Acre or Cyprus?: A New Approach to the Crusader Painting Around 1300 9783050095233, 9783050062839

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Foreword
The State of the Art
Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca
Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria
Jerusalem
King Louis IX & Acre
King Louis IX, the Arsenal Old Testament and the Foundation of the Acre Scriptorium
The Perugia Missal
Assessment & Criticism
Acre and Cyprus
Patrons & Clients in Outremer
Imports & Productions on Location
The Case of the London Histoire Universelle
The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria
The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia
The Larger Problems
Reality and the Picture
Quality & Mediocrity
Innovative Book Productions: France & Outremer
Aquisitions & Transfers
Art and Life
Artists or Artisans
Templates and Conventions
The Cyprus Connection
Rolling Eyeballs
Conclusions
Postscriptum
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
Illustrations

Citation preview

Acre or Cyprus?

Ars et Scientia Schriften zur Kunstwissenschaft Volume 5 Edited by Bénédicte Savoy, Michael Thimann and Gregor Wedekind

Jens T. Wollesen

Acre or Cyprus? A New Approach to Crusader Painting Around 1300

Akademie Verlag

Printed with generous financial support from Förderungs- und Beihilfefond Wissenschaft der VG WORT

Edited by Elena Lemeneva Cover image: London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 161v: Brutus as consul with the feasting senators (Ci commence des conselles de rome le grant afaire). Photo British Library. Cover design: Kerstin Protz, pro:design, Berlin Layout: Werksatz Schmidt & Schulz, Gräfenhainichen Printing: Concept Medienhaus GmbH, Berlin Binding: Buchbinderei Klotz, Jettingen-Scheppach Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. © 2013 Akademie Verlag GmbH Markgrafenstraße 12-14, 10969 Berlin, Germany www.degruyter.com Part of De Gruyter Printed in Germany This paper is resistant to aging (DIN/ISO 9706). ISBN 978-3-05-006283-9

To Elena

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The State of the Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jerusalem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . King Louis IX & Acre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . King Louis IX, the Arsenal Old Testament and the Foundation of the Acre Scriptorium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Perugia Missal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assessment & Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acre and Cyprus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patrons & Clients in Outremer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Imports & Productions on Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Case of the London Histoire Universelle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia . . . . . . . . . The Larger Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reality and the Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quality & Mediocrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Innovative Book Productions: France & Outremer . . . . . . . . . Aquisitions & Transfers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Art and Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Artists or Artisans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Templates and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Cyprus Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rolling Eyeballs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Postscriptum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Table of Contents Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Illustrations

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Acknowledgements

I owe significant thanks to the reviewers of my book prior to its publication. Professor Nicholas Coureas, the authority on Cypriot medieval historiography from the Cyprus Research Centre in Nicosia offered substantial criticism and advice from his knowledgeable perspective, corrected numerous errors and asked many (good) questions. I am grateful to professor emeritus of medieval history David Jacoby from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who also had a close look at my first draft, made valuable contributions and alerted me to important omissions; I truly appreciate his criticism and advice. Last, but not least, I thank Professor Hans Belting, former director of the Center for Art and Media (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie ZKM) in Karlsruhe (Germany) who kindly agreed to scrutinize my work from his viewpoint. I tried to include the contributions and suggestions of all these experts. No doubt, they left substantial footprints throughout this work. Further on, my colleague William Mc Allister Johnson, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto spent considerable time, effort, and interest to bring this manuscript to a publishable shape. His input, together with the copy-editing work of Dr. Elena Lemeneva, was crucial at that stage. Finally, I thank the Akademie Verlag and Mr. Martin Steinbrück for their editorial work. The remaining shortcomings are entirely mine. Research is in flux, and this contribution is not intended to be chiseled in stone, but, like a rolling stone, it is research in motion. I should like to add that the authorities at the Bibliothèque Municipale in Dijon were extraordinarily helpful and hospitable when they gave me the time and opportunity not only to study but also to take pictures of the Dijon Histoire Universelle in the summer of 2011. The curator and his staff set an example of a most unusual and very much appreciated practice for present and future research. I also owe thanks to P. Italo Fornaro, O.F.M., Andrea Maiarelli from the Biblioteca Dominici e Archivio Capitolare di Perugia, Marjorie Burghart of the University of Lyon, Martin Morard of the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (IRHT), Ekaterina Pletneva (Potsdam), Jordan Bear and Christina Katsougiannopoulou from the University of Toronto.

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Acknowledgements All photographs of Cypriot monuments, unless indicated otherwise, and in particular of the panel paintings with St. Nicholas and the Carmelite Madonna now in Nicosia are mine and were made on location. For access and permissions I sincerely thank Dr. P. Flourentzos, former director of the Department of Antiquities in Cyprus, and the directors of the Byzantine Museum of the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia, Dr. Andreas Mitsides, and Dr. Hadjistefanou. My most sincere thanks go to the Victoria University in the University of Toronto for their major financial support of my research.

Foreword

Since Steven Runciman’s History of the Crusades published between 1951 and 1954, books on the modern history of the crusades overflow the shelves of university libraries. They offer not only a huge amount of historical material, but also an amazing variety of insights regarding the “most familiar, if misunderstood, of all medieval phenomena,” as well as cultural and political perceptions from western and, more recently, Arabic perspectives.1 Yet, when it comes to the search for books on pictures to illustrate or to document within the context of the crusades and their history in Outremer in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the situation dramatically changes from so many general titles to a very few books on the subject. In this respect, there are only a few remarkable authors and books in the field of art history: Hugo Buchthal (1909–1996), Doula Mouriki (1934– 1991), Kurt Weitzmann (1904–1993), Annemarie Weyl Carr, Bianca Kühnel, and above all, Jaroslav Folda.2 Certainly, the introduction of pictures, starting from about the middle of the thirteenth century, from such resources as stock battle scenes, Old Testament and ceremonial repertory (coronation scenes, etc.), and the invention of new imagery and its more or less meaningful insertion into then-recent historiography and crusading records in France, are a fascinating phenomenon still to be fully investigated. However, the work of Buchthal and Folda in particular — the critical focus of this study — does not concentrate on pictures as historical records alone. Their inquiry is characterized by the quest for styles, more specifically, artistic styles of pictures as the most important qualifier. Their books are based first and foremost on artists and their 1

2

Christopher Tyerman, God’s War. A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), xv. See also the interesting critical overview of crusader literature to 1940 by J. L. La Monte, “Some Problems in Crusader Historiography,” Speculum 15 (1940): 57–75, and Donald E. Queller’s review “On the Completion of A History of the Crusades,” The International History Review 13 (1991): 314–30. Ground-breaking for the crusade’s view from the “other” side were Arab Historians of the Crusades. Selected and translated from the Arabic sources by Francesco Gabrieli (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), and Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through the Arab Eyes (New York: Schoken Books, 1984), passim. See my bibliography.

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Foreword styles, distinguished by means of stylistic comparisons, then focus on iconography, the search for prototypes, and on outstanding, mostly royal commissions. In other words, Buchthal, closely followed by Folda, attempted to identify painters, workshops, and their nationalities by means of art-historical, style-based comparisons. Previously unknown or unsuspected ateliers, illuminators and painters are then interwoven with actual and conjectural historical facts to create a narrative drama on a colourful art historical stage that is known today as Crusader Art in Jerusalem and, after its fall, in Acre.3 Accordingly, the main and most important idea, especially of Folda’s presentations, is to assign to Acre, by art-historical means, a host of books, or manuscripts, commissioned by secular clients and with schemes originating in France, such as the Histoires Universelles and the Histoires d’Outremer and their illuminations, and icons remaining under the tutelage of the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai. What is it, then, that makes Acre in the thirteenth century the most likely location for production of these manuscripts? In my view, it is not Acre itself, but the idea of these artefacts’ interpretation as Crusader Art which is tied to Acre! I shall argue that, for the most part, Acre was the least reasonable and France or Cyprus the more credible origin for some of these manuscripts.

Crusader Art, as an art historical category based on stylistic criteria, claims since the late 1950s an uncharted territory situated between the bipolar western and Byzantine domains. It was established by Wilhelm Koehler and Otto Demus.4 This category attempts to act in accordance with, but also to expand those norms and paradigms that constitute the canon of the art historical discipline within a Byzantine context. Its artistic approach appears to have worked well for some time within a small universe populated by few authors. And the “invention” of Crusader Art as a research topos was a legitimate and important subject in its time. However, as I recently summarized elsewhere, Crusader Art is an issue historically characterized by such conflicting and yet unresolved views as, in chronological order, those of Buchthal (1957), Weitzmann (1963), Demus (1979), Belting (1978/79), Bulst (1979), Cormack (1984), Mouriki (1985/1986), Pace (1986), Hunt (1991), Weyl Carr (1995), Kühnel (1996), Zeitler (2000), and Folda (2005/2008). These span about half

3

Examples for the typical, forceful vocabulary of this narrative are: “it must have been,” “it is obvious,” “certainly,” “clearly,” “clearly it seems,” “possibly,” “in fact it seems possible,” “formal characteristics suggest,” “of course, we know,” “it is natural to assume,” and so on. 4 Wilhelm Koehler, “Byzantine Art and the West,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers I (1941): 61–87, and Otto Demus, Byzantine Art and the West (New York: New York University Press, 1970).

Foreword a century and reflect various methodological approaches within the discipline of the history of art.5 If, however, there are no clear or viable answers to the question “Just what is Crusader Art ?”so far—which is the case—should we not contemplate the likelihood that the question was wrong in the first place? The dilemma lies within the discipline itself! As early as 2002, Robin Cormack recognized that the discussion of Crusader Art is firmly entrenched in “traditional art historical methods of stylistic and iconographic analysis.” 6 As a result, a considerable aspect of the question is embedded in stylistic principles and paradigms concerning the history of the history of (Byzantine) art. These are virtually impossible to reconcile with the socio-historical past of patrons and consumers of pictures. In sum, past and recent discussion of the nature of Crusader Art has yet to yield plausible results, except by its disclosure of the intricate and extraordinary diversity in subject matter in marked contrast to global artistic concepts and periodizations. In hindsight, both Folda’s Crusader Art perspective and Cormack’s criticism have merit. Folda pointed in the right direction towards the twilight zone “occupied” by the West in the

5

See Jens Wollesen, Painters and Patrons on Cyprus: The Frescoes in the Royal Chapel at Pyrga. (Toronto: PIMS, 2010), 16–18; also Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land: From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 511–27; Otto Demus, review of A History of the Crusades, vol. 4, The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, ed. by Kenneth M. Setton, The Art Bulletin 61 (1979): 636–7; Hans Belting, “Zwischen Gotik und Byzanz: Gedanken zur Geschichte der sächsischen Buchmalerei im 13. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 41 (1978): 217–57; Marie-Luise Bulst-Thiele, “Die Mosaiken der Auferstehungskirche in Jerusalem und die Bauten der Franken im 12. Jahrhundert,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 13 (1979): 442–71; Robin Cormack and Stavros Milaharias, “A Crusader Painting of St. George: maniera greca or lingua franca?” Burlington Magazine 126 (1984): 132 and passim; Valentino Pace, “Italy and the Holy Land: Import-Export. 1. The Case of Venice,” in The Meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the Period of the Crusades, eds. V. P. Goss and C. V. Bornstein (Kalamazoo, 1986), 334 and passim; Lucy-Anne Hunt, “Art and Colonialism: The Mosaics of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (1196) and the Problem of Crusader Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (1991): 69–85; Bianca Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century: A Geographical, an Historical, or an Art Historical Notion? (Berlin: Mann, 1994); Barbara Zeitler, “Two Iconostasis Beams from Mount Sinai: Object Lessons in Crusader Art,” in The Iconostasis: Origins — Evolution — Symbolism, ed. A. Lidov (Moscow, 2000), 223–307. 6 Robin Cormack, “Crusader Art and Artistic Technique: Another Look at a Painting of St. George,” in Byzantine Icons: Art, Technique and Technology, ed. M. Vassilaki (Heraklion, 2002), 165–6. See also Folda, Cusader Art in the Holy Land, 520: “These debates over the nature and development of Crusader art notwithstanding, we should not lose sight of the fact that at the heart of the discussion are the works of art themselves and the criteria we use to identify these works as Crusader” (my italics). See also David Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” in France and the Holy Land: Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades, ed. Daniel H. Weiss and Lisa Mahoney (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 111 ff., and passim.

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Foreword East, but from a mistaken, style-artist-oriented view, while Cormack rightly disqualified the current approach.

I believe that the truth of the matter lies outside traditional art-historical epistemological terms and concepts. Its realm is concealed in what Belting—in Christopher Wood’s words — defined as the “dynamic context and the perception of the image and pictures as an existential exchange.” 7 However, both dynamic context and existential exchange here relate not so much to artists as to the pictorial testimony of western secular patrons encroaching upon a foreign world. The term foreign has many connotations in this respect as it relates to the art historical discipline; it means abandoning charted territories, namely West or East, to enter a metaphorical no-man’s land. This realm, the Outremer from a western perspective, was penetrated by patrons who were, to varying degrees, exposed to eastern influences. These western, mostly secular patrons with their diverse native pedigrees then integrated a multitude of cultural and hence visual and pictorial features, amalgamating elements of heterogeneous eastern realms, by both necessity and choice, with their western heritage — according to corporate and individual needs which were changing and expanding through contact with the foreign other. I surmise that these dynamic corporate and individual needs, among them the emphasis on their identities in their home lands, and in a foreign environment, fashioned a significant part of what hitherto has been defined as Crusader Art.8 It is not by accident that the emphasis of my assessment is on the term secular. Within a broader perspective of the second half of the thirteenth century in France and Italy, individual secular patrons took a leading role in the development of the modern picture, one that was no longer bound to liturgical purposes and functions, but appeared within the context of novel historiographical, if not personal and private sources. This resulted in sophisticated Psalters, and the more so in Books of Hours and romance literature in France, new kinds of historical literature such as the Histoires Universelles, or privately owned devotional panel paintings in Italy.9 This development runs parallel 7

Christopher Wood, review of Bild-Anthropologie: Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft, by Hans Belting, The Art Bulletin 86 (2004): 370–3; and Hans Belting, Bild-Anthropologie: Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft, 18 and passim. See also Wollesen, Patrons and Painters, 14. 8 For the late medieval concept of “individuum,” “personality,” and “identity” see Aaron Gurevich, The Origins of European Individualism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995), and more specifically Lisa Mahoney, “The Histoire ancienne and Dialectial Identity in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,” Gesta 49 (2010): 31–51. 9 Or, illustrated books in vernacular devised by merchants, such as the moral-didactic Specchio Umano of the grain merchant Domenico Lenzi in Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Tempi 3, also known as the Biadaiolo Codex; c. 1340s. See Susanna Partsch, Profane Buchmalerei der Bürgerlichen Gesellschaft im spätmittelaterlichen Florenz, Heidelberger Kunstgeschichtliche Abhandlungen, Neue Folge, Band 16 (Worms: Werner’sche Verlagsgesellschaft MBH Worms, 1981).

Foreword to the proliferation of the written vernacular language in France and Italy. This is not just a linguistic issue since it sees the emergence of a new kind of historical conscience and history writing, namely new prose versions of a historical truth, or a fiction of that truth, set well apart from its Latin heritage, in terms of the Old French Histoires Universelles.10 In the end, there is no need for the term Crusader Art. However, the need remains to focus on the agency of individual and especially corporate secular patrons within a foreign environment—the agency that obviously surpassed the boundaries of the traditional East-West canon. What we face is, in other words, the complex realm of the pictorial culture of the “Franks” in Outremer, or the cultural identity of the al-Franj, the Muslim cumulative label for the westerners in the Levant.11 This is, after all, a truly multidisciplinary issue, albeit tainted by modern perspectives, that requires interdisciplinary academic evaluation. There is growing criticism regarding the style-oriented approach of Buchthal and Folda, a concern that has definitely stimulated the writing of the present study.12 It is, however, difficult to propose a view that is not so dependent on a retrospective Renaissance-type of approach (the work and influence of artists and schools) as to become a travesty of the “medieval” past—yet another term coined from an art-historical Renaissance point of view. The pictorial evidence of these artefacts and the societal structure that produced and consumed them is remarkably complex and cannot be classified as Crusader Art alone. Here, of course, I refer to the distorted notion of art within the medieval realm. Certainly it should include anthropological perspectives that perceive these works as having been produced and used by real human beings, not just by arthistorical artists who remain oddly lifeless: their works are presently defined by styles (in the absence of facts), not as reflecting human lives and thoughts (and other cultures) by means of pictures and their vital context. The task, then, is not to find possible ways of fitting this testimony to existing arthistorical methodologies and taxonomy, but to devise other, different approaches that better meet the historical realities. My present study raises this issue but has not been written to solve it.

10 See Gabrielle M. Spiegel, Romancing the Past: The Rise of Vernacular Prose Historiography in ThirteenthCentury France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 1–10, and passim; Serge Lusignan, Parler Vulgairement: Les intellectuels et la langue Française aux XIII e et XIV e siècles, 2nd edition (Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1987). 11 See also Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 47, n. 1. 12 Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” passim, and Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, 11–19.

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Foreword It is a well-known dilemma that we must distinguish between two disparate realities: the distant, irrecuperable one, seemingly arrested in time, and the other historical version of it that we are now striving to understand and to elucidate according to present models of interpretation. Moreover, these models, these concepts of a past present are in flux. They are subject to ongoing changes, theories and reforms, constantly adjusting if not bending our view of the inert past. In this respect, a major change of paradigms in the past has been the abandonment of the notion of medieval art in favour of medieval pictures prior to the “invention” of art. This is conceptualized in Hans Belting’s book Bild und Kult subtitled Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (1990), translated four years later into the English lingua franca as Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art.13 The second, and in my view the right step in that direction, was the concept of a “BildAnthropologie”, also introduced by Belting, emphasizing the anthropological quality of pictures. The meaning of the German “Bild” is equivocal for the Anglo-Saxon or North American audience and entirely dependent on the context.14 However, “pictorial anthropology” comes as near as possible to the idea of its creator, who also emphasizes the aforementioned “dynamic context and the perception of the image and pictures as an existential exchange.”15 Doubtless inspired by this concept, or testifying to the same “Zeitgeist”, I think that Bissera Pentcheva’s recent book Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium sets new standards beyond the traditional scrutiny of icons hitherto limited to styles, artists, and iconography, and now maps “a new direction of Byzantine studies toward phenomenology and aesthetics,” focusing on materiality and hierotopy within an anthropological domain.16

Buchthal’s research definitely broke new grounds after its publication in 1957. Folda remained loyal to Buchthal’s view, while significantly and impressively expanding his master’s material platform. He followed in Buchthal’s steps with his 1976 book Crusader

13 Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), passim. 14 Wood in his review (372) asserts that “Belting’s Bild is in fact best translated as ‘likeness,’ as it was in the title of the English version of his book Bild und Kult.” 15 Belting, Bild-Anthropologie, passim. There is now an English translation: An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). See also Wollesen, Patrons and Painters, 14. 16 Bissera V. Pentcheva, Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), passim.

Foreword Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d’Acre, 1275–1291,17 culminating about thirty years later, in 2005, in his opus magnum, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291. Certainly, no other publication can compete with the wealth of information and valuable historical material offered in the latter book and its 713 pages (without an index!)—essentially focusing on history, artists, their art and artistic schools, and firmly committed to the concept of Crusader Art. One might ask why there is no “other” book on the subject of Crusader Art. The answer, in my view, is not that everything has been said, but that the artistic and stylistic focus on Crusader Art has become questionable, even obsolete. The crux, then, is not the indisputable and valuable wealth of information Folda offers, but its interpretation and a seeming amalgamation of artistic conjectures and historical facts. In many instances it becomes a speculative narrative that is elevated and chiseled into historical truth. Of course, one can argue that a historical truth is only established or revealed by a post factum narrative.18

The objective of this study is first to analyze certain critical issues of the aforementioned narrative, and then to dismantle the style-oriented approach of both Buchthal and Folda which has become the corner stone of subsequent publications. The task arising is to rethink, i.e. to encourage the discussion of new ways of tackling the issue within the art-historical realm by extending older disciplinary horizons or even leaving them behind in favour of hierotopy, anthropology, material culture, and agency. This study is meant to be a step into that direction. To do this, I first call on a few material witnesses central to the views of Buchthal and Folda such as the Arsenal Bible, Perugia Missal, and the London Histoire Universelle. Further on, I introduce “new” testimonies: the huge Hodegetria and St. Nicholas panels in the Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia, the frescoes in Pyrga and Asinou on Cyprus and their backgrounds, in order to suggest a different view of the Acre or Cyprus issue. Here is the detailed blueprint of this study: The first chapter outlines the present state of style-based research and then evaluates basic problems of style, maniera and lingua franca. Critical scriptoria issues regarding Jerusalem and Acre with emphasis on the role of King Louis IX and the Arsenal Bible 17 Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d’Acre, 1275–1291 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). This is an extended version of Folda’s dissertation (PhD diss. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1966). See also Robert Rough’s review thereof in Manuscripta 22 (1978): 53–54. David Jacoby informed me that the name Saint-Jean-d’Acre is a misnomer in that context, since it did not appear until the sixteenth century. 18 In this respect see also the remarks of Linda Ledford-Miller, “History as Myth, Myth as History: Juan Goytisolo’s Count Julian,” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 8 (1983): 21–30.

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Foreword form the next chapters, followed by a closer look at the Perugia Missal as the “crown witness” of the Acre scriptorium. A brief summary of the more recent criticism regarding Buchthal’s and Folda’s approaches closes this section. Before proceeding to specific monuments, I evaluate the issue of patrons and clients in Outremer with an eye to the possibilities of imports and productions on location, where I attempt to distinguish between manuscripts produced in situ and those imported from France (the carry-on luggage of these peregrini or crucesignati) and address the question of the market that would have existed for a new type of manuscript productions in Outremer, and, of course, in Cyprus. Having laid the foundations for further evaluation, I then discuss the version of a Histoire Universelle now in the British Library in London and introduce two Cypriot testimonies under the heading “Acre or Cyprus?,” namely the panel paintings with St. Nicholas from Kakopetria and the Schutzmantel Mary from cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. The next chapter entitled “Larger Problems” tackles a variety of issues removed from an Acre-oriented view: problems relating to the ”Reality and the Picture.” It evaluates the quality and the criteria of quality of the pictorial display of what we call reality at the time, and is followed by the chapter “Quality & Mediocrity” addressing the benefits of an overall negative verdict regarding the quality of the manuscripts in question. An overview of “Innovative Book Productions in France & Outremer” is followed by a closer look at the availability of Arab or Muslim pictorial source material in Outremer in the chapter “Acquisitions and Transfers.” The chapter “Art & Life” is an attempt to gauge historical and social conditions, especially of those Histoires Universelles which involve issues of identity and individuality and their socio-cultural context. Two subsequent chapters, “Artists or Artisans” and “Templates and Conventions,” lead away from an artist-style oriented perspective and explain within the context of the Histoires Universelles the pictures and their origins from a “mechanical” viewpoint defined by workshop economics and template production. The “Cyprus Connection” relates the previously mentioned manuscripts and panels to a Cypriot context established by two prominent and well-researched monuments in Cyprus, namely the frescoes of the socalled Royal Chapel in Pyrga and those of the Phorviotissa in Asinou. A glance at the motif of rolling eyeballs, a crucial criterion for the allocation of certain manuscripts and icons to Acre, concludes this study.

The State of the Art

This chapter presents a focused evaluation of past art-historical approaches followed by recent criticism regarding those manuscripts which purportedly manifest a Crusader Art scriptorium in Acre. Both for the readers’ convenience and in order to allow the arthistorical authors to fully voice their thoughts and concepts, I decided not to summarize or paraphrase their arguments but to cite what I believe to be their essential testimonies, turning this study into a lively or dynamic discourse. This strategy is sustained throughout the book. At the very beginning, even before attempting to disassemble the previous state of stylistic research, I should like to emphasize that Hugo Buchthal, Kurt Weitzmann, and above all Jaroslav Folda gathered a wealth of information, only part of which is critically assessed here. As mentioned earlier, my assessment focuses on various manuscripts attributed to an Acre scriptorium. Therefore, what follows is not a complete discussion of Crusader Art whose review would also involve the valuable input of, inter alia, Bianca Kühnel, but a pointed examination of issues raised by Buchthal, Weitzmann and Folda within the context of certain manuscripts.

Since these pioneering contributions, the evaluation of what is called Crusader Art in the thirteenth-century Holy Land, especially in Acre and in Cyprus before and after 1291, degenerated into a scholarly brawl.19 This mêlée involves the search for artistic identities on individual and national levels by stylistic comparisons, “picture criticism,”20 and an attempt to recover lost models which often results in circular and contradictory reason19 See Hugo Buchthal, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), passim; Kurt Weitzmann, “Icon Painting in the Crusader Kingdom,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): 49–83, passim; Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 511–27; idem, Crusader Art: The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1099–1291 (Burlington: Lund Humphries, 2008), 13–15. See also note 5. Page 3. 20 John Lowden, The Making of the Bibles Moralisées, 2 vols. (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 2: 6.

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The State of the Art ing. The foundations and purpose of these stylistic comparisons are, to say the least, quite complex, they involve tools borrowed mostly from post-medieval standards and rather idiosyncratic personal judgments, as becomes apparent when reading, for example, Buchthal’s characterization: Miniature painting in the Crusading Kingdom, as has been said before, was not a colonial art. It had a distinctive style of its own, which was not derived from any single source, but emerged as the result of copying illuminations from a variety of Byzantine and western manuscripts, and of developing certain features of these models in a highly original and individual manner. Each one of the three groups of Crusaders’ manuscripts mentioned above is based on different models, and from this point of view represents an entirely new start. But certain characteristics of style and iconography recur in all three groups; they show that something like a common workshop tradition existed throughout the whole period.21

Buchthal’s notion of a “common workshop tradition” points to a kind of an artistic network and the interaction of individual artists; it is not understood as an interchange of models and templates within related workshops, an issue that I discuss in my penultimate chapter. Following in Buchthal’s footsteps in his latest attempt to define Crusader Art, Folda recognizes it as “unique,” emphasizes its “Levantine character” and its ties to the “Byzantine artistic tradition,”acknowledges its “multicultural richness,” sees it as “the product of a profoundly religious culture that was begun and developed in the Holy Land by Europeans who had settled there during the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries,” “certainly not a colonial art,”22 and finally epitomizes it as an art “that is nowhere and simultaneously somewhere and everywhere in Europe, the Near East and even in North America.”23 After these global statements Folda defines a “Crusader artist” as follows: “A Crusader artist is largely to be understood as born and trained by a Crusader master in a style that synthesizes western European and Byzantine elements with local Levantine components, that is, by a master who generally already commands this synthesis”.24 He then 21 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, xxxii (my italics). What is “highly original” or “individual” cannot be determined by the fragmented knowledge at hand. In addition to the paucity of evidence, it also reflects Buchthal’s perspective at the time. Contrary to the statement above, Folda writes in the foreword to his Crusader Manuscript Illumination on p. xxii: “During the last decades of its precarious life, it became increasingly western-oriented, and thus essentially a colonial art” (sic!) (my italics). See also ibid., 18, where Folda emphasizes the colonial character of Acre when he writes: “[Acre] … was quite clearly a system of education typical of a colonial society” (my italics). If there was, in medieval terms, anything like an entirely “new start,” this, to be sure, originated in France, not in the Holy Land. For the issue of medieval (post)colonialism see Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ed., The Postcolonial Middle Ages (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), passim. 22 See Folda in my note 21. My emphasis. 23 Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 13 ff. 24 Ibid., 308 (my italics). The term “religious culture” is ambivalent and completely undefined, yet crucial for the evaluation of that time.

Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca adds a significant disclaimer: “Although we have assumed the phenomenon in the past, we have as yet no specific, clearly documented example, so far as I know, of an Italian or French or German or English (or Byzantine) thirteenth-century painter who can be seen working in the West and then comes to the Holy Land where his style is then transformed into that of a Crusader painter working in a fully formed mature Crusader style.” 25

The vague and controversial notion of style 26 is then used to categorize and date pictures, and to reflect on the national identity of their makers and patrons. According to these stylistic criteria, a twinkle in the eye or the shape of an ear provide, so it seems, an incredible wealth of information. It is interesting in this respect that this sort of forensic artistic scrutiny rarely, if ever, takes the whole figure into account, or draperies, etc. Let us have a closer look at this approach, for it determines and thoroughly characterizes both Buchthal’s and Folda’s views.

Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca Since Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), art historians have used stylistic analysis as the preferred tool—in the absence of factual documentation.27 The roots for

25 Ibid., 308 (my italics). Folda continues: “What, then, does it mean to say that a Crusader artist has a French Gothic or a Venetian background? In this discussion I mean although an artist born of Crusader parents, resident in the Holy Land, the ancestry of these parents may be French, or the master he is trained by may have derived his Crusader training in a setting that privileged the French Gothic tradition, or the Venetian tradition, or some other Italian regional tradition, whatever the case may be. But the style he learns as an apprentice is essentially a Crusader one, that is, one in which the Western tradition, whatever it is, has already been synthesized with the Byzantine and the local Levantine components. Obviously not every Crusader artist follows this paradigm, and wide variations are possible. My point is that seeking to find a European national origin for the style of any particular Crusader artist is, in any case, not the most fruitful way to approach the study of his work. We must start by recognizing his work as Crusader and then analyze what is Crusader about it in terms of its components” (ibid., 309, my italics). 26 Willibald Sauerländer, “Stylus: Reflections on the Fate of a Notion,” Art History 6 (1983): 253–79. See also Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 325. 27 The stylistic approach that characterizes the research in Crusader Art has its parallels in the domain of Romanesque sculpture. In this respect I should like to cite two illuminating passages from Thomas W. Lyman, “The Limits of Stylistic Analysis: The Case of a Relief Fragment in Macon,” Gesta 25 (1986): 69–70: “The following observations are offered with an acute sense of debt we owe to Whitney Stoddard, particularly for his rigorous application of a kind of stylistic analysis fundamental to our discipline’s contribution to the study of medieval art. His sustained response to the challenge of Giovanni Morelli and an earlier generation of art historians has distilled from what remains of a mostly anonymous body of monumental sculpture the residue of individual styles which, together,

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The State of the Art a more modern stylistic “scientific” approach reach back to the medical doctor and connoisseur Giovanni Morelli (1816–1891), also known under his pseudonyms Ivan Lermolieff, Nicolaus Schäffer (Miasma Diabolicum) or Johannes Schwarze.28 Morelli understood details of ears, eyes, or hands as (involuntary?) strokes of the brush of individual painters, i.e. as identifying marks—which were then embedded in speculations and divinations.29 This anthropometric method understands painters as idiosyncratic personalities or characters, as individual artists, or as “masters”, forming “schools”, as in Renaissance or, in our case, nineteenth-century terms revitalized in the twentieth century. This notion is then retroactively applied to medieval times and a culture inhabited by painters and illuminators unknown to us. It of necessity, rather more than intent, excludes vital issues regarding functions, patrons and consumers. Unfortunately, we know next to nothing of medieval painters, their “ateliers” or workshops. Whenever we gleefully discover names such as Wiligelmus, Gelduinus or Gislebertus, by reading, for example, twelfth-century sculptural “signatures”, we eagerly reconstruct their vitae or whole—but completely fictitious—œuvres in a romanticizing Renaissance recovery of their irretrievable lives, workshops, pupils, and, of course, their putative travels, in order to fabricate the necessary connections. These prima facie highly convincing results of a Morellian approach do not, however, reveal why these formal and “stylistic” similarities existed, except to presume that one style depends on a previous style, or, in our case, a crusader artist on a crusader

have furnished a history of art based on what might be called a collective ‘biography’ spanning the mid-12th century” (my emphases). After referring to Willibald Sauerländer’s “pliologie”, Lyman continues (70): “It is true that the limits of stylistic analysis have often been exceeded when the attempt is made to establish links between artistic center on the basis of too small a sample of surviving work, especially where familiar monuments are concerned. Resolving historiological stalemates that arise from conflicting interpretations of limited formal data inevitably requires raising new questions in other than stylistic terms. Furthermore, even the prospect of filling gaps in the material evidence can no longer sustain the illusion that art history may supply the continuity other kinds of historical data cannot provide. But treating formal evidence with circumspection, on the one hand, or merely amassing and recording archaeological data, on the other, are not suitable alternatives to reassessing the limits of stylistic analysis critically and selectively as the occasion arises, however inconclusive the results may be in the short term” (my italics). 28 See Carlo Ginzburg and Anna Davin, “Morelli, Freud and Sherlock Holmes: Clues and Scientific Method,” History Workshop 9 (1980): 5–36, passim, and Eric Fernie, Art History and Its Methods (London: Phaidon Press, 1995), esp. 103–15; also Janie Anderson, ed., Balvi Magnus und das Miasma diabolicum. Giovanni Morellis erste pseudonyme Veröffentlichung (Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 1997), and Johanna Vakkari, “Giovanni Morelli’s ‘Scientific’ Method of Attribution and Its Reinterpretation from the 1960s until the 1990s,” Kunsthistorik Tidskrift 70 (2001): 46–54. 29 Ginzburg and Davin, “Morelli,” esp. 21, 23.

Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca master.30 I believe that the problems of Morellian Method, much less of its implementation, are well perceived by Patrick Lawrence: “When the truth to be discovered is inscrutable, or as in the case of fiction, where ‘truth’ is a product of the text, the matter becomes less one of discovering the truth, and rather one of establishing it. In implementing Morelli’s Method (or its principles), one is not simply utilizing a new tool to access a truth that lay inaccessible (or indecipherable); but he is also creating a new discourse of truth, a new way to establish the authorship of a crime or painting with all its corollary responsibilities and accolades. One could argue that at its very conception, the Morelli Method was always already a discourse rather than a tool, a linguistic system rather than an objective device.”31

These similarities do exist. The problem is, of course, their interpretation.

Attempts to embed these stylistic analogies within historically based methodological traditions after Morelli led to the revitalization of Giorgio Vasari’s notion of the maniera greca.32 Kurt Weitzmann espoused Vasari’s maniera greca and Doula Mouriki coined her own maniera cypria. Proceeding beyond a Vasarian derivative, Hans Belting laid claim to the “lingua franca” as “a new synthetic language of components from sources difficult to distinguish.” The latter concept was, needless to say, ardently opposed by Folda.33 A brief synopsis of the art-historical appellations maniera greca and maniera cypria is helpful, since these terms were coined from a normative western, or, in Mouriki’s case, 30 Folda in his Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 631, n. 636, involuntarily, I assume, makes a point beyond this artistic concept, writing: “The linear conventions of dealing with the eyes are widespread and start to be found in Italy as well as the Holy Land as we move to the late 1250s and the early 1260s… .” As concerns the limits of stylistic comparanda, see also Jens T. Wollesen, “Sancta Sanctorum: Style and Prejudice,” Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 38 (2007/2008): 25–47. 31 Patrick Lawrence, “The Morelli Method and the Conjectural Paradigm as Narrative Semiotic,” Watermark 2 (2008): 104 (my emphasis). Department of English, California State University, Long Beach, 2010. http://www.csulb.edu/journals/watermark/pdf/Watermark%20vol2%202008.pdf (accessed 5 March, 2013). 32 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ piu eccelenti pittori sculturi ed architettori, ed. G. Milanesi (Florence, 1878), 242 ff., 250. 33 This, of course, goes beyond Vasari’s invention of the maniera greca and addresses the reinterpretation of this term as it concerns certain Byzantine (Greek) features in western (Crusader) art. In particular for the connection of crusader art and maniera greca see Kurt Weitzmann, “Crusader Icons and la Maniera Greca,” in Il Medio Oriente e L’Occidente nell’arte del XIII secolo: Atti del XXIV Congresso Internazionale di Storia dell’Arte C.I.H.A, Bologna 1979, ed. H. Belting (Clueb Editrice: Bologna, 1982), 71–77; Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 309, 517; Belting, “Zwischen Gotik und Byzanz”, esp. 246 ff. For the maniera cypria see Doula Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” in Studies in Late Byzantine Painting (London: Pindar Press, 1995), 367; Cormack and Mihalarias, “A Crusader Painting of St George,” 132–139; Valentino Pace, “Modelli da Oriente nella pittura duecentesca su tavola in Italia centrale,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 44 (2000): 19–43. See also Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, 14–16.

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The State of the Art a normative Byzantine point of view — likewise based on stylistic criteria. I skip the details of the history of Vasari’s origin of this notion, but wish to emphasize that it is of Renaissance origin—part of yet another purposefully devised tale with antique ancestries and blended with pseudo-historical anecdotes in order to highlight the new Italian genius of Giotto against the older manner of the “Greek,” or more conventional Byzantine artists. In Ernst Kitzinger’s pointed interpretation of Vasari’s maniera greca, it was “a blight, the Greeks were the ‘sterilizers’ of Dugento painting, the triumphs of Giotto and Duccio were achieved in the teeth of, rather than with the help of, this alien intrusion.”34 In less discriminatory, yet modern terms regarding its original meaning, Vasari addressed the Byzantine influence in Italy during the second half of the thirteenth century, the time after the demise of the Latin empire of Constantinople after 1261. Leaving Vasari behind and turning to Weitzmann, the binary view of “Greek” or what is called the “Byzantine” component in western pictorial products becomes the issue at question.35 In his article on “Crusader icons and la maniera greca” Weitzmann scales down both the importation and the importance of Greek, Byzantine icons in the Latin West, because they were “too few in number to be held responsible for the start of a mass movement of creating panel paintings in the style of the maniera greca.”36 This statement must be read with caution, in that in all likelihood only a very small fraction of these icons and their devotional panel reflections in the West survived.37 After having dismissed the Latin West, Weitzmann turns to the realm of his main agenda, the Holy Land, stressing that “the spread of the maniera greca coincides with the 34 Ernst Kitzinger, “The Byzantine Contribution to Western Art of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): 27–28. Further on, see Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Die Legende vom Künstler: Ein geschichtlicher Versuch (Vienna: Krystall Verlag, 1934), passim, or idem, Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment, preface Ernst Gombrich (Yale: Yale University Press, 1981), passim, and Hans Belting, Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte? (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1983), especially the chapter entitled “Vasari und die Folgen,” 63–91. 35 Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy. Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 15–16, and passim; Anthony Cutler, The Maniera Greca in Italy and Serbia: Art and Society in Two Byzantine Spheres of Influence 1204–1355 (Ph. D. Diss., Emory University, 1963), passim. See also Rebecca Corrie, “Sinai, Acre, Tripoli, and the Backwash from the Levant: Where did the Icon Painters Work?” in Approaching the Holy Mountain. Art and Liturgy at St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai, ed. Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Robert S. Nelson (Leiden: Brepols, 2010), 415– 448, passim. 36 Weitzmann,“La Maniera Greca” 71. 37 Edward B. Garrison “Notes on the Survival of Thirteenth-Century Panel Paintings in Italy,” in Early Italian Painting: Selected Studies (London: Pindar Press, 1984), vol. 1, 12: “I am aware that certain historians consider the figure 70 % to 80 %, too high. However, further consideration has led me to believe that the losses must be higher still — close to 99 %, or even more.” See also Pentcheva, Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium, 11, on the traditional dominance of the art historical discussion of painted as compared with relief icons.

Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Constantinople and the occupation of Cyprus, Syria, and Palestine by the Crusaders as well.“38 He continues: This occupation gave Western artists an ever increasing opportunity to travel to the East and to study Byzantine art first hand and there is today sufficient evidence that they took advantage of this opportunity. Icons were produced in considerable numbers by crusader artists on Cyprus, although the majority are from the period after the fall of Acre in 1291, when the crusaders, fleeing from Palestine, took refuge on this island.39

The travels of late thirteenth-century artists are rarely, if ever, documented. However fictional, they belong to the stock repertory of medieval histories of art. The focus on the much better evidenced travels of objects such as reliquaries, panel paintings, icons, and books, could result in more reasonable results.40 At any rate, Weitzmann’s statement foreshadows the controversy as to which icons and manuscripts were produced in Cyprus or in Acre, even before the latter’s fall in 1291.41 Further on, Weitzmann summarizes: Whereas some of the artists continued in the East the style they brought from the homeland, the majority of them copied contemporary Byzantine models so faithfully and with such empathy that, on occasion, they produced paintings in which a clear distinction between Eastern and Western hands is often difficult to make. This, to be sure, is in part due to our imperfect state of knowledge.

38 Weitzmann, “La Maniera greca,” 71. Note that Cyprus was never “occupied” by crusaders. 39 Weitzmann, “La Maniera greca,” 71 (my emphasis). The idea of independent artists traveling for study purposes is a modern view of medieval conditions. There was, however, the incentive of royal and aristocratic patrons providing library resources for learned men, as reported by Geoffrey of Beaulieu regarding Louis IX: “The pious king … conceived the idea that on his return to France he should have copied at his expense all the books of holy writings which had been found to be useful and authentic in various monastic libraries, so that he, learned men and the religious in his household could study them to their profit and to the edification of their neighbours. On his return he carried out his plan and had built an appropriate and strong place in the treasury of his chapel (the SainteChappelle) in Paris, where he industriously collected many original works” (Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 249). It is doubtful that the artists mentioned by Weitzmann range among those potential customers. 40 Kitzinger, “The Byzantine Contribution,” 34 –35. 41 Corrie, “Sinai, Acre, Tripoli,” passim, and especially Paroma Chatterjee, “Archive and Atelier: Sinai and the Case of the Narrative Icon,” in Approaching the Holy Mountain, 319–344, contributed more recently to this issue. The latter critically wrote (321): “The utopian view of the monastery as a workshop, or atelier, contains and resolves its enigma to a great extent by granting it a distinct identity at a historical moment. But the atelier is also an insidious means of rectifying another monument in the life of an object: that of production. What emerges is an intense concentration on the monastery as a birthplace at a vexed period in the Middle Ages and the practices that enabled a range of artefacts to assume their (final) shapes in it. Consequently, a study of those artefacts as objects with lives in the broader, continuing history of Byzantine art is neglected. Indeed, the emphasis on the atelier, its putative artists, and the moment(s) of origin of its artefacts echoes the status of Sinai itself as an ultimate site of origins” (my italics).

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The State of the Art However, on home soil the Byzantinizing style was, to a larger or lesser degree, absorbed into the native Italian and French tradition.42

The search for individual artists’ characters or personalities, coupled with their national pedigrees, remains central for his viewpoint. As well, the “imperfect state of knowledge” reflects Weitzmann’s own perspective at that time. However, it should be understood that Weitzmann and his perspective are now part of the past. The focus of the discipline has significantly changed.

