 1961.

Thomas, John Philip, and Angela Constantinides Hero, eds. Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments. 5 vols. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000.

Tsiknopoullos, Ioannes, ed. Kypriaka Typika. Nicosia: Nicosia Cyprus Research Centre, 1969.

Vryonis, Speros, ed. and trans. “The Will of a Provincial Magnate, Eustathius Boilas (1059).” DOP 11 (1957): 263–77.

Xanthopoulos, Nikephoros Kallistos. Historia Ecclesiastica, PG 145–47.

Secondary Sources

Achimastou-Potamianou, Myrtali. “The Basilissa Anna Palaiologina of Arta and the Monastery of Vlacherna.” In Les femmes et le monachisme byzantin [Women and Byzantine Monasticism]. Edited by Jacques Perreault, 43–49. Athens: Institut Canadien d’Archéologie, 1991.

———. Εικόνες του Βυζαντινού Μουσείου Αθηνών. Athens: Ταµείο Αρχαιολογικών Πόρων, 1998.

Alexander, Jonathan. The Decorated Letter. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978.

Anderson, Jeffrey. “Introduction to the Ornamental Tiles.” In Gerstel and Lauffenburger, Lost Art Rediscovered, 89–117.

———. “Tiles, Books, and the ‘Church like a Bride Adorned with Pearls and Gold.’” In Gerstel and Lauffenburger, Lost Art Redisovered, 119–41

Androudis, Paschalis. “Les premières apparitions attestées de l’aigle bicéphale dans l’art roman d’Occident (XIe-XIIe siècles). Origines et symbolique.” Nis and Byzantium 11 (2013): 209–25.

———. “Sur quelques emblèmes héraldiques à Constantinople (XIIIe–XVe siècles).” Περί Θράκης 2 (2002): 11–42.

Angelidi, Christine. “Un texte patriographique et édifiant: le ‘Discours narratif’ sur les Hodègoi.,” REB 52 (1994): 113–49.

Angelidi, Christine and Titos Papamastorakis. “The Veneration of the Virgin Hodegetria and the Hodegon Monastery,” in Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God, 373–87.

Angold, Michael, ed. The Cambridge . Volume 5, Eastern Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Anheuser, Kilian. “The Practice and Characterization of Historic Fire Gilding Techniques.” Journal of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society 49, no. 11 (1997): 58–62.

Antonova, Clemena. Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.

Arensberg, S. M. “A Mid-Byzantine Icon Frame in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection.” Seminar report, Johns Hopkins University, Apr. 17, 1980.

Armstrong, Pamela. Authority in Byzantium. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.

Arnheim, Rudolf. Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, the New Version. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

263 264

———. Review of The Mediation of Ornament, by Oleg Grabar. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (1995): 218–19.

Atlagić, Marko. “Određivanje nacionalnih heraldičkih simbola na primjeru Srba i Hrvata [Study of National Heraldic Symbols Following the Example of Serbs and ].” Zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta u Prištini 39 (2009): 179–88.

Aurenhammer, Hans. “Zäsur oder Kontinuität. Das Wiener Institut für Kunstgeschichte im Ständestaat und im Nationalsozialismus.” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 53 (2004): 11–54.

Bacci, Michele. “The Legacy of the Hodegetria: Holy Icons and Legends between East and West.” In Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God, 321–36.

———. “With the Paintbrush of the Evangelist Luke,” in Vassilaki, Mother of God, 79–89.

Baer, Eva. Islamic Ornament. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

———. Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

Bagnoli, Martina, Holger Klein, C. Griffith Mann, and James Robinson, eds. Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2010.

Bakalova, Elka. Trésors d’art médiéval Bulgare, VIIe-XVIe siècle. Geneva: Musée d’art et d’histoire, 1988.

———. “A Two-Sided Icon from Melnik.” In Λαµπηδών: Ἀφιέρωµα στή µνήµη τής Ντούλας Μουρίκη, edited by Maria Aspra Vardavakē, 103–20. Athens: Panepistēmiakes Ekdoseis, 2003.

Balabanov, Kosta. Freske i icone u Makedoniji, IV–XV vek. Belgrade: Izdavački zavod Jugoslavija, 1983.

———. Ikonite vo Makedonija [Icons of Macedonia]. Skopje: Tabernakul, 1995.

Ballian, Anna. “Liturgical Vessels,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 117–24.

Baltoyanni, Chrysanthi, ed. Conversation with God: Icons from the Byzantine Museum of Athens (9th–15th Centuries). Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 1998.

Bank, Alice. “L’argenterie byzantine des Xème–XVème siècles: Classification des monuments et méthodes de recherches.” Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 17 (1970): 335–53.

———. Byzantine Art in the Collections of Soviet Museums. Translated by Lenina Sorokina. Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1985.

265

Barber, Charles. Contesting the Logic of Painting: Art and Understanding in Eleventh- Century Byzantium. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

———. Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

Barber, Charles. Review of The Painter Angelos and Icon-Painting in Venetian Crete, by Maria Vassilaki, The Hand of Angelos: An Icon Painter in Venetian Crete, by Maria Vassilaki, Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God, by Clemena Antonova, and The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium, by Bissera Pentcheva. AB 93, no. 3 (2011): 370–73.

Baumstark, Reinhold, ed. Rom und Byzanz: Schatzkammerstücke aus bayerischen Sammlungen. Munich: Hirmer, 1998.

Baxandall, Michael. “Conditions of Trade.” In Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, 1–27. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Belting, Hans. Art History After Modernism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

———. “The ‘Byzantine’ Madonnas: New Facts about Their Italian Origin and Some Observations on Duccio.” Studies in the History of Art 12 (1982): 7–22, plate 2.

———. The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages. New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1990.

———. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Originally published as Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1990).

———. “Zur Skulptur aus der Zeit um 1300 in Konstantinopel.” Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 3 (1972): 63–93.

Betancourt, Roland. “Medieval Art after Duchamp: Hans Belting’s Likeness and Presence at 25.” Gesta 55, no. 1 (2016): 5–17.

Blair, Sheila, and Jonathan Bloom. “The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field.” AB 85, no. 1 (2003): 152–84.

Bogevska, Saška. “Les églises rupestres de la région des lacs d'Ohrid et de Prespa: milieux du XIII, milieu du XVI siècle.” PhD diss., Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2010.

Bolgia, Claudia. “The Felici Icon Tabernacle (1372) at S. Maria in Aracoeli, Reconstructed: Lay Patronage, Sculpture and Marian Devotion in Trecento Rome.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 68 (2005): 27–72.

266

Bomford, David. Art in the Making: Italian Painting before 1400. London: National Gallery, 1989.

Bonfioli, Mara. “Problematica di un’Icona.” In L’Arte di Bisanzio e l’Italia al Tempo dei Paleologi, 1261–1453, edited by Antonio Iacobini and Mauro della Valle, 267–83. Rome: Argos, 1999.

Borsook, Eve. “Painting for ‘The Most Noble City in the World.’” In Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350, edited by Christine Sciacca, 11–23. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.

Boston, Karen. “The Power of Inscriptions and the Trouble with Texts.” In Icon and Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium, edited by Antony Eastmond and Liz James, 35– 58. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.

Bowden, Ross. “A Critique of Alfred Gell on Art and Agency.” Oceania 74 (2004): 309–24.

Bozzo Dufour, Colette. Il Sacro volto di Genova. Rome: Istituto nazionale d’archeologia e storia dell’arte, 1974.

———. “La cornice del Volto Santo di Genova.” CahArch 19 (1969): 223–30.

Brault, Gerard. J. Early Blazon: Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, with Special Reference to Arthurian Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.

Brett, David. Rethinking Decoration: Pleasure and Ideology in the Visual Arts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Brett, G. L. “Formal Ornament on Late Roman and Early Byzantine Silver.” Papers of the British School at Rome 15 (1939): 33–41.

Brooks, Sarah, ed. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006.

———. “Poetry and Female Patronage in Late Byzantine Tomb Decoration: Two Epigrams by Manuel Philes.” DOP 60 (2006): 223–48.

