Heaven & Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece

304 Pages·2013·20.425 MB·English

by  Jenny Albani, Eugenia Chalkia (Eds.)

&
He aven Earth
EDITED BY
JENNY ALBANI AND EUGENIA CHALKIA
HELLENIC REPUBLIC BENAKI
MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND SPORTS MUSEUM
national gallery of art
ATHENS 2013
The Companion Volume is issued in conjunction with the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections,
held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., from October 6, 2013, through March 2, 2014,
and at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, from April 9 through August 25, 2014.
The exhibition was organized by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Athens, with the collaboration of the Benaki Museum, Athens,
and in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
EditorsJENNYALBANI, EUGENIACHALKIA
Research assistantsELENICHARCHARE, ANTONISTSAKALOS, SOTIRISFOTAKIDIS
BibliographyVASSILIKIP. KLOTSA
GlossaryELENICHARCHARE, ANTONISTSAKALOS
Translators from GreekFREYAEVENSON
VALERIENUNN(Essay by I. Anagnostakis)
DEBORAHKAZAZI(Forewards, Essays by A. Tourta, E. Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou, E. Drakopoulou, Ch. Koilakou)
Translator from FrenchALEXANDRABONFIONTE-WARREN(Essay by C. Abadie-Reynal)
Text editor RUSSELLSTOCKMAN
DesignerFOTINISAKELLARI
PhotographersVELISSARIOSVOUTSAS, ELPIDABOUBALOU
Map designPENELOPEMATSOUKA, ANAVASIEDITIONS
Color separationsPANAYOTISVOUVELIS
PrintingADAMEDITIONS-PERGAMOS
Financial ManagementDIMITRISDROUNGAS
Printed on Fedrigony 150 gsm
SPONSOR
The exhibition’s international tour is made possible through OPAP S.A.’s major funding. Financial support is also provided by the A.G. Leventis Foundation.
The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities
Published by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Benaki Museum, Athens
© 2013 Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports
© 2013 Benaki Museum
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or information retrieval system, without permission from the publishers.
ISBN 978-960-476-132-6 (HC)
ISBN 978-960-476-133-3 (PBC)
Jacket / Cover illustrationThe city of Jerusalem, detail from the Entry into Jerusalem. Wall painting, circa 1428. Mistra, katholikonof the Pantanassa Monastery.
FrontispieceBackdrop, detail from the zone of the martyrs. Dome mosaic, late 4th–6th century. Thessalonike, Rotunda.
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FOREWARDS |126 | Arta
BARBARA PAPADOPOULOU
|007 | PANOS PANAGIOTOPOULOS Director of the 8th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, Ioannina
Minister of Culture and Sports
|140 | Nikopolis
|008 | LINA MENDONI EUGENIA CHALKIA
General Secretary, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports Honorary Director of the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens
|011 | INTRODUCTION |156 | “Christian” or Thessalian Thebes:
MARIA ANDREADAKI-VLAZAKI The port city of Late Antique Thessaly
Director General of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, OLGA KARAGIORGOU
Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports Assistant Researcher, Academy of Athens,
Research Center for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art
AIMILIA YEROULANOU
Art Historian, President of the Board of Trustees, Benaki Museum
|168 | Byzantine Athens, 330–1453
CHARALAMBOS BOURAS
Professor Emeritus, National Technical University, Athens
[CHAPTER 1]
|180 | Thebes
|014 | BYZANTIUM AND HELLAS.