Doula Mouriki’s maniera cypria (1985/86) conjures up thoughts of Vasari’s derogatory maniera greca as denoting a style that does not fulfill the (fictitious) classical norm, or what Mouriki endows with the prestigious Latin label subtilitas graeca in order to characterize “classical” (Greek) models.43 The perspective of her terminology is less general when compared with that her predecessors since it aims at the special conditions in Cyprus. In her own words, the maniera cypria is defined by: The antithesis of the contemporary stylistic developments in the advanced pictorial works in the capital of the Byzantine state and the areas under its direct artistic influence. Compared to Constantinopolitan works, the Christ icon from Moutoullas gives the measure of the rather prosaic quality of thirteenth-century painting in Cyprus, illustrating at the same time its individual character, what we may call “maniera cypria.”44

and: The “maniera cypria” is to a large extent due to the standardization in the abundant production of pictorial works and appears as the result of the cultural history of the Island in the thirteenth cen42 Weitzmann, “La Maniera Greca,” 76. The nature of French or Italian “home soil” traditions remains to be explored. 43 Doula Mouriki, “The Wall Paintings of the Church of the Panagia at Moutoullas, Cyprus,” in Byzanz und der Westen: Studien zur Kunst des europäischen Mittelalters, ed. Irmgard Hutter. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 432 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1984), 209; Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 367, 408. One wonders whether Mouriki’s subtilitas graeca was inspired by or is related to Otto Demus’s first chapter, “Subtilitas Graecorum,” of his book Byzantine Art and the West. See Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Art in the Court of the Lusignan Kings,” in Cyprus and the Devotional Arts of Byzantium in the Era of the Crusades (Hampshire: Variorum, 2005), 240 f.; eadem, “Byzantines and Italians on Cyprus: Images from Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995): 339–57; eadem, “Iconography and Identity: Syrian Elements in the Art of Crusader in the Art of Crusader Cyprus,” in Religious Origins of Nations? The Christian Communities of the Middle East, ed. Bas Ter Haar Romeny (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 127–51; and Kitzinger, “The Byzantine Contribution,” 25–48, passim. For a critical assessment of this term see Dimitra Kotoula, “Maniera Cypria and Thirteenth-Century Icon Production on the Island of Cyprus: A Critical Approach,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 28 (2004): 89–100. See also Wollesen, Painters and Patrons on Cyprus, 15–16. 44 Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 366–67 (my emphasis).

Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca tury, a history that was shaped by the interaction of various cultures of the different ethnic groups living together in a place which had become, more than in any other previous period, a crossroads between East and West. The distinctive identity of the artistic idiom under consideration was above all due to the engrafting of alien features onto the solid Byzantine tradition in the Island, as it was mainly shaped during the Comnenian period … The main purpose was to produce an art which would appeal to the tastes of a heterogeneous clientele including both Eastern and Western patrons and consumers.45

Finally, and probably most importantly, Mouriki adds: Thirteenth-century icon paintings in Cyprus show a homogeneous stylistic approach, giving them a distinct identity for which I have proposed above the term “maniera cypria.” This pictorial material retains elements of the eleventh – but mainly of the twelfth century Byzantine tradition on the island, with the result that its figural style is devoid of the monumental character apparent in thirteenth-century Byzantine painting in other areas. A close adherence to the linear decorative elements which characterize the earlier Comnenian works is combined with an expressive quality that imparts a certain liveliness to the faces.46

At first glance, as I recently wrote, this is a prejudicial term that discriminates against whatever this maniera meant for its time.47 It is an attempt to stamp the “typical” Cypriot productions as a variant of the normative Byzantine mainland styles. This perspective entails crucial and in Cyprus as yet unresolved issues, such as the most problematic criterion of the Greek or Byzantine norm and, of equal importance, the local essence and manifestations of that maniera; some manifestations of which are the subject of this study.48 I re-evaluate this issue with a more positive view in the last chapter of this book.

Hans Belting’s lingua franca concept (1978) represents a true shift of focus. It eschews the individual artists’ notion of style and calls for a new and different paradigm, that is the understanding of stylistic phenomena in terms of a pictorial language, a pictorial syntax or visual code without any notions of art or style. In Belting’s own but translated ideas: 45 46 47 48

Ibid., 408–409. Ibid., 386 (my emphasis). Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, 15. According to Mouriki (closely followed by Folda), one of the defining elements of this maniera would be “the predilection for red … as one of the few recognizable characteristics of thirteenth-century Cypriot painting” (Mouriki, “Moutoullas”, 204 f.); see also Andreas and Judith Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus: Treasures of Byzantine Art, 2nd revised edition (Nicosia: A. G. Leventis Foundation, 1997), 508, who point to the fact that this colour, produced from the plant root alizarin, is “still being used by some people to dye their Easter eggs.” See also Lucy-Ann Hunt, “A Woman’s Prayer to St. Sergios in Latin Syria: Interpreting a Thirteenth-Century Icon at Mount Sinai,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 15 (1991): 113, where she argues: “The so-called maniera cypria emerges as much, if not more, as a phenomenon of Syria.”

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The State of the Art Un art ni occidental ni byzantine, mais qui développa un nouveau langage, synthétique, aux composantes difficilement distinguables. Le concept de lingua franca n’a de sens, qu’utilisé à bon escient pour qualifier des phénomènes spécifiques et non pour des généralisations de ce que ne peut être défini. Des phénomènes spécifiques sont des œuvres qui ont leur origine dans les centres de la partie Est du bassin méditerranéen, et qui ne peuvent être confondus ni avec de l’art byzantin ni avec de l’art italien, mais en sont autant inspirés qu’ils les ont eux-mêmes inspiré.49

This train of thought foreshadows his later book Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (1990, English translation in 1994), where he asserts that: We must always remember that painters were not free to invent the details of images but dealt with archetypes that, more often than not, were models locally available that had become famous, for reasons obvious at the time but unknown today. Painters may have ignored the Eastern icons, which we today know to have been the true archetypes, and intermediary models may have gained more importance for the commission of a picture. In its inquiring about the authorship of surviving pictures, art history has neglected this type of research and has therefore tended to overestimate the personal contribution of individual painters and to underestimate the role of given types, which artists reproduced rather than invented.50

Weitzmann, entrenched in his “old-fashioned” perspective, is “not willing to relinquish either the idea of the maniera greca when dealing with the issue of Italian painting in the Byzantine manner, or the idea of Crusader Art as distinct from the maniera greca in the thirteenth century.”51 Folda follows suit, observing that, “strictly speaking, Belting’s idea of the lingua franca and Weitzmann’s conception of Crusader Art are two different notions that are largely exclusive.”52 However, he draws Belting’s “misfit” argument into his camp, arguing that the maniera greca and the lingua franca are both part of a style-oriented, artistic system, only to conclude enigmatically that “the art of the lingua franca is not congruent with Crusader Art; both have their own separate identity even if they overlap.”53

49 See Belting’s foreword in Il Medio Oriente, 3. 50 Belting, Likeness and Presence, 352 (my emphases). See also idem, “Zwischen Gotik und Byzanz”, passim. Daniel Weiss, in his Art and Crusade in the Age of Saint Louis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 154, interprets the term pictorial language differently in his evaluation of Crusader painting when he writes: “The pictorial cycle that emerges from this artistic context defines a new system – a pictorial language”(my emphasis). 51 See Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 517. Folda devotes numerous paragraphs to rejecting Belting’s ideas, see Folda, ibid., 516–17. 52 Folda, ibid., 517. He continues (517): “However, ironically, it is what Weitzmann calls Crusader art that may have at least partly served as a transmitter of knowledge of the Byzantine artistic tradition in the Mediterranean world to Italy and elsewhere during the thirteenth century, the role that Belting identifies as that of the art of the lingua franca” (my emphasis). 53 Folda, ibid., 517 (my emphases).

Style, Maniera and Lingua Franca It would seem at this point that the discussions of both Crusader Art and its maniera greca component have reached the end of the road. In my opinion, the reason for this impasse is twofold. There is its origin with art historical perspectives according to “traditional art-historical methods of stylistic and iconographic analysis.”54 On a different level, “art history has neglected this type of research and has therefore tended to overestimate the personal contribution of individual painters and to underestimate the role of given types, which artists reproduced rather than invented.”55 In other words, art-historical perceptions of the visual, pictorial, and especially the stylistic “evidence” exist within a closed and self-fulfilling scheme, to the inherent epistemology of academic structure, and to analytic approaches based on style. However, in the absence of “other” evidence, these tools are too vague and volatile to sort out, describe or meet the historical, much less the anthropological reality of the producers, patrons and consumers of these texts and illuminations. One way out of this dilemma necessitates abandoning volatile stylistic criteria employed for the sake of establishing artists’ personalities. Focus should be shifted to the intricate nature of their products that results from codicological, economic, sociological, and historical views as the testimony of a past society in evolution. It is unfortunate in this respect, and in greater part the reason for this dilemma, that we know nothing much of those artists and even less of the commissioners and owners of books or manuscripts in Outremer that are presently under scrutiny.

54 Cormack, “Another Look,” 165–66. See also Belting, Likeness and Presence, 352. 55 Belting, Likeness and Presence, 352 (my emphases).

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria

Jerusalem There is no documented evidence for a scriptorium in Jerusalem between 1099, the time of its conquest, and 1187, when it fell to Saladin, neither is there any for the brief Latin interregnum between 1229 and 1244. This, of course, does not exclude the possibility that books, or what we call manuscripts, were produced there at the time. The independent issue is rather what kind of books, based on what prerequisites were made, by and for whom, and for what purpose? Buchthal’s claim of the existence of an early midtwelfth-century scriptorium—the “one and only during that period in Jerusalem” 56 — is based on the calendar entries and litanies of an illustrated Missal in Paris and a Sacramentary in Rome.57 Buchthal tentatively assumes that: These point clearly to their origin in Jerusalem, and to their use in a church served by Augustinian Canons. Leroquais identified this church correctly as the Holy Sepulchre. We may take it that the manuscripts were written in the monastery attached to it.58

He continues: It appears, however, that there was a seminary for the education of future clerics; and, on the evidence of the manuscripts just mentioned, it can be said that the Canons were in charge of a scriptorium capable of producing liturgical books needed for the divine service in their church, and also decorating them with illuminations.59

While adding another manuscript, a later copy of a Breviary of the Holy Sepulchre Ritual, to his testimony, he claims that:

56 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, xxx. 57 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, xxix, based on the research of Leroquais and Kohler. The Sacramentary (see Buchthal, ibid., 140 –1), is preserved in the Biblioteca Angelica, D. 7, 3 in Rome, and dated c. 1140. The Missal is now in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, latin 12056, and dated approximately 1140 –1149 (Buchthal, ibid., 141–2). 58 Buchthal, ibid, xxix (my emphases). 59 Buchthal, ibid, xxx (my emphases). I should add that the production of a liturgical text and the illustration of a liturgical book are two distinct issues.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria This volume, too, was extensively studied by Kohler: it can be attributed to the same period on palaeographic grounds. The text of a third manuscript, a Breviary of the Holy Sepulchre, survives only in a somewhat later copy in the Musée Condé at Chantilly; this volume, too, was extensively studied by Kohler, who has shown that some of its liturgical indications must refer to the local conditions prevailing in Jerusalem between 1229 and 1244, and has drawn the conclusion that it was copied from an earlier Breviary, written in the Holy City during this period. As all three manuscripts are concerned with the liturgy of the Holy Sepulchre, there can be no doubt about the identity of the scriptorium which produced them.60

After these conjectures, Buchthal discovers the aristocratic appearance of many manuscripts gathered under the label “the Holy Sepulchre”— wherein he obviously cannot include the liturgical texts mentioned above —and globally concludes that “miniature painting in the Crusading Kingdom, as practiced in the scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre during the twelfth century, seems to have been first and foremost an exclusive court art.”61 He then asserts that this tradition was continued in the following brittle Latin interregnum when Jerusalem had lost its eminence as capital of the Kingdom and was without imperial or royal ruler.62 In Folda’s Crusader Art in the Holy Land of 2005, Buchthal’s assumptions regarding the scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre became an art historical fact.63

King Louis IX & Acre After the middle of the thirteenth century the scriptorium of Acre is seen as the heir of the scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. There is no documented evidence for this. After all, the question (among many others) should be raised as to what constituted a scriptorium at that time (all the more so in Acre). Scriptoria are usually closely attached to well-established ecclesiastical and monastic institutions, and above all, to libraries. Scriptoria and libraries were centres of learning with restricted access. Their rationale was to collect literary knowledge, to produce copies and expurgated “new” editions, compilations and continuations by an organized and specialized collective team of ecclesiastics — a medieval, peer-reviewed “editorial” think tank within a monastic frame,

60 Buchthal, ibid., xxxi (my emphases). 61 Buchthal, ibid., 35 (my emphasis). 62 Buchthal, ibid., 40. See also Laura Minervini, “Produzione e circolazione di manoscritti negli stati crociati: biblioteche e scriptoria latini,” in Medioevo romanzo e orientale: Il viaggio dei testi, Terzo Colloquio internazionale, Venezia, 10 –13 ottobre 1996, ed. Antonio Pioletti and Francesca Rizzo Nervo (Venice: Rubbettino Editore and Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini di Venezia, 1999), 79–96, passim, which is entirely based on Buchthal’s and Folda’s research and contributes nothing new. 63 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 93.

King Louis IX & Acre run in general by Franciscan or Dominican friars, Benedictine monks, or Augustinian canons.64 Alas, we do not have any evidence other than stylistic criteria that would allow us to pinpoint the existence and organization of such large monastic scriptoria in Acre. There were, most likely, books produced in Acre at the time of the crusaders’ sojourn. Documentation regarding their patrons, scribes and illuminators, if they were illuminated at all, is scarce.65 Folda, based on Buchthal, allocates twelve books with various topics to an Acre scriptorium between the years 1255 and 1291. Most of them are assigned to the 1280s up to the fall of Acre, and proof of their production there is again entirely based on volatile stylistic criteria, which makes the following estimate equally hazardous. Once historiated initials are excluded, these books contain only about 165 miniature panels out of 3,206 folios – the equivalent of roughly 6,400 pages, i.e. about 2.6 %. In all likelihood, and provided that Buchthal’s and Folda’s assumptions are correct, the number of folios or books produced over a considerable amount of time suggests a minor manuscript production and even lesser involvement by manuscript illuminators.66 Moreover, the rather small amount of full-page illuminations puts to question the organized presence of miniature painters. Beyond Parisian standards — which may not at all apply to the putative production of illuminations in Acre — only a smaller workshop of illuminators would have been necessary to accomplish tasks under the auspices of advisors regarding the design of initials, panels of illuminations, their theme, and their colouring, and such like. Further on, it is believed that: The actual execution of the miniatures was frequently divided into stages in which each color would be applied by a given assistant, the gold by yet another, and so on. It is increasingly more as time proceeds, that a given book can be considered the work of an individual, save only in the case of very important commissions.67

64 Christopher De Hamel, Scribes and Illuminators (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), passim; Jonathan G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), passim. See also Sandra Hindman, “The Role of Author and Artist in the Procedure of Illustrating Late Medieval Texts,” Text and Image, ed. David W. Burchmore (Binghamton, 1986), 27–62; R. H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, “The Commercial Production of Manuscript Books in LateThirteenth-Century and Early-Fourteenth-Century Paris,” in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. L. Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990), 103–115; M. and R. Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200–1500 (Brepols: Turnhout, 2000), 2 vols.; and Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 435. See also Monique-Cécile Garand, “Manuscrits monastiques et scriptoria aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Codicologica 3, Essais typologiques (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980), 9–33, passim. 65 Folda tackles this issue in Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 400–404. 66 However, these numbers only refer to those books that survived and may, in all likelihood, be the tip of the iceberg, i. e. a fraction of what actually existed. 67 Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, 212.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria Were the manuscripts under discussion “important commissions”? This is, of course, the hypothesis of both Buchthal’s and Folda’s which then feeds into Alexander’s claim, immediately continuing his statement above, that: Paradoxically, it was precisely this circumstance that created the environment in which the individual artist came into his own. More and more names of individual masters are recorded, whether the administrative supervisors of ateliers or painters, and personal styles can be much more clearly distinguished in the products of the many anonymous illuminators.68

It seems that the miniatures of the Histoires Universelles preserved in the libraries of Dijon, Brussels, and London, and assigned to an Acre school, do not at all excel in artistic quality as is repeatedly stressed by Buchthal and Folda. (The London version is excluded because of its “exceptional artistic” standard, as will be discussed later). Therefore, they would not qualify as an “important commission”, because they neither reveal the quality nor the “personal style” of a “master” illuminator. At this point in time I have not had the chance to personally scrutinize the Brussels copy, but I had ample opportunity to study the ones in London and Dijon.69 I should like to emphasize that the Dijon Histoire Universelle is of a fine quality, in my view, as far as the execution of the miniatures is concerned. Its miniatures are small in scale, since they are confined to one of the two columns of the text; therefore, the text dominates the manuscript if compared with some of the full- and half-page illuminations of the London manuscript which was executed, in my opinion, much later.70 As a note to these issues one may ask why both Buchthal and Folda assumed that all their master illuminators were male? In this respect, and in order to add to the complexity of their hybrid arguments, I refer to at least one female illuminator who left her trace in historical memory as libraria et illuminatrix not only in terms of textual but also pictorial evidence: I am referring to the portraits of a team of Parisian booksellers, husband and wife, namely Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston of approximately 1342.71 68 Ibid. 69 Warmest thanks to the curator and the personnel of the Bibliothèque Municipale in Dijon who greatly facilitated my research in the summer of 2011. The original (unpublished?) master thesis of Emilie Maraszak, Étude du manuscript 562 de la Bibliothèque Municipale de Dijon, Histoire ancienne jusquà Cesare, troisieme quart du XIII e siècle (master’s diss., Université de Bourgogne, June 2008), that I consulted at the Bibliothèque Municipale in Dijon, is to my knowledge the only more detailed examination of Dijon 562, apart from Buchthal’s and Folda’s observations. 70 Maraszak, Étude du manuscript 562, 98 states: “Aucun des artistes du manuscript de Londres n’a travaillé sur les exemplaires de Dijon ou de Bruxelles.” 71 See Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, fig. 204. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 25526, fol. 77v. See also Christopher de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Phaidon Press, 1986), 152 and plate 130 left.

King Louis IX & Acre They produced an obviously illustrated copy of the Roman de la Rose. As pointed out by Jonathan J. G. Alexander and seconded by Michael Camille, these librarii played an important role in the production of books in thirteenth-century Paris — and possibly in Acre or Cyprus.72 This adds yet another realm of potential production modes well apart from that of the scriptorium — book sellers providing appropriate manuscripts for an exclusive, secular clientele. Folda, too, vaguely evaluates this possibility when he writes with regard to the production of the Histoires Universelles: “As secular codices they may well have been done in some commercial shop, perhaps one specializing in this type of illustrated codex.”73 It is, however, unlikely that any of the three Histoires Universelles in question were produced for a specific customer; none of them bears any indication to that intent in the text. Textual and visual evidence shows that clerics as well as laymen were involved in the production of these truly unprecedented and outstanding books. The full-page illumination of the so-called Bible of Saint Louis (1226–1234) in the Pierpont Morgan library, M 240, fol. 8r, depicts the making of a Bible moralisée (fig. 1). The task is divided into several phases: the top register shows the royal commissioners, in all likelihood the queen Blanche of Castile, mother of Louis IX, and the king himself. The actual production of the Bible is depicted below: a cleric, as devisor of the book’s concept, orders with his outstretched right hand the manufacturing of the manuscript proper. This task is directed to and accomplished by a layman who is depicted while designing the layout of the Bible page.74 For the situation in Paris, Lowden explains that “they were made by specially assembled teams, in the thirteenth century probably working in a space provided for the purpose by the queen and not in a monastic scriptorium.”75 A comparable scheme, placing even greater emphasis on lay craftsmen, appears on a page in the Libro de Acedrex, Dados e Tablas commissioned by Alfonso el Sabio in 1283. It shows a similar

72 Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, 22–23. See also Michael Camille, who mentions that “there are numerous other documents attesting to the involvement of women in the Paris book-trade, both as illuminators and as the libraires who organized the work of others and ran shops” (Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion Books, 1992), 147–48). See also Anne Hedeman, The Royal Image: Illustrations of the ‘Grandes Chroniques de France’, 1274–1422 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 37, for a copy of the Grandes Chroniques (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale fr. 10132, c. 1320), which was commissioned by Pierre Honnorez de Neufchâtel from Thomas de Maubeuge, a noted Parisian libraire. 73 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 410. See also the circumstances of the de Brailes Book of Hours around the middle of the thirteenth century in England. 74 See Lowden, Bibles moralisées, I, colour plate X, “Morgan M. 240, fol. 8r, final leaf, the king and queen of France (Louis IX and his mother, Blanche of Castile), and the makers of the Bibles moralisées (a cleric and a lay craftsman).” Lowden, ibid., 1: 127–32, delivers a detailed analysis of this page. 75 Ibid., 1: 9 (my emphasis).

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria production assembly line involving one cleric and two laymen.76 In any event, texts and illuminations of these Bible moralisées were executed by different specialists, with monastic clerks, or so it seems, as the spiritual advisors, whereas the actual production was accomplished by professional scribes and, in the case of the Bibles moralisées, by lay illuminators above all.77 I should like to add that there is an immediate connection between King Louis IX of France and Alfonso X el Sabio, king of Castile and Léon: from Alfonso X’s last will recorded in 1284 we know that the Toledo version of the Bible moralisée was sent to him as a gift from Louis IX.78

Let us now return to Acre and examine how Buchthal established the existence of an Acre scriptorium. It seems that in the second half of the thirteenth century Acre was quite a cosmopolitan domain, reflecting not only all crusader parties of French, Venetian, Pisan, Genovese, German and English origins, but also people of eastern, Christian Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim roots and backgrounds.79 Originally, Acre was captured 76 Madrid, Real Bibl. Del Escorial, j. T. 6, fol. iv; the scribes. See Jens T. Wollesen, “Sub specie ludi. Text and Images in Alfonso El Sabio’s Libro de Acedrex, Dados e Tablas,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 55 (1990), fig. 5. A similar scheme is applied to the making of the Cántigas of Alfonso el Sabio, see Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Alfonso X and the Cantiga de Santa Maria. A Poetic Biography (Leiden: Brill, 1998), fig. 1. 77 See also Lowden, Bibles moralisées, vol. 1, fig. 34, representing fol. 246r of the Vienna 1179 manuscript, depicting King Louis VIII as commissioner and a layman executing the manuscript. For a brief description of the putative structure of the manuscript workshop organization see Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 423. 78 Lowden, Bibles moralisées, 1: 132–34. 79 Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” passim. See also Cristopher MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), passim, esp. 136–42, and Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 398–400. See also David Jacoby, “New Venetian Evidence on Crusader Acre,” in The Experience of Crusading, vol. 2, Defining the Crusader Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 240–55, and idem, “Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” Crusades 4 (2005): 75–105, passim. See also Peter W. Edbury’s publications: “Famagusta in 1300,” in N. Coureas and J. Riley-Smith, eds., Cyprus and the Crusades (Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 1995), 337–53; “Famagusta Society ca. 1300 from the Registers of Lamberto di Sambuceto,” in Die Kreuzfahrerstaaten als multikulturelle Gesellschaft: Die Rolle der Einwanderer in Kirche, Staat, Verwaltung, Wirtschaft und Kultur (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1997), 87–95; “The Genoese Community in Famagusta around the Year 1300: A Historical Vignette,” in Oriente e occidente tra medioevo ed eta moderna: Studi in onore di Geo Pistarino, ed. L. Balleto (Genoa: Glauco Brigati, 1997), 235–44; “La classe des propriétaires terriens francochypriotes et l’exploitation des ressources rurales de l’île de Chypre,” in M. Balard, ed., État et colonisation au Moyen Age (Lyon: La Manufacture, 1989), 145–52; “Le régime des Lusignan en Chypre et la population locale,” in A. Ducellier and M. Balard, eds., Coloniser au Moyen Âge (Paris: Armand Colin, 1995), 354–8, 364 –5; and Kingdoms of the Crusaders: From Jerusalem to Cyprus (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), chapters 16 –20.

King Louis IX & Acre under the banner of the fleur-de-lis by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem, formerly Baldwin of Edessa, namely Baudouin of Boulogne, the brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, in 1104. Saladin took the city in 1187, but had to surrender it to Richard I of England only four years later.80 In 1191 it emerged as the new capital of what remained of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The art historical focus on Acre is intimately linked to the sojourn of king Louis IX between the years 1250 to 1254, which will be analyzed further below. The time period before and after that remarkable event, namely since the reign of the Lusignan kings Henry I (le Gros) (1217–1253) and during the 1260s under Hugh III (1235–1284), king of Cyprus and Jerusalem from 1267 on, was characterized by close connections of Acre with Cyprus, especially after al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Bunduqdari, in brief Baibars, appeared in front of the city gates in 1263, and six years later devastated Montfort, the castle of the Teutonic Knights.81 Acre was then stabilized by the English army led by Prince Edward.82 The situation of Acre during that time seems to have been quite volatile. On the one hand, Edward strengthened the defenses against the Muslim threat, while on the other, as could be expected even in modern times, Italian merchants were “trading with the Ma¯mluks, even providing Baibars with important strategic supplies.”83 A truce was made with Baibars in 1268; it was broken only a year later, and renewed for more than ten years by Hugh III of Cyprus with the intercession of Charles of Anjou in 1272.84 At that time, Acre’s access to the mainland was somewhat restricted. The Ma¯mluks also conceded the plain in front of Acre and opened use for Christians of the pilgrimage route to Nazareth, which was still the sole major holy site in Crusader “control.”85

80 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, xxx: “The [Jerusalem] scriptorium was probably founded some time during the second quarter of the century, and it is a fair guess that it continued until 1187, the fateful year when Jerusalem and the best part of the Kingdom fell to the assault of the Moslems. We know that after that catastrophe the Chapter moved to Tyre, the only city of any importance which was then left to the Latins; a few years later, after the reconquest of Acre in the wake of the Third Crusade, it established itself in the church of the Holy Cross of that town. There is no first-hand evidence that the scriptorium restarted its work in the new surroundings at once — though it will be seen later that this seems highly probable” (my emphases). 81 Paul Crawford, The ‘templar of Tyre’. Part III of the Deeds of the Cypriots’. Crusade Texts in Translations 6 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), 44 (328): “Sir Hugh of Lusignan, who was bailli of Cyprus, came to the aid of Acre, bringing a fine fleet of galleys and other vessels, and 130 knights and sergeants, and many mounted valés ” (in 1265). See also Steven Runciman, History of the Crusades (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951–54), vol. 3, 334. 82 Runciman, History of the Crusades, vol. 3, 335–38. 83 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 374. 84 Runciman, History of the Crusades, vol. 3, 337–38. 85 Runciman, ibid., 338: Edward, dismayed by the terms of the truce, and after barely surviving an ambush on his life, left Acre in 1272 and returned to England.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria It seems that the situation in Acre remained unsettled if not chaotic during the late 1270s, when Hugh III of Cyprus left the city after, so it seems, serious disputes with all parties involved, namely the Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights, the Pisans and Genoese, thereby exposing its population to potential Muslims attacks. However, Hugh III did not abandon his liaison with Tyre. This precarious situation was only settled in 1277 with the arrival of Roger of San Severino in Acre on behalf of the new titular king of Jerusalem, Charles I of Anjou.86 This event marks the beginning of a more stable condition under French tutelage until 1285, when Acre again became the focus of the Cypriot kings with the death of Charles and the ascent of Henry II of Lusignan (1270–1324) to the throne in May 20, 1285. The youthful king triumphantly took possession of Acre, but celebrated his coronation in the church of the Holy Cross in Tyre on August 15, 1286. This date and occasion is then associated with a “magnificent illustrated manuscript,” namely the London Histoire Universelle.87 Henry II left Acre for Cyprus soon after his coronation. Acre was sacked by Al-Malik al-Ashraf Sala¯h al-Dı¯n Khalil ibn Qalawu¯n in 1291.

I introduce this brief and admittedly sketchy history of Acre in the late 1270s and 1280s because, with the possible exception of the more stable but brief French Angevin rule, it describes the frailty of the city during that period. In general, the city’s history during the latter half of the thirteenth century was overshadowed by internal conflicts between the Genoese, Pisans and Venetians, by Muslim threats, and was imprinted by military governments. While Acre certainly had a crucial importance as the capital of the truncated kingdom of Jerusalem, and as a most important trading post and port city, it is difficult to share Folda’s idea of Acre as “an intellectual center”88 and the location of an important, professional scriptorium that was producing a number of secular books at the time.89 Buchthal then narrates that: The last act in the history of Crusading illuminations was played out at Saint-Jean-d’Acre, the chief port of the Kingdom and its makeshift capital after the Holy City had been lost. The group hinges on an illuminated Missal in the cathedral of Perugia, dating from the third quarter of the century, whose calendar records the “dedicatio ecclesie Acconensis” on 11 July, the day of the reconquest of Acre in 1191, during the Third Crusade: it is on the basis of this entry that a number of other manu86 87 88 89

Runciman, ibid., 345; Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 376. Folda, ibid., 383. Folda, ibid., 399. Folda, ibid., 399– 400, notes well the criticism against his theory as expressed by Runciman. Detailed and reliable information on Acre is provided by Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” passim.

King Louis IX, the Arsenal Old Testament scripts with illustrations in a similar style, some of them of a very high quality, can be attributed to the school. Its activities, such as they can be reconstructed on this evidence, extend from the middle of the century to the last days of the Latin Kingdom: it is the only Latin School working in the Holy Land which allows us to trace a consistent development of style over a period of some thirty years. The pitiful history and the pathetic plight of the “Kingdom of Acre” were perhaps not very conducive to the continuous production of illuminated manuscripts of a uniformly high standard. 90

I will discuss further the validity of this “hinge” as questioned by Weitzmann and more substantially criticized by Cristina Dondi.91 These styles and schools coalesced with historical events and personalities, such as the visit of King Louis IX (1214–1270) in Acre from May 1250 to April 1254. Note that the king was accompanied by his wife, Marguerite de Provence (1221–1295) and, for a brief time, by his mother Queen Blanche of Castile (1188–1252), who died in France in 1252.

King Louis IX, the Arsenal Old Testament and the Foundation of the Acre Scriptorium The sojourn of Louis IX in Acre is usually circumscribed by the years 1250 and 1254. This is the only hypothetical dating criterion, if a criterion at all, for the Bible today in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris. This book is one of the two crown witnesses to an Acre scriptorium, the other one being the Perugia Missal, and is intrinsically linked to the sojourn of Louis IX in the same city. Current opinions established it as the personal commission of King Louis IX. The label “Bible” is a misnomer. The book has no liturgical function. It contains only a rather odd and abbreviated translation into Old French of twenty books selected from the Old Testament (pl. 1) commissioned, we may assume, by a secular patron.92 Its rather small, roughly letter-size format of 28.5 by 90 Buchthal, Miniature Paintings, xxxii (my emphases). The criteria for the “very high quality” remain obscure. Strangely enough, Buchthal’s date of the dedicatio oscillates between July 11 and July 12; see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 108. 91 See page 40. 92 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5211, (28.5 × 20.0 cm), 368 folios. Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 54–68, catalogue n. 15; Weiss, Saint Louis, 81–153. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 282–95. Folda (285) sees the Bible as a “a book of modest size.” Buchthal suggests that the Bible was executed at the “Dominican house in Acre.” (See Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 286). For this “Dominican house” with all its uncertainties, see Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 14 and n. 55. For a critical edition of the books of Genesis and Exodus see Pierre Nobel (ed.), La Bible d’Acre: Genèse et Exode; Édition critique d’après les manuscrits BNF, nouv. acq. fr. 1404 et Arsenal 5211 (Besançon Cedex, Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2006). More recently, the Bible, and especially its frontispiece with the eight intertwined medallions with scenes from the Genesis, was discussed by Barbara Zeitler, “Sinful sons, falsifiers of the Christian faith: The Depiction of Muslims in a Crusader Manuscript,” Mediterranean Review 12 (1997): 25–50 and in part by Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 31–51. Both authors date the Bible, based on Buchthal’s and Folda’s premises, between 1250–1254.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria 20.2 cm suggests portability, and it was most likely meant for private use and meditation. Folda, on the one hand, ties the programme of this Bible to a political endeavour, namely to “the responsibilities that Louis stated in his letter of August 1250, where he explained his obligations to continue his efforts to reconquer and to defend the Crusader Kingdom, among others.”93 On the other, in contradictory personal and political terms, he adds: “It provided him with a very personal book of Bible history and Bible heroes, which contained an Old Testament-based visual agenda for his leadership role in the Latin Kingdom on which to meditate and reflect”.94 However, King Louis’ IX stay in Acre, generally set between 1250 and 1254, is a somewhat elusive if not an incorrect statement since Louis IX did not reside in the city at all times. According to Folda, he was in Acre for less than a year, from May 1250 to March 1251, then camped near the city in early summer 1253 and was briefly resident, for only one month, in March and April 1254 before returning to France.95 Folda details the sojourn of the king in the Holy Land based on the testimony of Jean de Joinville (1225–1317), who accompanied Louis IX to Acre, and his Livre des saintes paroles et des bons faiz de nostre saint roy Looÿs, also known as the Life of Saint Louis, and the so-called Rothelin and Noailles Continuations.96 93 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 290. 94 Ibid., 291, my italics. 95 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 13 (my emphasis). See also Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 283: “So far as we know, it was carried out during the time that Louis was resident in the Latin Kingdom, that is, May 1250 to April 1254, indeed probably early in that time frame, while he was actually residing in Acre” (my emphasis). 96 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 243–54. The chronicle was instigated by Jeanne of Navarre (the wife of Philip IV of France) and dedicated in 1305 to her son Louis, king of Navarre. Between 1250 and 1254, at the beginning of Lent (there is no indication of the year) King Louis must have spent considerable time, most likely a year, to fortify Cesarea, which was ten leagues distant on the road to Jerusalem (chapter III. 4), and (chapter VII): “Whilst the King was fortifying Cesarea he was joined by Lord Narjot of Toucy. The King used to say that he was his cousin, for he was descended from one of the sisters of King Philip, whom the Emperor himself had to wife. The King retained him with nine other knights for a year” (my emphasis). This is followed by a longer excursion to fortify the city of Jaffa (chapters VIII/IX); there is mention of St. John’s day, after Easter (chapter IX). After Jaffa, Louis IX rebuilt the defenses of the city of Sajetta, starting “on the day of the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles; and camped with his army by the castle of Ashur, which is a very strong place.” (chapter X). The army then continued toward what Joinville calls “the desert of Acre,” and camped in a place “which they call the Colt’s Crossing”, from there proceeding to a camp by the city of Ashur “which in the Bible is called Tyr,” and finally they reached, conquered and fortified the city “which they now call ‘Belinas’ and ancient Scripture calls ‘Cesarea Philippi’ ” (chapters X, 293, XI, 303). The return to Acre was then planned after the fortifications of Sajetta, Caesarea and Jaffa “this coming Lent, and make ready for your voyage, so that you may cross over to France after Easter next” (chapter XII, 316). They reached France and the castle of Hyères in Provence after ten weeks at sea with stopovers on Cyprus, Lampedusa and Pantelleria (chapter XIV, 335). Joinville also mentions the death on December 1st, 1252 of Queen Blanche, who came to visit Louis IX in Sajetta. All quotations above

King Louis IX, the Arsenal Old Testament Remarkably, Joinville made no mentioning of any royal patronage in the city of Acre.97 And indeed, in Charles Reginald Dodwell’s words: The absence of any evidence of artistic patronage at Acre at this time and the sudden mushrooming up of illumination of this quality raises the question of how Louis would have found a master of this importance in Acre. If, as the author suggests, a Western model was sent from France for this manuscript then might not a celebrated artist have been imported from outside, too? And, if so, can his work be given to an Acre school?98

These are, to be sure, significant objections. However, at the end of his chapter devoted to the evaluation of Acre as a cultural center, Folda refers to king Louis’ IX full “four-year sojourn (…) with his headquarters at Acre”99 and sums up the king’s activity with the following speculative blanket statement, establishing a network of “artistic activities” in the Latin Kingdom, Mount Sinai, and Constantinople: As part of Louis IX’s presence in the Latin Kingdom, we are constantly impressed with the activity surrounding him at his court, wherever he was resident. It is significant, however, that he established his chancery and started his political, financial, religious, and diplomatic activities in Acre, which was the Crusader city best endowed with resources to provide him with the scribes and illuminators that he was accustomed to use to execute his commissions. Although Louis could not have drawn on the same artistic resources in Acre in the early 1250s as he had in Paris in the 1240s, he certainly must have stimulated vigorous artistic activity and, over four years of his residency, drawn talent not only from local sources in Acre, and the Latin Kingdom, but also possibly from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, from Constantinople, and from Cyprus, as well as Paris. If we estimate the king’s needs based on his normal religious activity, and indicators such as the holdings of a major French count, such as Eudes de Nevers, Louis IX must have commissioned many manuscripts, with a number of them illustrated in Acre, for which he not only would have sponsored his own chancery and royal workshop, but also work of other, independent religious and possibly secular workshops as well.100

In any event, Louis IX’s actual connection with the city of Acre proper seems to have been only intermittent. Moreover, why would he have chosen to camp outside the city? The report of the Muslim traveler Ibn Jubayr from the year 1184 regarding the conditions inside the city may provide us with a most plausible explanation. He refers to the deplorable environmental conditions in Acre writing that “it stinks and is filthy, being

97 98 99 100

are from Jean Joinville, sire de, The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, ed. Ethel Wedgwood (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1906; reprint: University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center, 1996). http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WedLord.html (accessed 8 March 2013). See also M. R. B. Shaw, Joinville & Villehardouin. Chronicles of the Crusades (London: Penguin Books, 1963), 161–353. See also Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 14. See C. R. Dodwell’s review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting, The Burlington Magazine 100 (1958): 219. Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 26. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 269 (my emphases). None of these speculations are verifiable.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria full of refuse and excrement.”101 From a polemical point of view, there is no reason to assume that these conditions changed or improved around the middle of the thirteenth century. The harbour area of Acre was labeled in French as Lordemer (“the filthy sea”), as opposed to the more pleasant area around Montmusard and the “‘green belt’ to the east of Acre.”102 Could that location possibly have provided Louis with the means to establish a scriptorium, and if so, why? In all likelihood, Louis’ wife, Marguerite of Provence, did not accompany him on his war campaigns to Caesarea, Jaffa, and Sajetta; for that reason she would have been much more likely a candidate as a patron, if required, for a book commission. However, do we know whether she stayed in Acre all the time?

The pinnacle of the positioning of the Arsenal Old Testament within an art historical, stylistic frame is, of course, its association with the Perugia Missal, discussed in the next chapter by stylistic analysis, and in particular because in both manuscripts, according to Weiss, human figures are depicted with stocky proportions, rather large heads, and wide-open, staring eyes with small dark pupils. (…) One characteristic motif of the Acre style is the fine black line extending from the eye to ear in almost all the figures, leading to what Buchthal termed the ‘spectacle effect’.103

Buchthal, Folda, and Weiss then further link the Arsenal Bible with the Perugia Missal as firm manifestations for an Acre scriptorium. In Folda’s words: King Louis IX appears to have founded the major scriptorium at Acre. The Arsenal Bible is the earliest and most magnificent extant manuscript produced in this shop. The French King was of course resident in the Holy Land between May 1250 and April 1254 and was based in Acre.104

Buchthal continues, while introducing more contemporary French influential prerequisites in order to expose French stylistic components in these “crusader manuscripts”: The French models were thirteenth-century works of an equally ambitious scope, works of the kind of the Morgan Picture Book and the Bible moralisée, some of which certainly belonged to the group 101 Jacoby in “Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” 83, assumes that “the environment conditions in Acre must have worsened in the thirteenth century with the extension of construction and the increase in population, especially in the Old City.” 102 Jacoby, “Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” 82–84. 103 Weiss, Saint Louis, 86 (my emphasis). 104 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 21 (my emphasis). Most of the time, so it seems, he was not based in the city of Acre but camped outside; see my note 96. The “evidence” of an Acre scriptorium was also challenged by Cyril Mango in his review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting in Speculum 33 (1958): 528.

King Louis IX, the Arsenal Old Testament of manuscripts commissioned by the French King himself. But a third element was just as important as the other two: the master’s own imagination and resourcefulness.105

There is no mention of any patron in the Arsenal Bible or of the original commissioner in the Morgan Picture Bible. To be sure, Buchthal’s fictitious masters of “imagination”, of a “refined taste”, or an “artist in its own right” perform not on a medieval, but on a Renaissance type of stage. Needless to say that there is no documented group of manuscripts commissioned by King Louis IX in Acre. However, Buchthal then suggests that “the Arsenal Bible should be ascribed to the years of St. Louis’s sojourn in Syria, between 1250 and 1254,”106 and finally comes to his grand, rather melodramatic conclusion: It is the earliest surviving product of a new scriptorium; the character of its illustrations was determined by the personality of the French King (…) [it] is itself almost an epitome to St. Louis’s policy in the Holy Land, for it expresses the King’s desire to infuse new life into that unfortunate cause which he had made his own, and on which all the vain hopes and longings of western Christianity were focused.107

Here, the Arsenal Old Testament is welded to the phantom of an Acre scriptorium and the personality of a king, and is seen as the visual manifestation, if not the pictorial swan song, of his policy. Folda follows Buchthal’s authoritative mantra when he writes of the Arsenal Bible that “the most famous work of figural art from the Crusader East with which the name of Louis IX is personally associated was apparently commissioned by him in Acre”.108 He then paraphrases Buchthal’s far-reaching and global historical conclusions claiming that “it is highly likely, I propose, that this unusual, lavishly illustrated, and very personal book of Bible selections was conceived and executed for the king while he was involved in discussing and planning his future course of action in Acre and pursuing the goals he had identified in the summer and fall of 1250.”109 These illuminating but highly speculative insights into the otherwise unknown personal life and the political perspectives of Louis IX and their repercussions in an illuminated book become a solid fact when Folda later claims that this is “a personal book for King Louis IX.”110 He then establishes the Arsenal Bible’s precise date of production around September 1250.111 105 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 64–65 (my emphasis). He adds (66): “It is obvious that a manuscript illuminated on this ambitious scale, and entrusted to a master of refined taste who was an artist in his own right, does not follow the general pattern of the work produced in the Acre scriptorium at this period, like the volumes at Padua and Perugia, or the manuscripts of the Histoire Universelle at Dijon and Brussels, which will be discussed in the following chapter.” 106 Buchthal, ibid., 67 (my emphasis). 107 Ibid., 68 (my emphases). 108 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 283. 109 Folda, ibid., 284–85 (my emphasis). 110 Ibid., 283, 285, 295. 111 Ibid., 291.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria There is no evidence that would securely associate this idiosyncratic compilation of Old Testament texts, lacking both colophon and calendar, with King Louis IX as patron. This, however, does not exclude strong French influences linking Paris as the centre of French manuscript production with Acre, or even Cyprus by ways of French aristocratic but not necessarily royal patrons.112 One should keep in mind that there are no external dating criteria for this extraordinary manuscript and its potentially edifying purpose and function. Once we eliminate all speculative and stylistic assumptions, we have to conclude that the Arsenal Old Testament cannot be securely dated to the sojourn of King Louis IX in Acre. In fact, the so-called Arsenal Bible is not dated at all.