Brubaker, Leslie. “Byzantine Art in the Ninth Century: Theory, Practice, and Culture.” BMGS 13 (1989): 23–93.

Brubaker, Leslie, and John Haldon. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c. 680–850: A History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

———. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca. 680–850): The Sources: An Annotated Survey. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

267

Brüderlin, Markus, ed. Ornament and Abstraction: The Dialogue between Non-Western, Modern and . Basel: Fondation Beyeler, 2001.

Buchwald, Hans. “Chancel Barrier Lintels Decorated with Carved Arcades.” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 45 (1995): 233–76.

Buckton, David. “Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria.” Mitteilungen zur spätantiken Archäologie und byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 2 (2000): 93–105.

———. “Enamelled Metal Icons of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” In Vassilaki, Byzantine Icons, 313–16.

———, ed. The Treasury of San Marco. Milan: Olivetti, 1984.

Buehl, Gudrun, and Alice-Mary Talbot. Dumbarton Oaks Oral History Project. “Anthony Cutler.” http://www.doaks.org/library-archives/dumbarton-oaks-archives/oral-history- project/anthony-cutler.

Buettner, Brigitte. “Toward a Historiography of the Sumptuous Arts.” In Rudolph, A Companion to Medieval Art, 466–87.

Camille, Michael. Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Canetti, Luigi. “Trésors et décor des églises au Moyen Âge. Pour une approche sémiologique des ornamenta ecclesiae.” In Du matériel au spirituel: Réalités archéologiques et historiques des "dépôts" de la Préhistoire à nos jours: XXIXe Rencontres internationales d'archéologie et d'histoire d Antibes: actes des rencontres, 16–18 octobre 2008, edited by Sandrine Bonnardin, 447–56. Antibes, : Association pour la promotion et la diffusion des connaissances archéologiques, 2009.

Carr, Annemarie Weyl. “Donors in the Frames of Icons: Living in the Borders of Byzantine Art.” Gesta 45 (2006): 189–98.

———. “How Icons Look.” In Imprinting the Divine: Byzantine and Russian Icons from the Menil Collection, edited by Annemarie Weyl Carr, 19–33. Houston: The Menil Collection, 2011.

———. “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constantinople.” DOP 56 (2002): 75–92.

———, ed. Imprinting the Divine: Byzantine and Russian Icons from the Menil Collection. Houston, TX: Menil Collection; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.

———. “Threads of Authority: The Virgin Mary’s Veil in the Middle Ages.” In Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, edited by S. Gordon, 59–93. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

268

Caskey, Jill. “Medieval Patronage and its Potentialities.” In Patronage: Power and Agency in Medieval Art, edited by Colum Hourihane, 3–30. Princeton: Index of Christian Art/University Park: Penn State University Press, 2013.

Chaganti, Seeta. The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary: Enshrinement, Inscription, Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Chatterjee, Paroma. The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Chatzidakis, Manoles. Icons of Patmos: Questions of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Painting. Athens: National , 1985.

Chepreganov, Todor, ed. History of the Macedonian People. Skopje: Institute of National History, 2008.

Chrysostomides Juliana, trans. and ed. Manuel II Palaeologus: Funeral Oration on his Brother Theodore. Thessaloniki: Association for Byzantine Research, 1985.

Čipan, Boris. “St. Sophia the Cathedral Church.” Macedonian Review 1–2 (1997): 22.

———. St. Sophia: The Cathedral Church of the Ohrid Archbishopric: A Chronology of the Architecture. Translated by Rajna Koška and Konstantine Koška. Skopje: Sigmapres, 1996.

Ćirić, Jasmina. “Fleur de lis in Late Byzantine Architecture.” Paper presented at La IIIe édition des Rencontres annuelles des doctorants en études byzantines, Paris, Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, 15–16 October 2010.

Coor-Achenbach, Gertrude. “The Earliest Italian Representation of the Coronation of the Virgin.” Burlington Magazine 99 (1957): 328–32.

Cormack Robin. The Byzantine Eye: Studies in Art and Patronage. London: Variorum Reprints, 1989.

———. “The Icon in Constantinople around 1400.” In Vassilaki, Hand of Angelos, 48–57.

———. “Miraculous Icons in Byzantium and their Powers.” L’Arte cristiana 76 (1988): 55– 60.

———. Painting the Soul: Icons, Death Masks, and Shrouds. Essays in Art and Culture. London: Reaktion Books, 1997.

———. Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and its Icons. London: George Philip, 1985.

Cormack, Robin and Maria Vassilaki, eds. Byzantium: 330–1453. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2009.

Corović-Ljubinković, Mirjana. The Icons of Ohrid. Belgrade: Jugoslavija, 1953.

269

Corrie, Rebecca. “The Kahn and Mellon Madonnas and Their Place in the History of the Virgin and Child Enthroned in Italy and the East.” In Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God, 293–304.

———. “Madonna and Child on a Curved Throne.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 476–77, no. 286.

———. “The Political Meaning of Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna and Child in Siena.” Gesta 29, no.1 (1990): 61–75.

Cotsonis, John. “Narrative Scenes on Byzantine Lead Seals (Sixth–Twelfth Centuries): Frequency, Iconography, and Clientele.” Gesta 48, no.1 (2009): 55–86.

Crinson, Mark. “Oriental Byzantium: Interpreting Byzantine Architecture, 1840–70.” In Empire Building: Orientalism and Victorian Architecture, 72–92. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Crowther, Paul. “More than Ornament: The Significance of Riegl.” Art History 17 (1994): 482–94.

Ćurčić Slobodan. “Religious Settings of the Late Byzantine Sphere.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 65–77.

———. “The Role of Late Byzantine Thessaloniki in Church Architecture in the Balkans.” DOP 57 (2003): 65–84.

Čurčič, Slobodan, and Doula Mouriki, eds. Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in the Late Byzantine Empire. Princeton: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 1991.

Cutler Anthony. “Art in Byzantine Society: Motive Forces of Byzantine Patronage.” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 31 (1981): 759–87.

———. “From Loot to Scholarship: Changing Modes in the Italian Response to Byzantine Artifacts, ca. 1200–1750.” DOP 49 (1995): 237–67.

———. “The Industries of Art.” In Laiou, The Economic History of Byzantium, 2:555–87.

———. “The ‘Maniera Greca’ in Italy and Serbia: Art and Society in Two Byzantine Spheres of Influence.” PhD diss., Emory University, 1963.

———. “The Parallel Universes of Arab and Byzantine Art (with special reference to the Fatimid era).” In L’Egypte fatimide: Son art et son histoire. Actes du colloque organisé à Paris les 28, 29, et 30 mai 1998, edited by Marianne Barrucand, 635–48. Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1999.

———. “The Pathos of Distance: Byzantium in the Gaze of Renaissance Europe and Modern Scholarship.” In Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin

270

America, 1450–1650, edited by Claire Farago, 23–46. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

———. “Tiles and Tribulations: A Community of Clay Across Byzantium and Its Adversaries.” In Gerstel and Lauffenburger, A Lost Art Rediscovered, 159–69.

———. “Uses of Luxury: On the Function of Consumption and Symbolic Capital in Byzantine Culture.” In Byzance et les images, edited by Jannic Durand, 287–327. Paris: La Documentation Française, 1994.

———. “Visual Communities in Byzantium and Medieval Islam.” In Visions of Community in the Pre-Modern World, edited by Nicholas Howe, 37–74. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.

Cvetković, Branislav. “Intentional Asymmetry in Byzantine Imagery: Communion of Apostles in St. Sophia Ohrid and Later Instances.” Byzantion 76 (2006): 74–96.

Dalton, Ormonde Maddock. “Byzantine Enamels in Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s Collection.” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 21, no. 109 (1912): 2–5, 8–10.

———. “Byzantine Enamels in Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s Collection.” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 21, no. 111 (1912): 126–129.

Davezac, Bertrand, ed. Four Icons in the Menil Collection. Houston: Menil Foundation, 1992.

Dehli, Arne. Selections of Byzantine Ornament. 2 vols. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2005. First published 1890 by Helburn.

Demus, Otto. “The Tribuna Mosaics of the Florence Baptistery.” In Studies in Byzantium, Venice and the West, edited by Irmgard Hutter, 2: 101–11. London: Pindar Press, 1998.