CHARIKLEIA KOILAKOU
SOME LESSER KNOWN ASPECTS OF THE
Honorary Director of the 1st Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities,
HELLADIC CONNECTION (8th–12th CENTURIES)
Athens
ILIAS ANAGNOSTAKIS
Senior Researcher, Institute of Historical Research/ |192 | Corinth
Department of Byzantine Research,
DEMETRIOS ATHANASOULIS
National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens
Director of the 25th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, Corinth
|210 | Argos from the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
[CHAPTER 2]
CATHERINE ABADIE-REYNAL
Professor, Université Lumière-Lyon 2
|030 | RURAL GREECE IN THE BYZANTINE PERIOD
IN LIGHT OF NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE |216 | Argos from the Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries
EUGENIA GEROUSI ANASTASIA VASSILIOU
Director of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Antiquities, Curator of the 25th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, Corinth
Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports
|224 | Mistra. A Fortified Late Byzantine Settlement
SOPHIA KALOPISSI-VERTI
[CHAPTER 3]
Professor Emerita, National and Kapodistrian University, Athens
|044 | BYZANTINE CITIES IN GREECE |240 | The City of Rhodes
CHARALAMBOS BOURAS MARIA MICHAELIDOU
Professor Emeritus, National Technical University, Athens Director of the 4th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, Rhodes
|074 | Thessalonike |252 | Herakleion in Crete
ANASTASIA TOURTA MICHALIS ANDRIANAKIS
Honorary Director of the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Honorary Director of the 28th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities,
Thessalonike, and Director of the European Center for Chania
Byzantine and Post-μyzantine Monuments
|094 | Philippi [CHAPTER 4]
†
EUTYCHIA KOURKOUTIDOU-NIKOLAIDOU
Honorary Director of the Museum of Byzantine Culture, |264 | THE WORLD OF BYZANTIUM IN GREEK PUBLIC MUSEUMS:
Thessalonike, and Honorary Director of the European Center OLD AND NEW APPROACHES
for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments SUSANNA CHOULIA-KAPELONI
Director for Documentation and the Protection of Cultural Goods,
|104 | Berroia Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports
ANTONIS PETKOS
Honorary Director of the 11th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, |276 | Bibliography–Abbreviations
Berroia
|294 | Glossary
|114 | Kastoria. Art, Patronage, and Society
EUGENIA DRAKOPOULOU |297 | Topographical index
Senior Researcher, Institute of Historical Research/
Department of Neohellenic Research, National Hellenic |299 | Illustrations credits
Research Foundation, Athens
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Foreword
PANOS PANAGIOTOPOULOS
Minister
Hellenic Republic
Ministry of Culture and Sports
he past twenty years have been a new and exceptionally creative era for Byzantine
T
studies and Byzantine museums in Greece. New Byzantine museums have been
established, presenting finds from long-term systematic archaeological excavations by
the Archaeological Service of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, and older museums have
redesigned the exhibits of their collections. New interpretative methods, innovative
approaches, and the use of advanced technologies have created a contemporary museum
environment that is both attractive and accessible to the wider public.
Interest in Byzantine civilization has been further strengthened by the flourishing of
Byzantine studies in major European and American universities, and has manifested itself
over the past twenty years in the presentation of important exhibitions on Byzantium both in
Greece and abroad.
Within this climate of creativity, new pursuits, and extroversion, the Hellenic Ministry of
Culture and Sports in collaboration with the Benaki Museum is offering its own
contribution to international exhibition activity with the traveling exhibition Heaven and
Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections. The exhibition, to be shown in two leading U.S.
museums, presents aspects of Byzantine civilization through featured works of high historical
and artistic value in addition to recent excavation finds from public, private, and ecclesiastical
collections.
The exhibition is accompanied by its catalog and the present companion study Heaven and
Earth: Cities and Countryside in Byzantine Greece, in which prominent Greek and foreign
scholars contribute to the enrichment of contemporary research on Byzantium, providing the
international scientific community as well as the wider public with stimuli for new scholarly
interpretations and research.
Two of the exhibition’s main goals are to familiarize visitors with Byzantine civilization,
which is an integral part of Greece’s cultural heritage, and to highlight the important role
played by the Greek region within the broader context of the Byzantine Empire. Above and
beyond this, however, we believe that this multifaceted exhibition will form another link in
the chain of acquaintance, friendship, and cooperation between the Greek and American
peoples, and further the climate of dialogue and exchange of ideas at the international level.
I wish to congratulate and extend my thanks to all the exhibition’s contributors, both
Americans and Greeks, who collaborated harmoniously and with noteworthy zeal toward its
realization and exceptional attractive and scholarly presentation.
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Foreword
LINA MENDONI
General Secretary
Hellenic Republic
Ministry of Culture and Sports
e knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no
“W
such splendor or beauty.” These were the words used by a number of foreign
ambassadors in describing the impression the church of Hagia Sophia made on
them during their visit to the “Queen of Cities” in the tenth century. Indeed, the fame of
what later scholars named “Byzantium”—i.e. the empire that ruled in the eastern part of the
Mediterranean for eleven consecutive centuries, which at its apogee embraced three continents
(Europe, Asia, and Africa)—was enormous, and of decisive influence during the Middle Ages.