According to Buchthal’s stylistic analysis, the twenty miniatures of the Arsenal Old Testament, deemed as a manuscript “de luxe”, were painted after Byzantine models of “exceptional quality, and are similar in character to the great masterpieces of the ninth and tenth centuries produced in Constantinople in the immediate vicinity of the court.”113 There is no documented evidence concerning the availability of those “great masterpieces” of Byzantine illuminated books for a possible but rather small scriptorium in Acre during the second half of the thirteenth century. As to sources, there is mention of “some 4,000 manuscripts [that] came then into the possession of King Baldwin III at Acre in 1154 as spoils from the shipwrecked transport carrying the library of Usa¯mah ibnMunquidh.”114 This number appears to be overstated and sedulously omits any mention of consequences: how did these water-soaked books survive, and just how many of these survived one hundred years later, unless they were shrink-wrapped? Did any “great masterpieces” figure among Baldwin’s acquisitions from this source? And how relevant were they for the Byzantine impact, since they were all most likely of Arabic origin? Typically, the art historical emergency exit opens upon Constantinople.115 The importation of artefacts, among them books, from Constantinople — especially to Paris 112 See Weiss, Saint Louis, passim, and John Lowden’s criticism as indicated in my note 116. 113 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 64 (my emphasis). 114 See Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 34–35. Regarding libraries in Acre, Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 400, remarks: “Even though we do not as yet have any specific archaeological evidence for the existence of such libraries in Acre, by their putative books we shall endeavour to know them” (my emphasis). Unfortunately, I could not access Aryeh Grabois’s article written in Hebrew: “The Nobility of Acre in the Last Generation of the Crusader Kingdom in the Mirror of the Local Scriptorium,” in Festschrift Moshé Dothan (Haifa, 1993), 271–78. 115 Weiss, Saint-Louis, 151–152, 152: “As perhaps the leading purchaser of Byzantine-owned treasures, and a cousin of the Latin emperor of Constantinople, Louis and members of his entourage would certainly have had access to manuscripts in the city …” (my emphases). Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 106, critically remarks: “Byzantine imperial and royal patronage in

The Perugia Missal and even to Acre or Cyprus, or to Acre via Paris—remains possible given the relations of Louis IX with Baldwin II of Courtenay (1217–1273), the last Latin Emperor of Constantinople. Let us now turn to the next pièce de résistance of thirteenth-century Crusader Art in Acre: the Perugia Missal.

The Perugia Missal Buchthal in his then ground-breaking study of Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1957) celebrated the miniatures of the Perugia Missal 116 (pl. 2), MS 6 in the Biblioteca Capitolare in Perugia, as being of “very high quality.”117 For him the missal was the crucial testimony for crusader manuscript illumination in Acre. It has its closest stylistic parallels with a small, private devotional panel preserved in the Art Institute in Chicago, also known as the Ryerson diptych (fig. 2). In his own words, this diptych is “certainly of Venetian workmanship.”118 The Perugia Missal’s art-historical the twelfth century, the accumulation of books and artifacts brought from other Byzantine centers by clerics, pilgrims, and merchants, in addition to the indigenous artistic production, may go far to explain the Byzantine impact on «crusader» art in Acre. The availability of specific Byzantine works displaying a pictorial or iconographic affinity with illuminated French or Latin manuscripts produced in that city cannot be proven. However, the plausibility that several of them served as models for the illumination of the Arsenal Old Testament appears to be far greater than the scenario according to which these models were examined by an illuminator of an Acre atelier working on frescoes in Constantinople, who returned with sketches of them to Acre.” (my emphases). 116 For the Perugia Missal see Buchthal, 48–51, 144–45, and plate 57a. The Perugia Missal is preserved in Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare, 6 (formerly 21). The Crucifixion page measures 19.9 × 12.7 cm. See also Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, 111, colour figs. 71, 72. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, 111, writes: “The Franco-Byzantine Crusader style seen in these miniatures is very close to the style of the Arsenal Bible Master, who worked on Louis’s personal Bible.” For the Arsenal Bible see Weiss, Saint Louis, 81–153, and passim. The ideas of Folda and especially of Weiss were questioned by John Lowden, Courtauld Institute, in his online review of Weiss’s Saint Louis. See: John Lowden, review of Art and Crusade in the Age of Saint Louis, by Daniel H. Weiss, Reviews in History (February 2000): no. 92, http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/92 (accessed: 14 March, 2013). Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 325, 514, dates the Missal to 1250 or into the early 1250s. 117 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 144–45. 118 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 48 (my emphasis). He is contradicted by Weitzmann: “The comparison between the Perugia miniature and the Crucifixion on the Chicago panel does not seem to us to be quite so compelling, since the characteristic pose of the Virgin, the trademark of the atelier, is missing in the latter; so are the rolling eyes, which are one of the chief characteristics of Buchthal’s Acre manuscripts as well as of our icons” (Kurt Weitzmann, “Thirteenth-century Crusader Icons on Mount Sinai,” Art Bulletin 45 (1963): 181). The use of the adverb “certainly” in Buchthal’s text actually suggests that it is not certain. Corrie in “Sinai, Acre, Tripoli,” 432–34, claims that “its connection to Italy and Italian taste remain apparent. In numerous ways, however, the diptych is closest to work usually attributed to Acre.” For the Venetian presence in Acre around the mid-thirteenth century see Jacoby, “New Venetian evidence on Crusader Acre,” 240–55.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria significance is due to certain stylistic and iconographical features, particularly to the “nose-picking” gestures of both St. John and Mary, a (bad) habit ascribed only to St. John on the right wing of the Ryerson diptych, and to St. John and Mary on a Mount Sinai icon reproduced by Weitzmann (fig. 3), dated around 1250.119 One must keep in mind that the Perugia Missal is a liturgical book written in Latin, with only one full-page Crucifixion miniature and two minor miniatures out of 345 folios. Undoubtedly, the Crucifixion page as a “devotional” religious image received pivotal attention in terms of its painterly execution. Buchthal’s verdict is entirely based on detached artistic, stylistic criteria; it neglects the completely different intention of this particular illumination within a liturgical manuscript that cannot at all be compared in form, function and consumption with any of the pseudo-historical secular books and their miniatures, such as the Histoires Universelles and Histoires d’Outremer discussed below. Buchthal then claims that the Perugia Missal contains a “direct liturgical evidence of its origin in Saint-Jean-d’Acre,” and that it is generally agreed upon its having been produced in Acre. The support for this claim is given in the appendix, where he more prudently, if not more hesitatingly states: The calendar in the missal in Perugia Cathedral appears to have been made for the use in the cathedral of St. Cross at Acre. On 12 July is the feast “Dedicatio ecclesie Acconensis” with an octave on 19 July. In this calendar the Jerusalem element which is so marked in the other five calendars is lacking and the Angers saints are also absent. What it does seem to show is that the Jerusalem characteristics did not necessarily extend to other churches in Outremer.120

The original makers and owners of the Chicago diptych (fig. 2), the Sinai icon (fig. 3), and the illuminators of the Perugia Missal (pl. 2) are, of course, obscure.121 How the origins of Perugia Missal, the diptych, and the Sinai icon can actually be linked in real terms is problematic, except by a common, rather authoritative or popular model available to all of them. Buchthal’s formal analysis compares “compositions as a whole,” “attitudes and gestures of the figures, and the modeling and expression of the faces”, and further evaluates figures as to their “expressive”, “statuesque” and “progressive” stances.122 There is no clear definition of these terms. His comparisons also centre on the draperies, specifically on tubular folds, and then continue to focus on facial features and on the eyes in particular. Here he notes that 119 Weitzmann, “Sinai,” fig. 1; Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plate 145, b. (120.5 × 68.0 cm); Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 442–45, fig. 152, for the dating see Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 299. The icon measures 37.2 × 26.6 cm. 120 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 48, and 108 (my emphases). 121 Weitzmann, “Sinai”, 181, remarks that “the last word about the localization of the Perugia Missal has not yet been spoken.” Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 298: “Of course, we know the patron must have been a lay clergyman who ordered this Latin liturgical book…” (my emphasis). For the Chicago diptych see also Jens T. Wollesen, Hasten to my Aid and Counsel…. . The Answer of the Pictures: Private Devotional Panel Painting in Italy Around 1300 (Ottawa/New York: Legas, 2005), 94–97. 122 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 48–9.

The Perugia Missal the left angel on this panel is portrayed with straight black lines going from the eyes in the direction of the ears, a detail which recurs in a number of figures in the manuscript from Acre, not only in these two miniatures but also in the smaller initials; and later on was almost to become a hall-mark of the Acre scriptorium.123

We do not know anything specific about an Acre scriptorium. I should add that Buchthal never labeled the Perugia Missal as a “Crusader manuscript,” but he included it under a group of “manuscripts from the Crusader Kingdom.”124 It not only turned into a “Crusader manuscript” about fifty years later but became a crucial testimony of Crusader Art with Jaroslav Folda’s aforementioned monumental Crusader Art in the Holy Land, From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291. This is to date, and is likely for good reason to remain the only comprehensive book devoted to this subject from a purely art-historical perspective.125 It is devoted to art and specifically to what he calls Crusader Art based on stylistic criteria, neatly subdivided into Franco-Byzantine, Italo-Byzantine, Tuscano-Byzantine, VenetoByzantine Crusader styles, schools and masters, and their “fully realized” and “fully formed mature” stages.126 There, regarding the Perugia Missal, and despite “Buchthal’s unerring sense of artistic quality,”127 Folda dismisses Buchthal’s stylistic comparisons, substituting them with his own closest iconographical parallels, namely the Crucifixion miniature in the very badly damaged Egerton Missal in the British Library (MS 3153, fol. 82v), whose illuminator, he claims, was “another participant in the Acre style of the 1250s,” and an icon painting in the collection of St. Catherine’s at Mount Sinai.”128

123 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 49–50 (my emphasis). This statement is later reiterated by Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 301: “The handling of the convention for delineating the eyes is a major index for identifying the painters participating in the Acre style”. 124 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 48. 125 On my kitchen scales this volume weighs 2.3 kg. The subsequent “lite” edition entitled Crusader Art: The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1099 –1291 from 2008 contains many colour pictures but otherwise nothing new. The only precursor to such a study is the fourth volume of A History of the Crusades, vol. 4, The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, ed. Kenneth M. Setton and Harry W. Hazard (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1977). 126 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 308, and passim. Against this approach, see James Trilling, “Medieval Art without Style? Plato’s Loophole and a Modern Detour,” Gesta 34 (1995): 57–62. For style as a conveyor of political meaning in Byzantium see Henry Maguire, “Style and Ideology in Byzantine Art,” Gesta 28 (1989): 217–31. Further on, one could ask whether all painters were crusaders. 127 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 409. 128 Ibid., 296, 301–2. Christina Dondi in The Liturgy of the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem: A Study and a Catalogue of the Manuscript Sources, Bibliotheca Victorina XVI (Turnout: Brepols, 2004), 88–89, dates the Egerton missal between the years 1262–70 during the patriarchate of William II of Agen (1247–63). It was pope Urban IV (1195–1264), born Jacques Pantaleon from Troyes, who appointed William, bishop of Agen, as new patriarch of Jerusalem.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria In Folda’s view, the Perugia Missal was written by a French scribe, and the painter of the full-page illumination with the Crucifixion (pl. 2) was in fact of French and not Venetian background.129 This is a significant change: Weitzmann had argued that the likely iconographic model for the Perugia Missal’s Crucifixion was an icon painting – a purely Byzantine example, or a Crusader version based on a Byzantine model, or both.130 Further on, Folda rejects a direct relationship of the Perugia Missal with the Arsenal Bible, “although it is surely related in general workshop characteristics.”131 According to Folda, the Perugia Missal “is an important reference because it provides a clear liturgical link between this manuscript and the city of Acre, where we interpret the codex to have been done and where this codex was intended to be used, presumably in that church.”132 In the next step, based on Buchthal, Folda distinguishes the various hands responsible for the Perugia Missal’s miniatures. He claims that “the second Perugia Missal artist was responsible for the smaller, more conventional historiated initials and the few decorated initials without figural designs. Again, as in the Arsenal Bible, these initials in the Perugia Missal are completely French, although there are some variations in design.”133 In Folda’s view, mingling the production of text and miniatures, the maker of the Perugia Missal is among those Crusader painters “whose primary training may have been in the French Gothic tradition, but whose working style combined both French Gothic and Byzantine characteristics to form the unique Crusader style that we associate with Acre, and now with Constantinople, in the mid-thirteenth century.”134 The Constantinopolitan connection is established by a giant leap across media, national and cultural boundaries. The Perugia Missal, i.e. its Crucifixion picture, is compared with the utterly fragmented remains of a fresco cycle depicting St. Francis and his miracles in the Kalenderhane Djami in Constantinople, rediscovered by Cecil L. Striker in 1967, and “clearly done in Constantinople during the Latin Empire, sometime between 1228 and 1261”135 (fig. 4). In order to establish the relationship between the 129 130 131 132 133 134

Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 297. Ibid., 297–98, 301. Ibid., 299. Ibid., 295 (my emphases). Ibid., 297. Ibid., 301 (my emphases). Folda continues (309): “This concept of a Crusader artist should not be taken to the other extreme, however. Unlike Pace, we should not go so far as to say that «the very nature of ‘Crusader painting’ eludes all efforts to verify the nationality of its artists; we could go so far as to say that if the origin of the artist can really be detected, his work must no longer be labeled as ‘Crusader’».” See Valentino Pace, “Italy and the Holy Land,” 334. 135 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 300 (my emphasis). See Cecil L. Striker, “Crusader Painting in Constantinople: The Findings at Kalenderhane Camii”, in Il Medio Oriente, 117–21, esp. 119: “The evidence is less conclusive in establishing the date of the St. Francis paintings and their stylistic kin-

The Perugia Missal Perugia Missal and the Kalenderhane fragments, he compares poses and gestures, the “painterly execution,” and “greenish-gray shading of the skin tones and the white highlighting on the faces.”136 In particular, he focuses on the “convention for delineating the eyes” as a “major index for identifying the painters participating in the Acre style,” the “glancing eye treatment,” “rolling eyeballs [sic] and the somewhat popeyed look.”137 In the reduced but more colourful version of his 2005 study published in 2008, Folda narrows down the date of the Kalenderhane fragment to the 1240s. He adds less convincingly that the “diminutive size of these fresco images is only slightly larger than the images in these manuscripts, making their close formal relationship even more striking,” and suggests that both works were produced by the same workshop.138 This workshop is then substituted for a single, individual artist by Daniel Weiss, who asserts that: There is evidence that a painter from the Acre workshop visited and worked in Constantinople. The apsidal frescoes in the Saint Francis Chapel of the Kalenderhane Camii, which have been dated to the 1250s, were executed in the distinctive style of the Acre workshop.139

What exactly constitutes a “distinctive style” entirely based on rather modern notions of an artist? Again, there is no documented evidence for a putative Acre workshop of painters having visited Constantinople.

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ship, and I can only summarize our conclusions. Despite doubt recently expressed about our dating of the mural paintings in preliminary reports, our best estimate is that they were created about 1250, with an estimated range in date of plus or minus ten years”, with a terminus ante quem of 1261. In fact, there is no evidence, except for brittle stylistic analogies. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 301. I should like to add that the greenish-gray skin tones are a typical part of the Byzantine fresco technique, revealing the underpainting, see ibid., 299. Ibid., 301–2. For the “distinctive treatment of the ‘rolling’ eyes,” see also Cormack and Mihalarias, “A Crusader Painting of St George,” esp. 134 and 137: “According to Weitzmann the feature of the «rolling» eyes is found on a number of other panels from Sinai, and he accordingly proposed to recognise a group of paintings produced by artists of French descent working at Acre. He does not unequivocally state that all the icons in his group were by one artist, and this aspect of these attributions will need further researches” (my emphasis). Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, 112–13. Weiss, Saint Louis, 102 (my emphasis). Weiss, Saint Louis, 152, then modifies his statement as follows: “Although the fragmentary condition of the frescoes prohibits any definite conclusions about whether the chapel was painted by the Arsenal illuminator, the evidence does indicate that a member of the Acre workshop worked in Constantinople,” and adds in his note 50 (p. 239): “Striker concluded, however, that the sparse and fragmentary remains of the frescoes ultimately prevent a definitive resolution of this issue.”

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria The Perugia Missal is at the epicentre of Buchthal’s and Folda’s Crusader Art perspectives. However, the position of the Perugia Missal as the beacon of an Acre scriptorium was already undercut by Weitzmann when he wrote: “The last word about the localization of the Perugia Missal has not yet been spoken.”140 Weitzmann’s skepticism has been ignored or forgotten ever since.141 New and more substantial concerns were eventually raised by Cristina Dondi’s latest assessment of the Perugia Missal. In her book examining the liturgy of the canons regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, she writes that the Missal was “made for the cathedral of the Holy Cross in Acre.”142 She does not claim that the Missal was made in Acre, but that it resided in Acre. In particular, she writes: This manuscript was dated by Buchthal and Folda to the third quarter of the thirteenth century. However, the references in the calendar and sanctoral to St Francis, canonized in 1228, and St Dominic, canonized in 1234, were added in a different hand at some time after the manuscript’s original production. It is very unlikely, I believe, that a manuscript written after the canonization of St Francis, who visited Acre in July of 1219 and again in the winter of 1219–20, would not include an entry for the saint. The same should be noted with regard to St Dominic. The Dominican order came to be very prominent in Acre; three of the last four patriarchs of Jerusalem were Dominican, and when Acre fell there were twice as many Dominicans as Franciscans in their respective convents. It is unlikely that a manuscript written after St Dominic’s canonization would not include an entry for the saint, nor for St Peter of Verona, martyr of the Dominican order (29 Apr.), who died in 1252. If the manuscript must be assigned on art historical grounds to the second half of the century, then we would have to assume that it is a copy of a manuscript produced in the thirteenth century before 1228. Still, the absence of the feasts of the two popular mendicant saints and the palaeographical aspect of the manuscript, written above top line like HS6, rather suggest an attribution to the first half of the century. This manuscript was brought out of Acre by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre who took it to their house in Perugia, where «Maria delaneue» (5 Aug.), in an Italian wording, and several other entries were added to the calendar.143

This evaluation applies for the first time liturgical and even more so palaeographical analysis, and seriously challenges the date and origin of the Perugia Missal hitherto based exclusively on stylistic criteria.

140 Weitzmann, “Sinai,” 181. 141 It also seems that Weitzmann himself never followed up on his critical statement. 142 Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular, 75. See also Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 296, for the later insertions: “Some other notable new entries that are found include a commemoration for St. Francis on his feast day, October 4, and one for St. Dominic on 5 August. These two entries are slightly later insertions, that is, done by a different hand, but very soon after the basis calendar was prepared ” (my emphases). 143 Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular, 76 (my emphases). HS6 refers to a missal from c. 1200 now in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples, ms. VI. G. 11.

The Perugia Missal Dondi, relying on the expertise of a certain Francesco Tommasi,144 insists that the Perugia MS was written above top line.145 Folda, however, maintains that the MS is written below top line.146 This seems to be a crucial issue for discussion, because Folda states in his book that at the time to which he attributes the Perugia MS, the Acre scriptorium predominantly used the “below top line” scribal technique.147 This observation, in conjunction with the liturgical oddities quoted above, makes Dondi favour a much earlier date for the Perugia Missal, namely, the first half of the thirteenth century. I saw with my own eyes that the Perugia Missal is written above top line when I examined the manuscript there in the summer of 1996. This, in combination with the evidence and suggestions presented by Dondi, makes me strongly suspect that not only the date, but also the origin of the Perugia Missal are not as Folda suggests.148 Not only does the manuscript present a scribal technique that is atypical for Acre according to Folda’s criteria, but it also omits most of the liturgical prescriptions, such as local saints’ feasts or a litany for the local ecclesiastical hierarchy, that would indicate an Acre origin. Instead, it includes two rather atypical and decidedly foreign northern French saints, such as the bishops of Rouen and Amiens. What conclusion are we to draw from this? It seems that the manuscript, while probably produced for the use in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was actually executed outside of the Holy Land, most likely in northern France. It is rather notable in this re-

144 Dondi, ibid., 76 n. 24. 145 Manuscript pages are divided into horizontal lines before the scribe enters the text. Early medieval scribal practice shows that the scribes usually started the writing of the page on the top line; a custom that was changed later by starting below the top line. According to Alan Coates, English Medieval Books: The Reading Abbey Collections from Foundation to Dispersal (Oxford: Oxford Historical Monographs, 1999), 47: “The writing of text of below the top line of a page is a helpful guide to dating twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscripts. In general, the first line of script of manuscripts produced up to the last years of the twelfth century seems to have been written above the top line, whereas Ker has noted that the first line of script was commonly written below the top line by the second third of the thirteenth century.” See also N. R. Ker, “From Above Top Line to Below Top Line : A Change in Scribal Practice,” Celtica 5 (1960): 13–16. 146 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 215, appendix A. 147 Ibid., 37, n. 56: “For Acre, on the one hand, only the earliest manuscripts are written “above top line,” i.e., Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS.VI.G.II (ca. 1200), and Paris, Arsenal, MS. 5211 (ca. 1250–54), Appendix, D. Everything after the Arsenal Bible with the exception of the last two folios of Lyon MS. 828 was written “below top line”. This appearance of a conservative scribe in Acre almost thirty years after “above top line” went out corroborates the loosely organized shop, or shops, proposed above.” 148 I owe thanks to Dr. Italo Fornaro, O.F.M., and especially to Prof. Andrea Maiarelli from the Biblioteca Dominici e Archivio Capitolare di Perugia (author of Le più antiche carte della Cattedrale di San Lorenzo di Perugia, 1010 –1300 (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 2006), who in an e-mail message to the author reconfirmed in May 2010, “dopo aver fatto una verifica (…), che il testo è scritto a partire da sopra la prima linea di scrittura” (my emphasis).

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria spect that Dondi as well, while mentioning on various occasions that the Perugia Missal was made for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, never once affirmed that it was made there, too.149

Let us now have yet another, closer look at the Crucifixion miniature itself from a different, non-Crusader Art angle. To what extent can we determine that its stylistic characteristics are due to the idiosyncrasies of an individual artist, one travelling from France to Acre, and then to Constantinople? This is a pivotal issue, since all of Buchthal’s and especially Folda’s arguments hinge on the identification of individual artist’s styles and personalities. The comparison of the Perugia Missal Crucifixion with another huge, bilateral Sinai icon may offer some valuable clues (fig. 5). It faithfully reproduces the scheme of the previously mentioned Sinai icon published by Weitzmann150 — a work which Folda dates into the mid-1280s.151 According to Buchthal, Weitzmann, and Folda, these two Sinai Crucifixion icons would be about thirty years apart. Superficial comparison between the photographic reproductions of both icons based on Weitzmann’s documentation is, however, deceiving. For some reason Weitzmann omitted the referential frame of the smaller Sinai icon which, however, is reproduced in its entirety by Folda, revealing that it is “quoted” within a series of bust portraits of numerous saints on all sides, with Christ flanked by Mary and John on top.152 The inscriptions of the earlier Sinai icon discussed here are in Greek. Those on the much younger, enlarged version speak Latin; it has a prominent Crucifixion within a very small decorated frame, and is backed by the picture of the Anastasis. The latter Sinai icon is nearly identical to its smaller, earlier version with minor modifications. The large double-sided icon’s protagonists of the Crucifixion vary minimally only in the position of their nose-picking fingers, the position of the mourning angels seems to be reversed, the inscriptions are in Latin, and Christ’s feet are fixed to the cross with one nail only, according to current north European, Gothic types. It is, so it seems, an updated replica of a popular type of Byzantine Crucifixion as exemplified by the earlier icon published by Weitzmann and perhaps adapted to the taste of a western client or source.

149 The previous paragraphs owe significant inspiration to Dr Lemeneva. 150 See Weitzmann, “Sinai,” passim, figs. 5–6. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 442–47, figs. 269, 270, Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, figs. 103, 104 (in colour). The icon measures 120.5 × 68.0 cm. 151 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 444. 152 Ibid., fig. 152.

The Perugia Missal It is important to acknowledge that neither this “design” nor the type of crucifixion are at all unique or due to artistic idiosyncrasy. They go way back into the early twelfth century, as can be demonstrated with another icon of the same type with the Crucifixion in the monastery of St. Catherine on Sinai, labeled as Constantinopolitan, and theologically bound to the Virgin’s Lament.153 This icon depicts, with minor variations, all dramatis personae as seen in the Perugia Missal. The same design is then repeated in various icons from Sinai, such as the one from the iconostasis beam in Saint Catherine’s monastery, according to Folda “clearly done by Crusader Artists (…) and related directly to Acre images of c. 1250,”154 another from the 1250s or 1260s, i.e. a “tiny Triptych with the Crucifixion,”155 and another Crucifixion panel with the nose-picking figure of St. John, now emphasizing the sorrow of Mary by showing her swooning are supported by the other Marys, depicting Christ fixed to cross with three nails, and celebrated as “among the best Crusader works that we have from the thirteenth century.”156 These Sinai icons are then connected by Weitzmann and Folda to an intricate network of individual Veneto-Byzantine and Franco-Byzantine artists, commuting between Sinai and Acre.157 In my view, these stylistic and artistic interrelations are entirely speculative and do not take into account the role of specific templates and models for this type of Crucifixion iconography that can be traced back to around 1100.

Therefore, I find that the similarities between all those previously mentioned Sinai icons and the Perugia Missal Crucifixion reveal not the painters’ individuality or versatility, but the authority or popularity of the model behind both the icons and the miniature. I believe that the Perugia Missal Crucifixion is based on precisely the same types of models, and is not the result of the idiosyncratic decision of the artist. The availability of such a model or its reproductions was not limited to Acre or Constantinople. It could also have been produced in France, for Acre. 153 See The Glory of Byzantium. Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A. D. 843 –1261, ed. Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Harry Abrams, Inc., 1997), 372, cat. no. 245, with reproduction in colour; Byzantine (Sinai or Constantinople) ca. 1100, 28.2 × 21.6 cm, from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt; p. 372: “Hans Belting associates the emotive power of this Crucifixion with the same ninth-century sermon on the Virgin’s Lament that Robin Cormack linked with the reliquary of the True Cross in the Vatican.” 154 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 318 and fig. 172. Folda dates the Sinai iconostasis to about 1260, claims (319) that “this artist was a Crusader artist with significant Venetian influence in his training.” 155 Ibid., fig. 211. 156 Ibid., fig. 267, from the 1270s or 1280s. 157 Ibid., 435– 65.

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Jerusalem and Acre: the Tale of Two Scriptoria In this respect, a Te-Igitur leaf from a Franciscan Missal now preserved in the T. Robert and Katherine States Burke collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York deserves attention (fig. 6).158 This miniature, not surprisingly, is attributed on stylistic criteria to an anonymous Umbrian Master of Saint Francis, who was putatively active in third quarter of the thirteenth century, reference being made to his frescoes in the lower church of San Francesco in Assisi. However, this dating is not at all certain. These Assisian frescoes, forerunners of the Franciscan legend as later pictured in the Upper Church of San Francesco and attributed to Giotto, have been the subject of ardent discussions.159 Their unknown date of execution ranges from the early 1260s to the 1270s. The dating of this miniature to the third quarter of the thirteenth century is accordingly rather vague. Again, the Metropolitan Museum’s Te-Igitur miniature of the Crucifixion of Christ offers a revealing insight not into the personality of an artist but, as becomes readily apparent, into the application of schemes and single compositional elements which could be drawn together to form a whole picture.160 The red-cheeked figure of Saint John is evidently of a staple design and next to identical to the ones on the Perugia Missal, the Ryerson panel, and both Sinai icons, down to his “arthritic” left hand. The gesture of his right hand towards his cheeks is a bit obscure and his body volume has somewhat increased, as also has that of the crucified Christ. These analogies include the drapery system, the hairdo, the accentuation of lips and mouth, and, to some extent, the gesture of his right hand on his face — without, however, the little finger directed to his nose. Similarly, the face of one of the Assisi Marys who now support the fainting Virgin seems to be a copy of the Perugia Missal Virgin, including her particular smile. The Metropolitan Museum’s Franciscan miniature, with its unique and significant insertion of Saint Francis into the drama, emotionally emphasized the swooning of Mary and somewhat changed the direction of Mary’s hand pointing towards Christ on the Perugia Missal; this dramatization is, too, exemplified by a previously mentioned Sinai icon. Contrary to the Perugia Missal’s Christ, its Metropolitan Museum counterpart is fixed to the cross with four nails, thereby faithfully reflecting the original Byzan-

158 Giovanni Morelli and Laurence B. Kanter, eds. The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi (Milan: Electra Editrice, 1999), cat. no. 38, 140, fig. p. 141. 159 See Dillian Gordon, “A Perugian Provenance for the Franciscan Double-Sided Altar-Piece by the Maestro di San Francesco,” The Burlington Magazine 124 (1982): 70–77, esp. 70: “The fresco cycle, attributed to the Maestro di San Francesco, with scenes from the life of St. Francis and the Passion of Christ in the Lower Church of S. Francesco, Assisi, which has a probable terminus ante quem of 1265.” See also Joanna Cannon, “Dating the frescoes by the Maestro di S. Francesco at Assisi,” The Burlington Magazine 124 (1982): 65–69; Joachim Poeschke, “Der Franziskusmeister und die Anfänge der Ausmalung von S. Francesco in Assisi,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 27 (1983): 125–70, esp. 125: “Aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach ist er in die Jahre 1260/61 zu datieren”. 160 I address this issue in my chapter on Templates and Conventions, see p. 152.

The Perugia Missal tine crucifixion scheme. It is interesting that, for reasons unknown, the painter of the Metropolitan Museum Saint John, when compared with his Perugia Missal facsimile, reversed the colours of his garb, turning his tunic into red and his mantle to blue. Certainly, the Perugia Crucifixion protagonists seem to be nearer to the Sinai icon’s design, with the exception of Mary’s right hand, which points to Christ’s sacrifice, the mourning angels, and the distinctively different knots of the perizoma, or loin cloth of Christ.

It should be abundantly clear that these comparisons do not relate to individual artistic personality. Rather they point to the availability of easily obtainable and exchangeable pictorial schemes and modules of the Crucifixion, namely the angels, St. John, Mary, and Christ, or wholesome models, which were then chosen and mises-en-scène for their individual purpose. It is only at this last step that the illuminators’ and probably the patrons’ choices become apparent. Their choices are restricted by the authority and the type of models. At any event, I argue that the “individual style” of the illuminator largely depended on the style of models that he adopted and adapted; and that these models, to be sure, were not limited to Acre or the monastery of Mount Sinai, but existed in Constantinople and elsewhere. In sum, the Perugia Missal should be dismissed as the crown witness of an Acre scriptorium. Two scenarios exist regarding the production of this very Missal. Either it was produced in France before 1228, which seems to be excluded because of Christ fixed to the cross with three nails — an iconographical feature that would date this miniature to at least after the 1260s. Or else was devised in the 1270s or 1280s as a copy of its original early thirteenth-century version with appropriate westernized Byzantine models at hand, and also produced in France.

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Assessment & Criticism

In sum, the Buchthal–Folda art-historical evaluation of these crusader manuscripts, their illuminations and sources, as well as their attribution to individual artists, masters or schools in Jerusalem and Acre, is built on conjectures arising from stylistic analysis and a mélange of carefully gathered and often valuable historical evidence. This history is in fact a narrative mise-en-scène from the now remote art-historical stage of the 1950s, revitalized and significantly revised thereafter by Folda. In other words: the story once so persuasively conceived by Buchthal and his continuator Folda has become a hard arthistorical fact to many others.161 In reality, we have a modern equivalent of a medieval compilation and its continuations, a legenda made to fit the art-historical posits of Crusader Art and for the discussion of a phenomenon that really does not exist. Unfortunately, the contentious results of this art-historical and reductive stylistic approach continue to exercise significant influence. They cannot be seen as a simple episode, or as part of a historiography of art that has become obsolete, and should therefore be respectfully discarded. They live on inter alia in the contributions, for example, of Daniel Weiss, Bianca Kühnel, Annemarie Weyl Carr, Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, Elizabeth Morrison and Anne Hedeman, Lisa Mahoney, and Rebecca Corrie. Firmly based on Buchthal and Folda, they are built a priori on tenuous assumptions.162

Still more recently, and in addition to what is described in the previous chapters and paragraphs, substantial criticism if not disapproval of the art-historical stylistic approach has arisen, especially in the writings of John Lowden and David Jacoby, who tax the arthistorical, style-oriented, reductive approach as being the “emperor’s new clothes.”163 161 See also Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 115. 162 See my bibliography. 163 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 24, himself discusses “the major concern” of his own study. Since the backbone of Folda’s work is entirely based on Buchthal’s book, he then lists the critique of Buchthal’s approach, as presented by Cyril Mango in his review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting, 528: “Cyril Mango has suggested that the attribution to Acre of nine codices, based on stylistic

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Assessment & Criticism John Lowden’s objections appeared in an unorthodox electronic context in his review of Daniel Weiss’s Art and Crusade in the Age of Saint Louis (1998), and are therefore not as chiseled in stone as are traditional, slow-paced hard copy publications.164 “In keeping with the discussion format of this electronic journal,”165 he launches some “good questions” with no easy answers regarding the Arsenal Old Testament which is at the centre of Weiss’s discussion: Lowden doubts Louis IX’s role as the donor, instead mentions Queen Marguerite as a possible recipient of the book, and questions the research perspective as a whole: “When we look at a large and complex artefact like the Arsenal Old Testament we have to ask who made the crucial decisions that transformed it stage by stage from idea into an object. To term it a royal book does not take us very far.”166 Lowden continues: Did Louis himself choose the (odd) textual model for the Arsenal Old Testament, and supervise its abbreviation? This is hardly likely. The text was not merely abbreviated, moreover: only certain books were included. Who chose them? If this was the work of a religious (rather than a royal) in Acre, as seems likely, under what kind of supervision did he work? Who devised the often subtle and complex images? Were they planned by the king? Hardly. By the religious, then, in the guise of ‘iconographer’? Or were they devised, primarily by the artist, alone in consultation with one or more people? Who was it who decided, detail by detail, what balance of Gothic, Byzantine, and «Crusader» content to include?167

These are substantial issues not raised by previous art-historical researchers who focus on artistic style, iconography and prototypes.

164 165 166 167

affinity to the historiated initials of the Perugia Missal, is slender evidence for postulating an unusually active scriptorium at Acre under most unfavourable political conditions.” Folda then refers to C. R. Dodwell who “has noted that the attribution of the Perugia Missal itself to Acre rests on the assumption that its artists were resident illuminators representing a local tradition and not simply secular artists to visit the Holy Land” (Dodwell, review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting, 219); and finally draws attention to L. M. J. Delaissé’s criticism: “The destination of the manuscripts discussed by Buchthal is defined with precision, but their place of execution is rather more weakly proved.” L. M. J. Delaissé’s text in his review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting in Scriptorium 16 (1962): 348–352, esp. 351, is slightly different: “Si la destination des manuscrits est precisé par l’auteur avec souvent beaucoup d’autorité, la localisation de l’exécution de certains d’entre eux est peut-être le point le moins solide de cette étude.” Delaissé continues: “Une autre imprécision paraît subsister concernant le scriptorium, même quand l’auteur ne le localise que de façon conjecturale; les miniaturistes illustrateurs et les enlumineurs décorateurs faisaient-ils toujours partie intégrante des divers scriptoriums cités? Pour les manuscrits liturgiques en particulier, n’est-on pas autorisé à envisager la collaboration de scribes clercs et de peintres laïcs?” Lowden, Review, 1–5. Ibid., 3. Ibid., 4. Ibid.

Assessment & Criticism Towards the end of his essay “Society, Culture and the Arts in Crusader Acre” (2004), David Jacoby, too, voices essential criticism regarding Buchthal’s account of Crusader Art. His disapproval is in line with my own as described in the previous chapters and sections and needs not be fully cited here.168 Jacoby dutifully and politely recognizes Buchthal’s contribution that “has undoubtedly enriched our knowledge of cultural and artistic life in Acre,”169 then judges his approach and its far-reaching consequences as follows: Yet his fascination with royal courts and patrons and with luxury items has produced some heavily biased perspectives and propositions and is also responsible for a reductive view of patronage in the Frankish Levant, all common to this day. Buchthal’s historical and chronological constructs have never been critically examined, let alone challenged, yet several of them appear to be built on rather weak premises and do not withstand close scrutiny.170

Jacoby then dismisses Buchthal’s premises regarding the Riccardiana Psalter as a merely hypothetical link to Jerusalem or Acre scriptoria: Which Buchthal considered a marriage present offered by Emperor Frederick II to Isabel of England, whom he wedded in 1235. Neither this marital link, nor the execution of the manuscript in Jerusalem or Acre, nor especially its dating to 1235–37 appear plausible. With respect to its dating it will suffice to point to the prayer for the protection of an anonymous count, which appears at the end of the text. Buchthal identified him with Count John of Brienne, former king of Jerusalem, who died in 1237. This connection is totally excluded (…) It follows that the terminus ad quem of 1235 for the production of the manuscript and the connection with the marriage of Frederick II propounded by Buchthal may be safely discarded. Once the Psalter is freed from the constraints of his arguments, its attribution to Italy, already suggested on stylistic grounds, appears even more likely. Opinions differ as to whether its execution took place in Sicily, south Italy, or Pisa.171

To this one should add Cristina Dondi’s statement that with respect to Buchthal’s position, “this manuscript clearly requires further and fresh investigation. A number of elements suggest a completely different scenario.”172 She further comments in summation that the period during which the apparently various and discordant elements of this psalter find a common meaning is in the years 1223–25, that is from John of Brienne’s return from Verona, probably with some royal memento, and the end of his regency, because of Isabel’s marriage to Frederick II. This psalter was a gift to Isabel II, not to Isabel of England, either from her father or from her spouse-to-be. After the loss of Acre in 1291, it found its way to Italy, where it was used by a Dominican sister of a convent of San Silvestro, probably near Florence, which I have so far been unable to locate.”173 168 169 170 171

Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 115. Ibid., 115. Ibid., 115–16 (my emphasis). Ibid., 116. For the Riccardiana Psalter see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 39–46, and also Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 212–17, also rejecting Buchthal’s thesis. 172 Dondi, The Liturgy of the Canons Regular, 84. 173 Ibid., 85.

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Assessment & Criticism Jacoby’s position is echoed by substantive criticism of Buchthal’s evaluation of the London Histoire Universelle which I discuss further below: “Neither its attribution nor the dating of the manuscript is backed by direct or indirect evidence. They [together with the before mentioned Riccardiana Psalter] remain entirely in the realm of speculation.”173a Before we focus on the London Histoire Universelle, let us have a brief look at Cyprus in relation to Acre, and issues involving patrons and clients in Outremer.

173a Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the ats,” 116.

Acre and Cyprus

Late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Cyprus has in the recent past become the pièce de résistance of many scholars of both history and art history.174 Cyprus is the fascinating multicultural stage of indigenous Orthodox Greek, Latin French and “other,” that is Armenian and Syrian patrons still to be fully explored. It must be recalled that Cyprus at that time was ruled by the descendants of the aristocratic French Lusignan dynasty in 174 Peter W. Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), passim; Nicholas Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 1195–1312 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997); idem, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 1313–1378, Cyprus Research Centre, Text and Studies in the History of Cyprus 65 (Nicosia: Theopress, 2010); Peter W. Edbury, “The State of Research: Cyprus under the Lusignans and Venetians, 1991–98,” Journal of Medieval History 25 (1999): 57–65; Cyprus: Society and Culture 1191–1374, ed. A. Nicolaou-Konnari and Ch. Schabel (Leiden: Brill, 2005), passim; Camille Enlart, Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, trans. D. Hunt (Trigraph: London, 1987), vol. 1, 325–34; George Jeffery, A Description of the Historic Monuments of Cyprus (London: Zeno, 1983); Sir George Francis Hill, A History of Cyprus, vol. 2, The Frankish Period, 1192–1432 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948); Athanasios Papageorghiou, Masterpieces of the Byzantine Art of Cyprus (Nicosia: Department of Antiquities, 1965); Doula Mouriki, “Moutoullas,” 171–213; eadem, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” passim; A. and J. Stylianou, The Painted Churches; Sylvain Béraud, La culture française dans l’espace chypriote de 1192 à 1971 (Nicosia: Service Culturel du Ministère de l’Éducation de Chypre, 1990); Annemarie Weyl Carr and Laurence J. Morocco, A Byzantine Masterpiece Recovered: The ThirteenthCentury Murals of Lysi, Cyprus (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991); Nancy Patterson Sˇ evcˇenco and Christopher Moss, eds., Medieval Cyprus: Studies in Art, Architecture, and History in Memory of Doula Mouriki (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Annemarie Weyl Carr, „Images of Medieval Cyprus“, in Visitors, Immigrants, and Invaders in Cyprus, ed. Paul Wallace (University at Albany: SUNY, 1995), 87–103; eadem, “Byzantines and Italians on Cyprus”; eadem, “A Palaiologan Funerary Icon From Gothic Cyprus,” in Praktika tou Tritou Dieqnouv Krhtologikou Sunedriou (Leukwsia 16–20 Apriliou, 1996), vol. 2, Mesaiwniko Tmima, edited by Athanasios Papageorghiou (Leikwsia: Cirhgia Morfwtikhv Uphresiav Upourgeiou Paideiav Kai Politismou, 2001), 599–607; Jaroslav Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus, c. 1275– 1291: Reflections on the State of the Question,” in Cyprus and the Crusades, 209–17; Melita Emmanuel, “Monumental Painting in Cyprus during the Last Phase of the Lusignan Dynasty, 1374 – 1489,” in Medieval Cyprus: Studies in Art, Architecture, and History in Memory of Doula Mouriki,” 241–51; Jean-Bernard de Vaivre and Philippe Plagnieux, L’Art gothique en Chypre (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 2006); Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, passim.