———. “Two Palaeologan Mosaic Icons in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection.” DOP (1960): 87, 89–119.

Demus, Otto. Byzantine Mosaic Decoration: Aspects of Monumental Art in Byzantium. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1948.

Derbes, Anne and Amy Neff. “Italy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Byzantine Sphere.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 449–61.

Derrida, Jacques. The Truth in Painting. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Diehl, Charles. Manuel d’art byzantine. Paris: Picard, 1925–26.

271

Dimitropoulou, Vassiliki. “Giving Gifts to God: Aspects of Patronage in Byzantine Art.” In A Companion to Byzantium, edited by Liz James, 161–70. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Drandaki, Anastasia. “A Maniera Greca: Content, Context and Transformation of a Term.” Studies in Iconography 35 (2014): 39–72.

Drandaki, Anastasia, Demetra Papanikola-Bakirtzi, and Anastasia Tourta, eds. Heaven and Earth. Vol. 1, Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, 2013.

Drpić, Ivan. “Art, Hesychasm, and Visual Exegesis: Parisinus Graecus 1242 Revisited.” Dumbarton Oak Papers 62 (2008): 217–47.

———. “The Patron’s ‘I’: Art, Selfhood, and the Later Byzantine Dedicatory Epigram.” Speculum 89, no. 4 (2014): 895–935.

Dumbarton Oaks. The Dumbarton Oaks Collection: Harvard University, Handbook. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1955.

———. Handbook of the Byzantine Collection. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1967.

Durand, Jannic. Byzance: L’art byzantin dans les collections publiques françaises. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux / Musée du Louvre, 1992.

———. “Innovations gothiques dans l’orfèvrerie byzantine sous les Paléologues.” DOP 58 (2004): 333–54.

———. “Precious Metal Icon Revetments.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 243–51.

Đurić, Vojislav. The Church of St. Sophia in Ohrid. Translated by Sonia Bićanić. Belgrade: Jugoslavija, 1963.

———. Icônes de Yougoslavie: Texte et catalogus. Translated by Mila Djordjevic. Belgrade: International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 1961.

Eastmond, Anthony, ed. Eastern Approaches to Byzantium: Papers from the Thirty-third Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, March 1999. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

Eastmond, Antony and Liz James. Wonderful Things: Byzantium Through its Art. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.

Effenberger, Arne. “Mosaic Diptych with Cycle of Feast Days.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 219–20, no. 129.

Elkins, James. “Ten Reasons Why E. H. Gombrich Is Not Connected to Art.” Human Affairs 19 (2009): 304–310.

272

Elsner, Jas’. “Art History as Ekphrasis.” Art History 33 (2010): 10–27.

———. “Framing the Objects We Study: Three Boxes from Late Roman Italy.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 71 (2008): 21–38.

———. “From Empirical Evidence to the Big Picture: Some Reflections on Riegl’s Concept of ‘Kunstwollen.’” Critical Inquiry 32 (2006): 741–66.

Epstein, Ann Wharton, “The Middle Byzantine Sanctuary Barrier: Templon or Iconostasis?” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 134 (1981): 1–28.

Eugenidou, Despoina, Jenny Albani, Pari Kalamara, et al. The City of . Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 2001.

Evans, Helen, ed. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th–9th Century. With the assistance of Brandie Ratliff. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012.

———, ed. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004.

Evans, Helen, and William Wixom, eds. The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A.D. 843–1261. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997.

Failler, Albert. “Les insignes et la signature du despote.” REB 40 (1982): 171–86.

Farago, Claire, ed. Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America, 1450–1650. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Feissel, Denis, and Anne Philipidis-Braat. “Inventaires en vue d’un recueil des inscriptions historiques de Byzance. III, Inscriptions du Péloponnèse (à l’exception de Mistra).” Travaux et Mémoires 9 (1985): 267–396.

Filov, Bogdan. Die altbulgarische Kunst. Bern: Paul Haupt, 1919.

Fine, John. The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Florin Leonte, “A Late Byzantine Patroness: Helena Kantakouzene Palaiologina.” In Theis, Mullett, and Grünbart, Female Founders, 345–53.

Focillon, Henri. Vie des forms. New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, 1948. Translated by George Kubler as The Life Forms of Art. New York: Zone Books, 1989.

Folda, Jaroslav. Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

273

———. “Sacred Objects with Holy Light: Byzantine Icons with Chrysography.” In Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice Mary Talbot, edited by Denis Sullivan, Elizabeth Fisher, and Stratis Papaioannou, 155–71. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

———. “The St. Marina Icon.” In Davezac, Four Icons in the Menil Collection, 107–33.

———. “The Use of Çintamani as Ornament: A Case Study in the Afterlife of Forms.” In Jones, Byzantine Images and their Afterlives, 183–204.

Forlati, Ferdinando, Cesare Brandi, and Yves Froidevaux. Saint Sophia of Ochrida: Preservation and Restoration of the Building and its Frescoes. Paris: UNESCO, 1953.

Franses, Henry. “Partial Transmission.” In Peers, Byzantine Things in the World, 175–87.

Frantz, Alison. “Byzantine Illuminated Ornament: A Study in Chronology.” AB 16 (1934): 43–101.

———. “Geography and Politics in Early Christian Ornament in Greece.” In Moss and Kiefer, Byzantine East, Latin West, 41–47.

Freedberg, David. The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Frinta, Mojmír. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague: Maxdorf, 1998.

———. “Raised Gilded Adornment of the Cypriot Icons, and the Occurrence of the Technique in the West.” Gesta 20, no. 2 (1981): 333–47.

Frolow, Anatole. “La ‘Podea,’ un tissu décoratif de l’église byzantin.” Byzantion 13 (1938): 461–504.

Gagarin, Grigory. A Collection of Byzantine and Early Russian Ornament. Translated by Paul Williams. Moscow: Continent, 1993.

Gardner, Julian. “Pope Nicholas IV and the Decoration of Santa Maria Maggiore.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 36, no. 1 (1973): 1–50.

Gasper-Hulvat, Marie. “The Icon as Performer and as Performative Utterance: The Sixteenth-Century Vladimir Mother of God in the Moscow Dormition Cathedral.” Res 57/58 (2010): 174–85.

Gedeon, Manuel. “Διαθήκη Μαξίµου µοναχοὐ κτίτορος τῆς ἐν Λυδίᾳ µονῆς Κοτινῆς.” Μικρασιατικὰ Χρονικά 2 (1939): 271–90.

Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

274

———. The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams. Edited by Eric Hirsch. London: Athlone Press, 1999.

———. “The Enchantment of Technology and the Technology of Enchantment.” In Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, edited by Jeremy Coote and Anthony Shelton, 40– 66. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Georgievski, Milco. Icon Gallery—Ohrid. Ohrid: Republic of Macedonia: Institute for the Protection of the Monuments of Culture and National Museum, 1999.

———. “Icon with Christ Pantokrator,” in Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 256, no. 154.

Gerstel, Sharon. Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs for the Byzantine Sanctuary. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.

———. “Ceramic Icons from Medieval Constantinople.” In Gerstel and Lauffenburger, A Lost Art Rediscovered, 44–65.

———. “Civic and Monastic Influences on Church Decoration in Late Byzantine Thessalonike.” In “Symposium on Late Byzantine Thessalonike.” Edited by Alice- Mary Talbot. DOP 57 (2004): 225–39.

———, ed. Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2006.

Gerstel, Sharon and Julie Lauffenburger, eds. A Lost Art Rediscovered: The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium. Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2001.

Gladysheva, Ekaterina. “Revetted Icon with the Virgin Hodegetria.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 28–30, no. 4.

Gombrich, Ernst Hans. The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art. 2nd edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984. First published 1979 by Phaidon.

———. “A Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art.” Leonardo 14 (1981): 88.

Gonosová, Anna. “Exotic Taste: The Lure of Sasanian Persia.” In Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Mediterranean World, edited by Eva Hoffman, 40–46. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

———. “The Role of Ornament in Late Antique Interiors with Special Reference to Intermedia Borrowing of Patterns.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 1981.

