Michele Bacci the Armenian Church in Famagusta
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by RERO DOC Digital Library THE ARMENIAN CHURCH IN FAMAGUSTA AND ITS MURAL... 489 MICHELE BACCI THE ARMENIAN CHURCH IN FAMAGUSTA AND ITS MURAL DECORATION: SOME ICONOGRAPHIC REMARKS Within the walls of the old town of Fama- a military camp. Until four years ago, the gusta, close to the Martinengo Bastion, lays a north-west sector of the town, where the small ruined church (Fig. 1), whose architec- church is located, was inaccessible to visitors; tural features and mural decoration still pro- still in 2004 the building was usually kept vide an important testimony to the conception locked and presumably used as a storehouse of 14th century Armenian sacred spaces and for weapons or other materials, and it was not may indirectly shed light on how their Cilician before 2005 that I managed, at last, to enter parallels looked like. Although known to scho- and take pictures of it. lars since 1899, when Camille Enlart first rec- At first sight the interior looks rather dis- ognized it as pertaining to the Armenians,1 it appointing. Most of the old murals decorating has been neglected for several decades, as a the inferior portions of the walls have been consequence of the troubled political situation whitewashed, and one can only hope that there on the island and especially of the Turkish be a chance, in the future, to remove the plas- occupation of Northern Cyprus in 1974, which ter that conceals them. On the upper portions caused it to be included within the boundary of of the north, east, and south walls some poor remnants of the original 14th century decora- ____________ tion is still extant, though in a very bad state of 1 C. Enlart, L’art gothique et la Renaissance en preservation. Nonetheless, the uniqueness of Chypre, Paris 1899, here quoted after the English the building, and the mere fact that it still bears translation by D. Hunt, Gothic Art and the Renais- witness to the use of decorating Armenian sance in Cyprus, London 1987, pp. 286-288. Cf. also churches with a well defined and comprehen- G. Jeffery, A Description of the Historic Monuments sive program of murals, deserve an accurate of Cyprus. Studies in the Archaeology and Architec- description and a temptative reconstruction of ture of the Island, Nicosia 1918, pp. 143-144; R. Gunnis, Historic Cyprus, Nicosia 19733, pp. 101-102; the original cycle. K. Keshishian, Famagusta Town and District, Nico- Although the presence of Armenian sia 1985, p. 58; Ph. Plagnieux-Th. Soulard, Fama- groups on Cyprus dates back to at least the 6th gouste. L’Église des Arméniens (Sainte-Marie-de- century, their settling in the trade center of Vert), in J.B. de Vaivre and Ph. Plagnieux (eds.), Famagusta was a direct outcome of the strong L’art gothique en Chypre, Paris 2006, p. 257-260. political, dynastic and economic connections The murals of the Armenian church in Famagusta of the island with the Kingdom of Cilicia in were the subject of an unpublished paper, delivered th th by Prof. Dickran Kouymjian on the occasion of the the late 13 and 14 centuries. After the fall of 15th International Congress of Byzantine Studies Acre in 1291, the role as major trade calls and held in Athens in 1976, where a datation to the first exchange centres was inherited by Famagusta decades of the 14th century was proposed. I thank the and Ayas, which then constituted the most author for providing me with an abstract of his text important Christian ports in the Levant. A and for many useful remarks. 490 вêΠвڲ¶Æî²Î²Ü î²ðº¶Æðø Üàð Þðæ²Ü IJ. î²ðÆ flourishing Armenian community, though not enable us to recognize it with the now deserted as rich as other minorities like the Eastern Sy- building near the Martinengo Bastion.4 rians, was well established in the Cypriot town Though diminutive in size, the church has by the beginnings of the 14th century, and was not been deprived of a certain elegance: as it enlarged in the following decades by several lacks a gawit‘, a special emphasis is given to groups of Cilician refugees fleeing from the its façade, being embellished with small Mamluk conquest of their country. A well khač‘kars included within circles or rectangles known passage in James of Verona’s Liber whose shape is reminiscent of a traditional peregrinationis, dating back to 1335, describes scheme often encountered in Cilician churches a Westerner’s emotion at seeing one thousand (Fig. 2).5 The architectural features are rather and half desesperate Christian people desem- simple: it consists of a one-bay nave which barking from a ship that had just arrived from terminates at the east with small salients