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Acre and Cyprus the person of Henry II of Lusignan (1270–1324).175 It should also be stressed that the Lusignans were strongly connected with Jerusalem, Acre, and with Armenia and Syria by diplomacy and marriages both, of course, aiming at the same political perspectives.176 However, the Frankish-French connection was dominant, and Cyprus should be seen as an important Frankish domain, not as crusader occupied territory, at the very gates to Outremer.177 Traditionally, research has focused on the pictorial testimony after the calamitous demise of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem (when Acre was conquered and razed to the ground by al-Ashraf-Khalil in 1291), making “crusader” Acre the point of reference for artistic changes in Cyprus.178 These refugees and migrants from Acre were from the monastic domain (Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines, Carmelites, Augustinians), as well as Templars, Hospitallers, royals, aristocrats, merchants, and the crucesignati of all participating European nations from the secular realm — all in all, a remarkably comprehensive list of potential customers for books and images.179 In point of fact, there was 175 In general, see the articles in Cyprus: Society and Culture 1191–1374. For the French background of the Lusignan, i.e. the dukes of Aquitaine of the early twelfth century, and their claim to the throne of Jerusalem see Peter Edbury, “Franks,” in Cyprus: Society and Culture 1191–1374, 63–101; Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 101–41; Weyl Carr, “Art in the Court of the Lusignan Kings,” 239–74; Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, passim. 176 See Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Correlative Spaces: Art, Identity, and Appropriation in Lusignan Cyprus,” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook: A Publication of Mediterranean, Slavic and Eastern Orthodox Studies, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 14/15 (1998/1999): 59–80; David Jacoby, “Knightly values and Class Consciousness in the Crusader States of the Eastern Mediterranean,” Mediterranean Historical Review 1, n. 2 (1986): 159–86, passim. 177 For the dominating French influence see Edbury, “Franks,” 63–64: “Whereas it is true that many of the Frankish elite in Cyprus belonged to families that originated in France, there were plenty of exceptions. […] It is also clear that members of the Frankish ruling class spoke French among themselves, and that French was the language of government and the courts.” More specifically relating to the outgoing thirteenth century, Edbury (ibid., 70), remarks: “However, at the end of the thirteenth century the mint ceased producing the white bezants and instead began issuing a silver coin with a design modelled on the French gros tournois. The gros showed the king in western attire seated on a throne with, on the reverse, the lion rampant that was the Lusignans’ heraldic device,” and he continues (70): “If the iconography of the white bezant proclaimed the king as the rightful successor in Cyprus of the Byzantine emperors, the new silver gros asserted that he was a king in the European tradition of St. Louis.” 178 For the demographic, cultural structure of Acre see Jacoby, “New Venetian Evidence on Crusader Acre,” passim; Idem, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” and idem, “Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” passim. 179 The Franciscan convents were located in Famagusta, Nicosia, Belloloco, Pafos, and Limassol. The Clarisses lived at Cava, and a Franciscan theological school was established at Nicosia. P. Girolamo Golubovich, O. F. M., Biblioteca Bio-Bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente Francescano (Quaracchi: Collegio di S. Bonaventura, 1919), vol. 3, passim; Peter Edbury, “The Templars in Cyprus,” in The Military Orders. Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, ed. Malcolm Barber (Aldershot: Variorum, 1994), 189–95; Anthony Luttrell, “The Hospitallers in Cyprus after 1291,” in

Acre and Cyprus a continuous flow of people, including Templars, Hospitallers, and tradesmen, between Acre and Cyprus prior to the fall of Acre in 1291.180 We should, then, not think of Acre and Cyprus as opposing entities but as an amalgamation of both these theatres of war and peace throughout the latter half of the thirteenth century. How this might have affected the exchange of artefacts, the activity of bibliotecarii, scribes, illuminators, and the presence of potential patrons, especially among the nobility, and Hospitallers and Templars, remains obscure. As concerns the refugees in particular, we know from the De Excidio Urbis Acconis that despite their desperate sauve qui peut circumstances, they packed and evacuated many, if not most, of their vital and valuable devotional books, relics and pictures with them to Cyprus when the fall of the city became obvious, or in the very last minute.181 These were not just artefacts but material tokens to address and to secure the sake of their souls. New commissions of pictures on Cyprus, including those on monumental

The Hospitallers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece and the West, 1291–1440 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1978), 161–71. More recently: Nicholas Coureas, “The Role of the Templars and the Hospitallers in the Movement of Commodities Involving Cyprus, 1291–1312,” in Defining the Crusader Kingdom, 257–73. For the Carmelites see Ordini e Congregazioni Religiose, ed. Maria Escobar (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1951), 1: 457–72; Silvano Giordano and Girolamo Salvatico, Il Carmelo in Terra Santa (Genova: Sagep Editrice, 1994). 180 See Jacoby, “Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” passim; Coureas, “The Role of the Templars and the Hospitallers,” passim; and Jacoby, “New Venetian Evidence on Crusader Acre,” esp. 252–56. After 1291, Famagusta was the most prosperous city on Cyprus; for refugees from the Holy Land, and Pisans, Genoese, Venetians, and Florentines in Famagusta see David Jacoby, “The Rise of a New Emporium in the Eastern Mediterranean: Famagusta in the Late Thirteenth Century,” Meletai kai hypomnemata: Hidryma archiepiskopou Makariou III (Nicosia, 1984), 1: 145–79, passim. 181 After all, Henry II of Cyprus “quit” for various reasons when the fall of Acre became obvious. For the description of these events compiled from the reports of survivors in the De Excidio Urbis Acconis see Edmond Martène and Ursin Durand, eds., Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum historicum, dogmaticorum, moralium, amplissima collection, tomus V. complectens plures scriptores historicos de rebus præsertim gallicis, anglicis, italicis, constantinopolitanis et terrae-sanctæ (Apud Franciscum Montalant: Paris, 1729), cols. 757–84, esp. 782: “Quod perpendens monachus Gaudini, super hoc soldanum complacare, quantum plus poterat nitebatur et sed dum non valuit quod quaerebat obtinere, nocte veniente sui & vigore, per totam noctem illam, dum fideles vigilarent contra perfidorum astutiam, domum contra eos defensuri, fratrum adjutorio de thesauris quod potuit cum sacrosanctis reliquiis ecclesiæ Templi, ad mare salubriter deportavit. Inde quidem cum fratribus paucis auspicato remigio, in Cyprum cum cautela transfretavit. De his quidem qui in castro Templi remanserunt, seipsos in Dei dispensatione defendentes, nescitur certitudinaliter quid acciderit” (my emphases). A reprint of the De Excidio Urbis Acconis was published by B. Franklin, New York, 1968. The latest publication is by R. B. C. Huygens, Alan Forey, and David Nicolle, eds., Magister Thadeus civis Naepolitanus, Excidii Aconis gestorum collectio: Ystoria de desolatione et conculcatione civitatis Acconensis et tocius terre sancte. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 202 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004). See also Girart Dorens, “Sir Otho de Grandison 1238?–1328,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3 (1909): 144.

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Acre and Cyprus scale in form of altar pieces or monumental frescoes (no costly mosaics were produced at that time), would constitute a meaningful enterprise responding to their immediate pious needs. These are, as compared with Acre, to have been likely consumers, apart from a Parisian French audience, of the Histoires Universelles and Histoires d’Outremer — a hypothesis that is examined in the next chapter.

Patrons & Clients in Outremer

In this context, Folda’s proclamation of the “Advent of the Hospitaller Master” deserves attention. This “master,” whom he eventually re-baptizes as the “Paris-Acre-Master,”182 becomes a major protagonist of his Acre scriptorium.183 He calls attention to a manuscript now in the Musée Condé in Chantilly “of prime importance for understanding the manuscript production of the Acre School”.184 He is contradicted by Harvey Stahl, who states that the Chantilly manuscript is a “complex document that does not provide clear proof of Acre origin and date.”185 It is not a Histoire Universelle, but a compilation of translations from the Latin into Old French of Cicero’s De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium with some illuminations. Folda associates this manuscript with a certain William of St. Stephen, a Hospitaller knight and lawyer in Acre who ordered the translation of the Latin works by John of Antioch.186 Here is Folda’s translation of John’s testimony: This art [of rhetoric] I, John of Antioch, who is called of Harens, have translated from Latin to French, rendered into the vernacular to the honor and at the request of the honest man and religious brother, William of St. Stephen, brother of the Holy House of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. This was done in Acre in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ .m.cc.lxxii. [sic.] [1282].187

182 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 411: “His main characteristic is surely not that he worked for the Hospitallers or any other identifiable patron in Acre or Paris, but rather that he came from Paris to Acre about 1280.” See also ibid., 418, 419. Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” n. 151 remarks: “However, the appellation Hospitaller Master is a misnomer, since there is no indication that this artist was a Hospitaller, nor did he exclusively work for the Hospitallers.” 183 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 42–76. 184 Ibid., 42, 181–82; figs. 24–32. Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 590; 164 folios, 4 miniature panels, 4 illuminated initials. 185 Harvey Stahl in his review of Crusader Manuscript Illumination by Jaroslav Folda, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 43 (1980): 416–23, especially 418. 186 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 42–43. 187 Ibid., 43 (my emphasis). See also Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 412.

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Patrons & Clients in Outremer Were the translator and the scribe the same person? In this respect, I should like to fully quote Harvey Stahl’s criticism: The translator’s identification of himself, his patron, the date and place does not occur in a true colophon but rather in the prologue and rubrics to the first chapter of text. Furthermore, it identifies neither scribe nor artist but where and when the translation was done, that is, it refers to the text and not necessarily to the exemplar at hand. Folda, however, argues that this exemplar is in fact the translator’s presentation copy. He notes that the name of the translator appears three times, always conspicuously and, in the rubrics, too expansively to fit the space the scribe left for it. He further notes that there is a change in scribal hand between folios 12v and 13 and that the date of 1282 is recorded also as 1272 and 1382. Nevertheless, he prefers to see this frequency and elaboration of the translator’s notes as indications of his pride in achievement. A careful physical examination of the Chantilly manuscript raises doubts about this interpretation of the evidence. The thrice repeated translator’s note is written in a slightly later hand which differs from that of most of the manuscript.188

Folda then stresses that William of St. Stephen “was an important up-and-coming figure in the Hospitallers, eventually to be commander of the Order on Cyprus,”189 and later on claims that “the scribe of Chantilly MS. 590 was surely French trained,”190 and concludes that the Chantilly artist paints in a manner startlingly different from what we know as the Acre School style. The miniatures are purely French Gothic. This painter, apparently a comparatively recent arrival in the Latin Kingdom, shows no trace of the crusader stylistic tradition.191

Yet why should this text and its images show elements of what Folda calls a “crusader stylistic tradition” if it was not based on immediate crusader experience, such as the above mentioned chronicles or Histoires Universelles ? In any event, this is a dated and certifiable Acre manuscript which gives us the names of both a commissioner and translator while leaving the question open as to the origin of its scribe and illuminator. It is important to recall that the manuscript was commissioned by a learned Knight of the Hospitallers, as part of a powerful constituency which could provide commissioners of books not only in Acre, but also in Cyprus. Do we have more such evidence? Buchthal provides us with interesting information regarding the Brussels Histoire Universelle featuring “crude, pedestrian, and provincial” miniatures, and presumably written by a scribe from Acre. He refers to the book’s signa-

188 Harvey Stahl’s review, 418. In conclusion (418) Stahl concedes that “while the translator’s notes cannot be treated as colophons or as part of the original section of the manuscript, the Acre attribution and date should not be dismissed.” 189 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 45–46 (my emphasis). 190 Ibid., 46. 191 Ibid., 47. On p. 55 Folda adds: “It is indeed a mystery where our painter was originally trained,” but assumes Paris as his origin.

Patrons & Clients in Outremer ture ce livre escrist Bernart dacre and dates it to around 1270–80.192 Buchthal uses this testimony to reinforce his theory of an Acre scriptorium. Where was Bernart the scribe when he wrote this book? Was he indeed in Acre, as is explicitly added by the translator of Chantilly MS 590? Or was he, more likely, elsewhere, perhaps in Cyprus, thereby underscoring his Acre origin?193 A relevant contemporary testimony to this hypothesis is Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone panel in Santa Maria dei Servi in Siena signed and dated: “A. D. MCCLXI. COPP[US]. DEFLORENTIA MEPI[N]X[IT].”194 Coppo di Marcovaldo obviously was a Florentine painter, but he was in Siena when he painted this important panel for the Servites. As a shield bearer (pavesarius) in the Florentine army he was taken prisoner by the Sienese who had won the battle of Montaperti in 1260 under the protection of the Virgin.195 Perhaps due to his pride and the connections of the Servites with Florence, he emphasized his origin while outside his native city. Further on, other evidence for the reference of toponymic surnames to the place of origin rather than that of residence is provided by contemporary legal documents and wills in Cyprus. Lamberto di Sambuceto, a notary of the Genoese community in Famagusta around 1300, mentions in the will of a certain shoemaker Pellegrino various witnesses by the names of Enrico Pisano, a magister Enrico of Tyre, and Giorgio 192 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 10175; Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 69, 149–50. The manuscript is ascribed to years 1270/80. See also Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 70 n. 2, and ibid., 97: “It reflects the crude taste and the mediocre education of the military caste for which this unpretentious compilation was intended.” In the fifteenth century the book belonged to Phoebus of Lusignan of Cyprus. See also Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 119. 193 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 25 discusses the thorny issue of the original place of production and final destination of these manuscripts so crucial for the establishment of an Acre scriptorium. Seeking support from Buchthal, he categorically excludes the “possibility that codices were made somewhere outside Acre for patrons in the city.” He continues by referring to Bernart from Acre: “In the first place it seems unlikely that Bernard d’Acre would be working in some more provincial crusader center and sending his codices to Acre. Rather, his signature suggests more strongly that he was working in the city of Acre, which by the 1270’s must have had a wide reputation for manuscript production, for a patron outside the capital” (my emphases). Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 119, objects: “However, as a rule toponymic surnames indicate the city or region of origin, rather than the place of residence of their respective bearers.” See also Delaissé (review of Review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting, 350), who doubts the location of Bernart in Acre: “L’exemplaire de Bruxelles contient une signature: «ce livre escrit Jean d’Acre» dont l’interprétation semble discutable (ne croirait-on pas qu’un tel nom n’aurait de sens et ne pourrait être employé qu’en dehors de la ville d’Acre).” Nicholas Coureas brought to my attention that historically, residents of Cyprus had the surname «of Jerusalem», «of Acre», or «of Jaffa», in order to denote their descent from people originating from Latin Syria. 194 Rebecca Corrie, “The Political Meaning of Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna and Child in Siena,” Gesta 29 (1990): 61–75, fig. 1; and eadem, “Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone and the Meaning of the Bare-Legged Christ Child in Siena and the East,” Gesta 35 (1996): 43–65, fig. 1. 195 Gertrude Coor-Achenbach, “A Visual Basis for the Documents Relating to Coppo di Marcovaldo and His Son Salerno,” The Art Bulletin 28 (1946): 233–47, esp. 234–35.

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Patrons & Clients in Outremer of Acre, then Ugo of Toulouse, Michele Stacius of Beirut and Bartholino of Tortosa, all residents of Famagusta.196 In any event, the illustrations of this Histoire Universelle and its related copies are again heavily dependent on French models. To be sure, illustrated versions such as the one “signed” by a certain Bernart d’Acre, pose a problem: were they written on location or elsewhere, for example in Paris or Cyprus? Production of the Brussels Histoire Universelle, which is recorded to have been in Cypriot possession during the fifteenth century, could also but not necessarily be shifted to the island after the fall of Acre in 1291, or even in the early fourteenth century.197 Regarding the “personalities” of the patrons of, for example, the Histoires Universelles in Dijon and Brussels, Buchthal claims that “They were produced for «connoisseurs» who belonged to the native nobility, and the character of their illustrations is in keeping with the small literary merits of the texts: it reflects the crude taste and the mediocre education of the military caste for which this unpretentious compilation was intended.”198 I am inclined to think that this passage reflects Buchthal’s own ideas of the military caste at his time. Anyway, his conclusion fails to consider the complex nature of the new historiographical prose as the testimony of a novel aristocratic experience in thirteenthcentury France since the reign of King Philip-Augustus (1165–1223).199 Further on, it will become obvious in the next paragraphs that the literary taste of knights and noblemen in Outremer depended very much on imported products.

196 Peter Edbury, “The Genoese Community in Famagusta,” 240–41. 197 For the Cyprus location, see Marie Paul H. Meyer, Les premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne (Paris, 1885), 1–81; Hill, History of Cyprus, 3: 1141, n. 2: “We have had occasion to mention certain manuscripts connected with Cyprus, but there is no evidence of the existence of any sort of school of illumination in the island.” Camille Gaspar and Frédéric Lyna, Les principaux manuscrits à peintures de la Bibl. Royale de Belgique (Paris: Société Française de Reproductions de Manuscrits à Peintures, 1937), 1: 247–51, describe a MS. of the first half of the fourteenth century (no. 10175) which was in the possession of a member of the Lusignan royal family in 1432. The older miniatures have a pronounced Byzantine character, but there is nothing to prove that they were painted in Cyprus.” See also Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 70, where he remarks regarding the Brussels Histoire Universelle that “neither the script nor the style of the miniatures is advanced enough to justify its attribution to the fourteenth century, and thus to a hypothetical Latin scriptorium in Cyprus, as previously proposed,” referring to Sir George Hill, as cited above. He continues in his note 2 (p. 70): “Those scholars who favoured the later date considered Bernard as a survivor of the massacre of 1291, who wrote the manuscript while in exile in Cyprus. However, it is more reasonable to assume that he worked in Acre itself, and that the completed manuscript found its way to Cyprus.” Codicological and palaeographical analyses may provide better data. 198 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 97, also quoted and then challenged by Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 408–9 (my emphasis). 199 See Spiegel, Romancing the Past, 11–55, and passim.

Patrons & Clients in Outremer The potential mix of commissioners on Cyprus includes, of course, active and retired crusaders, and French and Italian clients of the mélange who were not directly, or immediately involved with any crusade activities —all of them reading in French vernacular, the lingua franca at the time in Outremer and also in Cyprus.200

First among the thirteenth-century sources providing information as to the literary consumption and taste at the time in Outremer, including Cyprus, are the Continuations of the chronicle of William of Tyre.201 According to Gilles Grivaud, the historical thought that William of Tyre had begun disappeared in the Continuations, which can be considered works of popularization intended for a large readership. Yet their literary content permits us to discern society’s taste, for certain texts show the characteristics of lay culture present in Philip of Novara and the Templar of Tyre. Thus they reveal the use of proverbs, the defense of the feudal code of ethics, the current discourse for dramatizing the account, the direct intervention of the author by way of criticism or advice, and the recourse to rhymed verse to amplify the expressions of emotions. In the thirteenth century their composition evolved in the direction of narrative accounts, close to annals.202

Then there is the Livre de forme de plait, a legal treatise by Philip of Novara (c. 1200–1270),203 the Livre des saintes paroles et des bons faiz de nostre saint roy Looÿs (The Life of Saint Louis) by John of Joinville (1224–1317), the third part of the early fourteenth-century Gestes des Chiprois, known as the Chronique du Templier de Tyr, and the travelogue of the German pilgrim Ludolph of Sudheim (c. 1340).204 Among the clients who could have been interested in these books and also could have afforded such a purchase, in all likelihood including the illustrated Histoires Universelles, were the members of the nobility and the knights,205 followed by notaries, lawyers, and perhaps merchants.206 Since the late twelfth century they “acquired a status that conferred nobil200 Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 161–62; idem, “La littérature française dans les états latins de la Méditerranée orientale à l’époque des croisades: diffusion et création,” in idem, Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion (Northampton: Variorum Reprints, 1989), 2: 618–20. Edbury, “Franks,” 63–64: “French was the language of government and the courts.” 201 Gilles Grivaud, “Literature,” in Cyprus: Society and Culture, 1191–1374, 241– 44; Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 165–66. 202 Grivaud, “Literature,” 240 (my emphasis). 203 Peter W. Edbury, ed., Philip of Novara: Le livre de forme de plait (Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 2009). 204 Grivaud, “Literature,” 240–44. 205 Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 116: “Individuals belonging to the upper ranks of the Frankish nobility could clearly afford luxury manuscripts, as implied by their wealth.” 206 References to specific notaries and merchants in Cyprus are not as manifold as compared with Acre before 1291. See Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 618. However, we may assume that many of these

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Patrons & Clients in Outremer ity,” and I should like to add that according to Philip of Novara, in the thirteenth century “many of the knights had left the fighting to go to their estates and fly their falcons.”207 Who were these clients? A closer look at the literary flavor and the circulation of French books in Outremer may be illuminating. To my knowledge, David Jacoby delivers the most comprehensive list of French books and their owners both in Acre and Cyprus in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.208 A preeminent source in this respect is the testimony of Philip of Novara (c. 1200–1270), an Italian nobleman and knight who lived and wrote in Cyprus.209 He reports that, during the siege of Damietta between May 1218 to November 1219, encouraged by his noble Cypriot employer Pierre Chappe in the presence of the eminent lawyer Raoul de Tabarie or Tibériade, he read aloud passages of a roman as an after dinner entertainment.210 Jacoby states that il n’est donc guère surprenant que les références à Raoul, ainsi qu’à d’autres juristes de renom figurent dans le traité de droit féodal composé plus tard par Philippe de Novare. La parenté entre la littérature chevaleresque et le droit féodal est manifeste. Ils procèdent du même milieu, s’adressent au même public, et leur diffusion s’opère par des vois identiques. C’est bien ce que prouve la transmission de la littérature française vers les états latins de la Méditerranée orientale à l’époque des croisades.211

207 208 209

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went to Cyprus even before the looming demise of the Acre, and, of course, after its fall. For Acre see Jacoby, “Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” passim, and esp. 89–92, referring to the activity of Venetian, Genoese, and Pisan merchants. Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 117: “However, when we consider the production of illuminated manuscripts in Acre, we should also take into account two weighty factors that have been overlooked so far, namely, the differing quality of manuscripts and the purchasing power of their prospective buyers. Some knights and commoners, such as lawyers, with fairly modest means, compared with those of the higher nobility, were surely content to own manuscripts only sparsely decorated” (my emphasis). I assume that the last statement is equally valid for Cyprus. See also my page 55 regarding William of St. Stephen, a Hospitaller knight and lawyer in Acre. Edbury, “Franks,” 78, 82–84; Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 163–64. Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 617–46. See also Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” passim. For his major works, the Des quatre âges de l’homme: traité de moral and Le livre de forme de plait, see Marcel de Freville, ed., Des quatre âges de l’homme: traité de moral de Philippe de Novare (Paris: Didot, 1888), and Edbury, ed., Philip of Novara: Le livre de forme de plait. Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 617; Elspeth Kennedy, “The Knight as Reader of Arthurian Romance,” in Culture and the King: the Social Implications of the Arthurian Legend, ed. Martin B. Shichtman and James P. Carley (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 70–90. On the medieval custom of reading, see Paul Saenger, “Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society,” Viator 13 (1982): 367–414, idem, Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997); Franz H. Bäuml, “The Oral Tradition and Middle High German Literature,” Oral Tradition 1/2 (1986): 398–445; D. H. Green, “Orality and Reading: The State of Research in Medieval Studies,” Speculum 65 (1990): 267–280. Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 618 (my emphases).

Imports & Productions on Location Jacoby continues: Il n’est donc guère surprenant de retrouver également, dans le même cadre, la littérature chevaleresque d’Occident. Les trouvères, troubadours, jongleurs et ménestrels accompagnant les armées occidentales ont contribué à sa diffusion en Méditerranée orientale. Dans certains cas, cette diffusion s’est opérée par voie orale, grâce à la récitation ou à la lecture à haute voix. C’est toutefois la transmission matérielle qui a joué le rôle le plus important. La présence de livres, même temporaire, a permis au public chevaleresque de prendre connaissance d’œuvres rédigées en Occident ; elle en a également favorisé la copie et la diffusion.212

Imports & Productions on Location This is, then, the place to mention the well-known testament of Eudes, Count of Nevers who arrived in 1265 in the Holy Land. In the inventory of his will after his death in 1266, we find among other books, a chansonnier and two works, also in the vernacular, important enough to be mentioned separately. One of these works was a romanz de la terre d’outre mer, a French version of the Latin chronicle of William of Tyre covering the history of the Latin kingdom from its inception till 1184, or a vernacular chronicle covering the same period and extending into the thirteenth century. In all likelihood it was a European version of this text. We may surmise, therefore, that the second book of distinction left by Eudes, the romanz des Loheranz, perhaps the roman de Garin le Loherain, had also been brought from Europe. Its presence in Acre is of special significance in our context. The late twelfth-century epic exalts the virtues of the knight, his military prowess, as well as his loyalty to his lineage and his fellow warriors. Like many other twelfth- and thirteenth-century romances it abounds in descriptions of adventures, combat, hunting and lavish feasts.213

Of course, we do not know whether these books were illustrated. Further on, it is difficult to determine where exactly, for example, the romanz de la terre d’outre mer was written? David Jacoby underscored the complexity and fallibility of interpretation in this respect. Since it is a crucial aspect of the type of research addressed in this book, I should like to quote his caveat in full: L’usage du terme Outremer pour désigner le Levant ne prouve pas nécessairement que le livre appartenant à Eudes ait été rédigé en Orient: on ne peut guère savoir si le notaire qui dressa l’inventaire des biens du comte a trouvé la mention ‘romanz de la terre d’outre mer’ sur la couverture ou la feuille de garde du manuscrit, ou encore en tête du texte. Dans le premier et le second cas, cette mention aurait été le fait d’Eudes de Nevers ou d’un propriétaire antérieur du volume; dans le troisième cas, elle serait due au copiste, et l’origine occidentale de l’exemplaire d’Eudes semblerait confirmée. Il ne faut toutefois pas exclure une autre hypothèse: le notaire, originaire d’Occident, n’a trouvé aucune indication concernant le livre et, de sa propre initiative, l’a intitulé ‘romanz de la

212 Ibid., 620 (my emphases). 213 Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 165 (my italics). See also Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 620–21. The notary who administered Eudes’ testament valued these three books with 31 bezants (ibid., 623).

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Patrons & Clients in Outremer terre d’outre mer’ après en avoir examiné le contenu. En définitive, il n’est guère possible d’établir, sur la foi de cette mention, si Eudes de Nevers avait amené sa copie d’Occident ou s’il l’avait acquise à Acre.214

However, after these concerns Jacoby expressed “fortes présomptions en faveur de l’origine occidentale du volume,” taking into account that the before mentioned Pierre Chappe had brought with him various romans from Cyprus to relish during his expedition to Egypt.215 Further evidence of French imports in Outremer is provided by the Dominican Humbert of Romans (1190/1200–1277) and the troubadour Rutebeuf (c. 1245–1285) in his Complainte d’Outremer of 1266.216 I do agree with Jacoby when he writes: La littérature française d’outremer reste étrangère à l’Orient, tout comme la classe qui l’a produite et absorbée. L’optique occidentale de cette classe s’exprime clairement dans un poème rédigé en 1291 ou peu après par le Templier de Tyr. Quand celui-ci loue l’île de Chypre qu’il habite, il ne se réfère nullement à l’Orient, mais bien à l’Occident. Chypre, dit-il, C’estoit le plus aize païs C’on seüst de si à Paris.217

In any event, most of these and other accounts focus on French imported books for private edification, propaganda and “collective self-identification” and their copies made in Outremer — the latter possibility is very difficult to determine.218 Whether these included illuminations remains in the dark. In sum, we may safely assume that more or less precious books, their quality depending on the social status of their owners, were taken on the journey to the Holy Land for private consumption with strong moral undertones, and edification. Exceptions granted, there was no reason for written sources to mention books that were being produced ad hoc while travelling, or during a longer sojourn.219 However, we know that Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285) had “historians” and scribes in his entourage. They recorded in words and (scarce) images the immediate history of his war campaigns—in all likelihood, a one-man enterprise.220 Further on, it is well known that Bibles and other mobile pictorial material “on wheels” were used by the Franciscan William of Rubruck in order

214 215 216 217 218 219 220

Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 621. Ibid. Ibid., 622. Ibid., 646. Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 166. See Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 165. See Jens T. Wollesen, “A Pictorial Speculum Principis: The Image of Henry II in Cod. Bibl. Vat. Ottobonensis lat. 74, fol. 139v,” Word & Image 5 (1989): 85–120.

Imports & Productions on Location to support and literally to illuminate his Mongol mission.221 It is a lesser known fact that when he ran out of book gifts, he produced a book on the spot, apparently without illustrations.222

Let me now step up from the level of knights, noblemen and lawyers to the highest echelon of French aristocracy in Outremer. We know that King Louis IX “commissioned copies of books in the royal collection to take with him on the crusade, such as the Ordo of 1250, or the so-called Register F from 1247, a copy of a so-called Register E.”223 However, these books were of an administrative kind and not meant for his spiritual edification or devotion. We also know that the king provided himself with a number of necessary service books, but again and for good reasons the sources only mention those not for his personal use, inter alia those to be sent to the Mongol Khan Güyük (c. 1206–1248), to persuade him of the virtues of the Christian faith and to win him as an ally. On a royal level, and especially for the first half of the thirteenth century, prestigious and above all innovative manuscript productions — such as the so-called Bibles Moralisées 221 Christopher Dawson, ed., The Mongol Mission. Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Sheed and Ward: New York, 1955); see also Weiss, Saint Louis, 146–47, and Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 17. Peter Jackson, in The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke, 1253– 1255 (London: Hakluyt Society: 1990), 116–17, chapters 15: 5–6 of Rubruck’s account, “Sartach’s Court and His Splendour”: (5) “The following day he sent instructions that I was to come to court bringing with me the King’s letter, the liturgical items [capella] and the books, as his master wishes to see them. We obeyed, loading up one wagon with the books and the ornaments and another with bread, wine and fruit. Then he had all the books and vestments displayed [explicari], while a great many Tartars, Christians and Saracens surrounded us on horseback. (6) I myself put on the more expensive vestments, and held against my breasts on a very fine cushion, the Bible you had given me, and a most beautiful psalter given me by the lady the Queen, containing very fine illuminations. My colleague took the missal and the cross, while the clerk, dressed in a surplice, took the thurible.” For the letter from king Louis IX, see Jackson, Rubruck, 118, where Rubruck writes: “I presented your letter to him, with copies in Arabic and Syriac, as I had had translations made at Acre into each language and script.” 222 See Jackson, Rubruck, 135, chapter 22: 3, “The Journey to the Court of Mangu Chan”: “They did a good deal to comfort us, bringing comos for us to drink and sometimes meat to eat. I was greatly distressed when they asked us for books and I had none I could give them, since the only ones I had were the Bible and the breviary. So I told them, «Bring us parchment [cartas], and I shall write things out for you as long as we are here». They did so, and I copied down for each of the two the Hours of the Blessed Virgin and the office for the dead.” 223 For a summary of this argument, see Weiss, Saint Louis, 146. Register E was already used by Louis IX’s predecessor, Louis VIII. See also Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 629, where he mentions that Prince Edward of England carried copies of Lancelot, Tristan and Palamedes with him.

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Patrons & Clients in Outremer written in Latin or Old French with focus on their pictures — were entrusted to secular Parisian workshops with an extraordinary output for an exclusively royal clientele. The question here is whether the royals in Outremer — Louis IX, his wife, the queen mother or, equally important, their spiritual advisors (an entirely neglected issue) — carried a Bible moralisée with them. Lowden has good reasons to assume that the OxfordParis-London Bible moralisée originally was a gift from Queen Blanche to Marguerite of Provence, the wife of King Louis IX, and later on “was one of the gifts intended to strengthen the newly warm familial bonds between France and England, between 1254 and 1259.”224 Where was the book in the early 1250s? To explain we must again enter treacherous artistic-stylistic territory and there encounter Hugo Buchthal, who claims that among the Arsenal Bible’s models “was a royal manuscript similar to the Bible moralisée.”225 He is seconded by Daniel Weiss, who asserts without evidence that the Oxford-Paris-London edition of the Bible moralisée was commissioned by Queen Blanche of Castile to accompany her son Louis IX on the crusade.226 Finally, Jaroslav Folda “made the intriguing suggestion that the much greater wear and tear visible in Bodley 270b might have been the result of the queen’s taking only that volume with her.”227 These are pure conjectures. To recapitulate, these productions — which is at least true for the earliest surviving Bible moralisée, the Vienna 2554 from the early 1220s — were not at all concordant with so-called “Paris University standards.”228 In any event, we may safely assume that many types of religious and, above all, secular books for personal use formed an integral part of the carry-on luggage of the crucesignati, i.e. pilgrims, clerics, knights, lawyers, and troubadours.229 In so doing, we

224 Lowden, Bibles moralisées, I, 186. See also Christoph T. Maier, “The Bible moralisée and the Crusades,” in Marcus Bull and Norman Housley, eds., The Experience of Crusading, vol. 1, Western Approaches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 209–22. 225 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 54–68. Lowden, Bibles moralisées, 1:186, adds: “It is true of all the surviving Bibles moralisées that they seem to have had remarkably little art-historical «influence». They were not generally accessible to artists or used as models, except when it came to make further Bibles moralisées, which is why a case like the Arsenal Bible stands out.” 226 Daniel H. Weiss, “The Three Solomon Portraits in the Arsenal Old Testament and the Construction of Meaning in Crusader Painting,” Arte medievale 6 (1992): 15–38, esp. 26–27. See also Lowden, Bibles moralisées, 1:186. 227 Lowden, Bibles moralisées, 1:186, referring to queen Marguerite of Provence. 228 Lowden, Bibles Moralisées, 2:200, and my page 129. According to Lowden, Bibles moralisées, 1:9, “the Bibles moralisées stand outside all norms of medieval book production.” 229 See Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 164–74. Krinije Nelly Ciggaar, “Manuscripts as Intermediaries: The Crusader States and Literary Cross-Fertilization,” in Krinije Nelly Ciggaar, A. Davids, and H. Teule, eds., East and West in the Crusader States: Context – Contacts – Confrontations I: Acta of the congress held at Hernen Castle in May 1993, Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta 75 (Louvain: Peeters Publishers, 1996), 147–48.

Imports & Productions on Location assume that books then being produced in Outremer were copies from the existing French stock repertory. Or can one believe that they must have had very special contents and functions that were profoundly distinct from imported home productions? What were these putative books and who was their intended audience? Can we count the Histoire Universelle editions in Brussels, Dijon and London among these novel products especially made for clients in Outremer on location? Were they written and illuminated in France and then exported? Were there merchants among these clients? Folda, based on Aryeh Grabois, groups the “manuscripts known to have been done in Acre for secular clients” in the following categories: “religious books, translations of Greek and Roman classics, legal texts, historical works, and Chansons de Geste and Romans.”230 According to Folda, “it is the historical works that constitute the most substantial corpus so far identified from Acre.”231 However, was this “substantial corpus” available in Acre or produced in Acre? What need would justify the production of books such as the Histoire Universelle or the Livre de César for the rather ephemeral and temporary clients in Acre or Cyprus? Further on, were they conceived for their private pleasure in Outremer, or were they directed toward an audience away from their place of origin, such as France, Italy, or the Lusignan kingdom of Cyprus? To some extent, they matched — even more than the romanz — the ad hoc experience and needs of their commissioners on location. These needs were not only confined to literature read aloud in company, but also were part of cultural events ad festivities, of a cultural heritage and identity celebrated in Outremer. I further pursue this issue in my chapter “Art and Life.” The editions of the Histoire Universelle produced in Brussels, Dijon and London should give us some answers, since they are traditionally firmly connected with an Acre scriptorium. The next chapter focuses on the most splendid one preserved in London.

230 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 401, and n. 326. See Aryeh Grabois, “La bibliothèque du noble d’Outremer à Acre dans la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle,” Le Moyen Âge, 103 (1997): 53–66. 231 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 401 (my emphasis). He refers to the Histoires Universelles, the Livre de César, and William of Tyre’s History of Outremer.

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle

Among the many novel types of books testifying to the fashionable French taste for secular narrative and historiographical literature that emerged during the second half of the thirteenth century were the Histoire Universelle — an alias for the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César — and the French continuations of William of Tyre’s History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, also known as the Histoire d’Outremer.232 Let us focus on the former type of pseudo-historical narrative. The Histoires Universelles are a peculiar amalgamation of biblical texts, Greek mythology and Roman history which, according to Buchthal, were “intended for a lay public with just a smattering of education.” 233 Whatever Buchthal’s dismissive perspective, they established meaningful references and parallels between the ancient then and the modern medieval now, and, of course, were meant to instruct and entertain. Most significantly for our context, they were embellished with illustrations.234 Of special interest here are some redactions of the Histoire Universelle attributed to an Acre scriptorium, among them the version in the British Library in London which has received most of the art historical applause. From Lisa Mahoney’s perspective, the Histoire ancienne now in London is the key to understanding the fascination with—or, perhaps better, the function of—this particular literary genre in the Latin East. While in broad strokes much like the other versions made in Acre, it commands attention initially because the number and size of its miniatures and the amount of gold employed in them make it the most expensive copy of the Histoire ancienne that has come down to us.235

232 Meyer, Les premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne, passim, and Bianca Kühnel, “The Perception of History in Thirteenth-Century Crusader Art,” in France and the Holy Land, 162. 233 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 68. 234 Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, “Amazons and Crusaders: The Histoire Universelle in Flanders and the Holy Land,” in France and the Holy Land, 187. I borrow the concept of medieval modern(ism) from Marvin Trachtenberg, “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on Gothic Architecture as Medieval Modernism,” Gesta 39 (2000): 183–205, especially 184. 235 Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 31.

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle The Histoire Universelle (London, British Library, MS Add. 15268), entitled “Li livre des ansienes estoires,” is one of three manuscripts belonging to a putative “French group” that Buchthal assigns to Acre.236 He attributes what he thinks to be the oldest one, the so-called Dijon manuscript, to Acre “exclusively on the evidence of style,” and asserts that its miniatures “are products of the same scriptorium as the Arsenal Bible, and must be of about the same period.”237 Since the Arsenal Bible is traditionally dated to King Louis IX’s sojourn in Acre between the years 1250 to 1254, Buchthal situates the Dijon manuscript at “about” that time. He recognizes the second manuscript, now in Brussels, as the “sister manuscript” of the earlier Dijon version, and sees its “crude, pedestrian, and provincial” miniatures as a “slightly later copy in the same style,” offering “intrinsic evidence of its eastern origin; it has a scribe’s signature ce livre escrit Bernart dacre and several later entries to the effect that it belonged in the fifteenth century to Phoebus of Lusignan, a member of the royal family of Cyprus.”238 To my knowledge, the earliest mentioning of this Cypriot pedigree was published by Paul Meyer in 1885.239 236 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 68–93. Ibid., 69: “The cycle as a whole is basically the same in all manuscripts, but it is possible to distinguish two main varieties; one is French and the other Italian.” For Italian settlers in Acre and their predilection for French as a language — according to the testimony of the Venetian Martin da Canal — “la plus delitable a lire et a oire que nul autre” (see Jacoby’s “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 118). The online catalogue of the British Library reads: “Written probably in Italy, towards the end of the xiiith century.” For the latest discussion of the London Histoire Universelle, see Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” passim. 237 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 69 (my emphasis). Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, 562 (323), according to Buchthal, ibid., 148, of the third quarter of the thirteenth century. 274 fols., 37/23.5 cm, 50 miniatures. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 419–24. 238 For all citations see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 69. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 10175; Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 149, dates the manuscript c. 1270–80. 332 fols., 34.7/25 cm, 37 miniatures. Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 47, n. 9, adds: “Today the Dijon manuscript contains fifty miniatures, the one in Brussels, thirty-seven, and that in London, forty-three. The evidence of missing folia suggests the Brussels copy originally contained a total of thirty-eight miniatures, whereas the one in London had forty-eight. The miniatures in Dijon and Brussels are the width of a single column of text and in general about one-third its height, whereas those in the London manuscript are all between full and half page in size.” 239 As regards the Cypriot Lusignan location, I reproduce for the reader’s convenience the full footnote in Meyer, Les premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne, 49, n. 2: “Le ms. était encore en Chypre en 1423 et 1433, époque où ont été écrits sur le dernier feuillet de garde quelques memoranda non dépourvus d’intérêt historique, qui sont un curieux spécimen du singulier français qu’on écrivait alors dans ce pays. Les voici: «Le giosdi a .iij˚. gours de gunet .m.iiij. xxxij. de Crist, a oure de tierce enianta ma feme dam’ Ouzabia Uabina .j. filie, laquele a en soun noum Gaca de Lezenjan. Amen. Le mardi a .xxvj. gours dou mos d’agoust l’an de m.iiij.xxxij. de Crist fu batizé ma filie Gaca de Lezinian en la chapel dou roi moin ceniour, e la batiza, le roi Gaian, madame Ana, le counte de Triples, Poilou de Vival (?), le counçoul de Goannouvos (?), Frelois de Luzenian, S. Gac de Çafran, Oguet Çoudan, S. Gian Frangier (?), S. Gorge Gobert, le vesque des Grieus, la dame de Barut, la

The Case of the London Histoire Universelle As discussed earlier, David Jacoby rejects Buchthal’s interpretation of the colophon and remarks that: as a rule toponymic surnames indicate the city or region of origin, rather than the place of residence of their respective bearers. It would seem, therefore, that the scribe Bernard d’Acre did not work in Acre, but elsewhere, most likely in Cyprus, where the manuscript is attested in the fifteenth century.240

Contrary to his unfavourable quality judgment of the two Histoires in Dijon and Brussels, Buchthal then celebrates the third book, the London Histoire Universelle with its extant forty-three miniatures, as “a copy de luxe … of imposing size and with illustrations of an exceptionally high quality” 241 executed by “a master of unusual ability.” 242 Buchthal cautiously ascribes a date of 1286 to the book and highlights its “royal character.” 243 This would distance the London Histoire Universelle from its Dijon predecessor by more than thirty years. He then assumes that: The royal character of the manuscript is sufficiently pronounced to suggest at once that it may have belonged to a member of the house of Antioch-Lusignan, the royal family of Jerusalem and Cyprus. Once its exact date is established, it should be possible to connect it with a particular member of that family, and perhaps also with the special event it was intended to commemorate. If its origin at Saint-Jean-d’Acre is accepted, the fall of the city in 1291 provides a clear terminus ante quem.244

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242 243 244

feme de S. Pier de Carpas e le mestre … S. Cava (?). Amen. Le lioundi a .xxviij. gours dou mos de cetenbre l’an de l’incarnacioun nostre Ceignour Jezucrist .m.iiija oune oure dou gour, enfanta ma seme dam’ Ouzabia Babina .j. filie laquele a eu noum Linnor de Luzegnan. Amen».” Meyer continues in the same note: “Celui qui a écrit ces notes devait être un personnage important de la cour de Cypre, pour que sa fille ait été tenue sur les fonts baptismaux par le roi de Cypre Janus ou Gian et par la fille de celui ci, Anne de Lusignan. Il est bien vraisamblable que c’était le fils naturel du roi Janus, ce Phoebus de Lusignan, seigneur de Sidon, que l’on sait avoir eu une fille nommé Eléonore (Du Cange, Famille d’Outremer, 439); — Ce qui précède était imprimé lorsque mon confrère M. de Mas Latrie m’a rappelé qu’il avait édité ces même notes dans la Bibliothèque de L’École de chartes, XXXV (1874), 138–39. Il ne pensait pas alors qu’elles fussent de Phébus de Lusignan, mais depuis, dans sa Généalogie des rois de Chypre (1881, dans l’Archivio Veneto) et dans les Mélanges historiques (coll. des documents inédits), IV, 366, il a exprimé l’opinion à laquelle j’étais arrivé de mon côté lorsque je croyais ces notes inédites.” Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 119. This judgement is then reiterated by Maraszak, Étude du manuscrit 562, 95: “On relève dans son colophon la signature du scribe «Bernart dacre», mais, comme le fait remarquer Jaroslav Folda, cette mention ne preuve en rien l’appartenance du manuscrit au scriptorium d’Acre. Il est envisageable qu’un scribe originaire de Saint Jean d’Acre, et influencé par les projets artistiques et culturelles de la capital du Royaume Latin, ait ensuite voyagé et copié le manuscrit a Chypre par exemple” (my emphasis). See also page 82. Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 70. London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, dated by Buchthal, ibid., 150, to c. 1285. 314 fols. 37/24.7 cm, 43 miniatures. Its “imposing size” is almost identical to that of the Dijon manuscript. Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 79. Ibid., 86. Ibid., 86 (my emphasis); Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 382.

