Introduction Rembrandt Duits

Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-47416-0 — Hell in the Byzantine World Volume 2: A Catalogue of the Cretan Material Excerpt More Information d Introduction rembrandt duits Beauty is but a painted Hell Thomas Campion, 1576–1620 The purpose of this catalogue is to present as complete an overview as possible of the representation of Hell in monumental art during the Venetian period on Crete (1211–1669). The catalogue comprises 107 churches with wall paintings showing or recorded to have once shown representations of Hell, datable for the most part to the 14th and early 15th centuries. Together, these 107 churches form about one eighth of the known body of churches from the Venetian era on Crete.1 They form a valuable cross section that allows us to study, through the lens of Hell, this particular insular tradition of church building and decoration, with its local peculiarities and its accommodation of the needs of a mixed Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic population. The catalogue also forms the second largest iconographic survey of the representation of Hell. By comparison, Jérôme Baschet’s 1993 study of the representation of Hell in late medieval art in France and Italy lists 123 monumental works from both countries, produced over the four centuries between 1100 and 1500, including both painting and sculpture.2 The catalogue thus serves to demonstrate the exceptional richness of the heri- tage of Crete (with 107 wall paintings showing Hell from an island just over one third the size of Tuscany). It also virtually doubles the accessible corpus of representations of Hell, meaning that students of the subject will now have twice the amount of data at their fingertips. Moreover, while Baschet has incorporated many lesser-known representations in his overview, his study inevitably focuses more on those images and scenes that are conventionally considered to be part of major monuments. By contrast, this catalogue unlocks a set of representations that are exclusively derived from regional and village churches – including material that the 1 Compare the existing catalogues of Cretan churches: Gerola 1905–32; Gerola–Lassithiotakis 1961; Borboudakis, Gallas and Wessel 1983; Bissinger 1995; Spatharakis 1999; Spatharakis 2001; Spatharakis 2010; Spatharakis and van Essenberg 2012; Spatharakis 2015. 412 2 Baschet 1993, 592–3. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-47416-0 — Hell in the Byzantine World Volume 2: A Catalogue of the Cretan Material Excerpt More Information Introduction 413 traditionally minded art historian may not always rate highly, but that is of great importance in a broader cultural, historical and anthropological perspective. 1 Scope The foundation of the catalogue was laid during the Leverhulme International Networks Project ‘Damned in Hell in the Frescoes in Venetian-Dominated Crete (13th–17th Centuries)’, which generously funded four years of research on Crete between 2010 and 2014;3 the catalogue forms the public record of this extensive investigation.4 The research phase of the project allowed a total of 102 churches across the whole of Crete to be documented and photographed. A further five churches on Crete were revealed to contain (remnants of) representations of Hell at a very late stage during the research phase, or after the research phase had finished.5 For the completeness of the corpus, rudimentary entries for these five churches have been included, based on publications or on private communications with scholars in possession of the relevant data. Of the 102 churches covered during the research phase of the project, one is part of an active convent,6 while a second has been converted into a museum.7 In both cases, access for photography and documentation was restricted, but entries for both buildings have been provided, based on the data that could be gathered locally, supplemented by information from existing publications. The remaining 100 churches were found to exist in variable states of conservation, from recently restored and exquisitely appointed down to virtual ruins. Ten of the churches had no remnants of surviving wall paintings at all, or were heavily damaged or even completely 3 The original application to the Leverhulme Trust included seventy-seven churches; a further thirty were added during the research phase of the project and the preparation for the publication of the catalogue. 4 This public record is accompanied by an online database that offers further photographs of the church buildings and (details of) the representations of Hell inside them, and by a set of architectural plans of the churches, which can be accessed via the Cambridge University Press website. For the online database see http://ledaproject.org.uk. For the architectural plans see www.cambridge.org/9781108690706. 