Gonzalez, Valerie. “The Comares Hall in the and James Turrell’s Space that Sees: A Comparison of Aesthetic Phenomenology.” Muqarnas 20 (2003): 253–78.

275

Goodyear, William. The Grammar of the Lotus. London: Low, 1891.

Gouma-Peterson, Thalia. “Christ as Ministrant and the Priest as Ministrant of Christ in a Palaeologan Program of 1303,” DOP 32 (1978): 197, 199–216.

———. “The Frescoes of the Parekklesion of St. Euthymios in Thessaloniki: Patrons, Workshop, and Style.” In Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in the Late Byzantine Empire, edited by Slobodan Ćurčić and Doula Mouriki, 111–29. Princeton: Department of Art and Archaeology / Program in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University, 1991.

Grabar, André. La décoration byzantine. Paris: Gérard van Oest, 1928.

———. “Le succès des arts orientaux à la cour byzantine sous les macédoniens.” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 2 (1951): 32–60.

———. Les revêtements en or et en argent des icônes byzantines du moyen âge. Venice: Institut hellénique d’études byzantines et post-byzantines, 1975.

———. Sculptures byzantines de Constantinople, IVe–Xe siècle. Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1963.

———. Sculptures byzantines du Moyen Age: II (XIe–XIVe siècle). Paris: Editions A. et J. Picard, 1976.

Grabar, Oleg. The Formation of Islamic Art. Revised and enlarged edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973.

———. The Mediation of Ornament. A. W. Mellon lectures in the Fine Arts. Bollingen Series 35, 38. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Greenfield, Richard. “A Contribution to the Study of Palaeologan Magic.” In Byzantine Magic, edited by Henry Maguire, 117–154. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995.

Gregory, Timothy. A History of Byzantium. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.

Grierson, Philip. . Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1999.

Grozdanov, Cvetan. Ohridskoto dzidno slikarstvo od XIV vek. Ohrid: Naroden Muzej, 1980.

Guillou, André and Jannic Durand, eds. Byzance et les images. Paris: La Documentation française, 1994.

Hadjichristodoulou, Christodoulos. “Icon with the Virgin Kykkotissa.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 169–70, no. 91.

Hahn, Cynthia. “What do Reliquaries do for Relics?” Numen 57 (2010): 284–316.

276

Hahnloser, Hahns, ed. Il Tesoro di San Marco. Florence: Sansoni, 1965–1971.

Haldon, John. A Social History of Byzantium. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

———. Warfare, State, and Society in the Byzantine World. London: UCL Press, 1999.

Harboe, Julie. “Remembering or Forgetting the Meaning of an Ornament? Trails of Antiquity in Early Byzantine Ornamentation.” In Memory and Oblivion: Proceedings of the XXIXth International Congress of the History of Art held in Amsterdam, 1–7 September 1996, edited by Wessel Reinink and Jeroen Stumpel, 759–64. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.

Harris, Jonathan. Greek Emigres in the West 1400–1520. Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1995.

Heatherington, Paul. “Byzantine Steatites in the Possession of the Knights of .” Burlington Magazine 120, no. 909 (1978): 811–20.

Hellier, Chris. Monasteries of Greece. London: Tauris Parke Books, 1996.

Hendy, Michael. Coinage and Money in the Byzantine Empire, 1081–1261. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1969.

Herzfeld, Michael. “Icons and Identity: Religious and Social Practice in Rural Crete.” Anthropological Quarterly 63 (1990): 109–21.

Hetherington, Paul. “The Perception of Icons in the Late Byzantine World: Some Evidence in a Treasury Inventory of Hagia Sophia.” BZ 102 (2009): 95–101.

Hilsdale, Cecily. Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Hostetler, Brad. “The Function of Text: Byzantine Reliquaries with Epigrams, 843–1204.” PhD diss., Florida State University, 2016.

Hourihane, Colum, ed. Byzantine Art: Recent Studies. Princeton: Index of Christian Art/Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2009.

———, ed. From Minor to Major: The Minor Arts in Medieval Art History. Princeton: Index of Christian Art/University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012.

———, ed. Interactions: Artistic Interchange between the Eastern and Western Worlds in the Medieval Period. Princeton: Index of Christian Art/University Park: Penn State University Press, 2007.

Hunt, Lucy-Anne. Byzantium, Eastern and Islam: Art at the Crossroads of the Medieval Mediterranean. London: Pindar Press, 1998.

277

Ierodiakonou, Katerina. “The Greek Concept of Sympatheia and Its Byzantine Appropriation in Michael Psellos.” In The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, edited by Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavoudi, 97–117. Geneva: La Pomme d’or, 2006.

Ingold, Tim. “Materials against Materiality.” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (2007): 1– 16.

Istituto internazionale di ricerca sul volto di Cristo. Il Volto dei Volti—Cristo. Vol. 3. Gorle, Bergamo: Velar, 1999.

Iversen, Margaret. Alois Riegl: Art History and Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993.

Jacoby, David. “Late Byzantium between the Mediterranean and Asia: Trade and material Culture.” In Brooks, Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557): Perspectives, 20–41.

James, Liz, ed. Art and Text in Byzantine Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Jones, Lynn, ed. Byzantine Images and their Afterlives: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014.

Jones, Owen. The Grammar of Ornament: Illustrated by Examples from Various Styles of Ornament. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1972. First published 1868 by Parkgate Books, London.

Kalavrezou-Maxeiner. Byzantine Icons in Steatite. 2 vols. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1985.

Kalligas, Marinos. “Βυζαντινὴ φορητὴ εἰκὼν ἐν Freising.” Ἀρχαιολογικέ Ἐφήµερις (1937): 501–506.

Kalopissi-Verti, Sophia. Dedicatory Inscriptions and Donor Portraits in Thirteenth-Century Churches of Greece. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992.

———. “Painters in Late Byzantine Society: The Evidence of Church Inscriptions.” CahArch 42 (1994): 139–58.

———. “Patronage and Artistic Production in Byzantium during the Palaiologan Period.” In Brooks, Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557): Perspectives, 76–97.

———. “The Proskynetaria of the Templon and Narthex: Form, Imagery, Spatial Connections, and Reception.” In Gerstel, Thresholds of the Sacred, 107–33.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Translated by James Meredith. Revised, edited, and introduced by Nicholas Walker. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

278

Karakatsanis, Athanasios, ed. Treasures of Mount Athos. Thessaloniki: Ministry of Culture, 1997.

Kavaler, Ethan Matt. “Renaissance Gothic in the Netherlands: The Uses of Ornament.” AB 82 (2000): 226–51.

Kazanaki-Lappa, Maria. “The Will of .” In Vassilaki, The Hand of Angelos, 104–10.

Kelly, Jessen. “The Material Efficacy of the Elizabethan Jeweled Miniature: A Gellian Experiment.” In Osborne and Tanner, Art’s Agency and Art History, 114–34.

Kessler, Herbert. Seeing Medieval Art. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2004.

Kessler, Herbert and Gerhard Wolf, eds. The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation. Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1998.

Kimball, Virginia. “Theotokos, Ever-Virgin, Bearer of the Life-Giver, a Patristic, Iconographic Image of Virginity.” Marian Studies 58 (2007): 115–42.

Kitzinger, Ernst. “Interlace and Icons: Form and Function in Early Insular Art.” In The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland, edited by Michael Spearman and John Higgitt, 3–15. Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1993.

———. “Reflections on the Feast Cycle in Byzantine Art.” CahArch 36 (1988), 51–73.

———. “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine: Observations on Floor Mosaics at Antioch and Bethlehem.” In Kyriakon, Festschrift Johannes Quasten II, edited by Patrick Granfield and Josef Jungmann, 639–47. Münster: Aschendorff, 1970.

———. Studies in Late Antique, Byzantine and Medieval Western Art. Edited by W. Eugene Kleinbauer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.

Klein, Holger. “Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West.” DOP 58 (2004): 283–314.

Knappett, Carl. “Meaning in Miniature: Semiotic Networks in Material Culture.” In Excavating the Mind: Cross-sections Through Culture, Cognition and Materiality, edited by Niels Johanssen, Mads Jessen, and Helle Juel Jensen, 87–109. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2012.