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle He then links the book to the Lusignan king Henry II (1270–1324). Henry II was crowned king of Cyprus in Santa Sophia in Nicosia on June 24, 1285, and subsequently crowned king of Jerusalem in Tyre on August 15, 1286, roughly two weeks after he captured Acre. He then celebrated both his triumph and coronation in Acre. Buchthal summarizes the festive events of this coronation as reported in the Gestes des Chiprois: After the ceremony the court returned to Acre, and there held a fortnight of festivity. The most splendid pageantry the Holy Land had seen for a full hundred years was staged: a mockery to anyone who could have foreseen what was to happen only five years later. There were games and tournaments; and representations from various chansons de geste were performed in the Great Hall of the Auberge of the Hospital. The knights of Acre enacted scenes from the Story of the Round Table, and the tale of the Queen of the Amazons, from the Romance of Troy: “c’est assaver chevaliers vestus come dames qui josteent ensemble…; et contrefirent Lanselot et Tristan et Pilamedes, et mout d’autres jeux biaus et delitables et plaissans.”245

Buchthal then concludes with a remarkable series of conjectures: If it is also borne in mind that the British Museum manuscript is probably a royal dedication copy which may have been produced to celebrate a special event, it is tempting to connect it with the festivities of 1286; it is perhaps not too bold to argue that it was presented to King Henry by the military aristocracy of Acre on the occasion of his coronation, and to commemorate the pageantry staged in his honour.246

The outcome of Henry II’s war campaign in Acre only became apparent after July 1286. Still according to Buchthal the commission and production of the London Histoire Universelle could not have taken more than two weeks! In all likelihood to justify this extremely short production time, Folda claims that the “workshop organization for this project introduced something we see in Acre for the first time,” intimating that “the head of the workshop for this large and important project employed several painters, perhaps as many as eight or nine, perhaps as few as five or six.”247 After these conjectures, Folda turns Buchthal’s hypothetical narrative into hard fact, assigning the miniatures of the London Histoire Universelle to the Hospitaller, or Paris-Acre Master, and writes: “It is surely not without some significance in this regard that the mainland

245 Buchthal Miniature Painting, 86. Many more examples of similar festivities in Jacoby, “Knightly Values,“ 166 –74. 246 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 86–87 (my emphases). Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 382. 247 Both quotations are from Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 423. The estimated number of artists involved then magically rose to nine, according to Elizabeth Morrison, in Elizabeth Morrison and Anne D. Hedemann, Imaging The Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250 –1500 (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 2010), 103: “As many as nine artists worked together on this manuscript, perhaps it was intended as a gift for a particular occasion with a rapidly approaching deadline” (my emphasis).

The Case of the London Histoire Universelle barons would, even in 1286, turn to Acre for the execution of a sumptuous Histoire Universelle codex to be given to Henry II of Lusignan as a coronation gift.” 248

In his analysis of the stylistic elements of the London Histoire Universelle Buchthal finds what he understands as a “superficial blending” of French and Byzantine styles and emphasizes that “the Byzantine element, especially obvious in the Genesis miniatures, is now derived from a new style, which appears at Constantinople only after the middle of the century, with the restoration of a Greek dynasty to the imperial throne.”249 He claims that “it is certainly no accident that the closest parallels to this style are miniatures which were copied in the early Palaeologan period from tenth-century models, such as the Vatican copy of one of the masterpieces of the «Macedonian Renaissance», the Paris Psalter gr. 139.”250 In spite of its uncertain date, Folda assigns a very special position to this Histoire Universelle in respect to otherwise undocumented workshop procedures. He first claims that “the production of this latter codex was a major event in the history of manuscript illumination in Acre,”251 a history, however, entirely based on conjecture. Secondly he emphasizes, specifically concerning the London Histoire Universelle but without any substantiation, that: It appears that the artists were organized according to their specialties and there was a division of labour among the painters according to those components for which they were responsible. This suggests that the head of the workshop for this large and important project employed several painters, perhaps as many as eight or nine, perhaps as few as five or six. … As it appears here, the headmaster must have organized the team, established the plan for the cycle, provided the instructions, whether verbal, written, or visual, for each miniature, and supervised the process in order to make it possible to complete the project in a timely fashion. The purpose of introducing this kind of division of labour was probably intended not only to make the process of a major project like this one possible, but also to be able to manage the time required so that a large and complex cycle could be executed efficiently in a minimal amount of time. As research goes forward on this manuscript we can evaluate the possibility of this rather new and sophisticated approach to the organization of labor among the members of the workshop. Clearly very few extant manuscripts from the latter part of the thirteenth century from anywhere in the medieval world would suggest an approach like this, much less the case in Acre.252 248 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 118, (my emphasis). However, on page 77 he more cautiously writes: “Probably commissioned as a gift to honor the coronation of Henry II of Lusignan in August of 1286…”. 249 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 84 (my emphasis). This would be after the reconquest of Constantinople in 1261. 250 Buchthal, ibid., 84. Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” passim, and esp. 42–46, gives a more precise analysis of these deliberate Byzantine references in an otherwise western setting. 251 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 419. 252 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 423.

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle This hypothetical narrative should be confronted with Jonathan Alexander’s caveat when he remarks: “The nature of the illuminator’s workshop or atelier in this later period remains problematic, and still has not been the subject of sufficient detailed study,” and “But what is meant by «associates», or «workshop», or «school», or «atelier» — terms which are so often used? Deriving from evidence of the later practices of monumental artists in the Renaissance, they are not necessarily applicable to medieval illuminators’ practices, and more recently skepticism has grown as to their appropriateness.”253

Another peculiarity, one that draws the greatest attention from recent art historical scrutiny, should briefly be discussed here, because, according to Folda and others, it clinches the production of this manuscript in Acre: it is the depiction of Muslim dancers, musicians and audience in the top frame of a full-page miniature based on Genesis iconography (pl. 3).254 In Elizabeth Morrison’s words: “It is the border that surrounds the image of the Creation that has made this frontispiece one of the most intriguing and problematic images created in the Latin East,”255 and in similar superlatives Barbara Zeitler claimed earlier that the decoration of this page “is one of the most intricate, but also one of the most enigmatic, illuminations to have survived from the Latin East.”256 No doubt, the insertion of this cheerful fête champêtre reveals both the wishes of the patron and the illuminator’s familiarity with similar pictorial subjects derived from various Muslim sources, such as damascene metal ware, ivories, textiles, and manuscripts.257 253 Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, 127 (my emphasis). 254 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plate 83; Zeitler, “Falsifiers,” passim; Morrison and Hedeman, “Imaging the Past in France,” plate 4a, p. 102, passim; and most recently Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” passim. 255 Morrison and Hedeman, “Imaging the Past in France,” 103; she continues on the same page: “The frame, an element absent in earlier Acre copies of the text, depicts hybrid animals, scenes from a hunt, and, along the top, a Muslim dignitary being entertained by a dancing girl, along with male and female musicians. The motifs of the frame resemble aspects of luxury Islamic goods, such as metalware and ivories, with depictions of similar pastimes” (my emphasis). 256 Zeitler, “Falsifiers,” 25. 257 For the metalware with references to the motifs on the London Genesis page see Laura T. Schneider, “The Freer Canteen,” Ars Orientalis 9 (1973): 137–156; Eva Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983); Ranee A. Katzenstein and Glenn D. Lowry, “Christian Themes in Thirteenth-Century Islamic Metalwork,” Muqarnas 1 (1983): 53–68, passim, and Eva Hoffman, “Pathways of Portability: Islamic and Christian Interchange from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century,” Art History 24 (2001): 17–50, passim; Stefan Burkhardt, Margit Mersch, Ulrike Ritzerfeld, Stefan Schröder, “Hybridisierung von Zeichen und Formen durch mediterrane Eliten,” in Michael Borgolte, Julia Dücker, Marcel Müllerburg, and Bernd Schneidmüller, eds., Integration und Desintegration der Kulturen im europäischen Mittelalter, Europa im Mittelater 18, Abhandlungen und Beiträge zur historischen Komparatistik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 467–557, esp. 523–44.

The Case of the London Histoire Universelle However, the prevailing theme of the three remaining parts of the frame is hunting and fighting. Hunting, similar to falconry, belongs to the royal, aristocratic entertainment par excellence, and was equally enjoyed in the East and the West, and Cyprus makes no exception.258 Pictures of hunting and jousting dominate the monumental decoration, for example, in the communal palace in San Gimignano in Italy, roughly around 1300, and mirror the chivalresque and aristocratic pride of the clients of that ambience.259 Whereas musicians and dancers in general represent the “good life” in the Eastern realm, William L. Hanaway states for the same (Persian) domain that “as a metaphor the hunt was employed by panegyric, lyric, and mystical poets,” and the hunting literature and poetry belongs to the “courts of princes.”260 He continues: “As an objective event the hunt is an integral part of the narrative poetry. As a concept, aspects or components of it are abstracted and used as the building blocks of poetry in praise of a patron.”261 It is tempting, as suggested by Katzenstein and Lowry, to interpret the marginal imagery of the London Genesis page with the Persian poetry of Asadi Tusi (d. 1071) who described the leisure after the hunt as follows: Then they retired to a garden for pleasure and feasting. First they cured their hangovers, then they set to feasting and music. … Goblets like moons in the hands of the drinkers were sprinkling the jewels of the Pleiades. The nobles were reclining on the meadow among the grasses, hyacinths, and jasmine, cups in their hands, their eyes fixed on dark-haired beauties, their ears attuned to nightingales.262

It seems that the garden theme had been of crucial importance in the London miniature. To my knowledge, it has been overlooked that the Genesis page of the London

258 Katzenstein and Lowry, “Christian themes,” 64 and passim; William L. Jr. Hanaway, “The Concept of the Hunt in Persian Literature,” Boston Museum Bulletin 69 (1971): 21–69, passim. For Cypriot nobles as “enthusiasts for falconry and hunting” see Edbury, “Franks,” 83–84, with reference to the report of the German canon and pilgrim Ludolph of Sudheim from c. 1340 on “how the nobles and knights, whom he claimed were the richest in the world, spent their entire income on hunting.” See also Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 163–64. 259 See C. Jean Campbell, The Game of Courting And the Art of the Commune of San Gimignano, 1290 –1320 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), passim. 260 Hanaway, “The Concept of the Hunt,” 22. For the western attitude regarding musical instruments as the “accessories of sin”, but also the case of William IX, Duke of Poitiers and Count of Aquitaine (1071–1126), a participant of the first crusade also known as the “troubadour” who adopted Arab metrics and musical themes, see Zeitler, “Falsifiers”, 36. 261 Hanaway, “The Concept of the Hunt,” 22. Hanaway (29) also mentions that “the medieval Persian poets employed the hunt in yet another manner: as a metaphor to convey a didactic lesson, amorous feelings, or a mystic message. Daqiqi (d. ca. 978), for example, uses the analogy of the hunt when he speaks of how one should go about seizing power.” 262 Katzenstein and Lowry, “Christian themes,” 64; Hanaway, “The Concept of the Hunt,” 24. Of course, this description of the rest after the hunt or battle with feasting and wine is not unique for Asadi Tusi, but continues well into the fifteenth century, see Hanaway, ibid., 26 ff.

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle Histoire Universelle (pl. 3) differs in a major aspect from the Dijon version (pl. 4): it does not conclude with the moralizing Expulsion from Paradise, but ends with the scene where Adam and Eve are introduced to the Garden of Eden. In all likelihood, the illustrator of the London Histoire Universelle intentionally emphasized this bucolic feasting aspect and drew back to metaphorical Muslim feasting, hunting and fighting motifs in order to celebrate and to illuminate his western courtly client, be it in Acre or Cyprus—who was equally indulging in jousting, hunting, and feasting. It should be added that depictions of Muslim protagonists are not exceptional. They occur many times, as in Alfonso el Sabio’s Cantigas and his Libro de Acedrex e Tablas from the 1280s, in Charles of Anjou’s translation of the Arabic text of Rhazez (fig. 7), or in the Arsenal Bible, perhaps about a generation earlier.263 Within this specific context this narrative and secular excursion is most remarkable. I would agree with the assumption that the patron of this manuscript had some special relationship with Muslim culture, as is also true for Alfonso el Sabio and Charles of Anjou. However, this does not mean that this manuscript was produced in Acre. It could also have been commissioned in Cyprus before or after the fall of Acre by some aristocrat immediately familiar with the Holy Land and as part of Hugh III’s or Henry II’s entourage. In this respect one also should consider the facts surrounding the fake Muslim present of the brass basin attributed to the court of Hugh IV which I refer to below.264 Finally, I should also like to mention the mingling of secular and religious images reminiscent of similar instances within the context of Books of Hours. I refer to the amalgamation of New Testament or calendar illustrations and somewhat odd secular marginal visualizations of daily business, such as bread baking, harvesting with erotic pleasures, or dancing scenes.265 On the one hand, the primary structure of the Creation page in the London Histoire Universelle is strongly related to its predecessors, especially to its sibling in Dijon Ms. 562; among other motifs both feature exceptionally draped Adam and Eve, which proves the availability of a common model.266 On the other, there

263 For the Cántigas in general see J. Guerrero Lovillo, Las Cántigas de Santa Maria: Estudio arqueológico (Madrid: C. S. I. C., 1949); Walter Mettmann, Alfonso X, o Sábio: Cantigas de Santa Maria (Coimbra: Acta Universitatis Conimbrigensis, 1959), vol. I; Israel Katz and John E. Keller, eds., Studies on the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Art, Music, and Poetry; Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X, el Sabio (1221–1284) in Commemoration of its 700 th Anniversary Year — 1981, New York, November 19–21 (Madison, Wisconsin: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1987). For the Arsenal Bible see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plates 73 and 75. 264 See page 143. 265 See for example, the Book of Hours in the Walters Art Museum, Ms 88, fols. 9v–10, the months of December (bread making and dough), and July (mowing, mowers flirting), early 14 th century, Belgium, probably Cambrai. For the discussion of marginal illustrations, see Camille, Image on the Edge, passim. 266 See Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plates 82a and 83.

The Case of the London Histoire Universelle is an intentional departure from that model which reflects both the versatility of the illuminator and the appreciation of the intended owner of the manuscript for Eastern pictorial narratives.

The London Histoire Universelle shows scarcely visible traces of two coats of arms on the frontispiece. Buchthal sees these as a later addition since “the colors used in these arms were not found elsewhere in the manuscript”.267 On the contrary, Mahoney claims that “the paints employed in these arms do show up in other miniatures — the blue as shading on Christ’s drapery on the same folio, and the gold paint, for example, on the loros of the queen of the Amazons.” Barbara Zeitler, then, abandons the royal Lusignan theme and claims that the book was most likely produced for a: Francophone Westerner of elevated social status. Most likely the initial owner was a member of the Levantine aristocracy, even though we cannot preclude the possibility that the manuscript, like the Arsenal Bible – if indeed it was made for Louis IX – was commissioned for someone who did not reside in the Latin East for long. Even though the first owner of this manuscript was probably a high-ranking member of the secular aristocracy, there is no reason to assume that a world chronicle, such as the Histoire Universelle, could not also have been made for a Western cleric living in the Levant.268

Her position favouring not a royal but an aristocratic commissioner, is shared by Lisa Mahoney: First, the presence of these particular coats of arms and the tangible value of this manuscript make it clear that this is an aristocratic but not a royal commission. The specifics of the who, however, are far less interesting than is his or her general character, which leads to the second observation. For our purposes, the most immediately relevant claim that can be made about the patron of this manuscript is that she or he had a long and substantive relationship to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.269

267 Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 46; Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 86. Buchthal adds in his footnote 1 to page 86: “This is the result of a careful technical investigation which Dr. Roosen-Runge, of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, kindly carried out for me: the colour pigment of the coat of arms (fuselé or et azur) are quite different from those of the miniature itself, and comparable to a few patches of colour in the drapery of the bust of Christ in the second medallion on the right, which can be clearly distinguished as a later addition. I am most grateful to Dr. Roosen-Runge for his generous help in this matter. It is not possible to say whether the two fields originally contained any arms at all; nor has it been possible to identify the coat of arms beyond doubt. I am much indebted to M. Y. Metman, of the Archives Nationales in Paris, for his efforts to settle this thorny question.” 268 Zeitler, “Falsifiers”, 30. See also Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 46. 269 Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 46.

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle Despite Zeitler’s criticism, and Mahoney’s opinion unknown to him, Folda still favours Henry II of Cyprus as the book’s patron— without, however ruling out that it was commissioned by “some other prominent noble at this time.”270 His words “at this time” are, in my opinion, crucial, since only the potential connection with the coronation of Henry II, preferred by Folda, could establish a more precise setting of “this time”, i.e. around 1286. Folda admits that: It must be candidly observed that the chronological anchor for these works is the relationship between the patronage of London Add. MS 15268 and the diplomatic gift to King Henry II that Buchthal first proposed. However, even if this attribution did not exist, the sequence of these codices would not change, and we could position them in the later 1280s albeit less securely, after Chantilly MS 433 (590) in 1282, and Brussels MS 10175. What is not possible in my view is the proposal made by Stahl to date the Paris-Acre Master’s three manuscripts – the second part of the MS fr. 10212—to the late 1270s or early 1280s.271

At this occasion and briefly joining the game of stylistic attributions,272 I should like to extend the gamut of possible patrons of the London Histoire Universelle and related books. There is one contender whose spectre appears erratically throughout the history of Outremer without, strangely enough, ever having been properly evaluated in our context: the seemingly perfect candidate, namely Charles I of Anjou (d. 1285). He was the brother of King Louis IX, and since 1277 King of Jerusalem. As a major player not only in the Latin west, but also in the eastern political theatre, he was King of Sicily and Albania, Count of Anjou, Provence, Forcalquier, and Maine, Regent of Achaea, Overlord of Tunis, and, last but not least, Senator of Rome.273 270 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 422. See also Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, 145. 271 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 434 (my emphasis). Harvey Stahl’s review of Folda’s Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 420, is an important critique of Folda’s stylistic evaluations and well exposes the volatility of stylistic evaluations. 272 In this respect, see the illuminating comment of Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 45–46: “Thus, style as such seems a weak point of reference in thinking about workshop practices.” 273 Comprehensive accounts of the life of Charles I of Anjou were written by Peter Herde, Karl I. von Anjou (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Urban-Taschenbücher, 1979), and Jean Dunbabin, Charles I. of Anjou: Power, Kingship and State-Making in Thirteenth-Century Europe (New York: Addison-Wesley Longman, 1998). See also Richard Sternfeld, Ludwig des Heiligen Kreuzzug nach Tunis und die Politik Karls I. von Sizilien (Berlin: E. Ebering, 1896). Mentioning of Charles I of Anjou in the Holy Land is scarce: Runciman, History of the Crusades, 329–30, 344–47; Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 374–78, devotes part of a chapter entitled “Gregory X, Charles of Anjou, and Baybars” to the Angevin king; however, there are no details regarding his sojourn in the Holy Land, except for the role of his bailli Roger of San Severino. See also Runciman, History of the Crusades, 345; Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The Crown of France and Acre, 1254–1291,” in France and the Holy Land, passim; Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, 135, 137 (the arrival of Charles I of Anjou on August 25, 1270 in

The Case of the London Histoire Universelle However, his degree of aptness as a potential patron of books in Outremer is seriously hampered by insufficient knowledge of his whereabouts in the Holy Land, and especially in Acre. Since Charles I of Anjou is so closely connected to Rome, his senatorial office there would help to explain the odd inclusion of two miniatures depicting a group of Roman senators in the London Histoire Universelle. These scenes have no counterparts in the “original illustration of the Histoire Universelle.”274 Buchthal goes to great lengths to describe the peculiar details of one of the senators: The most conspicuous figure among the senators in the Brutus miniature is the bearded man in the centre who is seen in strict frontality, looking straight at the beholder; he is bare-headed and his dress is not medieval like those of the others … The group in the second miniature also contains one person seen fully en face; he is clean-shaven and in thirteenth-century costume, but clearly derived from the same pictorial type as his colleague in the Brutus miniature. No other narrative illustration in our manuscript contains figures viewed frontally: they are at once reminiscent of similar heads in late Roman historical reliefs.275

However, the bearded man without senatorial attributes cannot be a senator, although the miniature’s text stipulates that he was meant to be one. After close scrutiny of the first miniature (pl. 5) we discern that the eyes of the frontally depicted face are not looking straight at the beholder but they look up like those of most of the other faces in that miniature. This observation is hampered by the fact that the illuminator’s faces are sketchy, rather stereotyped and do not show much care in execution (the right face on top is even missing one eye). Furthermore, little can be seen of that figure’s garb; it seems to be a simple tunic-like dress as worn, for example, by the figure on the far right of the assembly. Since this figure is not dressed like a senator, it is not one; and the Tunis, to support the crusade of his brother Louis IX who died shortly before his arrival), 140 (Charles I of Anjou involved to strike a truce with Baybars, 1272?), 141 (the death of Charles I of Anjou), 143 (“The commission for MS fr. 2628 may obviously have been stimulated by the rise to power of the king’s brother, Charles of Anjou in 1277, and the hope that a new crusade would produce similar victorious results”); Jonathan Riley-Smith, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 53 (Charles I leading the Italians, Provençals, and Angevins in the battle in Tunis 1270), 54 (Crusade expenses for Charles I of Anjou and others), 305 (Charles I and the Principality of Achaea); William Noel and Daniel Weiss, The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library’s Medieval Picture Bible (London: Third Millennium Publishing, 2002), 73 (1277, Charles I of Anjou as the saviour of the kingdom of Jerusalem, 1277); Tyerman, God’s War, 731 (Maria of Antioch sold her rights in Jerusalem to Charles of Anjou; the Templars opted for Charles of Anjou and his bailli, Roger of San Severino 1277–82), 812 (1270, Charles I arriving in Tunis, truce with Emir Muhammed, retreat to Sicily), 816 (persuaded by Pope Gregory X, Charles I takes the cross in 1275), 817 (Charles I of Anjou’s attempt to annexe the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1277), 818 (“The divisions of the west disrupted Outremer during Charles of Anjou’s attempt to wrest the kingship of Jerusalem from the kings of Cyprus (1277–85)”). 274 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 83. 275 Ibid. (my emphases).

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle two men with their ermine fur collars in the foreground are only dressed as patricians. The illuminator doubtlessly did not know how to depict senators. (The well-known statue of Charles of Anjou in Rome depicting him both as senator of Rome and King shows him beardless).276 There are, moreover, other figures in the London manuscript who are depicted with faces frontally looking out of the picture, such as King Ninus on fol. 16r, one of youths, partly obscured by other faces, on fol. 65v (“Coment iacob si mist a la voie por aler a ioseph son fiz”), the soldier in the top register on fol. 105 (the story of the Golden Fleece), the soldier on the right on fol. 122r (“Coment la royine pantisselee vint au secorz de troies”), and King Pirus on fol. 226r (“Coment le roi pirus vint en laye de cil de tarente et amena ses olifanz”). We know that Charles I of Anjou appreciated learned books, including those written by renowned Muslim authors. He is even considered to have owned the outstanding Morgan Picture Bible.277 Back in Rome, he also may have commissioned the Liber ystoriarum romanorum with its many miniatures based on authentic antique and specifically Roman models.278 The latter book reflects the use of antique history and refers to the antique (Roman) pictorial repertory in order to depict political ambitions and triumphs. Since Charles I of Anjou died in 1285, it appears that the London Histoire Universelle cannot be associated with him. This, however, does not exclude the book’s presence at the court of Henry II in Cyprus. The challenging inclusion of Charles I of Anjou, or of Roger of San Severino — his representative in Acre and bailiff of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1277 to 1282279

276 Martin Weinberger, “Arnolfo und die Ehrenstatue Karls von Anjou,” Studien zur Geschichte der europäischen Plastik : Festschrift Theo Müller zum 19. April 1965 (Munich: Hirmer, 1965): 163–72; Angiola Maria Romanini, Arnolfo di Cambio (Florence: Sansoni, 1980), 158–161, figs. 160–62; Marina Righetti, “Roma e la scultura federiciana,” Storia dell’Arte 34 (1978): 289–98; Valentino Pace, “Questioni arnolfiane: l’Antico e la Francia,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 54 (1991): 335–73, esp. 335–40 and figs. 1, 3. It is hard to see any relationship of this bearded figure with classical Roman sculpture. 277 Noel and Weiss, The Book of Kings, 13. 278 For the Liber ystoriarum romanorum see Tilo Brandis and Otto Pächt, Historiae Romanorum: Codex 151 in scrin. der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (Frankfurt: Propyläen Faksimile, 1974); Jens T. Wollesen, “Ut poesis pictura? Problems of Images and Texts in the Early Trecento,” Petrarch’s Triumphs: Allegory and Spectacle, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler and Amilcare A. Iannucci, University of Toronto Italian Studies, 4 (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1990), 183–210, esp. 201–2; and Ursula Nilgen, “Roma e le antichità romane nelle raffigurazione medievali,” in Roma antica nel Medioevo: Mito, rappresentazioni, sopravvivenze nella Respublica Christiana dei secoli IX–XIII (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2001), 449–66, passim. 279 Roger of San Severino (d. 1285) continued the alliance with Saif ad-Din Qalawun as-Salihi (1222– 1290), the sultan of Egypt, whom he knew and met personally. Qalawun, however, sacked the Hospitaller fortress of Margat in 1285. Roger left Acre in 1282 after the Sicilian Vespers in order to help Charles of Anjou in his war against the Aragonese in Italy. For the London Histoire Universelle

The Case of the London Histoire Universelle into the list of potential patrons or clients of this book is yet another hypothesis with no factual support. It is presented here mainly to question the bold narrative attributions of Buchthal and Folda. I do not favour the production of this manuscript in Acre, as explained in my chapter on the “Cyprus Connection.”280

One might also add that David Jacoby has drawn attention to the Roman de Troie and especially of the raine de Femenie, or the Amazons, and its potential political allusions in Acre, as featured in the Gestes des Chiprois.281 Both themes play a minor role in the Histoire Universelle. Similar observation were made by Derbes and Sandona who attempted to relate this theme not only to contemporary crusading ideology, but to a specific female Crusade patronage, also based on the assumption that these Histoires were produced in Acre.282

What remains is, in David Jacoby’s words, that “neither the attribution nor the dating of the manuscript is backed by direct or indirect evidence.”283 This also removes the London Histoire Universelle as proof for the existence of an Acre scriptorium. It could have been produced in France or more likely on Cyprus before or after the fall of Acre. In sum, there is no evidence that this or the other two Histoires Universelles were produced between 1270 and the 1280s in Acre. The result thus far of a critical assessment of the purported evidence is disconcerting. Evaluation of these books by both Buchthal and Folda through stylistic criteria has buckled, if not collapsed: none of the books thought to bear witness for prosperous Acre scriptoria as the testimony of a western royal presence, if not Crusader Art, has supported Buchthal or Folda. It seems that we are back at ground zero.

280 281

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seen as a “complicated and no doubt realistic picturing of the Frankish relationship to a Muslim population,” see Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 46. See page 159. Jacoby, “La Littérature française,” 631–33. According to Maraszak, Étude du manuscrit 562, 70, the quantitative distribution of themes can be broken down as follows: “Rome 36 %, Genesis 21 %, Alexander the Great 10 %, the history of Eneas 9 %, History of Thebes 7%, the Trojan War 7 %, the history of Persia, Judith and Esther 6 %, the history of Assyria 2 %, and the history of Greece and the Amazons 2 %.” Derbes and Sandona, “Amazons and Crusaders,” esp. 211–15, and passim. Whether, as claimed by Derbes and Sandona (210), “the ideological underpinnings of these three copies of the Histoire Universelle — the codices in Dijon, Brussels and London —corroborate their attribution to the crusader East,” is questionable (my emphasis). Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 116.

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The Case of the London Histoire Universelle Lacking any authority or validity other than the stylistic criteria, we are left with a book — the London Histoire Universelle — without a date or a commissioner, and without precise knowledge of its place of production. These uncertainties have repercussions regarding the production of its so-called predecessors today in Dijon and Brussels. I should now like to introduce two pictorial testimonies which may help to further elucidate the issue of Acre or Cyprus. The first is a huge panel painting with Saint Nicholas and scenes of his life.

The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria

The Saint Nicholas panel, with its mixed western and Byzantine elements on Cyprus, has been sporadically explored by various authors. Originally, the panel was venerated in the narthex of the monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Roof in Kakopetria (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis) in Cyprus (fig. 8, pls. 6–7).284 Measuring 203 × 158 cm, it is, according to Nancy Patterson Sˇ evcˇenko, “the largest Byzantine vita icon in existence.”285 I doubt that it belongs entirely within the category of Byzantine vitae icons in form and function. It is instead a hybrid, a western type of panel painting performing in “Greek.” An inscription in the centre panel’s figure refers to him as St. Nicholas “of the roof,” therefore the icon’s original place is this church. Further on, Patterson Sˇ evcˇenko argues: The vita here presents all the traditional Byzantine episodes, slightly altered, to be sure, in the retelling. But it also introduces a posthumous miracle known only from Latin sources, that of the three salted boys. It is capable of combining elements, then, not only from different written sources but also from two independent literary traditions, the Greek and the Latin. The result is a hybrid vita that would probably never have come into existence in written form, and would have had no place in

284 203 × 158 cm, painted with tempera, gold and silver leaf on wood primed with parchment and gesso. The Greek epithet inscribed on the panel leaves no doubt that the icon was made for Ayios Nikolaos, see Mouriki, “Moutoullas,” 210. For this and the following Nicosia Hodegetria panel see Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 370–379, and esp. 373, where she associates this icon with the 1280 date of the Moutoullas frescoes. For Saint Nicholas in general see Nancy Patterson Sˇevcˇenko, “The Vita Icon and the Painter as Hagiographer,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999): 145–65, esp. 159–60, figs. 20, 25–27. For Italian, especially Apulian examples, see Pina Belli d’Elia, ed., Icone di Puglia e Basilicata dal Medioevo al Settecento (Milan: Nuove edizione Gabriele Mazzotta, 1988), passim, and Valentino Pace, “Icone di Puglia, della Terra santa e di Cipro: Appunti preliminari per un’indagine sulla ricezione bizantina nell’Italia meridionale duecentesca,” in Il Medio Oriente, 181–91. Further on, Athanasios Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus (Nicosia: The Holy Archbishopric of Cyprus, 1992), figs. 32a, b; Sophocles Sophocleous, Icons of Cyprus: 7 th–20 th Century (Nicosia: Museum Publications, 1994), 89, cat. no. 26; The Glory of Byzantium, cat. no. 263 with colour reproduction fig. 263; Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 216–18, 222, 227, n. 49; Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 503–4. 285 Patterson Sˇevcˇenko, “The Vita Icon,” 159. See also Anthony Eastmond, “Local Saints, Art, and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade,” Speculum 78 (2003): 707–49, esp. 724–49, regarding St. Gregory the Illuminator.

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The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria the liturgy of either culture. Here it adorns and celebrates a specific Nicholas image located in a specific place, but its eclectic language serves to glorify a saint who can be venerated by all regardless of language, race or creed.286

This panel is now placed next to its “sister”panel of about equal size (203 × 156 cm). The latter shows a Hodegetria-type of Mary flanked by scenes from the church of Ayios Kassianos in Nicosia in the Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia on Cyprus, which I analyze in the next chapter.287 Here I do not evaluate the panel as a whole (a long overdue desideratum), but focus on a crucial visual component of the huge altarpiece representing Saint Nicholas and scenes from his life, that is to say the pictorial imprint not only of a crusader knight, but also of his wife and daughter. Folda dates the St. Nicholas panel “probably shortly after 1287.”288 In metaphorical terms, he then builds an art historical “bridge” between Acre and Cyprus on brittle stylistic supports, thus establishing a potential link between the Brussels Histoire Universelle (Bibliothèque Royale MS 10175, fol. 216v) with the already discussed reference to “Bernart the scribe of Acre” and the Kakopetria panel’s donor figure (pls. 6–7).289 In his words: The heraldry seen on the caparisoned horse that appears on this icon is also found in a miniature (fol. 216v) of a manuscript produced in Acre, the Histoire Universelle now in Brussels, MS 10175, and attributed to the 1270s, as we discussed it earlier. We have suggested elsewhere the possibility — obviously the rather slender possibility — that perhaps the same person who patronized the manuscript in the 1270s also commissioned the icon shortly before 1291.290

Let us accept for the moment the structural soundness of this figurative bridge. The devoutly kneeling and praying figures with their horses trailing behind and the red eagle symbols on both the knight’s and the king’s dress — meant to depict Alexander the Great in the Brussels miniature (fig. 9) — and the equine caparisons are the formal analogies that lead Folda to mount this potentially consequential connection. Folda recognizes the eagle emblem on the St. Nicholas panel as the coat of arms of the donor, a knight of the Ravendel family with his wife and daughter and an identifi-

286 Patterson Sˇevcˇenko, The Vita Icon,” 161–62 (my emphases). 287 Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus, fig. 31; The Glory of Byzantium, cat. no. 262; Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 111–12; Wollesen, Painters and Patrons on Cyprus, 86–88. See my chapter on the Nicosia cathedral panel. 288 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 504. 289 See my page 84. Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 118 n. 9. 290 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 504 (my emphasis). The location of the production of the Brussels Histoire Universelle in Acre is a speculation, not a fact.

The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria cation that has since become fact in current historical and art historical literature.291 For example, Annemarie Weyl Carr fully accepted the implications of Folda’s hypothesis: He is clearly a knight. His distinctive heraldry appears also in a richly illuminated manuscript that was produced in the 1280s in Acre. He must have come with other prominent knights from Acre to Cyprus when Acre fell in 1291, and it must have been at this time that he commissioned the icon of St. Nicholas. The icon is a curious work … no doubt the painter was a Cypriot.292

She further assures us that “the knight with St. Nicholas had appeared in an Acre manuscript in the 1280s and must have come to Cyprus only thereafter.”293

Certainly, doubts exist on various levels, for the issue is much more complex than it seems. What has to be addressed first is the complex context of both pictures. The Brussels Histoire Universelle miniature appears within a quasi-historical situation. It lacks any modern kind of accuracy or credibility. As well, the pseudo-heraldry of the Histoire Universelle is far from “distinctive”: caparisons and shields with eagle symbols and with single-headed eagles, whose heads are turned in either directions —d’argent à l’aigle étendu de gueules — occur in various Histoire d’Outremer and Histoire Universelle miniatures. Not only eagles, but lions as well decorate the shields and caparisons of Godefroi de Bouillon and Adhémar, bishop of Le Puy, on folios 16r and 40v of the Histoire d’Outremer in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Boulogne-sur-Mer, MS. 142; whereas Bohemund of Antioch and Raymond of Tripoli both sport the lion rampant emblem on folio 307v of the Histoire d’Outremer in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, MS fr. 9048.294 Contrary to this seemingly authentic pictorial information, Bohemund’s coat of arms is historically described as d’argent, à la branche de fougère de sinople, nouée d’or et renversée

291 Based on W. H. Rudt de Collenberg, “L’Héraldique de Chypre,” Cahiers d’héraldique 3 (1977): 137 ff. See Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 503–4, and especially Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 218, 227, n. 49, there “identified” as “Meillor de Raven(d)el or Ravendel a vassal of Bohemund VII of Tripoli who commanded the castle when Kalavun demanded its surrender in 1289.” However, in “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 227, n. 49, Folda adds a caveat: “It should be noted that D. T. Rice, The Icons, pp. 156–57, suggested that these arms might belong to the Sauli family, an Italian family from Genoa “who trace their pedigree back to an ancestor living in 1280.” But Rice (W.G. Constable and Talbot Rice, D., eds., The Icons of Cyprus (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1932)) offers no documentation and observes that this heraldry was used by about thirty families.” So the Ravendel identification stands on very precarious grounds. 292 Weyl Carr, “Lusignan Kings,” 242 (my emphases). See also Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 218. 293 Weyl Carr, “Lusignan Kings,” 243. 294 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, figs. 119, 122, 115.

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The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria en pal,295 and Godefroi de Bouillon’s coat of arms as d’argent, à la croix potencée d’or, cantonnée de quatre croisettes du même.296 Folio 105r of the Histoire Universelle in the Bibliothèque Municipale in Dijon MS. 562, fol. 70v (pl. 8) depicts “Coment polinices et thideus se combatirent por la place,” featuring, I assume, Polynices with the eagle on caparison and shield, and with the single eagles’ heads turned in either direction.297 However, the theme of this miniature, Adrastus’s dream as recounted in the Roman de Thèbes, which is part of this Histoire Universelle, describes the shields of Polynices and Thideus as covered with wild animal skins.298 Therefore, these and other emblems in this context can be only fanciful and fictitious, with one exception: the fleur-de-lys coat of arms, reserved for the house of the French kings. In sum, the knight’s “portrait” and his emblems in the Brussels Histoire Universelle cannot be used to either relate to or verify the identity of the Kakopetria panel’s donor.299

Let us now turn to the donor portraits of the St. Nicholas panel. By the sheer number of persons depicted they do not adhere to western patterns traditionally showing only one donor, or wife and husband together on opposed sides. Instead, the Kakopetria panel features a whole family: a crusader knight who leads his horse, and his wife and daugh-

295 Jean-Paul Migne, Nouvelle encyclopédie théologique: ou nouvelle serie de dictionnaires sur toutes les parties de la science religieuse (Paris: Aux ateliers catholiques, 1852), t. 32, 314. 296 The description is taken from the web site of the Musée de Versailles (Salles des Croisades, 1844): http://www.heralogic.eu/txt_bh1844crois_gdsal1.html (accessed 11 March, 2013). 297 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plate 105a. 298 Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, “The Earliest Developments of the French Novel: The Roman de Thèbes in Verse and Prose,” in A. Maynor Hardee and Freeman G. Henry, eds., The French Novel: Theory and Practice, French Literature Series 11 (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1984), 125–37. See also for the same scene in Paris BN fr. 20125, Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 101. These wild animals are, of course, the boar and the lion, since, according to the oracle, one of his two daughters was to marry a boar and the other a lion. Adrastus and his daughters Deïpyle and Argeia, with burning candles, are depicted in the Dijon scene. 299 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 422, when discussing the extensive depiction of heraldry in the London Histoire Universelle, writes: “For the most part the heraldry appears to be essentially imaginary, but the taste for such imagery is clearly a feature of this and other manuscripts done for the educated soldiery in the last years of manuscript production at Acre, as we have seen and shall continue to see” (my italics). See also ibid., n. 821, in a slightly different context, where, however, he admits that the “heraldry is a matter of fantasy,” such as in “the History of Outremer by William of Tyre illustrated in Northern France in the third quarter of the thirteenth century.” See also Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 101, where he writes that “compared to the heraldry we have seen by the Hospitaller Master this series of shields and charges in MS. 20125 is tantalizingly vague.”