At that time Byzantium was a model, a benchmark, and a standard of comparison for the
entire then-known world. This also explains the successive attempts to besiege Constantinople,
which the Byzantines managed to repulse for a long time until the first fall to the Franks in
1204 and the city’s final fall to the Turks in 1453. In the eyes of people that lived in those
times, Byzantium never ceased to be compared to an earthly paradise, against which many
measured themselves and strove to compete, and which others fought to conquer.
Most of the envious or contemptuous stereotypes linked with Byzantium in the past,
which for a long time dominated scholarly literature and affected collective perceptions and
ideologies, have today been largely left behind. Now we tend to find Byzantine history and art
ever more impressive and charming, and at the same time we realize that there is a wealth of
knowledge to be drawn from them. We are thus discovering anew a powerful state with an
elaborate administration, robust legislation, a well-developed taxation and financial system, an
effective army, and flourishing education. We are further astonished as we get to know the
material remains of an exceptionally high level of culture, both with respect to the urban
arrangement of Byzantine cities, their churches, palaces, civic buildings, private residences, and
infrastructure, as well as the multitude of monasteries and monastic communities scattered
throughout the countryside. Not to mention the glorious examples of wall painting, unique
portable icons and illuminated manuscripts, masterpieces of sculpture and silver- and
goldsmithing, and works in the other minor arts.
All these artworks and artifacts are abundant sources of information about institutions,
mores, customs, and practices that have survived down to our own time, and constitute a
sizeable part of our living intangible heritage. In the same spirit, the poet Constantine Cavafy
refers to the memories awakened every time he entered a Greek church: “its aroma of incense,
its liturgical chanting and harmony,” as well as “the majestic presence of the priests.” He
concludes by recalling what he calls “the great glories of our race, the splendor of our
Byzantine heritage” (C. Cavafy, “In Church,” trans. John Cavafy). For Byzantium was a
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multinational state distinguished by the Orthodox Christian faith and Greek education.
The language substrate of the Hellenistic koine, accompanied by the study and preservation of
ancient Greek literature and the growth of a literate society, functioned as a unifying
component par excellence within a multicultural reality. Through a process of assimilation,
mediation, and transformation, the secular heritages of Greece and Rome eventually became
constituents of the cultural distinctiveness of Byzantium, to the point that the last emperor,
Constantine XI Palaiologos, thought it appropriate to describe himself as a descendent of the
Greeks and the Romans.
The third major contributor to Byzantium’s long-lasting power and prestige was
undoubtedly the adoption of the Orthodox faith, which for a long period made it the sole
model of a Christian kingdom. The concurrence of secular and religious power, the formation of
an official ideology according to which imperial power emanated from divine power, the
osmosis between the Christian ideal and civic agendas, played a decisive role in the creation of
an idiosyncratic but exceptionally coherent system of sovereignty. A system with both the
emperor and the patriarch at its core. While the imperial court appeared as the reflection of the
heavenly one, at the level of the common man earthly obligations and pleasures, in concert with
the expectation of eternal life and the consequent care for the soul, defined the axes of life in the
present. In this life, the “here” and “now” were directly linked with the hereafter and eternity.
A new and fuller picture of the various aspects of Byzantine private and social life, as well as of
the venues and artifacts associated with it, continues to emerge from ongoing research.
The secular and the religious, the earthly and the heavenly, earth, paradise, and hell, the
Greco-Roman heritage in conjunction with Christian theology and Orthodox dogma, all
permeate the objects displayed in this exhibition, whose goal is to shed new light on the many
facets of Byzantium by suggesting a new way of “reading” and interpretation. The more than
170 exhibits from museums and collections around Greece presented to the American public
on this occasion are in the lead in what has become a fascinating journey. This exhibition
could not have been mounted without the active participation and arduous efforts of almost
every archaeological department of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, which has
been committed, together with the staff of the Benaki Museum, to the necessary preparations
since 2010. Collaboration between Greek museums, academic institutions, and individual
scholars and researchers and their counterparts in the United States has also been exemplary.
I therefore wish to congratulate them and express my deep appreciation and gratitude to all
involved for their dedication and contributions to the success of this major endeavor.
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