Kondakov, Nikodim. Ikonografija Bogomateri. 2 vols. St. Petersburg: Tipografija imperatorskoi akademii nauk, 1914–15.

———. The Russian Icon. Translated by Ellis Minns. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927.

279

Koos, Marianne. “Wandering Things: Agency and Embodiment in Late Sixteenth-Century English Miniature Portraits.” Art History 37, no. 5 (2014): 836–59.

Koytcheva, Elena. “Logistical Problems for the Movement of the Early Crusades through the Balkans: Transport and Road Systems.” In Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, ed. Elizabeth Jeffreys, 2:54. London: Ashgate, 2006.

Labatt, Anne. “Annunciation.” In Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai, edited by Robert Nelson and Kristen Collins, 153, no. 13. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006.

Lafontaine-Dosogne, Jaqueline. Iconographie de l’enfance de la Vierge dans l’Empire byzantin et en Occident. Brussels: Palais des académies, 1964.

Laiou, Angeliki, ed. The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century. 3 vols. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2002.

Lakey, Christopher. “The Curious Case of the ‘Chiarito Tabernacle’: A New Interpretation.” Getty Research Journal 4 (2012): 13–30.

Layton, Robert. “Art and Agency: A Reassessment.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9 (2003): 447–64.

Lazarev, Viktor. “Byzantine Icons of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” Burlington Magazine 71 (1937): 249–61.

———. The Russian Icon: From its Origins to the Sixteenth Century. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1997.

———. Storia della pittura bizantina. Turin: G. Einaudi, 1967.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

Licenovska, Zoe. “Les revêtements en argent des icônes d’Ohrid.” Byzantinoslavica 57, no. 2 (1996): 391–95.

Lidov, Aleksei, ed. Chudotvornaya ikona v Vizantii i Drevnei Rusi [The Miracle-Working Icon in Byzantium and Old Rus]. Moscow: Martis, 1996.

———. “The Creator of Sacred Space as a Phenomenon of Byzantine Culture.” In L’artista a Bisanzio e nel mondo Cristiano-orientale, edited by Michele Bacci, 135–76. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2007.

———. “The Flying Hodegetria: The Miraculous Icon as Bearer of Sacred Space.” In The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, edited by Erik Thunø and Gerhard Wolf, 291–321. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2004.

280

Lipinsky, Angelo. “Introduzione tecnica all’arte orafa bizantina.” Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 12 (1966): 275–352.

———. “Ori, argenti e gioielli nella Pannonia romana: Ori e smalti bizantini in Ungheria dall’avvento degli Arpadi.” Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 16 (1969): 213–44.

Loos, Adolf. “Ornament und verbrechen (1908).” In Trotzdem, 1900–1930, edited by Adolf Opel, 79–88. Vienna: Georg Prachner, 1982. First published in 1931 by Brenner- Verlag.

Lorenzetti, Giulio. Venezia e il suo estuario: Guida storico-artistica. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1956.

Loverdou-Tsigarida, Katia. “Αργυρές επενδύσεις εικόνων από τη Θεσσαλονίκη του 14ου αιώνα.” Δελτίον τὲς Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής ‘Εταιρείας 26 (2005): 263–72.

———. “Revêtement de l’icône de la Vierge Vimatarissa datant de l’époque des Paléologues, monastère de Vatopédi.” Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog instituta 44 (2007): 423–35.

———. “Thessalonique, centre de production d’objets d’arts au XIVe siècle.” DOP 57 (2003): 241–54.

Lymberopoulou, Angeliki, and Rembrandt Duits, eds. Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.

Mack, John. The Art of Small Things. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.

MacMullen, Ramsay. “The Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire.” American Journal of Philology 103 (1982): 233–46, 246.

Maguire, Eunice Dauterman, and Henry Maguire. Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Maguire, Eunice Dauterman, Henry Maguire, and Maggie Duncan-Flowers. Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Maguire, Henry, ed. Byzantine Magic. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995.

———. The 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 of Balkan Studies, 1996.

281

———. “Magic and Geometry in Early Christian Floor Mosaics and Textiles.” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 44 (1994): 265–74.

———. Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

———. Rhetoric, Nature, and Magic in Byzantine Art. Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS603. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.

Maguire, Henry, and Robert Nelson, eds. San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2010.

Majeska, George. “Russian Pilgrims in Constantinople.” DOP 56 (2002): 93–108.

Mallé, Luigi. Cloisonnés bizantini con una introduzione all’arte dello smalto medioevale. Turin: Tipografia Impronta, 1969.

Maranci Christina. “Building Churches in Armenia: Art at the Borders of Empire and the Edge of the .” AB 88 (2006): 656–75.

Marinis, Vasileios. Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

———. “‘He Who Is at the Point of Death’: The Fate of the Soul in Byzantine Art and Liturgy.” Gesta 54, no.1 (2015): 59–84.

Marković, Miodrag. “The Painter Eutychios—Father of Michael Astrapas and Protomaster of the Frescoes in the Church of the Virgin Peribleptos in Ohrid.” Zbornik Matice srpske za likovne umetnosti 38 (2010): 9–34.

Marsengill, Katherine. “Portraits and Icons: Between Reality and Holiness in Byzantium.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2009.

Masetti, Calderoni, Anna Rosa, Colette Dufour Bozzo, and Gerhard Wolf. Intorno al Sacro Volto: Genova, Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo, secoli XI–XIV. Venice: Marsilio 2007.

Mathews Thomas. “The Sequel to Nicaea II in Byzantine Church Decoration.” In Art and Architecture in Byzantium and Armenia: Liturgical and Exegetical Approaches, 263– 98. Aldershot: Variorum, 1995.

Matschke, Klaus-Peter. “Mining.” In Laiou, Economic History of Byzantium, 1:115–20.

Matteis, Mario de, ed. Via Egnatia: von Durrës und Apollonia nach Ohrid: fotografische Dokumentation. Oberhausen: Athena, 2001.

McGuckin, John. Standing in God’s : The Byzantine Tradition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001.

282

Meyendorff, John. Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989. First published in 1981 by Cambridge University Press.

Miljković-Pepek, Petar. Veljusa: Monastere de la Vierge de Pitie au village Veljusa pres de . Skopje: RO Fakultet za Filozofsko-istoriski nauki na Univerzitotet Kiril i Metodij, 1981.

Miller, Timothy. “The History of John Cantacuzenus (Book IV).” PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 1975.

Milliner, Matthew. “The Virgin of the Passion: Development, Dissemination, and Afterlife of a Byzantine Icon Type.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2011.

Mina, Gianna. “Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone: Political Statement or Profession of Faith?” In Art, Politics and Civic Religion in Central Italy 1261–1352: Essays by Postgraduate Students at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Edited by Joanna Cannon and Beth Williamson, 237–93. Aldershot; Ashgate, 2000.

Mitchell, Nathan. The Mystery of the Rosary: Marian Devotion and the Reinvention of Catholicism. New York: New York University Press, 2009.

Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Moss, Christopher, and Katherine Kiefer, eds. Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann. Princeton: Princeton University, 1995.

Mouriki, Doula. “Stylistic Trends in Monumental Painting of Greece at the Beginning of the Fourteenth Century.” In L’art Byzantin au début du XIVe siècle, edited by Sreten Petković, 55–83. Belgrade: Filozofski fakultet, Odeljenje za istoriju umetnosti, 1978.

———. “Stylistic Trends in Monumental Painting of Greece during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.” DOP 34 (1980–1981): 77–124.

———. “Variants of the Hodegetria on Two Thirteenth-Century Sinai Icons.” CahArch 39 (1991): 153–83.

Muller, Norman. “Guido da Siena’s ‘Annunciation’ in Context.” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 63 (2004): 28–39.

Mullett, Margaret. Letters, Literacy and Literature in Byzantium. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007.

———. Theophylact of Ohrid: Reading the Letters of a Byzantine Archbishop. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographies, 2. Aldershot: Variorum, 1997.

Musée de Cluny. Trésors médiévaux de la République de Macédoine. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999.