The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria ter—all devoutly kneeling and praying.300 The knight kneels to the right of St. Nicholas, whereas his daughter and his wife occupy the left side. Strangely enough, the female portrait is entirely missing from the discussion of these “donor” portraits, which converge exclusively on the knight’s emblems. Of course, the question arises whether not only the knight but also his wife was involved in the commissioning of this altarpiece. The female donor wears a blue and red fanciful costume, studded with pearls at her décolleté and arms; the vertical seams of her mantle are adorned with ermine fur (pl. 9). She wears a barbette with fillets, a headdress similar to those worn by the women on the Nicosia cathedral panel (pls. 22, 25, 27) discussed below. The barbette is a chin band or type of coif 301 passing down from one temple under the chin and up to the other temple; the fillet was a standing linen band, like a crown over which a veil might be draped, leaving some parts of her hair visible, as is the case with our donor. When compared with the Nicosia cathedral panel women, the Kakopetria female donor with her ermine adornments and fillet with pearls appears as a noble lady (see pl. 22). The ornamented and pearl-studded veil attached to her barbette marks her as someone who belongs the higher echelon of society. I know of three other examples of kneeling and praying women whose comparison may help to better understand the Kakopetria portrait. The first is the female devotee from around 1300 in the narthex apse of the Phorviotissa in Asinou (pls. 10 –11). With her eyebrows noticeably raised in a grief-stricken manner and her black veil, she is in all likelihood a widow. She wears a simple barbette without fillets that supports her black surcoat. Only the colour of her mantle and the lack of jewelry set her apart from the Kakopetria lady. She seems to be a Frankish woman. A similarly dressed woman kneels and holds the foot of St. Sergios on horseback on an earlier Sinai icon measuring only 28.7 by 23.2 cm (fig. 10). She is almost identical to the Kakopetria woman, except for her black cloak and the string of red and white beads attached to her waist, but including her elaborate barbette and her sleeves which seem to be adorned with pearls. She is recognized as “a Latin woman wearing the long black veil adopted by the ladies of Outremer”.302 St. Sergios holds a standard with a red cross on 300 The depiction of the knight’s horse meant the “loss” of two narrative St. Nicholas scenes. For a western example by the so-called “Maestro del 1310” in the Musée du Petit Palais in Avignon, see Weyl Carr, “Funerary Icon,” 605; also Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 42–47. 301 For the origin of the term coif or cuff, see Mark Chambers and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “From Head to Arm: The Lexicological History of ‘Cuff ’,” in Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, eds., Medieval Clothing and Textiles (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2008), 55–61. 302 Weitzmann, “Crusader Kingdom,” 71–73, fig. 49. Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 399–402, opted for a Cypriot connection for this icon. David Nicolle, Knight of Outremer, 1187–1344 (London: Osprey Publishing, 1996), no. 80, 24. See also Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 339–42, fig. 199; Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, 125, fig. 82; Cormack and Mihalarias,

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The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria white ground, which Weitzmann identified as the emblem of the Knights Templar, and concluded that this icon was commissioned by a Knight Templar or “perhaps for a chapel in a settlement of this order.”303 This certainly challenges the presence of the devout praying woman on this small panel who would be both the commissioner and owner of the icon; therefore her portrait is not a donor, but an owner portrait 304 characterized as a Latin Christian. As for her black cloak, Weitzmann refers to Talbot Rice’s discussion of that icon and the testimony of Jacopo da Verona of 1335, who “tells of the habit of the Cypriote women of wearing black cloaks over their heads as a sign of sorrow for the loss of the city of Acre.”305 Weitzmann expressed his doubts regarding the connection of this icon to this particular historical incident and preferred an earlier date, one still associated with a major historical event: While this story offers indeed a plausible explanation for this very unusual black cloak, I hesitate to draw the conclusion that the icon could not have been painted before the fall of Acre in 1291. I would rather assume, though this must remain a hypothesis, that the sorrow indicated by the black cloak was over the loss of the city of Jerusalem, and that the custom of displaying this publicly may have started earlier, i.e., sometime after 1244.306

It seems doubtful that this diminutive icon, obviously meant for private devotion, pictorially signals or reflects a major historical drama.307 Beyond the customary iconographical and stylistic viewing platforms, only Lucy-Anne Hunt scrutinized this icon from contextual, historical and societal perspectives and dated it between the early 1240s and 1270s.308 She removed it from a hypothetical Cypriot origin, instead suggesting a Frankish-Syrian background.309 Given our larger Acre and Cyprus context, it is important to emphasize that she considers this not just as a geographical shift, but one that “has further implications. It shows the interplay between Latin and indigenous cultures stimulating artistic endeavour throughout the thirteenth century, and not just toward the end of Acre, as has been assumed.”310 As concerns the woman’s cloak, Hunt claims that “the fact that it is black is more likely to indicate her personal status as a widow than a generalised mourning for the loss

303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310

“A Crusader Painting of St. George,” 133, fig. 3, dated around 1280; Hunt, “A Woman’s Prayer,” 96–145. Weitzmann, “Crusader Kingdom,” 72. For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 341. See Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 53–63. Weitzmann, “Crusader Kingdom,” 72–73. Ibid., 72. Hunt, “A Woman’s Prayer,” 106: “Her icon lacks an inscription as none would be necessary on an icon for immediate personal use.” Ibid., 110, and passim. Ibid., 99, 110, 112. See also Corrie, “Sinai, Acre, Tripoli,” passim. Hunt, “A Woman’s Prayer,” 111 (my emphasis).

The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria of a city,” and that “taken in conjunction with the black veil, the prayer beads here represent the widow’s prayer as commemorative and concomitant to her plea to the military saint to protect her,”311 and that “the woman’s veil is a symbol of the personal contract made by the woman with the saint for her wellbeing.”312 Lastly, she offers important insights regarding the role of women as commissioners, a role that could have been played by our Kakopetria female donor in conjunction with her husband knight,313 and concludes: The kneeling donor epitomizes women influencing patterns of patronage and politics in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and in Latin Syria. Women were in a position of relative strength, given the responsibilities that fell to them during war, as holders of property and as widows holding office on behalf of husbands and sons. This gave them, however temporarily, access to the mechanisms of power and to mainstream discourse. … But there, as commissioners, venerators and guardians of icons, women were evidently in a position to contribute to the production of icons and the cult of saints.314

All this invites the possibility that an upper-class female devotee played a vital part in the Kakopetria panel commission. When we consider the presence of not only one but several devotees, the closest parallel by far with our Kakopetria lady’s attire can be found within a Cypriot-related, yet eastern Christian realm, namely the dedication page of the Armenian Keran Gospels, dated 1272. Folio 380r shows both Queen Keran (or Guerane) (d. 1285) and her husband King Leo II (1236–1289) of Armenia in Byzantine court costume (fig. 11).315 Between them kneel and pray their five children who they recommend to a lively Deesis above. In particular, I refer to the youngest, second daughter of the Queen. She is not crowned, wears a long crimson-red mantle over her dress, with perpendulia, i.e. long strings of pearls hanging from her stemma or diadem.316 With minor variations, such as the absence of the jewelled strings, her dress well accords with the female Kakopetria donor’s outfit. A key issue here is whether this latter donor belonged to a western or eastern Christian congregation, for her dress also resembles very much French costume of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As a Christian Orthodox married woman of an

311 312 313 314 315

Ibid., 100, 104. Ibid., 123. Ibid., 114–15. Ibid., 124. The gospels of Queen Keran are preserved in Jerusalem, Library of the Armenian Patriarchate, 2563. See Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century (Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1993), 1: 93–102, 156–57, fig. 641; Weyl Carr, “Funerary Icon,” 32. 316 Der Nersessian, Armenian Kingdom, 1:156. For the court costume, see the Michael F. Hendy and Alfred Raymond Bellinger, eds., Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and the Whittemore Collection (Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1999), 4/1: 165.

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The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria elevated social standing she could have facilitated a connection of her family, and specifically of her crusader husband, to the Orthodox church of Saint Kassianos leading to their patronage of the St. Nicholas panel venerated in the narthex. Anyway, the lack of conclusive evidence leaves her origin open.

Compared with the knight’s figures in the Histoires Universelles, the knight’s “portrait” on the Kakopetria panel, including the picture of his family, belongs to a different social reality and context. It was meant to pictorially document its donor as a Frankish knight seen with his wife. One may safely assume that the eagle emblems on his chain mail, caparison, and the shield above the horse, complement the orally known identity of the donor(s). Nevertheless, in strict pictorial terms, do these attributes really ascertain the donor’s personal identity or that of his family, or do they merely categorize his social class and testify to his valiant military pedigree in a place where these characteristics needed to be stressed? Both eagle and lion emblems belong to the most popular and ubiquitous symbols within the realm of crusader pictures. Usually, no specific aristocratic pedigree is attached to them. Again, these rather ambivalent emblems depend on the context where they occur, but they do not belong to the category of individual heraldry, as, for example, is manifest in the Manesse Liederhandschrift or within the realm of the Italian communes around 1300.317 In this respect, I should like to recall that the pictorial eloquence of pictures and their capability of mirroring the world of the beholder in panel painting of the outgoing thirteenth century was rather inadequate when seen from our modern point of view. Many donor portraits on panels datable to the second half of the thirteenth century remained nameless, only a few had inscribed names, because the pictorial means to es-

317 Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, c. 1300–1340; Christiane Henkes-Zin, Überlieferung und Rezeption in der Großen Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse) (PhD diss., Technische Hochschule Aachen, 2004); Walter Koschorreck, ed., Die große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift. Vollständiges Faksimile des Codex Palatinus Germanicus 848 der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1979); Ingo F. Walther, ed., Die Miniaturen der Großen Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1988). For illustrations with numerous and specific coat of arms in the Chronica majora (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 16 + 26) from about 1245 by Matthew Paris, an English monk of Saint-Alban’s, see: Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora, California Studies in the History of Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), passim and plate XV for a series of heraldic shields in the Brtish Library MS Cotton Nero D. I. manuscript, fol. 171v. The council rooms of the communal palaces, for example, in Perugia (Palazzo dei Priori) and in San Gimignano feature series of coats of arms in order to identify and to commemorate the role of these noble families in their history.

The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria tablish an early Renaissance-type of portrait-like visual identity was yet to be invented.318 It was the name with the picture, not yet the picture alone, that established the identity of the individual; looking at the picture and reading a name turned an otherwise nondescript picture into a portrait. Our double donor portrait either has no names or somehow lost them, for now no trace of them remains. We must, therefore, acknowledge that the pictorial presence and the actual identity of donors were not as yet amalgamated. The picture displays schematic codes, revealing a disjunction between the portrayed and his or her not yet mirror-like portrait. The missing link lies not in the visual domain, but outside the picture in oral tradition: it also may involve contemporary liturgical procedures. In other words: we do not know, although people then certainly did, exactly who was represented, through some oral reference and tradition, or by liturgical celebrations. In regard to this last-named aspect, we could, to complicate matters, ask whether the knight’s portrait with his family is a donor portrait focusing on the knight as the potential donor, or a memorial portrait—in memory of the donor. Donor and especially memorial portraits319 fulfill their purpose not only during the lifetime of the portrayed, but after their deaths, and on the occasion of the prayer said for their souls during the Mass of the Dead. In Gerhard Oexle’s (translated) words: The memoria was basic for the mentioning of the name. By mentioning his name, the dead was evoked as a person and almost gained a social and juridical status among the living. In other words: by mentioning his name, the dead became according to the conventions of the living, a juridical subject of those relations which characterize human society. The same juridical and social status may be defined by the term “presence of dead” … the name of the defunct and his picture belong closely together … the term “memorial picture” … means a certain social context for the picture; one could say: it relates to a pictorial function, or a general social context which was vital for the existence of the picture and to which it refers.320

318 The most “progressive” pictures in this respect exist only in the medium of sculpture. For example, see the contemporary “professional” portraits of the podestà Matteo di Corigia and the capitano del popolo Ermanno da Sassoferrato by Giovanni Pisano at the Fontana Maggiore in Perugia, dated 1278, or the sculpted portrait of Charles of Anjou now in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. For Giovanni Pisano see Michael Ayrton, Giovanni Pisano: Sculptor (London: Thames and Hudson, 1969), figs. 21, 24. For the Anjou statue see my note 276. This novel development, also visible within the context of late thirteenth-century French tomb sculpture and reliefs, has no parallel in painting of the time. 319 There is, I believe, a comparable situation with the depiction of two royal donors in the so-called Royal Chapel at Pyrga; see Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, 47–52, and Natalia Teteriatnikov, “Private Salvation Programs and Their Effect on Byzantine Church Decoration,” Arte Medioevale, ser. 2, 7 (1993): 47–63. 320 See Otto Gerhard Oexle, “Memoria und Memorialbild,” in Karl Schmid und Joachim Wollasch, eds., Memoria: Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter. Münstersche

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The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria Who, then, is the donor? Folda identifies him as “a Frankish knight replete with heraldry that has been identified as that of the Raven[d]el/[Ravendel] family, the last lords of Maraclea, on the mainland coast between Tortosa and Marqab. The heraldry is identified as argent, an eagle displayed geules (sic!),”321 and identification based on Rudt de Collenberg’s “L’héraldique de Chypre.”322 Yet, nowhere does de Collenberg mention the name of that family. Instead, on page 137 of his study he only refers to an anonymous Greek knight in connection with the Kakopetria panel: La majorité des sceaux ne présentent pas d’armoires. Souvent les meubles sont représentés seule, à l’intérieur du accès. Si le sceau montre le cavalier passant, les armes se trouvent tant sur l’écu qu’il tient que sur le caparaçon ainsi les sceaux de Barlais, Ibelin, Montfort, Morpho; mais nous voyons cette répétitions aussi employée par un chevalier grec–représentée sur une très belle icone de saint Nicolas: il porte d’argent à l’aigle employée de gueules.323

The ambivalence of the Kakopetria portrait as a donor or a memorial picture, and the generic meaning of the eagle not as a coat of arms but as an emblem — hence the lack of a precise identification of the knight — puts the date of production of the panel painting in jeopardy. After all, it is difficult, if not impossible, to establish an exact (family) reference by means of the eagle emblems on the Kakopetria panel. Is it a generic reference to crusading Frankish knights, as it occurs in numerous instances within the context of the cited Histoires Universelles and Histoires d’Outremer, or is it the coat of arms of a specific Mittelalter-Schriften 48 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1984), 384–440, esp. 385, 387 f. See also Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 42–44. 321 My emphasis. Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 218 and n. 49: “Meillor de Raven[d]el or Ravandel was a vassar of Bohemund VII of Tripoli who commanded the castle when Kalavun demanded its surrender in 1289”. See Mustafa M. Ziada, “The Mamluk Sultans to 1293,” in K. M. Setton, R. L. Wolff, and H. W. Hazard, eds., A History of the Crusades, vol. 2, The Later Crusades: 1189–1311, 735–58, 752. n. 56; E. G. Rey, Les familles d’Outre-Mer de Du Cange (Paris, 1869), 394–398, with variable orthography of this family name. Furthermore, Mellorus de Ravendel, an exiled Frankish noble of this family and possibly the same person as Meillor mentioned above, was in 1295 appointed vicar of Charles II of Naples for the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem…” (my emphasis). There is no reference to the coat of arms of the Ravendel family. This is a sophisticated way of providing evidence: the connection between Meillor de Ravendel and the Kakopetria panel remains obscure. Instead, a much later Mellorus de Ravendel and his more concrete historical whereabouts are then taken to substitute for the lack of historical evidence of the earlier. Were they indeed the same? Did they have the same arms? See also Jacoby, “Crusader Art,” 119. 322 Rudt de Collenberg, “L’héraldique de Chypre,” 137 ff. 323 Rudt de Collenberg, “L’Héraldique de Chypre,” 137 (my emphasis). Folda refers to exactly this page and the following ones. I owe many thanks to Marjorie Burghart of the University of Lyon and Martin Morard of the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (IRHT) for providing me with a copy of Collenberg’s pages quoted by Folda.

The Saint Nicholas Icon from Kakopetria family? I doubt the latter because the eagle — with its single head often turning to either side — is in this context too generic and ambivalent an emblem to merit serious consideration as a coat of arms of an individual.324 Rather, I would think that the pictures of a supplicant figure with a horse, including the eagle emblems, belong to established pictorial patterns of the time: the eagle emblems on the Kakopetria panel make the knight with his horse a western crusader knight with, however, no specific pedigree.325 Lastly, I should like to emphasize that I do not know of panel paintings of the period where the donor is identified by means of a coat of arms. As for the composition as a whole, I assume that it was “translated” from a manuscript context. The donor and his family were in all likelihood known and remembered by local, oral tradition. This marks his Frankish identity in a Greek realm, namely in the orthodox church of Ayios Kassianos.326 The presence of the horse is the quintessential requisite of a crusader knight who is, as it were, “certified” by those repeated but generic eagle emblems. Regardless of the specific date of the Kakopetria panel before or after the fall of Acre — which is only an issue for Buchthal and Folda in order to establish their Acre scriptorium — it testifies to a thought-provoking western patronage within an Orthodox realm in Cyprus, parallel to but entirely different from the crusader family “portraits” around 1300 in the apse of the Phorviotissa in Asinou, and possibly influenced by the Armenian manuscript sources (the Keran gospels) mentioned above. However, it should have become clear that the panel cannot provide any solutions to the “from Acre to Cyprus” issues. The crusader knight and his family could have come and stayed in Cyprus regardless of the fall of Acre. The next work to be scrutinized in respect of the Acre or Cyprus question is the Kakopetria “sister” panel from S. Kassianos in Cyprus.

324 Pictures of armorials become an important key to aristocratic identities in the fourteenth century, as in, for example, the Manesse Codex, Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. m. 848. See my note 317. 325 See also the splendid example of a knight, his caparisoned horse and accompanying knights, one with an eagle emblem on his shield, in the London Histoire Universelle, London, BL Add. 15268, fol. 179v (“Coment nabugodenosor comanda a holofernes qui alast sur ciaus qui contre lui estoient”), in Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 151, plate 119c. 326 See James G. Schryver, “Monuments of Identity: Latin, Greek, Frank and Cypriot?”, in Sabine Fourrier and Gilles Grivaud, eds., Identités croisées en un milieu méditerranéen, le cas de Chypre (Antiquité – Moyen-âge) (Mont-Saint-Aignan: Publications des Universités de Rouen et du Havre, 2006), 385–405, esp. 393. For Latin, Frankish patronage of Greek churches see Chris Schabel, “Religion,” in Cyprus: Society and Culture, 181–83.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia

This Hodegetria-type panel is said to have been brought to Ayios Kassianos in Nicosia from the Agia Sophia cathedral in Nicosia (fig. 12).327 It is not known whether the cathedral in Nicosia was its original destination. However, in the historical and art historical literature it is now associated with Ayios Kassianos. Since Mouriki, the panel is believed to be related in style and date to the St. Nicholas panel from St. Nicholas of the Roof and is assumed to have been executed by the same artist.328 And indeed, the figure style, facial details and the linear draperies are almost identical with the St. Nicholas panel (figs. 16, 19). I shall address this issue further below.329 The imposing image of Mary and the Christ Child occupies the centre of the panel (203 × 156 cm). However, the configuration deviates significantly from the traditional Hodegetria scheme because of her mantle sheltering a group of ten Carmelite friars 327 The panel consists of pine planks 3.8 cm thick, and the paint, like that of the Kakopetria St. Nicholas panel, is applied on a gesso ground on very fine linen. A colour reproduction in The Glory of Byzantium, cat. no. 263; Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 379, n. 135. Constable and Rice, The Icons of Cyprus, 188: “brought to the church of Agios Cassianos from the Latin cathedral of Nicosia at the time of the Turkish Conquest (1571).” For a summary of Mouriki’s attribution, see Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 218–22. Definitely, Mouriki’s opinion should be revisited and not taken for granted. 328 Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 370, 379, and passim; Mouriki, “Moutoullas,” 210. See also Setton et al., ed., A History of the Crusades, vol. 4, 191, n. 23; Weitzmann, “Maniera Greca,” 155, fig. 15. See Constable and Rice, The Icons of Cyprus, 187–89, plates II, 1; III, 1a–d, IV, 1a–d; Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus, 49, and colour plate 31; Jaroslav Folda, “Reflections on the Mellon Madonna as a Work of Crusader Art: Links with Crusader Art on Cyprus: Links with Crusader Art on Cyprus,” in M. Balard, M., B. Z. Kedart and J. Riley-Smith, eds., Dei Gesta per Francos: Études sur les croisades dédiées a Jean Richard / Crusader Studies in Honour of Jean Richard (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 361–71; Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 503, fig. 344; Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 217–22; Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, “Representations of the Virgin in Lusignan Cyprus,” in Maria Vassilaki, ed., Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 307–14; Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 111–14; Andrew Jotischky, The Carmelites and Antiquity: Mendicants and Their Pasts in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 101–2; Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, 86–88. 329 See page 152.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia (pl. 12), comparable to Mary’s action in the late thirteenth-century apse fresco, probably painted around 1300, in the narthex of the Phorviotissa in Asinou, where she similarly protects a female Frankish devotee (pls. 10–11).330 No doubt, this is yet another “curious work” 331

No comprehensive study exists of this altarpiece.332 I therefore take the opportunity to present the current state of inquiry and my own observations for further research and evaluation. I believe that this is an important panel that may significantly contribute to clarifying the “Acre or Cyprus” issue, as will be shown in my final chapters. Neither the picture of Mary crowned and enthroned, nor the choice of eight scenes flanking the Virgin on either side fully conform to the traditional Byzantine Hodegetria type of icon or the depiction of vita icons of Mary in western panel paintings around 1300. Instead, it is a peculiar hybrid of an eastern Hodegetria-type with western elements.333 It fuses the traditional powerful Constantinopolitan Hodegetria theme334 — a relic-like cult image itself — with the acting picture of a prominent Marian relic, her mantle, visually emphasizing her sheltering and protective role. In art historical parlance she is, according to the national origin of research, called a Madonna of Mercy, a Vierge de la miséricorde, a Madonna della Misericordia, or a Schutzmantel Madonna.335 This rather unique pictorial scheme emphasizes Mary’s role as the protectress. There are only a very few examples immediately related to this particular iconography at the 330 Weyl Carr and Morocco, “A Byzantine Masterpiece,” 99–106; there (106), authors identify the religious as Dominican friars. See also Kalopissi-Verti, “The Virgin in Lusignan Cyprus,” 307–8. Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 218–19, observed that “in the lower right corner of the central part of the panel, between the throne and the heads of the women in the lowest miracle scene, there is a small red rectangle on which one finds a faint three-line inscription painted in white characters. By its placement it is clear that this text relates to the central image and has nothing to do with the flanking miracle scenes,” and assumes that this is a text relating to the Carmelite patronage of the panel. 331 See Annemarie Weyl Carr’s citation on page 83. 332 A brief discussion is given by Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 218–22. 333 For the crown and its potential political implications in Rome and Byzantium see Ursula Nilgen, “Maria Regina — ein politischer Kultbildtypus?,” Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 19 (1981): 3–4; and Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 25–26. Of course, the question arises whether there was a “traditional” scheme of such vita icons at all. 334 For the history and meaning of the Constantinopolitan Hodegetria icon as a political cult image see Belting, Likeness and Presence, passim, and Pentcheva, Icons and Power, passim. 335 Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 106–7; P. Pedrizet, La vierge de la miséricorde: Étude d’un thème iconographique (Paris, 1908); V. Süssmann, “Maria mit dem Schutzmantel,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft V (1929): 312–13; Brigitte Frauendorfer, Die religiöse Kunst im italienischen Dugento und die Frage der franziskanischen Ikonographie mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia time; remarkably, all but one belong to the Cypriot-Armenian realm.336 In modern terms this iconographical layout appears in all three traditional media: panel painting, book illumination, and monumental fresco. There is the tiny devotional panel attributed to Duccio in Siena, also called the Franciscan Madonna,337 two Armenian book illuminations,338 and finally, the Schutzmantel Mary in the apse of the narthex of the

Tafelmalerei (Phil. Diss., Vienna University, 1954), passim: Christa Belting-Ihm, “Sub matris tutela,” Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1976, 3. Abhandlung (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1976): 68–79. For a Franciscan connection see also Anne Derbes and Amy Neff, “Italy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Byzantine Sphere,” in Helen C. Evans, ed., Byzantium: Faith and Power (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 461. 336 For earlier examples see Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 220–21. 337 The private devotional panel in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, no. 20, measures only 23.5 × 16 cm, and is dated to the 1290s. James H. Stubblebine, “Byzantine Influence in Thirteenth-Century Italian Panel Painting,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): 85–101, esp. 99; Victor Stoichita, “Note sull’ iconografia della Madonna dei Francescani,” Annuario dell’istituto di storia dell’arte (Rome, 1973/74): 159–68; John White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979), 46–60, figs. 3, 18; Belting, Bild und Kult, 130; Piero Torriti, La pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena: I dipinti dal XII al XV secolo (Genova: Sagep Editrice, 1980), 20; Il Gotico a Siena. Catalogue of an exhibition, Siena, Palazzo Pubblico, 24 July–30 October 1982 (Florence: Centro Di, 1982), cat. no. 24, colour plate on p. 19; Florens Deuchler, Duccio (Milan: Electa Editrice, 1984), 42 f, 208, 4; Hayden B. J. Maginnis, The World of the Early Sienese Painter (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 109, fig. 64; Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 105–16; Victor M. Schmidt, Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250 –1400 (Florence: Centro Di, 2005), passim. 338 Jerusalem, Armenian patriarchal library, MS 2568, fol. 320. The Virgin shelters the family of Prince Vasak with her mantle and recommends it to Christ enthroned; the miniature is inscribed: “Baron Vasak, brother of the King of the Armenians, owner of this Gospels, and his sons Konstantin and Het’um, given by God. May Christ God receive them among His elect, through the intercession of His holy mother. Remember also in Christ the corrector of this, his brother Bishop John and Likos…” (Der Nersessian, Armenian Kingdom, 2:95, fig. 647). The other miniature is a loose leaf in the Stoclet collection in Brussels, probably from a gospel book copied in 1274 for Marshal Ochine, now in the New York Pierpont Morgan Library, no. 740. Both miniatures were probably executed between 1259 and 1284. See Sirarpie Der Nersessian, “Deux exemples arméniens de la Vierge de la miséricorde,” Revue des Études Arméniennes, N. S. 7 (1970): 187–202; idem, Études Byzantines et Arméniennes / Byzantine and Armenian Studies, Bibliothèque Arménienne de la Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian (Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste, 1973), 1:585–96; Christa Belting-Ihm, “Sub matris tutela,” 69–70, pl. XIX, a–b; Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 115–16. For the Armenian connection see Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, passim; Valentino Pace, “Armenian Cilicia, Cyprus, Italy & Sinai Icons,” in T. Samuelian and M. Stone, eds., Medieval Armenian Culture, University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 6 (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1983), 291–305: Anne Derbes, “Siena and the Levant in the Later Dugento,” Gesta 28 (1989): 190–204; Rebecca Corrie, “The Political Meaning of Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna,” passim; Derbes, Picturing the Passion, passim; Weyl Carr, “Byzantines and Italians,” 384 and passim.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia Phorviotissa in Asinou (pls. 10–11).339 These pictorial schemes also visualize different tasks. The Sienese panel functioned as a devotional image for a collective group of three Franciscan friars; in the Armenian miniatures it is embedded in a dedicatory manuscript context; and donor-related and memorial aspects govern the monumental fresco in the Phorviotissa in Asinou.340 All these stress the protective role of Mary’s mantle and correspond to individual patronage: the group of three Franciscans on the Sienese panel; Marshal Ochine (supported by archbishop Johannes)341 on the Stoclet leaf; King Hethoum I and his sons Constantin and Hethoum in the Jerusalem miniature; a Frankish woman with her family in the Asinou fresco; and, finally, the Carmelite friars on the Nicosia cathedral or Ayios Kassianos panel (fig. 12, pl. 12). The connecting fabric and common denominator for all these images is the protective function of Mary’s mantle. I have mentioned the role of Mary’s mantle elsewhere.342 Originally, it was a highly venerated relic in Constantinople.343 The Franciscans gave the mantle to Baldwin II who had it sent to King Louis IX to France along with the Holy Lance in 1241.344 Thus, two interesting facts emerge: the Franciscans were vitally involved with the transfer of the mantle relic; this extraordinary “material source” of protective puissance was then relocated to France to become a major relic within the French royal domain. As I have previously discussed, the group of Franciscan monks on the small devotional Sienese panel most likely belongs to the Cypriote realm.345 Now is not the place

339 Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus, 140; Weyl Carr, A Byzantine Masterpiece, 99–100; Kalopissi-Verti, The Virgin in Lusignan Cyprus, 307–9. 340 Kalopissi-Verti, The Virgin in Lusignan Cyprus, 307, without further reasons, sees the fresco as an exvoto image. 341 The chasuble of Archbishop Johannes is covered with fleur-de-lys ornaments. According to Der Nersessian (see note 338), this type of ornament may point to a French connection, namely to Sicily which was until the Sicilian Vespers (1282) ruled by Charles I of Anjou, King of Sicily and Jerusalem. The Cypriot French-Armenian connection is also documented by the coinage of King Hethoum I of Armenia (until 1270) showing him with an orb and the fleur-de-lys sceptre. In general, see Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 23–38, and passim. 342 Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 109–15. It is unclear whether the veneration of Mary’s mantle centred on her maphorion, her veil, or the veil that covered the icon. What remains in the West is a fragment of “miraculous” cloth in the cathedral of Chartres. See also Kalopissi-Verti, The Virgin in Lusignan Cyprus, 308. 343 For the earlier history of Mary’s mantle, also within the context of the so-called gonfaloni, and the cult image of Mary opening her mantle in the Blachernae church in Constantinople, see Belting, Bild und Kunst, 399–400; Pentcheva, Icons and Power, passim, and Kalopissi-Verti, The Virgin in Lusignan Cyprus, 308. 344 Jannic Durand, “Les reliques et reliquaires byzantins acquis par Saint Louis,” in Le trésor de la SainteChapelle. Exposition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 31 May–27August 2001 (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2001), 52–81, esp. 68, 49, 121. See also the list in Noel and Weiss, The Book of Kings, 76–77. 345 Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 105–116.

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia and time to reiterate the complex relationship of Lusignan Cyprus and the Franciscans with Armenia. Suffice it to mention that the Franciscans were aggressively proselytizing in Armenia and in Mongolia on behalf of King Louis IX, for religious and political reasons that are difficult to distinguish. In addition, Lusignan Cyprus was closely connected with Lesser Armenia by diplomacy and marriage.346 The extensive writings of Sirarpie Der Nersessian attest that Armenian miniatures at the time were strongly influenced by French models.347 Further on, the lay female donor, with her husband (not depicted as a knight, but in a simple tunic, so it seems) and child on the “other” side of the apse in the narthex of the Panagia Phorviotissa in Asinou, belong in all likelihood to a western, French Lusignan background (pls. 10 –11). It appears that this particular pictorial scheme, a hybrid visual amalgamation of the Hodegetria cult icon performing the mantle relic’s function, was inspired by Cypriot Franciscans. Its proliferation in Cyprus around 1300 is in all likelihood due to Franciscan influence.348 Once we disregard the volatile stylistic criteria so prominently figuring in my previous chapters, the date of the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria can perhaps be determined or narrowed down by noting the presence of the Carmelite friars.349 Both the Carmelites and the Franciscans maintained a strong presence in Cyprus.350 However, one Carmelite motif on the Nicosia cathedral’s Hodegetria panel is, in fact, a datable innovation: they wear their new white habit authorized at the general chapter held in 1287 in Montpellier. This permission was sanctioned by papal authority by Boniface VII in 1295.351 Therefore, there is a tenuous terminus post quem for the Nicosia cathedral panel of 1287,

346 The Lusignan connections with Lesser Armenia are manifold. See Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 115–16, and passim. King Hethoum I (d. 1271) struck a coin showing him enthroned with the fleur-de-lys sceptre. See also Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Correlative Spaces,” passim, and eadem, “Lusignan Kings,” 240–44; Der Nersessian, Armenian Kingdom, 2:100–1; Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 115. For the Franciscan missions, see also my references to Rubruck in note 221. 347 Der Nersessian, Armenian Kingdom, vol. 2, passim. 348 Wollesen, Hasten to My Aid and Counsel, 105–16. 349 The identification of these monks as Dominican friars goes back to Camille Enlart’s L’art gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre, originally published in 1899. Mouriki in “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 374, and Annemarie Weyl Carr in an earlier publication (see my note 330), still subscribed to that identification. 350 Jotischky, Carmelites, passim; Schabel, “Religion,” passim. See also Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 1195–1312, 205–11, 215–19, and idem, The Latin Church in Cyprus, 1313–1378, 325–45, 368–75. 351 Escobar, ed., Ordini e Congregazioni religiose, 1: 457–72, esp. 471 f.; also Giordano and Salvatico, Il Carmelo in Terra Santa, 61 f. For a detailed discussion of the change of habit, see Jotischky, Carmelites, 45–78.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia although a more solid one after 1295 seems more likely.352 As Nicholas Coureas, based on Smet, has pointed out, “we have no evidence from the thirteenth century for the location of Carmelite houses on Cyprus.”353 Coureas continues: Such evidence is first attested in the early part of the fourteenth century. In December 1300 the merchant Bernard Faxit from Narbonne left the Carmelite friars of Nicosia the sum of six bezants for the singing of the masses in his memory, a clear indication of their presence in the capital by this time.354

The Carmelite Mary has eight scenes on either side. A list of their tituli follows.355 For further reference I label the left and right sides A and B respectively, and number the episodes on each side from top to bottom. Side A (left) 1 Titulus destroyed (pl. 13) 2 (HIC) SERUNTUR PORTE SUPER FRATRES (pl. 14) 3 (H)IC APERUNTUR PORTE MIRACULOSE (pl. 15) 4 (HI)C CLAUD(I) AMBULANT (pl. 16) 5 (H)IC CECI ILLUMINANTUR (pl. 17) 6 (HIC MOR)TUI RESUSC(ITANTUR) (pl. 18) 7 …UI ET… (pl. 19) 8 (HIC D)EMONES EICIUNTUR (pl. 20)356 Side B (right) 1 Titulus destroyed (fig. 13) 2 (HIC) NAVES PERICULIS LIBERANTUR (pl. 21) 3 HIC APPARUIT DNA MULTIS SUPER PIRUM (pl. 22) 4 … IS AMPUTATA SANCT … (pl. 23) 5 HIC (L)IBERATUR QUIDAM SUB MOLA (pl. 24)

352 Folda obviously pleads for the earlier date since he needs to accord this panel with his dating for the Brussels Histoire Universelle and the work of his Hospitaller Master. See Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 214–15, 218. 353 Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus: 1195–1312, 217; referring to Joachim Smet, The Carmelites: A History of the Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, revised edition (Illinois: Carmelite Press, 1988), 1:26. 354 Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus: 1195–1312, 217 (my emphasis). 355 Constable and Rice, The Icons of Cyprus, 187 f., have supplied a list of tituli, but in many instances my readings are different. The panel is damaged on the top, therefore these two tituli on both sides are missing. The reading and/or reconstruction of the tituli is based on my visits and photographs taken in 2008. I thank the former director of the Byzantine Museum of the Archbishop Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia, Dr Andreas Mitsides, for generous permission to take photos of the Hodegetria panel that year. I owe thanks to Dr. Elena Lemeneva, who helped to properly decipher the tituli. 356 As far as I can see, the spelling is EICIUNTUR, and not, as in correct Latin: EJICIUNTUR.

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia 6 HIC PARIUNT PREGNANTES ET STERILES IPR… (pl. 25) 7 (HIC) PUER SUBMERSUS IN AQUA REDI(TUS)… (pl. 26) 8 (HI)C PUER SINE CAPITE NATUS (CAP)UD RECEPIT (pl. 27) These tituli describe historical events, dramatic and miraculous rescues, and healings mostly resulting from the Virgin’s blissful intervention. Unfortunately, the tituli are very laconic, so it is sometimes next to impossible to determine the theme of the plot.357 For easier reference, the next pages present a synopsis of all sixteen scenes and tituli. To simplify matters, I have established a linear sequence from the left down, and continuing at top right to the bottom, even if we do not know how these events were originally read by the “consumers” of the altarpiece. The actual, historical viewing of these scenes may have been much more complex, as, for example, the synchronous viewing of two scenes across the panel.358 All scenes are painted on gold ground with the exception of Mary who is backed by a red background in order to distinguish her from the rest of the scene. Mary is absent in the first two episodes on the left side of the panel (A1–2). In all probability, these and the one following refer to contemporary events involving Templar and/or Hospitaller knights and friars. They are followed by five healing episodes. An untitled scene begins the sequence at the top of the right hand side, depicting three men in their underwear who lean back and are supported by a fragmentary figure. This scene is followed by an episode featuring pilgrims(?) accompanied by Frankish knights being rescued from their sailing vessels by the Virgin during a storm. The next scene below shows Mary and her miraculous appearance in the (pear) tree and other healing performances. Many miracles tell us of the saving of children. The concerns for the health of sterile and pregnant women form the theme of another narrative. Thus, in all probability, the first two or three scenes mirror the realm of reality, and the others are narrating a legenda. It is interesting to note that most scenes of the Hodegetria Schutzmantel image to the beholder’s left and right are organized according to a unified action pattern: events at the left unfold from right to left, and from left to right on the opposite side. Let us now discuss each scene in more detail.

357 According to Weyl Carr, A Byzantine Masterpiece, 106, “the scenes that border this majestic image exhibit Dominican miracles of the Virgin.” However, she does not refer to any sources regarding these Dominican miracles. 358 As is exemplified by the “erratic” viewing sequence of the episodes on the back side of Duccio’s cathedral Maestà of 1312, see John White, Duccio: Tuscan Art and the Medieval Workshop, 129–31. See also Marilyn Aronberg-Lavin, The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), passim.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia Citizens plead with tribute to a enthroned ruler

A1 (HIC) SERUNTUR PORTE SUPER FRATRES The gates are locked over (Carmelite) Fratres.

A2

Healing of men with dropsy?

B1 (HIC) NAVES PERICULIS LIBERANTUR Here ships are delivered from peril

B2

(H)IC APERUNTUR PORTE MIRACULOSE The miraculous opening of the gates

HIC APPARUIT DNA MULTIS SUPER PIRUM Mary appears in the pear tree

A3

B3

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia (HI)C CLAUD(I) AMBULANT The healing of the lame

… IS AMPUTATA SANCT … A monk’s amputated limb is replaced

A4 (H)IC CECI ILLUMINANTUR The blind are healed to see

B4 HIC (L)IBERATUR QUIDAM SUB MOLA Someone is saved from under a crushing millstone

A5 (HIC MOR)TUI RESUSC(ITANTUR) The resuscitation of the dead

A6

B5 HIC PARIUNT PREGNANTES ET STERILES IPR… Mary helps pregnant and sterile women

B6

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia …UI ET… The delivery from captivity

(HIC) PUER SUBMERSUS IN AQUA REDI(TUS) … A boy is saved from drowning

A7 (HIC D)EMONES EICIUNTUR The exorcism of the demons

B7 (HI)C PUER SINE CAPITE NATUS (CAP)UDRECEPIT The boy born without a head receives one

A8

B8

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia I suggest to see the first three panel scenes as the kind of still images of a medieval type of movie recording historical events.

A1. The titulus of the first scene is lost (pl. 13) A man without either a head dress or crown and clothed in a simple blue tunic is seated on a backless throne. He extends his right hand in what appears to be a receiving gesture while clasping a lily sceptre with his left. Usually, with notable exceptions, sceptres are held with the right hand.359 His single-cushioned throne, covered by an ornamented blanket, and a red footstool are enclosed in an architectural niche with a trilobed front. The throne and the sceptre characterize this man as a ruler, but not as a king. He addresses a multitude of people clad in blue and red tunics and advancing from the other side. The first three figures are set apart from the rest of the crowd: they wear caps which cover their ears. A similar cap appears again only in scene B4 (pl. 23). These caps must be distinguished from similar headdresses, namely the barbettes that are fastened around the chin and typically define females, as in scene B6 (pl. 25). I assume that these three people in the foreground belong to a higher echelon of society. They carry purses decorated with blue and black lily ornaments and in all probability filled with money. They either petition or pay tribute to the sovereign. Pictures of enthroned rulers with sceptres belong to stock French manuscript imagery of the time, especially since the creation of the seal portrait of Philip II “Augustus” (1180–1223).360 The same is true for the combination of enthroned rulers facing a multitude of standing or kneeling people, as can be seen in the editions of the Histoires Universelle in Dijon, Brussels, and London.361 Considering the summary texts of the tituli throughout the panel’s scenes, its very existence might not have contributed much to identifying this scene. The real missing links that reveal the scene’s narrative plot are oral and perhaps textual. Alas, both the contemporary oral components and the circumstances that led to the execution of this huge altar piece are irretrievably lost.

359 For example, see the picture of King Philip II “Augustus” (1165–1223) on his seal. 360 See also the series of such portraits in Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora in Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora, plate VII, figs. 79–88. 361 See Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plates 98a (Dijon 562, fol. 56r, Joseph), b (Brussels 10175, fol. 79r, Joseph), c (London Add. 15268, fol. 64r, Joseph), 100a (Dijon 562, fol. 59v, Pharaoh), b (Brussels 10175, fol. 82r, Pharaoh), c (London Add. 15268, fol. 67r, Pharaoh), 111 top register (London Add 15268, fol. 105v, Pelias), 118b (London Add. 15268, fol. 161v, Brutus), 119c (London Add. 15268, fol. 179v, Nebuchadnezzar), 121c (London Add. 15268, fol. 203r, Alexander the Great), and 136c (Paris, fr. 9084, fol. 42r, King Baldwin); the last image shows how the citizens of Edessa pay homage to King Baldwin who, strangely enough, is depicted as a patrician without crown.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia Were there any actual historical circumstances and/or legendary accounts that could have been echoed in this and the following scenes? I should like to propose two possible solutions which are not limited to this particular scene, but incorporate the next two, if not another episode seen “across” the panel. Let me first present an interpretation of the event depicted even if it is on admittedly fragile historical grounds. The ruler’s identity can probably be determined by the following scene. Assuming a date of execution of the panel roughly around 1300, the only outstanding, non-royal ruler in Cyprus was the so-called Signor del Sur, the titular Lord of Tyre since 1290, and, concurrently, the Constable of Jerusalem since 1289, namely Amalric or Amaury of Lusignan (1272–1310). Amaury was married to Isabel, an Armenian princess.362 He was the brother of King Henry II of Lusignan (ruled 1285 to 1324). Amaury was never crowned king, only appointed governor. However, when Henry II was forced into Armenian exile between 1306 and 1310, it was Amaury who exercised power until his murder in 1310, when Henry II re-established his reign. This interpretation, however, depends entirely on the fact that the ruler in our pictures wears no crown. It is the only explicit ruler portrait in our scenes. How faithfully does this picture describe who was actually portrayed? The picture should not be seen as one of many within a series of more or less similar fictitious portraits in the context of the Histoire Universelle manuscripts with their notoriously unreliable adherence to reality. I presume that the focus of this portrait was not the rendering of the life-like features of whoever is depicted, but his status as a ruler. Therefore, the fact that he wears no crown seems to be an important pictorial statement. In order to further unscramble this mysterious episode, we must proceed to the next scene.

A2. (HIC) SERUNTUR PORTE SUPER FRATRES (pl. 14) This panel tells us how the gates were closed over fratres. Where and what are these gates? Who are these fratres ? The term is an ambivalent one and can describe members of the Hospitaller or Templar Orders, as well as someone from the clerical, or monastic realm. There are no members of any mendicant order in the picture (they appear in the next scene). However, the centre is occupied by a group of Frankish, Hospitaller or Templar knights in chain mail, shields and with sheathed swords. One of the drop-form shields features an emblem, probably an eagle, on a light yellowish ground. All the knights look to their right at a group of laymen holding their hands up in appeal. They are headed by a person in a red and blue tunic, who is depicted on a slightly larger scale

362 Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades, vol. 4: 343; she was the daughter of Leon III and sister of Hetoum II, Toros III, and Oshin, kings of Armenia. For Toros III (1271–1298), Hetoum II (1289–1297), Leon III (1289–1307), and Oshin (1308–1320) see Vahan M. Kurkjian, A History of Armenia (New York: Armenian General Benevolent Union of America, 1964), 255, 246–57.

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia than the rest. The question arises whether the emphasis in scale of this particular figure suggests that it is identical with the ruler of the previous panel. The piece-de-résistance is the door locked by two horseshoe-shaped devices.363 The gate is huge; it occupies nearly the full length and width of what seems to be a tower-like building and is ornamented with cassette-like patterns. The knights look towards the supplicating people, but it is not clear whether they guard the building, or are prevented from entering it, because the gate is shut, locked and the realm behind is inaccessible. Analogously to the stance of the knights shown in a miniature of the London Histoire Universelle (London, BL Add. 15268, fol. 122r), they are not ready for combat action.364 I tentatively identified the ruler in the previous scene as Amaury, the brother of King Henry II of Cyprus. The knights Templar provided vital support for his usurpation of the throne, and Amaury also re-established relations with the knights of the Hospital. His good relations with the Templars were, of course, disrupted when the Pope called for the suppression of the Templars in 1307; this indictment was executed in Cyprus soon after that date.365 According to these historical events, the enthroned but uncrowned ruler could be recognized as Amaury of Lusignan, even as the Frankish knights could describe either the knights Templars or Hospitallers whose military power was already crucial at Acre in 1286, when Amaury and King Henry II landed there. If he was alive when the panel was executed, the circumstances of Amaury’s life would then date the panel sometime between his accession the throne in 1306 and the suppression of the Templars in Cyprus in 1308. What could have been the historical event? Apparently the closure of a gate in the presence of the knights. There is, indeed, a historical occasion involving Amaury that could be connected to this panel: … Amaury himself alluded to the Carmelites in Nicosia in his letter of May 1308 to Pope Clement V, informing him that papal instructions for the arrest of the Templars had been carried out. He stated that on 26 May the Templar leaders arrived in Nicosia and offered themselves up before the assembled Latin clergy, secular and regular. Among the latter, the Carmelites were specifically mentioned.366

Before rushing to any conclusions, let us look at the next panel.