open- Ayas and bewailing their sad fate on the parvis ing into a double-stepped bema with semicir- of the Latin cathedral of Saint Nicholas.2 By cular apse. This one is pierced by one embra- 1300 the new settlers had already grown sured window and includes a small niche in its enough to obtain a bishop under the ecclesias- lower portion; the semidome is separated tical jurisdiction of the katholikos of Cilicia from the absidal wall by a cavetto moulding and owned two churches (Saint Sergius and (Fig. 3). Doors are present on the west, south, 3 Saint Barbara) and one cathedral. and north walls, that to the north being pre- The latter, which was associated with an sently closed. The nave is covered by a square important monastery known for the production groined vault of stone, with short barrel vaults of manuscripts, was built in the 1310s under to east and west; parallel lines of masonry the auspices of King Oshin of Cilicia and took converge to the central key-stone carved with a advantage from a Papal concession of indul- rosette, so that they shape a monumental cross. gences in 1311; such circumstances bear wit- Even if the groin vault, as well as the barrel ness to the importance of the local community vault opening into the apsidal semidome, may and its involvement in the web of Armeno- be interpreted as a legacy of the Crusader ar- Latin political and religious connections at the chitecture in the Holy Land as is encountered th beginnings of the 14 century. Such a build- in other Famagustan buildings, the church plan ing, entitled to “Our Lady of Green” (Sainte- and most of its features (stepped bema, cornice Marie-de-Vert), was already finished in 1317; moulding and embrasured window in the apse, old photographs documenting the now disap- salient corners at the east end of the nave, etc.) peared ruins of annexed monastic structures prove to be those generally employed in Cili- cia for small chapels within fortified towns and ____________ castles;6 standard is, for example, the use of 2 James of Verona, Liber peregrinationis, ed. U. gabled roofs, even if they are most often ex- Monneret de Villard, Liber Peregrinationis di Jacopo tended to cover the absidal semidome, as well da Verona, Roma 1950, pp. 17-18. as of splayed windows with drip-course hood- 3 On the Armenians on Cyprus and especially in moulds, which may be paralleled with those in Famagusta cf. G. Dédéyan, Les Arméniens à Chypre the mid-thirteenth century church of Constable de la fin du XIe au début du XIIIe siècle, in Les Lusi- gnans et l’Outre-Mer, Actes du colloque (Poitiers- ____________ Lusignan, 20-24 octobre 1993), Poitiers 1995, pp. 4 122-131; G. Grivaud, Les minorités orientales à See Plagnieux-Soulard, Famagouste. L’église Chypre (époque médiévale et moderne), in Chypre et des Arméniens, p. 257-258. la Méditérranée orientale, Lyon 2000, pp. 44-70, 5 See the analogous rendering of the cross in a esp. 45-48; N. Coureas, Non-Chalcedonian Chris- sculpted lintel in Anavarza: R.W. Edwards, Eccle- tians on Latin Cyprus, in M. Balard, B.Z. Kedar, and siastical Architecture in the Fortifications of Arme- J. Riley-Smith (eds.), Dei Gesta per Francos. Études nian Cilicia: Second Report, in «Dumbarton Oaks sur les croisades dédiées à Jean Richard, Aldershot Papers» 37 (1983), pp. 123-146, esp. 129 and fig. 24. 2001, p. 349-360, esp. 352-353. 6 Ibidem, p. 164-165. THE ARMENIAN CHURCH IN FAMAGUSTA AND ITS MURAL... 491 Smbat near the location of Barbaron (present- icons in Byzantium as well as of an intellectual day Çandır).7 emphasis on the emotional efficaciousness Some elements seem to be borrowed from of empty spaces, we have some witness to Gothic tradition: with the exception of one the sporadical use of monumental painting chapel in the fortified island of Korykos,8 but- throughout the Middle Ages, from the 7th cen- tresses are never encountered in Cilicia, and tury murals in Lmbat, Aruč, Koš, and T‘alin to the peculiar type employed in the Famagustan the later examples in Ani, Ałtamar, Tatev, church (that of the contrefort à larmiers, i.e. Hałbat and other centres of Greater Armenia: with drip-mouldings) seems to imitate that the traditional, though unsatisfactory, explana- used in the majestic rayonnant cathedral of tion for the existence of such cycles after the Saint Nicholas, which was under construction synodal decisions of Manazkert in 726 is their in the same period.9 Moreover, the use of pro- possible association with Chalcedonian pa- truding apses is rare in Armenian tradition, and trons.12 Evidence from Cilicia is also meaning- should be interpreted as a borrowing from Cy- ful, though scarce: the murals once preserved priot conventions.