283

Musée des arts décoratifs. Exposition internationale d’art byzantin, 28 mai–9 juillet 1931. Musée des arts décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Pavillon de Marsan. Paris: Frazier Soye, 1931.

Muthesius, Anna. Weaving: A.D. 400 to A.D. 1200. Edited by Ewald Kislinger and Johannes Koder. Vienna: Fassbaender, 1997.

Nagel, Alexander. “Twenty-five Notes on Pseudoscript in Italian Art.” Res 59/60 (2011): 227–48.

Naxidou, Eleonora. “An Aspect of the Medieval History of the Archbishopric of Ohrid: Its Connection with Justiana Prima.” Byzantinoslavica 64 (2006): 154–67.

Necipoğlu, Gülru. The Topkapı Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture: Topkapı Palace Museum Library MS H. 1956. Sketchbooks & Albums. Santa Monica, CA: Getty Center for the History of Art and the , 1995.

Nelson Robert. Later Byzantine Painting: Art, Agency and Appreciation. Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007.

———. “Letters and Language: Ornament and Identity in Byzantium and Islam.” In The Experience of Islamic Art on the Margins of Islam, edited by Irene Bierman, 61–88. Reading: Ithaca Press, 2005.

———. “Palaeologan Illuminated Ornament and the Arabesque.” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 41 (1988): 7–22.

Nelson, Robert, and Kristen Collins, eds. Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006.

Nicol, Donald. Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

———. The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Nielsen, Anders. “Icons and Agency in the .” In Religious Narrative, Cognition and Culture: Image and Word in the Mind of Narrative, edited by Armin Geertz and Jeppe Sinding Jenson, 219–36. Sheffield: Equinox, 2011.

Noreen, Kirstin. “Revealing the Sacred: The Icon of Christ in the Sancta Sanctorum, Rome.” Word and Image 22 (2006): 228–37.

Norman, Diana. Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, 1260–1555. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Nunn, Valerie. “The Encheirion as Adjunct to the Icon in the Middle Byzantine Period.” BMGS 10 (1986): 73–102.

284

Obolensky, Dimitri. The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982. First published London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971.

———. Six Byzantine Portraits. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.

Oikonomides, Nicolas. “The Contents of the Byzantine House from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century.” DOP 44 (1990): 206–7.

———. “The Holy Icon as an Asset.” DOP 45 (1991): 35–44.

———. Society, Culture and Politics in Byzantium. Edited by Elizabeth Zachariadou. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

Olin, Margaret. Forms of Representation in Alois Riegl’s Theory of Art. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992.

———. Review of The Mediation of Ornament, by Oleg Grabar. AB 75 (1993): 728–31.

Onasch Konrad and Annemarie Schneiper. Icons: The Fascination and the Reality. Translated by Daniel Conklin. New York: Riverside Book Company, 1997.

Onians, John. “Abstraction and Imagination in Late Antiquity.” Art History 3 (1980): 1–24.

Orth, Myra. “What Goes Around: Borders and Frames in French Manuscripts.” The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54 (1996): 189–201, 276–78.

Osborne, John. “Framing Sacred Space: Eleventh-Century Mural Painting in the Churches of Rome.” Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 30 (2004): 137–51.

Osborne, Robin, and Jeremy Tanner, eds. Art’s Agency and Art History. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

Ousterhout, Robert. “The Byzantine Heart.” Zograf 17 (1989): 35–43.

———. A Byzantine Settlement in . Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2005.

———. “Byzantium Between East and West and the Origins of Heraldry.” In Hourihane, Byzantine Art: Recent Studies, 153–70.

———. “Contextualizing the Later Churches of Constantinople: Suggested Methodologies and a Few Examples.” DOP 54 (2000): 241–50.

———. Master Builders of Byzantium. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Ovcharov Nikolai., “L’archevêque d’Ohrid Nicolas II et l’expansion serbe en Macédoine du milieu du XIVe s.” Etudes balkaniques 3–4 (1996): 123–26.

285

Pace, Valentino, and Mercati Traianei. Treasures of Christian Art in Bulgaria. Sofia: Borina, 2001.

Pallis, Georgios. “Inscriptions on Middle Byzantine Marble Templon Screens.” BZ 106, no. 2 (2013): 761–810.

Panov, Mitko. “The Creation of the Medieval State in Macedonia.” In The History of the Macedonian People, ed. Todor Chepreganov, 95–107. Skopje: Institute of National History, 2008.

Papaioannou, Stratis. “Byzantine Mirrors: Self-Reflection in Writing.” DOP 64 (2010): 81–101.

———. Michael Psellos: Rhetoric and Authorship in Byzantium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Papalexandrou, Amy. “Text in Context: Eloquent Monuments and the Byzantine Beholder.” Word & Image 17 (2001): 259–83.

Papamastorakis, Titos. “The Display of Accumulated Wealth in Luxury Icons: Gift-Giving from the Byzantine Aristocracy to God in the Twelfth Century.” In Vassilaki, Byzantine Icons, 35–49.

Papamastorakis, Tito. “Pictorial Lives: Narrative in Thirteenth-Century Vita Icons.” Mouseio Benaki 7 (2008): 33–65.

Papangelos, Iokeim, and Panagiotis Gravvalos. The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopaidi: Tradition, History, Art. 2 vol. Mount Athos: Athonite Center of Orthodox Culture, 1998.

Papapetros, Spyros. Review of From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernity by Alina Payne. Journal of Art Historiography 7 (2012): 1–12.

Papetti, Stefano and Massimo Papetti, ed. Filippo e Alessandro Ricci: Pittori nella Marca del Settecento. Milan: Federico Motta Editore, 2009.

Parani. Maria. “On the Personal Life of Objects in Medieval Byzantium.” In The Material and the Ideal: Essays in Medieval Art and Archaeology in Honour of Jean-Michel Spieser, edited by Anthony Cutler and Arietta Papaconstantinou, 157–76. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

———. Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th Centuries). Leiden: Brill, 2003.

Parani, Maria, Brigitte Pitarakis, and Jean-Michel Spieser. “Un exemple d’inventaire d’objets liturgiques: le testament d’Eustathios Boïlas (abril 1059).” REB 61 (2003): 143–65.

286

Parpulov, Georgi, Irina Dolgikh and Peter Cowe. “A Byzantine Text on the Technique of Icon Painting.” DOP 64 (2010): 213–16.

Parry, Kenneth. Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries. Leiden: Brill, 1996.

Payne, Alina. “Beyond Kunstwollen: Alois Riegl and the Baroque.” In Alois Riegl, The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome, edited and translated by Andrew Hopkins and Arnold Witte, 1–35. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2010.

Pedone, Silvia, and Valentina Cantone. “The Pseudo-Kufic Ornament and the Problem of Cross-Cultural Relationships between Byzantium and Islam.” Opuscula Historiae Artium 62 (2013): 120–36.

Peers, Glenn, ed. Byzantine Things in the World. Houston: The Menil Collection / New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

———. Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.

Pentcheva, Bissera. “The Activated Icon: The Hodegetria Procession and Mary’s Eisodos,” in Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, 195–207.

———. “Epigrams on Icons.” In Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, edited by Liz James, 120–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

———. Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

———. “Painting or Relief: The Ideal Icon in Iconophile Writing.” Zograf 31 (2006–2007): 7–14.

———. “The Performative Icon.” AB 88 (2006): 631–55.

———. “Rhetorical Images of the Virgin: The Icon of the ‘Usual Miracle’ at the Blachernai.” Res 38 (2000): 35–53.

———. The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010.

———. “What is a Byzantine Icon? Constantinople versus Sinai.” In Stephenson, The Byzantine World, 265–83.

Peschlow, Urs. “Ein paläologisches Reliefdenkmal in Konstantinopel.” Gesta 33, no. 2 (1994): 93–103.

287

Petkov, Kiril. The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, Seventh–Fifteenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

Pitarakis, Brigitte. “Les revêtements d’orfèvrerie des icônes paléologues vus par les rédacteurs d’inventaires de biens ecclésiastiques: Les icônes de l’église de la Vierge Spèlaiôtissa de Melnik (Bulgarie).” CahArch 53 (2009–2010): 129–42.