363 There are similar locks on the bronze main entrance gate of the citadel in Aleppo. 364 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 151, plate 113c (“Coment la royne pantisselee vint au secourz de troies”). 365 Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades, vol. 4: 345. For the role of the Hospitallers in Cyprus see Anthony Luttrell, “The Hospitallers in Cyprus after 1291,” passim. 366 Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus: 1195–1312, 217–18.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia

A3. (H)IC APERUNTUR PORTE MIRACULOSE (pl. 15) The stage has become more crowded and is subdivided into two parts. On the one hand, it depicts a crowd of people and knights. On the other, it describes how these gates were miraculously opened and shows a group of seven or eight Carmelites celebrating the mass. Indeed, the doors to the right are now ajar; and one of the horseshoe locks has fallen to the ground. We see a simultaneous inside-outside view of what turns out to be a chapel or church with seven Carmelite friars celebrating the Holy Mass in front of an altar with candelabra. The miraculous door opener was, of course, Mary, who appears in her golden-blue mantle in the picture’s centre, praying or pointing with her hand(s) towards the opened door and the Carmelites inside. The emphases of previously depicted groups have now changed. A somewhat smaller group of knights is assembled behind Mary’s back now shown in a larger scale. Here we meet again the gentleman of the previous scene in his blue and red dress who is now not only the focus of the eyes of the knights, but also of the religious right behind him, in all likelihood Benedictines or Franciscans, clad — if we may trust the colours of the panel in its fragmented state — in a light-grey habit with a purplish hue. The row of religious is further backed by lay people. It seems that the man dressed in red and blue — if this indeed is meant to be Amaury of Lusignan — is the main actor of this episode, his wish or appeal unknown to us being fulfilled by the intervention of the Virgin. The scene’s centre and right hand side depict the (miraculous) opening of a gate in the presence of knights and of the clergy, with special emphasis on the Carmelites. A contemporary historical event that shows all the protagonists on one and the same stage is recorded in the chronicles of Francesco Amadi and Florio Bustron.367 The incident in question took place in March of the year 1308 upon the confiscation of Templar property: In execution of the papal orders regarding the suppression of the Templar Order. On March 29 the Signor del Sur called upon the viscount of Nicosia and ordered that the next day he should proceed, accompanied by some knights, the prior of the Hospital, the Franciscans and Dominicans, in order to seal and make an inventory of all things that were in the church of the Templars in Nicosia (…) The viscount, other knights and monks entered the temple in Nicosia, and after having searched all the rooms, made a written inventory of what they found … and then they nailed shut and sealed the gates of the chapel, and took away the cords than rang the bells, so nobody could

367 Chroniques d’Amadi et de Strambaldi, publiées par René de Mas Latrie. Collection des documents inédits sur l’histoire de France (Paris, 1891); Chronique de l’Île de Chypre, publiée par R. de Mas Latrie. Collection des documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. (Paris, 1886). For the Cypriot medieval source see R. M. Dawkins, ed., Leontios Makhairas: Recital concerning the Sweet Land of Cyprus entitled Chronicle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932).

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia celebrate the mass inside … . King Henry however disliked the fact that the chapel was closed, approached the fratres and ordered the chapel to be opened again.368

Any connection between this event and the panel picture is, of course, entirely hypothetical. Mention of “re Enrico” at that date does not accord with historical facts since he only returned from his Armenian exile in August 1310. I should add that, according to the same chronicle of Amadi, the Carmelites, in tandem with the Franciscans and Dominicans, played a significant political role during the interregnum of Amaury, who tried to convince his brother the king of his good intentions.369 No mention is made of any miraculous intervention of the Virgin when it came to re-opening the chapel for religious service.

A4. (HI)C CLAUD(I) AMBULANT (pl. 16) From here on we become eye witnesses of the healing power of the Virgin clad as usual in her shiny blue-gold dress and enshrined by an architectural structure in order to distinguish her from the narrative action. This time she is healing the lame and crippled. The heads, faces, and dresses are the same as in the scenes above. The depiction of lame or crippled people agrees with other medieval pictorial accounts of the time.

A5. (H)IC CECI ILLUMINANTUR (pl. 17) Mary, isolated by a similar architectural setting as that of the previous scene, “illuminates” the blind. Men and women can be distinguished only by their headdresses. To describe the blind, the painter left the eyes blank.

A6. (HIC MOR)TUI RESUSC(ITANTUR) (pl. 18) This miracle has the same background as in earlier scenes, but Mary is obliterated. Originally she was not only healing, but resuscitating the dead who are enshrouded and piled up before her. 368 Golubovich, Biblioteca Bio-Bibliografica, 125: “In esecuzione degli ordini papali, che sopprimevano I Templari: – Al dì 29 del ditto mese [marzo], mandò el Signor de Sur a chimar el Visconte (de Nicosia), et l’ordinò che el dì seguente dovesse andare con alquanti cavaglieri in sua compagnia, con prior del Hospital e con li Menori et Predicatori, a bollar et mettere in scrittura tutte le cose che erano in la casa del Tempio a Nicosia … El visconte et gli altri cavaglieri et religiosi introrno al Tempio (di Nicosia), et hanno everto et cercato tutte le stantie, et messeno in scrittura tutte le cose che hanno trovato … et hanno chiodato et bollato le porte della capella, et levate le corde de le campane, a ciò non cantasseno più messa dentra … Al re Enrico però dispiacque che la cappella de’ Templari fosse stata chiusa, e ne rimprovero i fratri, e ordinò che fosse riaperta al culto, come fu fatto” (my emphasis). 369 See my note 366. Golubovich, Biblioteca Bio-Bibliografica, 159: “Invano, ripetutamente, il Principe di Tiro tenta di ottenere l’adesione di re Enrico al suo modo di governare; e perciò più volte gli aveva inviato una legazione composta di vari personaggi, tra i quali erano due frati Minori, due Domenicani e due Carmelitani.”

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia

A7. …UI ET… (pl. 19) The titulus of this scene is too incomplete to be fully reconstructed, but the series of healing miracles continues. Mary, still emphasized by a golden background, has abandoned her enclosure and is now seen under parts of a trilobed interior that houses a multitude of lay people who plead or pray to her. A closer view shows that their legs are chained together, with the exception of four or five kneeling men or women right in front of her who wear iron rings around their necks. Who are these people? They are as indifferently dressed as those of previous panels. Are they in prison because they committed a crime or are they captives? Release from prison and/or from captivity certainly was an issue at the time and earlier, as testified by the tremendous success of the twelfthcentury relic-shrine of Sainte-Foy in Conques. Within our Cypriot context and with an eye to the Holy Land—and probably, Acre lost—one might interpret the scene as depicting the Virgin miraculously releasing Frankish hostages or prisoners. This, of course, is not necessarily bound to the fall of Acre, but to the harsh reality of crusading adventures that often ended disastrously.

A8. (HIC D)EMONES EICIUNTUR (pl. 20) This picture, together with the one on the other side, is nearest to the sight of the consumers of the panel. In this scene Mary seems to act as a cult image. She is now depicted enthroned and crowned as a Hodegetria-type, with the Christ Child crowned in her left arm. The rather fragmentary state of her figure suggests that her right arm reaches out from the confines of her throne towards an individual dressed in a long red tunic who prays to or petitions her. He appears to be an advocate for those half-naked, bare-breasted men lined up behind, with their hands bound at their backs. Since the inscription includes the word DEMONES, the man in red in all likelihood asks the Virgin for an exorcism. It is odd that the painter or devisor of this scene abandoned the hitherto standard, standing Mary in an architectural backdrop. Is this a plea in front of the “real” Virgin and child — similar to her appearances in the other panels — or a supplication before a cult image? This Hodegetria Virgin and Child version somehow reflects the actual Marian image with Christ on the panel that we are facing. Therefore, are we confronting an actually existing, miraculous cult image? Is it the same as this panel, or does it refer to a miraculous panel at a different location? These problems cannot be resolved without evidence from additional oral or textual sources which we presently lack. It is thought-provoking, however, that Nancy Black raises similar questions regarding comparable types of images as they appear in the so-called Soissons manuscript, which is a fourteenth-century edition of the Miracles de la sainte Vierge preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.370 There we have a similar collection of, or better, 370 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Nouv. Acq., fr. 24541. Nancy Black, “Images of the Virgin Mary in the

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia a similar focus on various appearances of Marian images in terms of two-dimensional tablets, three-dimensional statues, depictions of Mary in this world, in human form and in Heaven.371 Certainly, the Nicosia cathedral panel does not share the sophistication of the later French devotional book which in all probability was made for the royal realm in Paris. However, Mary appears in human form as “in this world,” as a cult image, and as a heavenly vision upon a pear tree (see B3). What I am very cautiously suggesting here is that there may have been a “loose” connection between such Marian, devotional manuscripts and the Nicosia panel. Of course, I do not want to see this hypothesis become fact in later publications. I only wish to alert the reader to potential French manuscript sources outside the realm of those Histoires etc. that would have been “within reach” for idiotae or educated customers and for monastic Carmelite audiences at the time.

B1. The titulus for this scene is lost (fig. 13) The half-naked men are depicted analogously to the much later fresco describing the healing of the man with dropsy in the narthex of the twin churches of Sts. Heracleidus and John Lampadistis, painted, according to A. and J. Stylianou, after 1453 (fig. 14).372 It describes the healing of people afflicted with dropsy. Indeed, it is a similar scenario: a group of rather visibly unwell individuals supported and presented to the Virgin who appears standing at left, performing her miraculous power. We cannot entirely solve the enigma of the origin of this particular pictorial narrative. Was it invented for the Nicosia panel and then echoed in the Lampadistis frescoes, or do both images revert to a common prototype? Anyway, it is another healing miracle. The question remains as to why this particular miracle and disease were chosen.

Soissons Manuscript (Paris BNF, Nouv. Acq. Fr. 24541),” in Kathy M. Krause and Alison Stones, eds., Gautier de Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 253–77, passim. The manuscript can be dated between 1328 and 1334, is attributed in part to Jean Pucelle (d. 1333/34, which sets the upper limit of the date of the manuscript’s production). It was most likely executed for Jeanne de Bourgogne and her husband Philippe VI de Valois. It has 244 folios, measures 340 × 242 mm, and is written in old French. Jean II, the son of the before-mentioned couple, inherited the book, but “lost” it to the English in the battle of Poitiers in 1356 (see Black, ibid., 253–56). For good reproductions see Henri Focillon, Le Peintre des Miracles Notre Dame (Paris: Paul Hartmann Éditeur, 1950), figs. I–XL. 371 Black, Soissons Manuscript, 256–57. 372 Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus, fig. 183. Dropsy is an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin or in one or more cavities of the body. In our case, the picture most likely shows a cerebral oedema, i. e. extracellular fluid accumulation in the brain, causing drowsiness or loss of consciousness.

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B2. (HIC) NAVES PERICULIS LIBERANTUR (pl. 21) This scene relates one of the clearest pictures of Mary appearing in her customary nondescript architectural frame. In spite or because of her unfocused eyes, with outstretched hand she absent-mindedly, as it seems to the modern observer, saves from the perils of the sea two boats packed with pilgrims (?) accompanied by knights. From our profane twenty-first-century perspective, they all look like Fisher Toys™ Little People without either individual characteristics or gaze.373 At first sight, the picture of the boat with square sails looks rather authentic. This is true. As such, it also becomes a kind of an established topos, as also seen in the Brussels or the London Histoires Universelles.374 For those who are inclined to connect this particular Nicosia cathedral picture with French manuscript models, I refer to the miniature in the Histoire Universelle in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, MS fr. 2628, fol. 89v (pl. 29), describing Bohemund’s voyage to Italy.375 The Nicosia panel picture manifestly does not describe Bohemund’s voyage, but the rescue of pilgrims (?) accompanied by the knights of either the Hospitaller or the Templar Order — a remarkable addition to the presence of the knights who so prominently figure in the first scenes (A2/A3). Needless to say, it would be very speculative to establish the identity of the Nicosia panel painter or his relation with the illuminator of the Paris Histoire Universelle (Folda dates the Paris manuscript “about 1277.”) This underscores that a pictorial pattern can serve different themes and was available as a workshop pictorial scheme. A quick check into the model repertory of a painter would pull out a pictorial pattern that suited the most basic necessities of a text, i.e. men at sea. The curled wave patterns and mast steps are surprisingly similar in both the miniature and the panel. Furthermore, the design of the gates in the tower of the upper part of the Parisian miniature also occurs in the same place in the scenes A2 and A3 in our panel. Small scale knights could easily be added to the little people in our picture to achieve a pictorial reality that takes full shape only in

373 Amazingly, even their hairdo corresponds to these commercial mockeries of real human beings. 374 See comparable examples of square-sail sail boats crowded with crusaders in the Histoire d’Outremer, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 9084, fol. 125v (Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, fig. 106), in the History of Outremer, Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS. Plu. LXI. 10, fol. 292r, and, in the same manuscript, fol. 336v, describing the arrival in Cyprus of Louis IX and his fleet: “Li rois de france arriva a XXVIII iors de septembre en chypre” (Folda, ibid., 192–96, figs. 163, 165). The latter illumination is close to the ships and equipage of our panel; Folda claims that this manuscript was executed in Acre in late 1290 or early 1291, yet dates his particular illumination to the early fourteenth century and gives it a Venetian origin (ibid., 141). According to Folda, ibid., 141, the Florentine Plu. LXV. 10 is “the only known extant codex begun at Saint-Jean d’Acre but completed in the west,” and “the artist was surely Italian.” 375 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 27–41, esp. 36 and passim, dates the ms to “about 1277.” Folda, The Art of the Crusaders, fig. 86.

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia the mind of the contemporary consumer, whether en route in Outremer or, equally relevantly, as an armchair crusader in France.

B3. HIC APPARUIT DNA MULTIS SUPER PIRUM (pl. 22) The scene describes the apparition of the Virgin in the (pear) tree. Two huge architectural wall-like structures serve as the backdrop to male and female bystanders to left and right with their usual praying or pleading gestures. The red veils covering their summits are foreign to otherwise simple schemes and remind one of Byzantine models. In front of them, towards the centre of the composition, groups of men and women are kneeling symmetrically. This leaves enough space for the focus of their attention, the glorious yet largely obliterated picture of the apparition of the Virgin, hovering in front or above the pear tree. The few faint traces of her figure do not permit to determine whether she was depicted with the Christ Child. This is seemingly the only Marian scene that has a textual legendary source within a Carmelite context, namely in the fourteenth-century Leggendae abbreviatae compiled by John of Hildesheim (1310/20–1375). John was a member of the Carmelite order, studied in Paris and Avignon, and travelled extensively in southern France. He relates two miracles of the Virgin which took place in Toulouse and in Montpellier, respectively.376 Here is his full, translated account of the Toulousan vision which he gives in chapter 17 under the title Miracula aliquot : First you should know that in the city of Toulouse, famous in the Occitan-speaking land, where we were not yet present at the time, there lived a wealthy Jew, and he attracted others, for he was most honoured of all. Next to his house he had a fruit garden, where he often used to walk for solace. Once while taking a walk alone in the garden, delighting in the sight of a most beautiful tree, he discerned in the tree top a brilliant image of the Virgin holding a Child in her arms. Astounded, he grabbed a ladder, but as soon as he ascended the tree, the image disappeared. Once down the ladder, he saw the image again, but it disappeared the moment he started climbing up. As many times as this happened to the Jew, he spent sleepless nights for not knowing what this was supposed to mean. There was, however, in the city some priest of great sanctity and reputation, especially devoted to the Holy Virgin, whose fame did not escape even the Jew. The Jew thus secretly approached him and presented the facts. The priest responded: “This is truly a sign that the glorious Virgin Mary wishes to have perpetual service in your area, where she is so often subjected to blasphemy.” The Jew said, “So what do I do then?” Inspired by divinity, the priest answered, “In this area, the friars of the Holy Virgin Mary have no convent yet: give them your land and, upon baptism, enter the order.” Having thought it over, the Jew thus accomplished it all, one by one. The friars were summoned and came, received the land, baptized the Jew with his spouse and children and had the place consecrated, and rang the bell on the newly erected bell-tower. When this came to the knowledge of the official of the King of France —the captain of the city, he arrived with 376 Adrianus Staring, O. Carm, Medieval Carmelite Heritage: Early Reflections on the Nature of the Order, Textus et studia historica Carmelitana 16 (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, 1989), 326–30, 332–34, 385. See also Jotischky, Carmelites, 132–36.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia an order to leave. When the friars would not comply, he surrounded them with strong walls, locking them inside. They did not, therefore, have any food except for what devotees brought for them at night, scaling walls with ladders or in other furtive ways, thus doing the works of mercy, as is said: “I was in prison, and ye came to me [Mt 25:36].” We have, however, an antiphon that begins with “Ave stella matutina”: we sing it during the morning lauds. This antiphon contains these words: “Tu nos in hoc carcere solare propitia (Be favourable to consoling us in this imprisonment!)” This is what they chanted with devotion, according to the custom, their eyes elevated to the image of the Holy Virgin, when the walls which prohibited them from exiting tumbled, in the same manner as the walls of Jericho had once fallen, and the eyes of the captain, who had had them locked up, fell out of their sockets and hung on the nerves about his jaws. So when the captain realized what had happened, he stated: “I surely deserve it.” He had himself led to the friars’ place and, falling on his face before the altar, begged for their prayers. Invoking the Holy Virgin, the friars promptly sang “Salve Regina.” And when they reached the place “Illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte (Turn to us those merciful eyes of yours),” the eyes of the aforementioned captain immediately returned to the original location, in full view of all those present at the time. Thence the captain entered the order with all his wealth. The Holy Virgin began to visit this place with many miracles, and still does so in many ways, as is well known to the locals. A convent of not insignificant value was built there in the honour of Mary, the holiest Mother of God, let her name be blessed forever.”377

377 Staring, Medieval Carmelite Heritage, 385 (my emphases): “Primo scias quod apud urbem Tolosam in occitana lingua celebrem, nobis ibidem adhuc locum non habentibus, erat residens Iudaeus dives; et ad ipsum confluebant ceteri, cum esset honorabilior omnium. Habuit et ipse pomerium domui suae vicinum, in quod saepius pro solatione consuevit ire. Semel cum solus in horto deambularet, arborem pulcherrimam delectabiliter intuitus, in ipsius summitate vidit imaginem virginis valde speciosam, puerum in ulnis tenentem. Mox igitur attonitus, apprehensa scala, dum ascendere voluit arborem, disparuit imago. Cumque descendit disset iterum vidit imaginem, et cum ascendere vellet, iterum disparuit. Cumque saepius accedisset hoc Iudaeo, noctes duxit insomnes, nesciens quid hoc praetenderet. Erat autem in villa quidam sacerdos magnae sanctitatis et opinionis, beatae Virgini specialiter devotus, cuius et fama Iudaeum non latuit; quem secrete Iudaeus accessit et factum proposuit. Respondit sacerdos: “Vere signum est, quod gloriosa virgo Maria vult habere servitium perpetuum in area tua, inqua saepius est blasphemata.” Dixit Iudaeus: “Quid igitur faciam?” Respondit sacerdos divinitus edoctus: “In hac villa fratres beatae Mariae virginis conventum nondum habent; quibus aream tuam dabis et baptizatus ordinem intrabis.” Iudaeus igitur, habita deliberatione, singulare complevit. Fratres igitur vocati venerunt, locum receperunt, Iudaeum cum uxore et liberis baptizari et locum secrete consacrari procuraverunt, et campanam erectam pulsaverunt. Quod ut officiatus regis Franciae, capitanus villae, percepit, edvenit, praecipiendo fratribus ut exirent. Quod cum facere nollent, circumdedit eos fortibus clausuris, ipsis inclusis. Nihil igitur de victualibus habuerunt praeter id quod homines devoti nocturnis temporibus ipsis per scalas vel aliunde furtive ministraverunt, complentes in hoc opera misericordiae, in quibus dicitur: “In carcerem eram et visitastis me.” Habemus autem antiphonam quae incipit: “Ave stella matutina,” quam in laudibus matutinis canimus, in qua continentur haec verba: “Tu nos in hoc carecere solare propitia.” Quam iuxta morem, elevatis oculis ad beatae Virginis imaginem, devotissime decantarent, quidquid eos exire prohibuit, corruit, ad modum quo muri Iericho quondam corruerunt. Oculi vero capitanei, qui ipsos inclusit, sedes proprias exeuntes per nervos in maxillis pependerunt. Cumque nuntiaretur capitaneo quod factum erat, respondit: “Bene habeo partem meam.” Fecit igitur se duci ad locum fratrum, et coram altari prostratus petiit orationes ipsorum. Fratres vero beatam Virginem invocantes, alacriter “Salve Regina” cantaverunt. Et

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia Parts of this text may, or may not have been the source of our panel picture,378 which served as a visual aide-mémoire for this complex episode. There is, however, no specific classification of the type of arbor pulcherrima as a pear tree. Otherwise it fits well within the context of our panel and the crowned Carmelite Vierge de la miséricorde. The conversion of a Jew is part of this scene and is was, of course, a very popular theme at the time, which parallels the conversion of a Saracen depicted within the context of both the Miracles de la Sainte Vierge and the Cántigas of Alfonso el Sabio.379 The problematic issue is, of course, the late fourteenth-century source of the legend with John of Hildesheim. In this respect I assume, with Staring, that John picked up a legend of much earlier origin while studying in Avignon and travelling in southern France.380 Or, could the previously mentioned sponsor of the Carmelites in Nicosia, the merchant Bernard Faxit from Narbonne, have been the missing link in this respect? Avignon and southern France are, of course, a meaningful reference, since the Curia with considerable and continuing influence over the Latin bishops in Cyprus moved there since the pontificate of Pope Clement V (1305–1314).381

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cum venirent ad illum locum: “Illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte,” confestim oculi praedicti capitanei loca pristina, cunctis qui aderant videntibus, reintraverunt. Intravit igitur capitaneus ordinem cum substantia sua tota. Multis ibidem Virgo beata coepit coruscare miraculis ed adhus multipliciter coruscate, ut sciunt homines qui sunt in partibus illis. Ibique non parvi valoris aedificatus est conventus, ad honorem beatissimae Dei geitricis Mariae, eius nomen sit benedictum in aevum.” Many thanks for this translation to Dr. Elena Lemeneva. The second miracle involves the Holy Cross and is not relevant here. The only account of the Virgin Mary explicitly appearing in a pear tree that I know of relates to the seventeenth-century pilgrimage church of Maria im Birnbaum, or “Unser Lieben Frau im Pürnbaum,” in Bavaria, south of Nuremberg. The local shepherd Johann Vogl hid an image of the Virgin in a pear tree which then performed a miracle in the year 1659. See Bernhard Schütz, Die Wallfahrtskirche Maria Birnbaum und ihre beiden Baumeister (Frankfurt am Main: Schnell und Steiner Verlag, 2004), passim. See, for example, the conversion of a Jew in front of the image of the Virgin in the Cántigas. For a bad reproduction see: Luis Beltrán, Cuarenta y cinco cantigas del Códice Rico de Alfonso el Sabio: Textos Pictoricos y Verbales (Palma de Mallorca: Oro Viejo, 1997), cantiga 46, at the bottom right. The fourteenth-century illumination of the same theme in the Soissons version of the Miracles de la Sainte Vierge by Gautier de Coinci is more abbreviated (see Black, Soissons Manuscript, 259, fig. 2 (1 Miracle 32)), and follows the earlier thirteenth-century St. Petersburg version (National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, Fr. F. v. XIV. 9) on fol. 103v of the converted Saracen; see T. Voronova and A. Sterligov, Western European Illuminated Manuscripts of the 8 th to the 16 th Centuries in the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg (Bournemouth: Parkstone Press, 1996), fig. 48. The centre panel of the triptych showing a “Saracen” devoutly kneeling and worshipping the Virgin and Child, as discussed by Weitzmann and Folda, may belong to the same category of pictures, see Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 354, fig. 210. Staring, Medieval Carmelite Heritage, 330. In general see Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus: 1313–1378, passim.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia At this point we should look back to the opposite side of our panel. The intervention of the captain, the forceful seclusion of (Carmelite) monks and their salvation through their prayers and the power of the Virgin could have been the theme of the first three episodes.

B4. … IS AMPUTATA SANCT … (pl. 23) The Virgin has now returned to her architectural habitat on the left. The usual crowd of standing and kneeling citizens thank her for the restitution of the severed limb of a man shown seated at far right. Further scrutiny reveals that this man and the one who kneels and prays in front of the Virgin are characterized as members of a monastic order by their tonsures. They do not wear white habits, but the same reddish-brown tunics as worn by those monks who attended the miraculous opening of the gates in panel A3. I believe that two distinct phases of action — the restitution of the amputated arm, and the same monk kneeling and praying in front of Mary — were merged into one pictorial frame.

B5. HIC (L)IBERATUR QUIDAM SUB MOLA (pl. 24) Mary has not moved from her habitual enclosure. A tumultuous crowd of people strives to pull a man from underneath a mill stone by means of strong ropes. The dramatic rescue action ends happily after the intervention of the Virgin who is then thanked by many lay people. This panel has good details of stereotyped faces.

B6. HIC PARIUNT PREGNANTES ET STERILES IPR… (pl. 25) This episode takes place in an interior divided into three compartments by trilobed columnar spaces. The architectural divisions are not very elaborate and show no attempt at perspective or spatial illusion. Mary occupies the leftmost part which is also distinguished from the other two by a red background. The centre shows a seated woman in a blue tunic clasping a baby. A figure in a red dress behind her extends both arms towards the Virgin in a hailing gesture. The rightmost compartment is filled with seated women with arms folded across their chests. The titulus mentions pregnant and sterile women, and my interpretation of the picture is as follows: the woman in the central space is meant to show how, thanks to Mary’s intervention, she was healed from her sterility, enjoyed a healthy pregnancy, and now holds her newborn child as visible proof of this miraculous event.

B7. (HIC) PUER SUBMERSUS IN AQUA REDI(TUS)… (pl. 26) Mary is framed by a similar architectural backdrop, and flanked by very simple columns and a trilobed arch. Her enclosure is now breached by a kneeling and praying woman in

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia a dark (originally green?) dress, in all likelihood the mother of the boy who is depicted floating in the water right behind her. Above this pool we see the fragmented figure of a woman who presents a boy (the one saved from drowning below) to the Virgin.

B8. (HI)C PUER SINE CAPITE NATUS (CAP)UD RECEPIT (pl.27) Boys are again the focus of this last healing miracle. Not much is left of this scene except the usual crowd of standing and kneeling men and women on the left and traces of the Virgin on the right side. Not only the woman kneeling in front of Mary, but also the first one standing in front of her hold a boy by the torso. The figure of Mary has shifted to the right side of the scene. It is hard to determine from what remains of her figure whether she was standing in her niche similar to her previous appearances. I am more inclined to reconstruct her image as approaching the one on the other side, namely the enthroned Hodegetria.

Mary as intercessor figures prominently in most but not all scenes. She is usually depicted crowned, standing, and with her hand raised both to perform miracles and to receive the gratitude of people. She is dressed in a long blue mantle with massive gold striations.382 Scene A8 (pl. 20) is exceptional: it shows Mary not alone, but enthroned with the Christ Child. Scene B3 (pl. 22) also deviates from the usual scheme and shows Mary frontally, hovering above a (pear) tree. I know of no biblical, apocryphal, or other textual source that could serve as the basis for the panel’s episodes as a whole; in other words, there is no fixed or established iconography. Since Mary is the protagonist of all but two scenes (A1–2), the contemporary and illustrated French editions of Gautier de Coinci’s Life and Miracles of the Virgin come to mind.383 Surprisingly, some miniatures of a late thirteenth-century illuminated edition 382 In most instances, the blue has peeled off and what remains is the glaring gold effect. See also the speculative comments by Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 220, in this respect. The “colour” of gold is deeply associated with the Carmelites’ devotion of the Virgin, who was “rightly counted as «gold» in her former state, for the excellence of her devotion.” See the text of the Ignea Sagitta (1270–71) of Nicholas of Narbonne (Prior General of the Carmelite Order from 1266 to 1271), at the beginning of chapter one: Nicholas of Narbonne, O. Carm, The Flaming Arrow / Ignea Sagitta, trans. Michael Edwards (Durham: Teresian Press, 1985), passim; and Jotischky, Carmelites, 79–105; Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Art,” in Cyprus: Society and Culture, 1191–1374, 304, argues that the golden figure of Mary represents “perhaps a golden statue venerated by the Carmelite community portrayed at the figure’s feet.” 383 Gautier de Coinci (1177–1236). Alexandre Eusèbe Poquet, ed., Les miracles de la Sainte Vierge, traduits et mis en vers par Gautier de Coincy (Paris: Parmantier, 1857); Vernon Frederic Koenig, ed., Les

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia of Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg are characterized by a scenic lay out similar to our panel by blocks of four, six or even eight episodes with a predilection for a blue and red colour scheme (fig. 15, pl. 28). The single image of the standing and crowned Virgin, dressed in blue and gold with upheld hands, conforms to that of Mary in the Nicosia cathedral panel.384 In spite of these analogies it would be premature to assume direct dependence of our panel painter on this type of contemporary illustrated French manuscript. It should also be emphasized that the Nicosia panel’s jumbled assembly of various types of episodes cannot compare with those more coherent narrative stories as they are visualized not only in Gautier de Coinci’s La Vie et les miracles de Notre Dame, but also in the related Cántigas de Santa Maria commissioned by Alfonso el Sabio (1221–1284). As to the presence of such manuscripts in Outremer, Krinije Ciggaar relays “the possibility that someone like Jacques de Vitry must have had such a manuscript in his trunk when traveling to the Latin Kingdom.”385 But then, the Nicosia cathedral altar piece plays on different, more independent notes when compared with the fixed textual background of those books previously mentioned, which is not a virtue but a necessity because of its eclectic, ad hoc origin and its medium. The presence and potential repercussions of these Marian books in Outremer remain rather obscure and need to be further explored. As indicated above, there are several missing, but complex links: the oral context of the panel and its donors, its certified original location, and the model repertory in terms of text — if there was any — and whatever image repertory the devisor of the panel had at hand. Furthermore, since the ten Carmelites belong to the patrons of this panel, one could expect them to be the focus of miracles by commemorating their history in the lost (?) Holy Land, or reflecting their role in the present and new Cypriot realm despite the fall of Acre.386 This is not the case, except for the hypothetical Cypriot historical link miracles de Notre Dame (Geneva: Droz, 1955), 4 vols. A late thirteenth-century illuminated version of de Coinci’s “Life and Miracles of the Virgin” is preserved in the Dubrovsky collection of the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, Fr. F. v. XIV. 9., see Voronova and Sterligov, St. Petersburg, 67–71, figs. 44–51. In general see H. P. J. M. Ahsmann, Le culte de la sainte Vierge et la littérature française du moyen âge (Utrecht-Nijmegen: N. V. Dekker & Van de Vegt – J. W. van Leeuwen, 1930), 21, 33–38. Ciggaar, “Manuscripts as Intermediaries,” 141, mentions two manuscripts “of interest” in our crusade context : one in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 19166, “copied in Paris in the early 1280s,” the other also in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. fr. 1533, a La Vie Notre Dame, Les Miracles de Notre Dame, Les Avez de Notre Dame and Oraisons. For details see Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 196–97, catalogue nos. 13, 14, figs. 198–202. 384 See fol. 144r of the manuscript in the previous note. Voronova and Sterligov, St. Petersburg, fig. 51. 385 Ciggaar, “Manuscripts as Intermediaries,” 141– 43; Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 402. For Cypriot-French relationships see Nicholas Coureas, “Economy,” in Angel Nicolaou-Konnari and Chris Schabel, eds., Cyprus: Society and Culture, 1191–1374 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 121–23, 133. Also Jacoby, “La littérature française,” passim. 386 See Jotischky, Carmelites, 128–30, and passim.

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia that may connect either the third episode (A 3) with the first two scenes or the miracle of Mary in the Tree (B3) with the first three panel scenes. Besides these scenes, the detailed readings yielded little to clarify the raison d’être of the Nicosia Hodegetria panel. Certainly, the sixteen episodes that frame the shielding image of the Virgin and the Christ Child visualize the complex worldly and miraculous realm of the time as experienced and commissioned by a group of Carmelite friars in Her tutelage: apart from Mary, the protagonists are an enthroned ruler, lay men and women, regular and/or secular clergy, pilgrims(?), Frankish knights and children. With the exception of the first two or three scenes (A1–2/3), the unifying narrative component is the miraculous intervention of Mary to heal and to save lives. Except for the possible legendary French reference to Mary’s appearance in the tree I cannot find any textual basis for the Marian scenes. It may be significant that the source of this text, as recorded by John of Hildesheim, lies in southern France with the exiled Curia at its centre and, therefore, possibly relates to Lusignan and Franciscan sources not necessarily in Cyprus, but perhaps in France or even in Italy.387 I assume that all other episodes and their visualizations were invented ad hoc for the purpose of this remarkable altar piece. This is all the more likely since the Carmelites at that time had no written collection of legends regarding their own history that can be compared with, for example, ample Franciscan or Dominican text resources.388 However, in my opinion, the panel’s Marian devotional thematical structure was vaguely inspired by and modeled after contemporary repertories such as the Miracles de la Sainte Vierge. There, Mary also appears as Maria Regina, often enshrined in architectural settings, standing and blessing, or with the Christ child.389 To complicate the “evidence” even further, altarpieces of this type and size are common in Italy since the 1280s, but most unusual in Byzantium, including Cyprus.390 Lastly, I should like to add some observations regarding the painterly execution of the panel’s figures. The faces of men and women are rendered rather stereotypically. This is not meant to be a qualitative judgment and may refer to the production mode of the painter(s) of the panel. These faces appear to be serially executed according to a single

387 See note 354 for Bernard Faxit from Narbonne. 388 On this issue see Jotischky, Carmelites, 128, referring to the early fourteenth-century chronicles of William of Coventry: “The Cypriot foundation on Mt Helios was, he claims, flooded by refugees from Mt Carmel after Saladin’s invasion of the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. In consequence of this, Richard I founded two new Carmelite houses on the island, at Limassol and Fortanie. This is further expanded in William’s De duplici fuga. Here William mourns the martyrdom of Carmelites from Acre and other unspecified cities in 1187; only the pre-existing foundations on Cyprus and Sicily remained untouched.” 389 This is especially true for the Soissons early fourteenth-century version, see Focillon, Miracles Notre Dame, passim. 390 See also Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 217.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia model with only minor variations: a few lines make up their plain facial expressions. Furthermore, most of the figures lack more sophisticated painterly elements; instead, they seem to be drawn or sketched and then filled in with colour. Some figures, such as the censer angels on the main panel (pls. 45– 46), the lame man clad in a blue tunic in scene A4, and the draperies of the pants of men with dropsy (B1) (fig. 13) show a more careful attempt to indicate plasticity according to ruling painterly patterns; these features could equally have been derived from different conventions or available types as part of the model books. In addition, the painter enhances his design with some superficial, schematic plasticity (highlights around the eyes, forehead, neck and nose). The faces are mostly rendered in three-quarter profiles with no attempt to distinguish between male or female types. In Mouriki’s words: Rounded fleshy faces with heavy jaws are apparent in both works, as well as the bulging eyes that have been considered a trademark of Crusader painting. The unclassical facial types with empty expressions and a simplified treatment of the bodies recall some examples of Crusader miniature painting.391

In contrast to the St. Nicholas panel, there are no bearded people: the blessed reign of eternal youth! Their dress is kept either in blue or red, with rough indications of linear folds in black. All in all, these are not fine or very sophisticated paintings, but then we have no other narrative altar pieces for comparison except for the Saint Nicholas panel which shares roughly the same characteristics (fig. 16). The stress is on the minimalistic visual account of certain historical (?) and miraculous events. Whether indeed by modern, or “modern medieval” terms,392 their unexceptional artistic quality is not extraordinary. More importantly, it seems not to have been at issue.

The size, form, structure and function of both the St. Nicholas and the Hodegetria panels as large-scale altar pieces were unique in Cyprus, as far as our present knowledge is concerned. Our only parallels in this respect are of Italian, i. e. mainly of Tuscan or south Italian origin.393 Here, I should like to reference three Apulian panels depicting

391 Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 377–78. 392 Marvin Trachtenberg, “Suger’s Miracles,” passim. 393 See, for example, the huge Maestà panels by Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto, the panel with Nicholas the Pilgrim and scenes from his life in the cathedral crypt of Trani, or the panel with Margaret of Cortona with scenes from her life in the Diocesan Museum in Cortona, albeit from the second quarter of the fourteenth century. For Cimabue see Luciano Bellosi, Cimabue (Milan: F. Motta, 1998); for Duccio see Luciano Bellosi, Duccio: The Maestá (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999); for Giotto see La Madonna d’Ognissanti di Giotto restaurata, Uffizi, Studi e ricerche 8 (Florence: Gli Uffizi, 1992).

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia the saints Nicholas, Margaret, and Nicholas the Pilgrim.394 As is typical for the styleoriented state of research, all these panels were identified as produced by various authors related to Byzantium, Tuscany, Sicily, Venice, Zara, and even Cyprus.395 Pina Belli D’Elia even relates the style especially of these panels to the Histoires Universelles “miniate ad Accon e divise tra Digione, Londra e Bruxelles”.396 For the Cypriot realm, the exceptional or uncommon looks of both Cypriot panels have been noted, and specifically how they deviate from the more conventional Byzantine vita icon structure. More important than the deviation, as seen from a Byzantinist’s point of view, is that they constitute an innovation in Cyprus. This observation does not establish yet another crusader variation of a Byzantine type of panel painting in terms of style and iconography. Rather, it bears witness to the knowledge of Italian models, which does not necessarily mean that these panels were executed by Italian painters. Then, too, it shows the pictorial footprint and impact of socially and religiously active western, Frankish individuals. In art-historical terms, it not only manifests the importation of Italian narrative altar piece design to Cyprus— something which is entirely appropriate for this particular medium — but even more the presence and the religious activity of western Frankish clients in order to satisfy their devotional needs within a predominantly Orthodox realm. As a task, this was a novelty in Cyprus at the time, as far as we know.397 In this respect we might question who was challenged by this new task. Who executed these new devotional pictures? According to Weitzmann, Buchthal and Folda there are three possibilities to choose from: Italian, French or “indigenous” Cypriot, or crusader artists. Of these, the “indigenous” Cypriot artist is the most versatile and most elegant, if not the best art historical solution for now, since he could be of Italian, French, Greek, or Cypriot origin, yet be familiar with local icon productions on Byzantine principles. 394 For the panel with St. Nicholas the Pilgrim and scenes of his life in Trani see Belli D’Elia, Icone di Puglia, cat. no. 27. Similar to the Nicosia Carmelite panel it shows worldly intruders, namely a group of supplicants with candles at the foot of the saint. For the Margareta da Cortona panel in Cortona see Chiara Frugoni, Una solitudine abitata: Chiara d’Assisi (Bari: Laterza, 2006), fig. 30. For the St. Margaret panel in Bari, see Belli D’Elia, Icone di Puglia, cat. no. 26. 395 Belli D’Elia, Icone di Puglia, 24–27. See also, in more general terms, Valentino Pace, “Icone di Puglia, della Terra Santa e di Cipro,” passim; idem, “Armenian Cilicia, Cyprus, Italy, and Sinai Icons,” passim; idem, “Presenze e influenze cipriote nella pittura duecentesca italiana,” in Cipro e il Mediterraneo Orientale 32, Corso di culture sull’arte ravennate e bizantina (Ravenna: Edizioni del girasole, 1985), 259–98; idem, “Italy and the Holy Land,” 334. 396 Belli D’Elia, Icone di Puglia, 28, n. 60. 397 It seems that this was also true for the early fourteenth-century fresco decoration of the so-called “Royal Chapel” in Pyrga, see Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, passim. For the Cypriot-Italian relationship and especially the trade connections with Pisa, Genoa, Venice and Florence, see Coureas, “Economy,” 124–39, 136: “By the fourteenth century there were more Florentines than Pisans in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean.”

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia To be sure, making panels of such size required not only direct or indirect knowledge of western models, but the technical expertise of accomplished carpenters.398 Carpenters and painters had to work closely together in order to produce oversize panels. Both panels have been restored, but to my knowledge no restoration report was ever written. From what I saw on location, the paneling of the Nicosia Hodegetria altarpiece is far simpler than that of its Italian counterparts: this may suggest the application of local icon makers’ expertise to a larger sized panel.

Let us step back at this point and re-evaluate the hypothetical connection of this panel with Acre and manuscripts such as the Brussels Histoire Universelle, as claimed by Folda and based on Mouriki’s observation.399 This indirect connection hinges on the identification of the heraldry on the St. Nicholas panel, and then on an immediate artistic relationship of the St. Nicholas panel with the Nicosia panel, as Mouriki claims. I should like to recall Folda’s words in this respect: The heraldry seen on the caparisoned horse that appears on this icon is also found in a miniature (fol. 216v) of a manuscript produced in Acre, the Histoire Universelle now in Brussels, MS 10175, and attributed to the 1270s, as we discussed it earlier. We have suggested elsewhere the possibility – obviously the rather slender possibility – that perhaps the same person who patronized the manuscript in the 1270s also commissioned the icon shortly before 1291.400

I have dealt with the heraldry issue in detail and do not endorse Folda’s conclusions. Linkage between the Brussels Histoire Universelle and the St. Nicholas panel is unlikely when seen from my perspective. The stylistic similarity, said to exist between both panels, rests exclusively on Mouriki’s judgment: “The panel of the seated Hodegetria has such a close stylistic affinity with the Nicholas panel from Kakopetria that their attribution to the same painter is most likely.”401 The panels do possess many comparable features. The figures on the St. Nicho-

398 See Christopher Kleinhenz, ed., Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2004), vol. 2, 831–33; John White, “Carpentry and Design in Duccio’s Workshop: The London and Boston Triptychs,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 92–105; and Christa Gardner von Teuffel, “The Buttressed Altarpiece: A Forgotten Aspect of Tuscan Fourteenth Century Altarpiece Design,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 21 (1979): 21–65. 399 Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 219, and n. 58. 400 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 504. 401 Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 378; and Mouriki, “Moutoullas,” 210: “The size of these two icons, identical technical features and stylistic considerations indicate that both were products of the same atelier. In the light of the evidence of the Moutoullas frescoes and that of the numerous icons with Greek inscriptions from Cyprus, it is highly probable that both works were painted by a non-Western artist. Their dating must be very close to that of Moutoullas.”

