The Byzantine Tradition in Wallachian and Moldavian Embroideries

chapter 9 The Byzantine Tradition in Wallachian and Moldavian Embroideries

Henry David Schilb

The respective embroidery traditions of Wallachia and Moldavia were dis- tinctive. The question of whether these differences parallel or illuminate differences in the social and political circumstances of the two principalities in the period immediately following the fall of Constantinople in 1453 is simply too broad to consider exhaustively in a brief essay and may be impossible to answer. My modest goal is to offer some evidence of difference between the embroidery traditions of two principalities that shared adjacent liminal con- ditions within the post-Byzantine sphere—liminal from an outside perspec- tive, that is. From their own points of view, each was a center surrounded by Ottomans, Slavs, Hungarians, and each other. The art and architecture of Wallachia reveal stronger connections to artistic developments in regions of the Balkans, in part because of the principality’s close proximity to Serbia and Bulgaria (with Byzantine models mediated through these Balkan regions north of the Danube), while Moldavia appears to have developed more direct connections to centers in the Byzantine cultural sphere, like Constantinople and Mount Athos, for example. These differences also reflect the different relations with Byzantium that the two principalities experienced, and their different responses to its legacy. In this way, visual and iconographic forms could reflect larger social, political, and even economic issues. I do not intend to argue that Wallachian donors and embroiderers were self-consciously differentiat- ing themselves from their Moldavian counterparts, only that there are differences to consider once we recognize them among the details. Rather, I intend simply to demonstrate with a case study that there actually were such differences. I believe that it possible to attribute to Wallachian patronage an other- wise unattributed textile at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University Bloomington. As I present a few of the differences between these closely linked post-Byzantine traditions in church embroidery in Wallachia and Moldavia, it should be understood that my goal is to bring into focus certain details of the art of embroidery in these two adjacent principalities during the period following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453.

1 Moldavian Epitaphioi

The corpus of Moldavian embroideries of the 14th through the 16th centuries is relatively large, thanks especially to the patronage of Stephen III of Moldavia (r. 1457–1504).1 These embroideries have long attracted scholarly attention, some rather large epitaphioi not least among them. Focusing on just one or two details may help us to identify features that we can confidently associate with these Moldavian embroidered veils. In Orthodox Christian practice, the epitaphios is the liturgical veil carried in procession and displayed in the naos of a church on Good Friday and Holy Saturday.2 The form and function of the epitaphios developed from the form and function of the aër, the veil that cov- ers the Eucharistic elements on the altar.3 It may be impossible to determine precisely when the epitaphios became a separate type of liturgical cloth dis- tinct from the aër, but both types of textile invited complex iconography and long inscriptions.4 Details can vary by region. On many epitaphioi, including a large epitaphios dated 1490 at the Putna Monastery (Fig. 9.1), each corner of the central panel is filled with one of the zodia, the four living creatures of the Apocalypse, which become the symbols of the evangelists in this con- text. We find them on the earliest extant Byzantine epitaphioi, dated to the beginning of the 14th century, such as the epitaphios of Emperor Andronicos Palaiologos (r. 1312–28).5 As on this Byzantine example, Moldavian epitaphioi also typically surround each of the living creatures with a curved border. In Moldavia, however, we discover an innovation. Within the curved borders around the zodia on many Moldavian examples—including the epitaphios of Stephen III at Putna—are the Greek words ἂδοντα, βοῶντα, κεκραγότα, και λέγ οντα, which are usually translated along the lines of “singing, crying, shouting,

1 See Alice Isabella Sullivan, “Byzantine Artistic Traditions in Moldavian Church Embroideries,” in L’évolution de la broderie de tradition byzantine dans la Méditerranée et le monde slave (1200–1800), ed. Elena Papastavrou and Marielle Martiniani-Reber (Paris: Presses d’Inalco), forthcoming. 2 The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan (New York: Oxford University press, 1991), s.v. “epitaphios.” 3 Ibid., s.v. “aër.” 4 See Robert F. Taft, The Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and Other Preanaphoral Rites of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1975), pp. 216–19. 5 See Helen C. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 314–15.