Podro, Michael. “Responding to Gombrich’s Response to Riegl.” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 53 (2004): 153–60.

Prashkov. Liuben. Ikoni ot Bŭlgariia, IX–XV vek [Icons from Bulgaria, 9th–15th Century]. Sofia: Izd-vo Anzhela, 2000.

Radeglia, Daila, et al. “Il restauro dell’icona della Madonna di Fermo: Problematiche di un manufatto polimaterico.” Bollettino ICR 1 (2000): 86–127.

Radić, Radmila. “Serbian Christianity.” In The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, edited by Ken Parry, 231–48. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007.

Radojčić, Svetozar. “Freska Pokajanja Davidovog u Ohridskoj Svetoj Sofii.” Starinar 9–10 (1958–1959): 133–36.

Rampley, Matthew. “Art History and the Politics of Empire: Rethinking the Vienna School.” AB 91 (2009): 467–63.

———. “The Idea of a Scientific Discipline: Rudolf von Eitelberger and the Emergence of Art History in Vienna, 1847–1873.” Art History 34 (2011): 54–79.

———. The Vienna School of Art History: Empire and the Politics of Scholarship, 1847– 1918. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013.

Redford, Scott. “Byzantium and the Islamic World, 1261–1557.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 389–96.

Renard, John. “Picturing Holy Places: On the Uses of Architectural Themes in Ornament and Icon.” Religion and the Arts 5 (2001): 399–428.

Rhoby, Andreas, ed. Byzantinische Epigramme auf Stein nebst Addenda zu den Banden 1 Und 2. Vol. 3, Byzantinische Epigramme in Inschriftlicher Uberlieferung. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2014.

———, ed. Byzantinische Epigramme in inschriftlicher Überlieferung. Vol. 2, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst: nebst Addenda zu Band 1. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009.

———. “Epigrams, Epigraphy and Sigillography.” In Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium of Byzantine Sigillography, edited by Christos Stavrakos and Barbara Papadopoulou, 65–80. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011.

288

———. “Interactive Inscriptions: Byzantine Works of Art and their Beholders.” In Spatial Icons: Performativity in Byzantium and Medieval Russia, edited by Alexei Lidov, 317–33. Moscow: Indrik, 2011.

———. “A Short History of Byzantine Epigraphy.” In Inscriptions in Byzantium and Beyond: Methods—Projects—Case Studies. Edited by Andreas Rhoby, 17–32. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015.

———. “The Structure of Inscriptional Dedicatory Epigrams.” In La poesia tardoantica e medievale; IV Convegno internazionale di studi, Perugia, 15-17 novembre 2007, Atti in onore di Antonino Isola per il suo 70° genetliaco, edited by Clara Burini De Lorenzi and Miryam De Gaetano, 309–32. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2010.

Riccioni, Stefano. Il mosaico absidale di S. Clemente a Roma: “exemplum” della chiesa riformata. Spoleto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2006.

Riegl, Alois. Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts. Translated by Jacqueline Jung. New York: Zone Books, 2004. Originally published as Historische Grammatik der bildenden Künste. Edited by Karl Swoboda and Otto Pächt (Graz, Austria: Böhlau, 1966).

———. Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament. Translated by Evelyn Kain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Originally published as Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (: Siemens, 1893).

Rizzi, Alberto. “Le icone bizantine e postbizantine delle chiese veneziane.” Θησαυρίσµατα [Thesaurismata] 9 (1972): 250–91.

Roberts, Angela Marisol. “Donor Portraits in Late Medieval Venice ca. 1280–1413.” PhD diss., Queen’s University, 2007.

Romano, Serena. Riforma e Tradizione 1050–1198. Vol. 4 of La Pittura Medievale a Roma 312–1431, edited by Maria Andaloro. Milan: Jaca Book, 2006.

Rosenquist, Jan Olof, ed. Interaction and Isolation in Late Byzantine Culture. Papers read at a colloquium held at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 1–5 December 1999. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005.

Ross, Marvin, Stephen Zwirn, and Susan Boyd. Catalogue of the Byzantine and Early Mediaeval Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. Vol. 2, Jewelry, Enamels, and Art of the . 2nd ed. Washington, DC, 2005.

Rossos, Andrew. Macedonia and the Macedonians: A History. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2008.

Rudolph, Conrad, ed. A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.

289

———. “Heterodoxy and the Twelve Great Feasts of the Eastern Church.” Comitatus 12 (1981): 13–30.

Ruggeri, Adriana Augusti, ed. I tesori della fede: oreficeria e scultura dale chiese di Venezia. Venice: Marsilio, 2000.

Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984. First published in 1849 by Smith, Elder, and Co.

———. The Stones of Venice. Edited by Jan Morris. Don Mills: Stoddart, 1989. First published in 1853 by Smith, Elder, and Co.

Ryder, Edmund. “Micromosaic Icons of the Late Byzantine Period.” PhD diss., New York: New York University, 2007.

Rykwert, Joseph. The Necessity of Artifice. New York: Rizzoli, 1982.

Safran, Linda. “Deconstructing ‘Donors’ in Medieval Southern Italy.” In Theis, Mullett, and Grünbart, Female Founders, 135–51.

———. “Scoperte Salentine.” Arte Medievale 7 (2008): 69–94.

Schafter, Debra. The Order of Ornament, the Structure of Style: Theoretical Foundations of Modern Art and Architecture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Sciacca, Christine, ed. Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300–1350. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2012.

Sears, Elizabeth, and Thelma Thomas, eds. Reading Medieval Images: The Art Historian and the Object. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Serafimova, Aneta. Medieval Painting in Macedonia, 9th–18th Centuries. Skopje: Ministry of Information of the Republic of Macedonia, 2000.

Ševčenko, Ihor. “Byzantium and the Slavs.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 8 (1984): 289–303.

Ševčenko, Nancy Patterson. “Icons in the Liturgy.” DOP 45 (1991): 45–57.

———. “The Representation of Donors and Holy Figures on Four Byzantine Icons.” Δελτίον τὲς Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής ‘Εταιρείας 17 (1993–94): 157–64.

———. “Servants of the Holy Icon.” In Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, edited by Christopher Moss and Katherine Kiefer, 547–65. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

———. “Vita Icons and ‘Decorated’ Icons of the Komnenian Period.” In Davezac, Four Icons in the Menil Collection, 57–69.

290

———. “The Walter’s Horologion.” The Journal of the Walters Art Museum 62 (2004): 45– 59.

Sinkević, Ida. The Church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi: Architecture, Programme, Patronage. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2000.

Snodin, Michael, and Maurice Howard. Ornament: A Social History Since 1450. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Sophocleous, Sophocles. “Icon with the Virgin Kykkotissa.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, and 171–72, no. 93.

Soulis, George. The Serbs and Byzantium during the Reign of Tsar Stephen (1331–1355) and his Successors. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Library Collection, 1984.

Speake, Graham. Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Spearman, Michael and John Higgitt. The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland. Gloucestershire: Sutton, 1993.

Spieser, Jean-Michel, and Élisabeth Yota. Donation et donateurs dans le monde byzantin. Actes du colloque international de l’Université de Fribourg 13–15 2008. Réalités Byzantines, 14. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2012.

Spratt, Emily. “Toward a Definition of ‘Post-Byzantine’ Art: The Angleton Collecion at the Princeton University Art Museum.” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 71/72 (2012–13): 2–19.

Stavros, Margo Elizabeth. “Precious Metals in Byzantine Art and Society, 843–1204.” PhD diss., Pennsylvania State University, 2003.

Steiner, Peter. “Die Freisinger Hodegetria in den Sammlungen des Diözesanmuseums.” In Die Freisinger Hodegetria, edited by Anthony Cutler, 33–52. Freising: Diözesan Museum, 2002.

Stephenson, Paul, ed. The Byzantine World. London: Routledge, 2010.

Strzygowski, Josef. Orient oder Rom: Beiträge zur Geschichte der spätantiken und frühchristlichen Kunst. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1901.