5 Rethymnon: Fourfouras, Virgin (cat. no. 54); Melambes, Saint Paraskevi (cat. no. 63); Herakleion: Mpentenaki (Bentenaki), Saint Catherine (cat. no. 89); Lassithi: Kavousi, Saint Eirini (cat. no. 97); Skopi, Virgin (cat. no. 106). 6 Herakleion: Kera Kardiotissa, Virgin (cat. no. 86). 7 Lassithi: Kritsa, Virgin (Panagia Kera) (cat. no. 100). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-47416-0 — Hell in the Byzantine World Volume 2: A Catalogue of the Cretan Material Excerpt More Information 414 rembrandt duits destroyed.8 Rudimentary entries for these last ten churches have been provided for the completeness of the corpus and to document changes in the record compared to previous inventories. 2 Order An iconographic catalogue of this size could have four potential arrange- ments, each with its own advantages and shortcomings: • An alphabetical arrangement creates an easily accessible work of reference; • A geographical arrangement reveals patterns of dispersion of the representations of Hell and possible local clusters of related material; • A chronological arrangement may present the contours of broader stylistic and iconographic developments; • An iconographic arrangement clarifies the existence of themes and variations among the representations. The catalogue, together with its supplementary materials and the analytical chapter by Angeliki Lymberopoulou in volume 1 of this publication, seeks to combine the advantages of all of these approaches. The catalogue is divided into four large units according to the four prefectures of Crete, administrative entities that have existed since the Venetian era: Chania, Rethymnon, Herakleion and Lassithi.9 This division demonstrates the unequal dispersion of churches throughout the island, with the prefecture of Chania alone providing more than 40 per cent of the entries. It also shows patterns in the dispersion of iconography, such as a preference for the ‘full’ representation of Hell, including all the major iconographic components, in Rethymnon prefecture.10 Within each prefecture, the churches have been arranged alphabetically by place name and the dedication of the church. The only small deviations from the strict alphabetical order occur in cases where there are several churches in a single town or village: precedence has been given to those 8 Chania: Anydroi, Saint George and Saint Nicholas (cat. no. 3); Kandanos, Saint Nicholas (cat. no. 17); Kandanos, Saint Catherine (cat. no. 18); Mertes, Saint Theodore (cat. no. 25); Palaia Roumata, Saint Spyridon and Saint John (cat. no. 29); Stratoi, Saint Marina (cat. no. 37); Vouvas, Christ the Saviour (cat. no. 45); Rethymnon: Kissos, Virgin (cat. no. 60); Herakleion: Larani, Saint Paraskevi (cat. no. 87); Lassithi: Neapoli, All Saints (cat. no. 105). 9 See Maltezou 1988, 110–15. 10 See Lymberopoulou in this publication, vol. 1, 118–28 (sections 3.2 and 3.3), for a further discussion. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-47416-0 — Hell in the Byzantine World Volume 2: A Catalogue of the Cretan Material Excerpt More Information Introduction 415 churches located within the main built-up area over those in dependent minor communities or in the rural outskirts, as in the case of Kandanos, Saint Nicholas (cat. no. 17) and Kandanos (Ellinika), Saint Catherine (cat. no. 18). For those requiring a further geographical breakdown per prefecture, Maps 2–5 indicate the location of each town or village. The dating of the majority of the wall paintings is too insecure to allow for a detailed chronological arrangement of the catalogue. The value of a purely chronological arrangement would be debatable. There is, for instance, no clear correlation between chronology and geography, meaning that a chronological arrangement would jump haphazardly across the map of Crete.11 However, for those interested in potential temporal developments, a table with a broad-brush chronological order has been provided on pages 828–34. A division of the paintings according to their iconography, finally, can be found in the analytical chapter by Angeliki Lymberopoulou in volume 1 of this publication. 3 Structure of Entries The individual entries for each church in the catalogue focus on the representation of Hell, but also aim to embed each representation in a context involving the structure of the building and the further programme of its painted decoration. For this purpose, the majority (92) of the entries are structured as follows: • Top Matter: Catalogue number; location; dedication of the church; (approximate) date; • Structure and Condition:

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