The Inscribed Image: Negotiating Sculpture on the Coast of the Adriatic Sea Ittai Weinryb Available Online: 17 Oct 2011
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This article was downloaded by: [Ittai WEINRYB] On: 24 October 2011, At: 06:48 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Word & Image Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/twim20 The inscribed image: negotiating sculpture on the coast of the Adriatic Sea Ittai Weinryb Available online: 17 Oct 2011 To cite this article: Ittai Weinryb (2011): The inscribed image: negotiating sculpture on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, Word & Image, 27:3, 322-333 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2011.541133 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. The inscribed image: negotiating sculpture on the coast of the Adriatic Sea ITTAI WEINRYB On the morning of 8 December, 1100, an unoccupied boat with other works originating in Constantinople, thus strength- reached the Adriatic shore near the city of Ravenna. On the ening the possibility that it was carved in Italy, perhaps even boat, so the legend informs us, was only one object: a relief icon in Venice itself. It must be noted, however, that the entire of the Virgin in an orant posture, bearing only the abbreviations debate concerning the provenance and dating of the relief icons of her title as the Mother of God (figure 1). The sculpted icon has been conducted by scholars of Byzantine art who avoid bore no further inscriptions, nor any text that might indicate the looking into the development of sculpture in twelfth-century 1 circumstances behind its making. Italy.9 Like other objects washing up from the sea, the orant of Only in the 1928 dissertation of Trude Krautheimer-Hess, Ravenna represented otherworldly forms. At the very least, which deals with the development of Romanesque sculpture it was perceived as presenting a form foreign to its place of in eastern Lombardy, does one find a strong and convincing 2 arrival. Its having come without concrete circumstances to argument for the influence of Byzantine sculpture on works narrate and, in many ways, to decipher may very well have of early Romanesque sculpture bordering the shores of the contributed to its mystique as an object that was alien to the Adriatic.10 For example, Krautheimer-Hess suggests that the 3 environment in which it was installed. carving of the folds in the lower front part of the dress worn The Ravenna orant forms part of a larger group of works by the Virgin by Niccolò on the portal of the Cathedral of that produced a similar otherworldly awe and that scholarship Ferrara bears a resemblance to that of the Ravenna orant. has labeled Byzantine relief icons. They appear on the coast Similarfolds,aswellasthecarvingoffeaturessuchasthe of the Adriatic, from Caorle in the north to Messina in Sicily. round and clear face of the Virgin, can also be found in another Although fragmented, their survival indicates a more exten- work signed by Niccolò on the tympanum of the Cathedral of sive phenomenon of monumental Byzantine sculpture on the Santa Maria Assunta in Verona (figure 2).11 Unfortunately, the Adriatic coast. In many cases, these relief icons were installed on work of Krautheimer-Hess has been completely overlooked by the exterior of churches, but were not part of a large decorative Byzantinists working on the question of the relief icons. This 4 program. article will follow Krautheimer-Hess’s argument to the effect Ever since Reinhold Lange published his works on Byzantine that the Byzantine relief icons, or at least some of them, were sculpture, which cataloged some of the surviving relief icons, carved in the late eleventh or early twelfth century — before their origins and the circumstances of their making have been the development of the sculpture of Niccolò. Its goal, however, 5 at the center of scholarly debate. Scholars have distinguished is neither to date the relief icons nor to determine how and to Downloaded by [Ittai WEINRYB] at 06:48 24 October 2011 between Venetian relief icons, especially those installed on the what extent they represent early precursors to the Romanesque exterior of the church of San Marco, and the relief icons scat- sculpture of Niccolò, but rather to focus on the interaction tered along the Adriatic coast. Masters of stylistic analysis, between these two types of sculptural expression along the such as Otto Demus, dealt with the problems of the dat- Adriatic coast. ing and provenance of these icons through extensive sets of Apart from both being carved out of a single stone, the comparisons. Until now, however, no definitive study of the basic affinity between the icons and the sculpture of Niccolò making and installation of the relief icons on the Adriatic lies in their similar place of installation. Many relief icons were coast has been undertaken. Some claim that they arrived as incorporated into the façades of churches.12 A striking example 6 part of the loot of the Fourth Crusade of 1204. Others see can be found in Ancona, where the icon is installed over the the icons as objects made in Constantinople in the late thir- threshold to the church of Santa Maria della Piazza (figure 3).13 7 teenth century and later sent from Constantinople to Italy. Similar examples, like the now-lost relief of St. Clement, which Yet another school of thought declares these icons were carved was installed above the threshold to a chapel by the same name in Italy and suggests dates spanning from the later eleventh in the church of San Marco in Venice, testify to the unique 8 century to the late thirteenth. Reliefs like the one of St. nature of these images as Byzantine markers of thresholds. Demetrios located on the façade of San Marco present such Given that they date to the second half of the eleventh cen- high-quality carving that it is extremely hard to affiliate it tury, they represent pre-Romanesque examples of monumental 322 WORD & IMAGE, VOL. 27, NO. 3, JULY–SEPTEMBER 2011 Word & Image ISSN 0266-6286 © 2011 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tf/02666286.html http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2011.541133 Figure 2. Nicolò, Mary enthroned. Twelfth century, before 1178.Verona, Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. Photo: Author. Figure 3. Façade with relief icon above the tympanum, first half thirteenth century. Ancona, Santa Maria della Piazza. Photo: Author. Figure 1.RelieficonofMaryinOrant.c.1100. Ravenna, Santa Maria / Porto Fuori. Photo: Scala Art Resources, NY. public inscriptions — that is to say, inscriptions covering the Downloaded by [Ittai WEINRYB] at 06:48 24 October 2011 outside walls of edifices — decorated the civic landscape. These inscriptions functioned not just as bearers of literary content sculpture on the exterior of churches. Even if these relief icons that could be deciphered by an attentive reader, but also as were carved in situ and then installed on church façades, they authoritative representations of those texts. As signs, inscriptions undoubtedly represent a primordial moment of monumental also functioned as representational markers of text, that is, as sculpture on the exterior of churches along the Adriatic coast references to the existence of literacy as a form of cultural of Italy.14 distinction rather than an embodiment of functioning literacy This group of relief icons shares one further critical aspect: itself.16 other than the abbreviations marking the name of the sculpted In one of the pioneering studies of the history and function figure, inscriptions were not used as tools to mediate between of the public inscription, Armando Petrucci refers to, among image and viewer.15 By virtue of their placement on the exte- others, the inscription on the Cathedral of Salerno which was rior of the church, however, the relief icons nevertheless became made in the second half of the eleventh century, around the part of the medieval public environment where texts in the time when the relief icons appeared on the Adriatic coast. He form of inscriptions were still the dominant medium. Denuded explains it not just as a return to ancient epigraphic models, of text and thus devoid of history, icons such as the orant of but also as a means ‘of conveying of a political message that Ravenna arrived in a western medieval environment in which was expressed through innovative aesthetic-formal solutions.’17 323 Petrucci believes that the aesthetic mode specific to public inscriptions has its origins in concepts of invasion — he names the Norman invasion of Italy in 1075–1076 as the beginning of the tradition of medieval public inscriptions — or at least in the interrelations between communities that resulted from the occupation of lands. Taking Petrucci’s thesis as a point of departure, we should consider what effect the appearance of icons such as the Ravenna orant had on the predomi- nately inscription-centered public environment of the Italian coast.