Šuput, Marica. “Rosette.” In Evans, Byzantium: Faith and Power, 84, no. 40.

Swift, Ellen. Style and Function in Roman Decoration: Living with Objects and Interiors. London: Ashgate, 2009.

Szilágyi, Magdolna. On the Road: The History and Archaeology of Medieval Communication Networks in East-Central Europe. Budapest: Archaeolingua, 2014.

291

Talbot Rice, David and Tamara. Icons and Their History. Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1974.

Talbot, Alice-Mary. “Epigrams in Context: Metrical Inscriptions on Art and Architecture of the Palaiologan Era.” DOP 53 (1999): 75–90.

———. “Female Patronage in the Palaiologan Era: Icons, Minor Arts and Manuscripts.” In Theis, Mullett, and Grünbart, Female Founders, 259–74.

———. “The Restoration of Constantinople under Michael VIII.” DOP 47 (1993): 243–61.

———, ed. “Symposium on Late Byzantine Thessalonike.” DOP 57 (2004).

Teteriatnikov, Natalia. “The Mosaics of the Eastern of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: Program and Liturgy.” Gesta 52, no. 1 (2013): 61–84.

Theis, Lioba, Margaret Mullett, and Michael Grünbart, eds. Female Founders in Byzantium and Beyond. With assistance from Galina Fingarova and Matthew Savage. Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 60/61. Vienna: Böhlau, 2014.

Thunø, Erik. “The Cult of the Virgin, Icons and Relics in Early Medieval Rome: A Semiotic Approach.” Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia 17 (2003): 79–97.

Tilghman, Benjamin. “The Symbolic Use of Ornament and Calligraphy in the Book of Kells and Insular Art.” PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2009.

Todić, Branislav. “Natpis uz Jovana Olivera u naosu Lesnova: prilog hronologiji lesnovskih fresaka.” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog institute 38 (1999–2000): 373–84.

Tomassini, Tito. “La citta di Fermo e S. Giacomo della Marca,” Picenum seraphicum 13 (1976): 171–198.

Trilling, James. The Language of Ornament. London: Thames and Hudson, 2001.

———. The Medallion Style: A Study in the Origins of Byzantine Taste. New York: Garland Publishing, 1985.

———. “Medieval Interlace Ornament: The Making of a Cross-Cultural Idiom.” Arte medievale 9 (1995): 59–86.

———. Ornament: A Modern Perspective. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003.

Trkulja, Jelena. “Aesthetics and Symbolism of Late Byzantine Church Façades, 1204–1453.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2004.

Tronzo, William. “The Vagaries of a Motif and Other Observations on Ornament.” In Gerstel and Lauffenberger, A Lost Art Rediscovered, 143–57.

Tsigaridas, Euthymios and Katia Loverdou-Tsigarida. Ιερά Μεγίστη Μονή Βατοπαιδίου: Βυζαντινές Εικόνες και Επενδύσεις [The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi:

292

Byzantine Icons and their Coverings]. Mount Athos: The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi, 2006.

Tsougarakis, Nickiphoros. The Latin Religious Orders in Medieval Greece, 1204–1500. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012.

Van Dael, Peter. “Aniconic Decoration in Early Christian and Medieval Churches.” Heythrop Journal 36 (1995): 382–96.

Vanderheyde, Catherine. “The Carved Decoration of Middle and Late Byzantine Templa.” Mitteilungen zur spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 5 (2007): 77–98.

———. La sculpture architecturale byzantine dans le thème de Nikopolis du Xe au début du XIIIe siècle: Épire, Étolie-Acaranie et Sud de l’Albanie. BCH supplément 45. Athens: École française d’Athènes, 2005.

Vassilaki, Maria, ed. Byzantine Icons: Art, Technique and Technology. Athens: Heraklion, 2002. Proceedings from an international symposium held at the Gennadius Library, Athens, 20–21 February 1998.

———, ed. The Hand of Angelos: An Icon Painter in Venetian Crete. Farnham: Lund Humphries, 2010.

———, ed. Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

———, ed. Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art. Athens: Benaki Museum, 2000.

———. The Painter Angelos and Icon-Painting in Venetian Crete. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.

———. “Praying for Salvation of the Empire?” In Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God, 263–74.

Vatopedi Monastery. The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopedi: Tradition, History, Art. 2 vols. Mount Athos: The Monastery, 1998.

Velmans, Tania. “Le portrait dans l’art des Paléologues,” In Art et Société à Byzance sous les Paléologues, 93–148. Actes du Colloque organise par l’Association internationale des études byzantines à Venise en septembre 1968. Venice: Stamperia di Venezia, 1971.

Villers, Caroline, and Astrid Lehner. “Observations on the Coronation of the Virgin Attributed to Guido Da Siena in the Courtauld Institute Gallery, London.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 65, no. 3 (2002): 289–302.

Volbach, Wolfgang. “Venetian Byzantine Works of Art in Rome.” AB 29 (1947): 86–94.

293

Voordeckers, Edmond. “L’interprétation liturgique de quelques icones byzantines.” Byzantion 53 (1983): 52–69.

Walberg, Deborah. “The Cult of the Nicopeia in Seventeenth-Century Venice.” In Reflections on Renaissance Venice: A Celebration of Patricia Fortini Brown, edited by Mary Frank and Blake de Maria, 201–207. Milan: 5 Continents, 2013.

Walker, Alicia. “‘The Art That Does Not Think’: Byzantine ‘Decorative Arts’—History and Limits of a Concept.” Studies in Iconography 34 (2012): 169–93.

———. “Exotic Elements in Middle Byzantine Secular Art and Aesthetics: 843–1204 CE.” PhD diss., Harvard University, 2004.

———. “Meaningful Mingling: Classicizing Imagery and Islamicizing Script in a Byzantine Bowl.” AB 90 (2008): 32–53.

———. “Pseudo-Arabic ‘Inscriptions’ and the Pilgrim’s Path at Hosios Loukas.” In Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World, edited by Antony Eastmond, 99–123. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Waring, John. “Byzantine Ornament.” In Jones, Grammar of Ornament, 53, plates 28–30.

Weinryb, Ittai. “The Inscribed Image: Negotiating Sculpture on the Coast of the Adriatic Sea.” Word & Image 27 (2011): 322–33.

———. “Living Matter: Materiality, Maker, and Ornament in the Middle Ages.” Gesta 52, no. 2 (2013): 113–32.

Weitzmann, Kurt, et al. The Icon. New York: Dorset Press, 1987.

———. The Icon: Holy Images—Sixth to Fourteenth Century. New York: George Braziller, 1978.

———, et. al. Icons from South Eastern Europe and Sinai. London: Thames and Hudson, 1968.

Weitzmann, Kurt, Manolis Chatzidakis, Krsto Miatev, and Svetozar Radojčić. A Treasury of Icons, Sixth to Seventeenth Centuries from the Sinai Peninsula, Greece, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. Translated by Robert Erich Wolf. New York: Abrams, 1968.

Wessel, Klaus. “Byzantinische Plastik der Palaiologischen Periode.” Byzantion 36 (1966): 217–59.

———. Byzantine Enamels: From the 5th to the 13th Century. Translated by Irene Gibbons. Shannon: Irish University Press, 1967, 1969.

White, Monica. “Middle Byzantine Visual Propaganda and the Inverted Heart Motif.” Byzantion 76 (2006): 330–63.

294

Williamson, Beth. “Altarpieces, Liturgy, and Devotion.” Speculum 79, no. 2 (2004): 341– 406.

Wilson, Nigel. “Greek Palaeography,” In The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Edited by Robin Cormack, John Haldon, and Elizabeth Jeffrys, 101–115. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Online edition 2012.

Wirt, Gerrare. The Story of Moscow. Illustrated by Helen James. London: J. M. Dent, 1900.

Wolf, Gerhard, ed. Mandylion: Intorno al Sacro Volto, da Biszanio a Genova. Milan: Skira, 2004.

Wood, Christopher. “Riegl’s Mache.” Res 46 (2004): 155–72.

Woodfin, Warren. The Embodied Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Wortley, John. “The Marian Relics at Constantinople.” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 45, no. 2 (2005): 171–87.