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia las panel show a similar layout, although they seem to be rather more austere and more schematic when compared with the Nicosia cathedral panel (fig. 16). Further on, they also include the faces of old men, in particular, of course, of St. Nicholas. Tituli identify the theme of each scene in very simple words, but whereas those of the St. Nicholas panel are written in Greek, the ones of the Hodegetria panel are kept in Latin. If Mouriki’s assumption is correct, those painters — or the same “masters”— now addressed a different kind of now “Latin” customers. It would be amazing that the same atelier so easily switched from Greek to Latin clients, or vice versa. Mouriki’s judgment is based entirely on stylistic criteria and does not take the varying perspectives of Greek or Latin customers into the account, much less the origins of still unknown complex oral, textual, narrative, or ad hoc roots of the saintly narratives that accompany the Hodegetria or St. Nicholas images. This background could have been provided by knowledgeable religious advisors. I could also imagine that both panels resulted in a kind of competitive situation by related but different ateliers, since both panels required access to different yet hybrid textual and oral Greek and Latin (French) sources. A similarly competitive situation existed in the West between Cimabue and Duccio and their huge Trinità and Rucellai Madonnas of the 1280s. Both panels also share so-called pastiglia, i.e. gesso ornaments such as the octarosette and the fleur-de-lys, linked by Mojmír Frinta to southern Italian panels.402 Do these and other common features provide sufficient evidence to conclude that both were made by the same painters? Nearly identical pastiglia ornaments fill the nimbi of many thirteenth-century icons, such as the Christ icon from the church of the Virgin in Moutoullas (fig. 17).403 On stylistic criteria this icon is dated to the same year as the execution of the frescoes in Moutoullas in 1280. It is impossible to shift the Nicosia Hodegetria panel to that early a date. This corroborates the assumption that various workshops over time used similar or identical tools and pastiglia patterns in order to garnish their 402 Mojmír S. Frinta, “Raised Gilded Adornment of the Cypriot Icons, and the Occurrence of the Technique in the West,” Gesta 20 (1981): 333–47, esp. 337, figs. 8–9, and Mouriki, “ThirteenthCentury Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 387–88. However, Cormack and Mihalarias, “A Crusader Painting of St. George,” 138, conclude that “it is normally assumed that the use of gesso ornament on Crusader panels is a straightforward derivation from western European fashion. The truth seems more complicated, since the present documentation of the technique does not give obvious priority to the west in the first half of the thirteenth century, and an example of the use of gesso in haloes has even been argued for Constantinople (in the templon mosaics of the Pammakaristos church) in the twelfth century.” See also Valentino Pace “Presenze e influenze cipriote nella pittura duecentesca italiana” 259–98, and Valentino Pace in my note 338 above. More western references are the censing angels in the trilobite spandrels above Mary, see Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 376. For the meaning of censers in Byzantium, see Maria Evangelatou, “The Symbolism of the Censer in Byzantine Representations of the Dormition of the Virgin,” in Images of the Mother of God, 117–32. 403 Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus, fig. 28; see also figs. 33, 34, and 35.

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The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia paintings, for reasons (workshop traditions and practice) unknown to us.404 The use of similar or what appear to be exactly matching ornaments does not provide enough evidence to establish the identities of any artists or workshop. This caveat also applies to facial features, as we will soon see.

Mouriki’s statement cited above, that those “empty expressions and a simplified treatment of the bodies recall some examples of Crusader miniature painting,”405 deserves attention. It is, indeed, possible that panel painters adopted and adapted to their medium the stylistic characteristics of manuscript miniatures,406 or that the same artists produced both miniatures and panel paintings, an issue to be addressed in the following chapter. The Nicosia Hodegetria scenes with their schematic and sketchy figures and their lack of painterly execution do indeed suggest the same type of fast-paced miniature production methods. We must here review our concept of the versatility of craftsmen and artists and the boundaries of what we call media, a notion entirely based on Renaissance precedent. The similarities noted above could refer to specific manuscript models at hand, or to more distant type of books such as those Miracles de la Sainte Vierge, or point to the use of exempla in model books with specific types of images, and, thereby, relate to the professional memory and conventional procedures of workshops and their members. I believe that the evaluation of the situation that led to the execution of the Nicosia Hodegetria panel greatly extends the traditional repertory of the art historical tool box, whose “contents,” as it were, depend on style and iconography.

Apart from the suggested terminus post quem of 1287 or 1295 at the latest, there is no sound dating criterion for the Nicosia Hodegetria panel. The historical context of scenes A1 to A3 (pls. 13–15) remains entirely hypothetical; if the first scene indeed shows the presence of Amaury, the brother of Henry II, the panel could be situated around or before 1308. A connection between Amaury and the Carmelites is confirmed by a letter to Pope Clement V of May 1308 where he mentioned the Carmelites among 404 See also Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 387–88. 405 Ibid. (my emphasis). 406 As is evident in the famous case of the Cotton or Vienna Genesis and the thirteenth-century mosaic Genesis cycle in the atrium of Saint Mark’s in Venice. This, of course, was not a painterly and artistic, but a political statement. See Kurt Weitzmann, “The Genesis Mosaics of San Marco and the Cotton Genesis miniatures,” in Otto Demus, ed., The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 2:105–42.

The Carmelite Mary from the Hagia Sophia in Nicosia others witnessing the surrender of the Templars in Nicosia.407 It seems that this late date is corroborated by the establishment of Carmelite houses on Cyprus which were only established at the very beginning of the fourteenth century.408 In any event one may assume that this and the St. Nicholas panel were executed on Cyprus, and that both panels show affinities to the London Histoire Universelle.409

407 Coureas, The Latin Church in Cyprus: 1195–1312, 217–18. 408 See ibid., 217. 409 Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 221, dates both panels “in the years around 1291. As such, these two famous and magnificent paintings form the core of an independent Crusader art on Cyprus in the late thirteenth century” (my emphasis).

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The Larger Problems

Before engaging in the matter of facial designs and related issues, I should like to summarize more generic and important observations, some already briefly touched upon throughout my text, in order to gauge the monuments discussed from a larger perspective.410

Reality and the Picture During the last quarter of the thirteenth century, reality as seen through the eyes of the beholder is, if at all, only inadequately reflected in the picture when compared with photographic or digital electronic reproductions. The event itself, mirrored in the viewers’ retina and filtered through their minds’ experience, is two if not three realities removed, and the gap is not yet bridged, presuming these can ever be joined. Historically speaking, the picture exists as a sign or code (much more complex than semiotics want us to understand 411) echoing the actual experience in the viewers’ mindful body, after which the picture attempts to mirror the likeness of reality— an idea that is constantly redefined.412 The latter type of picture lies at the origin of problems that slowly began to permeate the minds of painters in Italy in the outgoing thirteenth century.413 Apparently, this issue, despite the developments in Italy as testified to by Cimabue, the Legend of Saint Francis in San Francesco in Assisi attributed to Giotto, and the unsung 410 I borrow the expression of “the larger problem(s)” from C. R. Dodwell’s review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting, 215: “There is no evidence that the Crusader kingdom was a transmitter of influences, but this examination within a circumscribed area of the intermingling of the Western and Eastern traditions cannot but be of significance for a larger problem” (my emphasis). 411 See W. J. T. Mitchell, “What Is an Image?” New Literary History 15/3 (1984): 503–37, passim. 412 Belting, Bild-Anthropologie, 38. 413 See Jens T. Wollesen, “Pictures as Texts versus Pictures and Texts Around 1300,” in Ludolf Kuchenbuch und Uta Kleine, eds., Textus im Mittelalter: Komponenten und Situationen des Wortgebrauchs im schriftsemantischen Feld, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 216 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2006), 399–416; and Jens T. Wollesen, Pictures and Reality: Monumental Frescoes and Mosaics in Rome around 1300 (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), esp. 66–70, 173–84. See also James H. Stubblebine, Assisi and the Rise of Vernacular Art (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), passim.

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The Larger Problems (and unknown) heroes of around 1300, surprisingly had little influence on manuscript illumination in France in the late thirteenth century.414 It had no impact on the illustrations of the Histoires Universelles or Miracles de la Sainte Vierge, although many pictures of the Histoires d’Outremer somehow struggled on in an attempt to improve these gaps of veracity or authenticity. But in the end, these illustrations can hardly be compared with, for example, grand-scale and unique monumental frescoes or mosaics in Italy and those who executed them. French miniatures belonged to a different medium and were not as yet produced by famous artists as, for example, a generation later in the 1320s, by Jean Pucelle for the highest royal echelon, namely Jeanne d’Evreux. Instead, they were manufactured — and I purposely use this verb in order to emphasize the serial production of this type of literature and pictures — presumably by a relatively small team of illuminators. This is a serious issue and perspective for consideration. Variations of this procedure, and there are many in regard to both texts and pictures, are due to individual patrons and illuminators.

Therefore, the major challenge here is two-fold: why pictures at all, at that time, and then, the issue is not the stand-alone picture, its art, style, iconography, or prototypes, but the medium within which it appeared, and simultaneously the diversity of its mostly secular clients or consumers.415 The issue of why pictures at all is one of those (as yet unexplained) good questions relating to the demand for pictures in the second half of the thirteenth century in Italy and France; or was it first in France and then in Italy? I think that both secular commissioners and artists — it is impossible to determine who came first, except for the monetary side of a commission — were the driving force for many novelties, among them the new literary genres and the desire for illustrations as seen in the Histoires Universelles and Histoires d’Outremer.416 I should like to remark that the role of non-aristocratic clients, such as merchants, has been hitherto completely 414 See also Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, 124: “On the other hand, as the status of the monumental artist increased, especially in Italy, the book illuminator might remain by implication a craftsman working in a less important field of art.” 415 See Stephen G. Nichols, “Picture, Image, and Subjectivity in Medieval Culture,” Modern Language Notes 108 (1993): 617–37. Then, the issue of “why pictures at all” was, of course, also touched upon by Belting in his Bild-Anthropologie, passim. The same question, no surprise, is also aptly asked in a different, and more specific context, namely regarding the biccherne and gabelle in Siena which since 1258, as a novelty, included pictures of the administrators of the financial book keeping. See Maria Assunta Ceppari, Maria Raffaella de Gramatica, and Patrizia Turrini, Carla Zarrilli, Archivio di Stato di Siena: Museo delle Biccherne, Ministero per I beni e le attività culturali, Direzione Generale per gli Archivi (Siena: BetaGamma Editrice, 2008), 30. 416 As is the case with books of hours, romance literature (Roman de la Rose) in France, and privately owned devotional panels in Italy.

Reality and the Picture neglected.417 In search for a reasonable answer regarding the appearance of pictures within books or manuscripts, their looks and saleability come to mind. In this respect, Alice in Wonderland is most inspiring when she nitpicked: Once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” 418

And indeed, that very issue may have been important regarding the lure and therefore the saleability of romance literature at the time.419 I should like to add that the entertaining value of the Histoires Universelles cannot be dissociated from that of the romance literature of that time: this would certainly make for a valuable research subject. However, the pictorial or illustrative solutions “truly” describing this experience — whether it was first- or second-hand is often unclear — were lagging behind (judging from our modern criteria and historical insight), especially where the Histoires d’Outremer are concerned. In other words, pictures with their erratic and fragmented reality did not yet mirror reality coherently. They compiled, as rightly observed by Folda, a “new secular repertory of images,”420 resorting whenever possible to stock pictorial models, such as battles, ships, castles, generic or more specific architectural backdrops (“Holy Sepulchre”), charging knights and so on.421 But to a certain extent they also began to depict actual experience, as is exceptionally visualized in the Morgan Picture Bible, termed by Folda in a different context as “Crusader naturalism.”422 This “Crusader naturalism” is, of course, an intrinsic part of the larger picture that I already described. 417 I already referred in n. 9 to the moral-didactic Specchio Umano of the grain merchant Domenico Lenzi in Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Tempi 3, also known as the Biadaiolo Codex.; c. 1340s. See Susanna Partsch, Profane Buchmalerei. 418 Lewis Carroll, The Complete Works, ed. Alexander Woolcott (London: Penguin Books, 1988), 15 (my emphasis). Thanks to Dr. Elena Lemeneva who referred me to this revealing passage. 419 See also Alcuin Blamires and Gail C. Holian, The Romance of the Rose Illuminated: Manuscripts at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), xxviii–xxix. 420 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 347. 421 See also the remarks of Harvey Stahl in his review of Folda’s Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 429: “First, I question whether frequently cited details of armor, weaponry, ships, and architecture, in addition to attitudes, such as mourning or leg-crossing, can be used as a basis for attribution and dating. These are not reliable indications of either iconography or style; rather, they constitute a body of motifs and stock figure types that were the common vocabulary of Eastern illumination and of that of the West from which it grew.” 422 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M. 638, probably executed between 1244 and 1254. Noel and Weiss, The Book of Kings, passim. For the term see Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 407. However, Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 442, also uses this term to describe the stereotyped

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The Larger Problems The pictures of the Histoires Universelles and Histoires d’Outremer make use of stereotypical schemes and patterns that are repeated and slightly varied throughout various editions.423 These pictures, a fabulous amalgam of signs, fiction and fragmented reality, not only triggered the memories of reality of those who had been there, but more importantly, excited the imagination of those who had not been or were no longer there. This is, of course, not only a medieval conundrum but a modern one as well. The reality of the picture (better: the reality suggested by the picture) virtually materializes in the viewer’s mind; it doesn’t exist in the picture itself, which remains an image or a twodimensional facsimile of a mental multi-dimensional experience or some wishful projection.424 In sum, the pictures of the Histoires d’Outremer did not yet authentically portray reality, and in most cases could not attempt to do so in modern terms. Instead, they superficially insinuated reality in fictitious terms, anchored within the restrictions of their time. From my present perspective, I should think that the late thirteenth-century illustrated continuations of William of Tyre’s Histoire d’Outremer are a significant exception to be fully explored, since in many instances they seem to portray real, contemporary crusade-related conditions of war and peace.425 The more “exotic”, non-western elements of the pictures appearing in the Histoires Universelles, namely the references to Arab, Muslim, or Byzantine motifs and scenes, could have been collected from the abundant stock repertory circulating in the West for the previous thirty years and end-produced elsewhere, be it in Acre or Cyprus, or more conveniently in Paris — the very centre of book production. I addressed this issue in the previous chapter. Was it not a growing and profitable kind of medieval serial picture production, albeit on a rather small scale, that took advantage of the natural and widespread curiosity regarding the adventurous events in Outremer to produce a fashionable illustrated literature witnessing these events, one intended for what I call armchair-crusader clients in France and in Cyprus, including the merchant class? Repeated criticism as to the low, if

“detailed representation of the different emotions of the apostles” depicted in a Sinai icon with the Dormition of the Virgin (Folda, ibid., fig. 266). 423 The one notable exception is the pictures in the Liber ystoriarum romanorum, see my note 278. See also Hayden White, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” Critical Inquiry 7 (1980): 5–27. 424 All pictures “take shape” in the body’s mind since they are imagines. One may always object that there is no perfect reality in a picture — and, of course, not even in a mirror, because the latter always remains a (reversed) picture. For related issues see Hans Belting, Florenz und Bagdad: Eine westöstliche Geschichte des Bildes (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2008), 1–66, and passim; now translated into English by Deborah Lucas Schneider as Florence and Bagdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2011). See also Mitchell, “What is an Image?” passim. 425 For this aspect, see also Kühnel, “The Perception of History”, passim.

Quality & Mediocrity not “embarrassingly crude” 426 quality of the Histoires’ pictures seems to confirm this concept.

Quality & Mediocrity Buchthal celebrated the Arsenal Old Testament illuminations as being of “exceptional quality.”427 Surprisingly, the text is not. Daniel Weiss has observed that: The text contains numerous errors, of which the majority are either duplicated words or passages—a common scribal error in medieval scriptoria—or miscounted chapters. The vernacular text also contains a substantial number of grammatical errors and, unlike the elegant text produced around the same time at the University of Paris; the language employed in the Arsenal Old Testament is often coarse.428

This, of course, raises many questions. What are the comparanda for the “exceptional quality” of these illuminations? Then, what is the criterion behind what Weiss defines as an “elegant” text produced around the same time at the University of Paris? Then, too, why is the competence of the devisors of this book, its illuminators or similar manuscripts aimed in all probability at aristocratic consumers, measured against the “University of Paris” standards? Were these standards upheld for even the most prestigious book production at the court? Such does not seem to have been the case. Concerning the Vienna 2554 edition of the Bible moralisée, certainly made for a royal Parisian client, John Lowden notes the perplexing fact that: the “biblical” passages were written by someone with far less knowledge of the Bible than was available to the person who devised the images. It is likely, in my view, that any “theologian” in Paris in the early 1220s would have been astonished by the ignorance displayed: it is not that the French texts merely paraphrase the Bible, they also make basic errors and surprising omissions. (…) An awareness of just how unbiblical this Bible moralisée is, and how unscholarly are its moralizations, but yet how ingenious are its vital arguments, is crucial to understanding the making of later Bibles moralisées.429

As far as the sources for this peculiar compilation of Old Testament texts are concerned, Weiss refers to a comparable text now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, MS nouv. acq. fr. 1404, and dated by Folda to c. 1280, i. e. about thirty years or a generation after the Arsenal Bible.430 426 Folda’s verdict on the so-called “Leningrad-Lyon Master”, see Folda, 1976, 36. 427 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 64. 428 Weiss, Saint Louis, 105–6. My emphasis. The so-called “Leningrad-Lyon Master” received a similarly negative verdict by Folda, 1976, 36: “… his painting was embarrassingly crude.” 429 Lowden, Bibles moralisées, 2:200–1 (my emphasis). 430 Weiss, Saint Louis, 110–12; Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 67 ff. According to Weiss, “although the Old French text is accompanied by fifteen miniatures executed in a French Gothic style with predominantly Parisian iconography, the manuscript is a product of the crusader work-

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The Larger Problems In sum, an “unprofessional” text and the odd choice of images of the Arsenal Old Testament (or its inability to compete with elevated Parisian university standards), as well as its parallels in terms of “mediocrity” with these unscholarly but ingenious moralizations of the Bibles Moralisées, are interesting information for the moment. The levels of mediocrity noted in Parisian and potential Acre books discussed thus far are matters of quality. This latter criterion is contingent upon extant and accessible, but also on deliberately chosen comparanda. Moreover, it depends entirely on the mindsets of those who do the comparing. Buchthal’s and Folda’s conclusions are deeply rooted in a Renaissance-type concept of artistic idiosyncratic personalities. For example, when describing the art of the Leningrad-Lyon master, Folda is embarrassed by his crude painting, and the miniatures in the same codex even allow him to assess his very mediocre “artistic personality.”431 Buchthal, Folda, Weiss, and Lowden in particular reason on different platforms in this respect. It is impossible to reconcile their individual perspectives in terms of hardcore academic art-historical evidence.432 With these restrictions in mind, and judging from the often “mediocre quality” of the texts and illustrations of the above mentioned manuscripts assigned to an Acre scriptorium, I doubt that Acre possessed an extensive professional monastic scriptorium including illuminators. A few dedicated devisors, scribes and illuminators could well have met the needs of highly individual, however unknown, patrons for “special occasions”.433 There are, of course, the very significant matters of economic benchmarks beyond issues of style, old-fashioned masters and schools. Considering the French hegemony conditioning crusade contingencies in the Levant, can we really assume that, given their ephemeral locations in Outremer and in Acre, French dukes and counts could have imported or even met the expense of costly Parisian patterns of production? I refer not only to the complex fabrication of Bibles Moralisées but also to the later Grandes chroniques de France since the early 1270s and the Histoires Universelles.434 It is likely that the expense and sophisticated organization of Parisian-type scriptoria would by far have

431 432

433 434

shops of Acre”. Moreover, in the prologue of the book of Judges, we learn the names of the original manuscript’s patrons, the “Maistre Richart et frère Othon,” in all likelihood identical with “prominent Templar knights active in England during the third quarter of the twelfth century,” see Weiss, Saint Louis, 110–12. See also J. Beyssac, in the introduction to the marquis d’Albon, ed., Le Livre des Juges (Lyon, 1913), 1; and Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 63 ff. Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 36. Moreover, this requires not only the simultaneous attendance of these authors (one posthumously, as I write), but an easy access to high-resolution electronic reproductions of all manuscripts in discussion at their fingertips, thus far a mission impossible given national pride, copyright issues, and costs. See also Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 166, for his assumptions in this respect. Hedeman, The Royal Image, passim.

Innovative Book Productions: France & Outremer exceeded their means.435 During their temporary Outremer exploits it is doubtful that crusading aristocratic counts would aim for or could afford to compete with the sophistication, quality, and the stellar costs of such royal ateliers as those in Paris or Madrid.436 There remains, of course, a more viable option: the existence of small, secular workshops of private booksellers as producers,437 suited to highly individual tasks on a rather modest scale, who also knew how to fulfill the instruire et plaire purposes of such books in general, as well as meet the very specific personal demands of their patrons in the Holy Land. But of these we know little or nothing. In any case, the often criticized mediocre quality of text and illuminations of these Histoires d’Outremer and Histoires Universelles should not be used to minimize their significance. This lack of “quality” may instead reflect patterns of production — a smallish serial production mode of manufacturing many illustrated stories as economically and rapidly as possible.

Innovative Book Productions: France & Outremer The surviving “crusader manuscripts”— those believed to have been produced in Jerusalem and the more so later on in Acre — do not excel by their abundant illuminations, despite exceptions such as the earlier Psalter of Queen Melisende from the second quarter of the twelfth century, an exceptional, potentially royal commission.438 This seems to corroborate the likelihood that books in Outremer for non-liturgical, secular use were highly personalized and produced in relatively small ateliers. Judging from the surviving “evidence,” which, of course, stands on rather fragile ground regarding putative production in Acre, none of these productions could really compete with, for example, the Bibles Moralisées fashioned in Paris during the first half of the thirteenth century. The likely absence of an extensive scriptorium production frame in the Holy 435 Jacoby, in “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,”117, touches on this issue: “However, when we consider the production of illuminated manuscripts in Acre, we should also take into account two weighty factors that have been overlooked so far, namely, the differing quality of manuscripts and the purchasing power of their prospective buyers. Some knights and commoners, such as lawyers, with fairly modest means, compared with those of the higher nobility, were surely content to own manuscripts only sparsely decorated.” I agree, as Nicholas Coureas suggested to me, that merchants should be added to this list of potential clients. 436 See also Jacoby, who points to the “different quality and the purchasing power of their prospective buyers” (ibid., 117). However, Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 435, assumes that “furthermore it is not difficult to relate the significant development of secular book illumination in Acre as somewhat parallel to what we find in Paris in the second half of the thirteenth century.” 437 See page 25, and the case of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, p. 24. 438 London, British Library, MS Egerton 1139. The Arsenal Bible has only 20 illuminations in a volume of about 700 pages (368 folios). Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 41 adds: “For illuminated manuscripts from Acre the sparse evidence we have …”.

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The Larger Problems Land in favour of relatively small and highly individual workshops may have shown the way for more personalized, “unorthodox” results — a hallmark of productions imprinted with a very special, personal and unique character (Crusader Art). In this respect Buchthal, too, acknowledges, despite the paucity of evidence, that “the number of French-born masters working in Acre must have been very restricted.”439 My use of the term “unorthodox” applies naturally only to books made for secular clients, not to liturgical books which had to meet the prescriptions of the canon of the mass.440 One should differentiate between the production of liturgical texts with very few illustrations, such as the Perugia Missal, and what I would call the ad hoc creation of rather personal edifying historiographical books for secular aristocratic patrons including the Hospitaller or Templar military orders.441 Certainly, the proficiency, competence and skill of illuminators ever more than scribes — here we focus on pictorial matters — depended on the social rank of their employers. It may be that the putative illuminators employed by King Louis IX could afford better models and artists in his company abroad than many French dukes, counts or knights, but this is not certain. Furthermore, I think that in regard to secular book productions in Outremer or in Cyprus we have to take into account the distinctive wishes of patrons and resulting idiosyncratic variations of existing book types — types that were to a great extent based on home-made French paradigms. Some components of these seem to have been provided by these rather un-biblical Bibles moralisées made for individual French royal clients of the first half of the thirteenth century, and adopted for the second half of the thirteenth century by the Histoire d’Outremer, the Histoire Universelle, and the Grandes Chroniques de France. Exclusive focus on just these Histoires may significantly restrict our view. There was a host of other, equally didactic and entertaining illustrated books such as the Miracles de la Sainte Vierge, or, for example, handbooks such as the Illustrated Advice Manuals on the Recovery of the Holy Land, that elaborate or focus on Outremer experience, not brought up by Buchthal and only men-

439 Buchthal, in his foreword to Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, xxi–xxii. 440 As far as I can see, only a few commissions can be associated with Acre, such as a translation of the De Re Militari by Flavius Vegetius Renatus (late 4th/early 5th c.) from Latin to French, see Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 16; or William of Tripoli’s De Statu Saracenorum et de Mahomete pseudopropheta et eorum lege et fide, see Folda, ibid., 71. Further on, Folda mentions, based on Leopold Delisle (“Maitre Jean d’Antinoche, traducteur, et Frère Guillaume de Saint-Etienne, Hospitalier,” Académie des inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Histoire littéraire de la France, ouvrage commencé par des religieux bénédictins de la Congrégation de Saint Maur, et continué par des membres de l’Institut. (xxxiii) (Paris, 1906), 1 ff.), John of Antioch’s translation of Cicero’s De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium from Latin into French for William of St. Stephen, a knight of the Hospital (my emphasis). Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 18, then takes these examples as testimony for the fact that “intellectual life was flourishing at Acre in the last years of the city.” 441 See the remarks of Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 400–1.

Innovative Book Productions: France & Outremer tioned en passant by Folda.442 These could significantly expand our notions of illustrated literature available and produced for educated, aristocratic clients not necessarily residing in Outremer.

The peculiar and unprecedented arrangement of text and images in the Arsenal Bible, too, fits well into the eclectic, but innovative picture of the potential book manufacture for a small, secular clientele in Acre — or Cyprus — in the second half of the thirteenth century. As a type of book it is unprecedented; it does not follow established patterns. For that matter or phenomenon, it is in line with other French book creations such as the Bibles moralisées.443 These were later followed by the newly fashionable concept of secular history that materialized as the Histoires Universelles, and Grandes chroniques de France from the 1270s. As compilations of French history they mirror an aristocratic historical consciousness which is also expressed in the personal and illustrated accounts of the crusades known as Histoires d’outremer. Originally, the most famous of these chronicles were written by Jacques de Vitry (c. 1160/70–1240), elected bishop of Acre in 1214 (arriving there two years later), or the unfinished Latin history of Jerusalemborn William of Tyre (c. 1130–1186), written between 1170 and 1184 under Amalric (d. 1174), ambassador to the Byzantine Empire, tutor to King Baldwin IV (1161–1185, the Leper), chancellor and, since 1175, archbishop of Tyre, and others.444 These were books made for private and secular consumption, reflecting to some extent the ad hoc experience of their commissioners on location. Influential in our context are the twenty-three books originally conceived and written in Latin in Outremer as well as in France that comprise the History of Outremer, or Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum written by the already mentioned 442 Folda, ibid., 402. In general see Jacoby, “La littérature française,” passim; Pierre Dubois, The Recovery of the Holy Land (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), passim; Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), passim; Maureen Quigley devoted an insightful session to this subject on the occasion of the 2010 Kalamazoo Medieval Congress; The Miracles of Gautier de Coinci, and the Cántigas of Alfonso el Sabio contain many pictorial episodes of Muslim and Crusader experiences. See also the article by Nancy Black “Soissons Manuscript”. Further on, Grivaud, “Literature,” 240–44, 258–60 for the Annales of the Holy Land, the Gestes des Chiprois. 443 Lowden, Bibles moralisées, passim. 444 Hedeman, The Royal Image, passim; Jacques de Vitry, Historia Hierosolymitana, in Gesta Dei per Francos, ed. J. Bongars (Hanau, 1611), 1047 ff. William’s chronicle was translated into Old French around 1230. See R. B. C. Huygens, ed., Willemi Tyrensis Archiepiscopi Chronicon, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis 38 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1986); Helen J. Nicholson, ed., The Chronicle of the Third Crusade: The Itinerarium Peregrinorum and the Gesta Regis Ricardi (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997).

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The Larger Problems William of Tyre (1130–1186). The original Latin text was probably not illustrated.445 It is indeed remarkable how many of these histories circulated in Old French with additions and continuations since the early thirteenth century, but do we know how many were securely produced in the crusader states? 446 According to Buchthal, the various continuations are also largely independent from each other. Some were manifestly written in France (…,) others show a strikingly correct first-hand knowledge of the conditions and topography of the Holy Land. The French editors argued that the latter redactions were compiled in the East; they were even prepared to assign certain individual manuscripts to eastern scriptoria working in Acre or in Cyprus, and, though somewhat hesitatingly, suggested certain palaeographical criteria to prove their point.447

Buchthal’s formulations open up a host of problems. Given the fact that medieval culture is an oral one, his statement regarding the “correct first-hand-knowledge of the conditions and topography of the Holy Land” does not prove that those who put it into written vernacular actually experienced it. The fact that the continuations were written in France does not exclude the possibility that they were devised and based on personal experience in Outremer and then produced as a factual and concocted experience ad or post factum for French or (French) Cypriot home-based customers, such as Philip of Novara, or my “armchair crusaders” who obviously had nothing in common with those “crucesegnati” who actually took the vow and actually fulfilled it.448 Already Runciman expressed that: “Similarly, the two versified accounts of the First Crusade, the Chanson 445 Peter Edbury, “The Lyon Eracles and the Old French Continuations of William of Tyre,” in B. Z. Kedar, J. Riley-Smith and R. Hiestand, eds., Montjoie: Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer (Aldershot: Variorum, 1997), 139–53; Bernard Hamilton, “The Old French Translation of William of Tyre as an Historical Source,” in Defining the Crusader Kingdom, 93–112; Grivaud, “Literature,” 238–41; Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 87–93. 446 For the availability of a French translation of William of Tyre’s chronicle in Acre by the Venetian Marsilio Zorzi between 1242 and 1244, see David Jacoby, “The Venetian Privileges in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: Twelfth and Thirteenth-Century Interpretations and Implementation,” in Montjoie, 167. See also Jaroslav Folda, “Manuscripts of the History of Outremer by William of Tyre: a Handlist,” Scriptorium 27 (1973): 90–95, and Jacoby, “La literature française,” passim. 447 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 88 (my emphases). For the palaeographical issue Buchthal refers to Louis de Mas-Latrie, “Essai de classification des continuateurs de L’histoire des croisades de Guillaume de Tyr,” in Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 5e serie, tome 21 (1860), 38–72, 140–78, or rather to its reprint in Louis de Mas-Latrie, Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier (Paris, 1871), 481–82. For the French provenance, see M. R. Morgan, “The Rothelin Continuation of William of Tyre,” in B. Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer, and R. C. Smail, eds., Outremer: Studies in the history of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982), 244–57, esp. 251: “The Rothelin version, by contrast, is a purely European production: it seems to have been written in or near Soissons, and all its twelve manuscripts come without exception from the Île-de-France or Northern France or Flanders.” 448 For Philip of Novara see Jacoby, “Littérature française,” passim.

Innovative Book Productions: France & Outremer d’Antioche and the Chanson de Jerusalem, were both almost certainly composed in the West, on information brought back by returning Crusaders”.449 The intricacies in original commission, possessions, alterations, additions, and destinations, were recently addressed by Monique-Cécile Garand in a different context: De ces déplacements de moines d’un couvent à l’autre, de l’ignorance dans laquelle ils ont laissé le lecteur de leur faits et gestes nait un première cause non négligeable de confusion et d’erreur pour qui cherche aujourd’hui à reconstituer l’histoire d’un manuscrit monastique médiéval. Une deuxième difficulté vient d’une propriété bien irritante du manuscrit, quel qu’il soit: celle d’avoir été grand voyageur. Il a pu quitter dès le début son lieu d’origine, parce qu’il était destiné à une autre communauté ou à quelque important personnage; ou subir l’une quelconque des vicissitudes qui guettent le livre au cours de sa longue existence: dons, dotations diverses, emprunts non suivis de restitution et même vols, ventes, que sais-je encore.450

Moreover, Buchthal’s reference to “certain palaeographical criteria” deserves closer attention. I am reluctant to believe that the few pages on this issue by Francis Wormald in his book offer specific clues when he states that the illuminated manuscripts associated with the Latin Kingdom of Outremer are not very uniform in character, particularly those of the twelfth century. On the whole the scribes seem to be French rather than German or Italian in training. No scribes are known for the twelfth century and no manuscript is precisely datable.451

As for the Riccardiana Psalter and the Perugia Missal, Wormald continues: In both books the hands are much less angular and compressed and their scribes appear to have been trained farther north, both probably in France. The hand of the Riccardiana Psalter could well have been written by an Englishman or a Frenchman, and there is none of the sharpness of the other manuscripts. The Perugia manuscript, though rather more angular in general appearance, is also not related to this group. It was made in Acre. Another manuscript, now in the British Museum, which has been tentatively ascribed to Acre and dates from the third quarter of the thirteenth century, was certainly written by a French scribe.452

Given his bold statement that “it was made in Acre,” Wormald seems to have followed Buchthal’s earlier opinion regarding the origin of the Perugia Missal without further scrutiny.453 In any event, it appears to me that this is not just a codicological issue. What might help is a thorough palaeographical analysis of all the manuscripts involved. This endeav449 450 451 452 453

Runciman, History of the Crusades, vol. 3:491. Garand, “Manuscrits monastiques,” 9. Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 135 (my emphases). Ibid., 137 (my emphases). Wormald’s statement “It was made in Acre” remains isolated and without any further explanation.

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The Larger Problems our might serve to unravel the issue of an Acre scriptorium. Such a project is an urgent desideratum, but it is not within my own competence. However, one should also keep in mind that a scribe, wherever he is, continues to write in the manner in which he was first trained and which he is accustomed to.454

It should be mentioned that Folda devotes some attention to codicological characteristics. For example, there is the Histoire d’Outremer in the Florentine Biblioteca Laurenziana, Ms PLU. LXI. 10 with unfinished illustrations, which he ascribes to his ParisAcre Master, certifying that it is a codex he “can identify to have been done in Acre before it fell.” 455 He writes: The codicological characteristics of this book are consistent with earlier manuscripts done in Acre by the Paris-Acre Master. The vellum is slightly better in quality although rather thick and often slightly yellowed with age, but frequently very white on the skin sides and still very pliable. The care with which this book was done is impressive, ranging from the precisely done rulings rendered faintly so as not to mar the beauty of the script, to the calligraphic decoration, or the miniatures. Each book incipit is given, along with its miniature, and the text starts with a large and handsome red and blue calligraphically decorated initial along with red and blue text frames.456

This is a fairly superficial description. It fails to pin down or analyze any characteristics that confirm the production of this manuscript in a postulated Acre scriptorium identifiable whether by common codicological, or particular palaeographical features. Folda also amalgamates the distinct tasks of scribes and illuminators, both of which might have been recruited from different backgrounds. In sum, the Laurenziana Histoire d’Outremer “is the only known extant illustrated manuscript started in Acre but completed in the West, in this case apparently Venice.”457

454 455 456 457

I owe this caveat to Professor David Jacoby who was so kind as to review my book manuscript. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 495, 497. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 496; my italics. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 497. Folda then (497) adds a touching narrative in order to determine the date of the manuscript: “The incompleteness of the codex, before the last text segment and that final miniature were executed, combined with the characteristics of the Paris-Acre Master’s work is all crucial evidence that the production of the book was interrupted by events in Acre as the end approached in May 1291. This suggests that the manuscript must be the last extant codex executed before the city fell. The date of the dissolution of the workshop in which the Acre-Paris Master worked in the face of the impending danger cannot be determined exactly, but we can propose March of 1291. By that time Crusader awareness of the coming attack must have been turned the labor and attention of all able-bodied citizens to the grim task of defense” (my emphases). On the other hand, one could, as a devil’s advocate, also argue that the manuscript must have been written in Acre, given the very strong Venetian presence in this city.

Innovative Book Productions: France & Outremer Moreover, the more everyday aspect of these codicological issues is well described by Monique-Cécile Garand: Il est un dernier domaine, assez inattendu, qui peut bénéficier des recherches des codicologues, et c’est celui de l’histoire économique et sociale. Parmi les questions soulevées par l’étude des volumes sur parchemin reparaissent régulièrement celles-ci: Combien fallait-il de peaux pour faire un manuscrit ? donc, combien de bêtes ? et quelles bêtes? d’où venaient, dans chaque centre, les peaux ? ce que revient à demander, comme le fit un jour Jeanne Vielliard sous forme de boutade: ‘Mais qui donc a mangé tous ces moutons?’ et ces veaux, et ces chèvres… Des questions du même genre se posent pour les reliures, matière des couvrures ou bois employé pour les ais, pour les composants des encres aussi et des couleurs… Je terminerai donc sur un vœu: Pourquoi ne pas envisager, en notre époque de pluridisciplinarité, un programme de recherche qui associerait, autour d’une même région ou d’un même centre monastique, des historiens, des paléographes-codicologues, des chimistes et des physiciens? 458

It should be emphasized that, in order to promote the text and its entertainment, many of the thirteenth-century copies and continuations of William of Tyre’s chronicle were now illustrated with narrative miniatures.459 However, much to Buchthal’s discomfiture: The illustrations in the different manuscripts are just as disconcerting in their variety as the differences in the texts. Any attempt to arrange them into consistent groups, or to establish an iconographical tradition common to all the manuscripts of one family, seems to be a hopeless undertaking.460

Apparently, these books fit into no established, stylistic or iconographical art historical patterns. Buchthal did, however, reveal a reluctant awareness of their novelty when he acknowledged that “their interest lies in the light thrown on the working methods of thirteenth-century illuminators when faced with the task of creating a cycle of illustrations for a contemporary text.”461

458 Garand, “Manuscrits monastiques,” 28. 459 See Morgan, 253–54, as in my note 447: “The authors of these texts might have more than one purpose in writing. They might wish to amuse, to amaze, to instruct their readers, or to incite them to go on crusade, but always they wished to inform, simply to tell people what was happening or had happened, either in order to fulfill one of their other possible purposes, or just for the sake of the thing. William tells us of his intention to record facts for posterity, and his last successors in the Acre development of the text (…) were still struggling to record facts. But in Europe their work was overtaken by a change in fashion towards history as diversion.” 460 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 88 (my emphasis). 461 Ibid. (my emphasis).

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The Larger Problems Buchthal then allocates three thirteenth-century chronicles based on William of Tyre to an Acre scriptorium, through what he calls “the stylistic counterparts”462 of the three copies of the Histoires Universelles in Dijon, Brussels and London.463 Obviously, his judgment, when he writes regarding the quality of the miniatures of Paris 2628 and Dijon 562 that “as works of art these miniatures are insignificant,”464 is entirely negative; he further notes: Short stocky figures with big, round faces, protruding eyes, and characteristic lines running from the eyes towards the temples. But in the Paris manuscript their doll-like appearance and standardized gestures make them look lifeless and dull; the single scenes fail to carry conviction, and the narrative as a whole is, as it were, toned down into a kind of pantomine [sic!]. Their drawing careless and sketchy, the modelling flat and schematic; the human figures are now exclusively rendered in black outlines, and their size is out of proportion to that of the building.465

One wonders where to find the comparanda for less dull, more life-like, more convincing scenes, more careful drawing, and less schematic and better proportioned figures at the time? Yet, on a more positive and certainly more important note, Buchthal seems to understand that: Still, in a modest way the cycle represents a new and interesting venture. These miniatures were not copied from any western model; none of the numerous French manuscripts of William of Tyre has illustrations which are at all comparable. Yet most of them were not freely invented: their iconography, just as much as their style, is based on that of the Histoire Universelle.466

462 Ibid. 463 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, 562 (323), 274 folios with 50 miniatures, 3rd quarter of the thirteenth century; Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 10175, 332 folios, 37 miniatures, c. 1270–80; London, British Library Add. 15268, 314 folios, 43 miniatures, c. 1285. The three chronicles are: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS fr. 2628 (1260/70), Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, 828 (c. 1280), and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 9084 (shortly before 1291). When Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 88, characterizes the style of the miniatures of Paris 2628 and Dijon 562 as “lifeless,” “dull,” “flat,” “schematic,” and “out of proportion,” his negative attitude seems to be based on Renaissance or early Renaissance comparative criteria. Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 37, further scrutinizes these books, allegedly produced in Acre, and remarks on their quality: “We note the mediocre preparation of the vellum, which tends to be a grayish, off-white color and is uneven in texture, that is, irregularly soft and slippery, especially on the hair side which, often not rubbed enough, also has the minute stumps of bristles to grain the surface. Moreover, the leaves are rather thick and crackly when bent, rather than white, thin, suedey, and pliable as in good French manuscripts of the second half of the thirteenth century.” 464 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 88. 465 Ibid., 89. The proportion of people in relation to the architecture that they inhabit only becomes relevant in the early fourteenth century in Italy. 466 Ibid., 89–90 (my emphases).

Acquisitions & Transfers Last but not least, Buchthal concludes that these manuscripts were not intended “for the library of a royal patron,” a privilege he reserves for only the “masterpiece” of the Arsenal Bible.467

The “mediocrity” of the preparation of the books468, their “disparate narrative cycles” and then “insignificant artistic value” seem to be a hallmark of these Acre productions, despite some exceptions which we will see later on. Nonetheless, they are only reluctantly recognized as innovative, or as “a new and interesting venture”— an endeavour unlikely to be associated with royal patronage.

Acquisitions & Transfers The circumstantial or contingent issues that I should like to address in this short chapter focus on many types of social modi vivendi between the Franj, as the Muslim called the westerners, whoever they were in their eyes, and their extraneous Outremer realm that resulted in the exchange of pictures of any kind. In part, these have already been mentioned throughout Folda’s monumental work of 2005 and elsewhere. Here I present a more focused mirror of the most important types of acquisitions, imports and productions on location, and, finally, add a critique of those patrons in Outremer. Let me first look briefly look at possible scenarios of source acquisitions regarding western manuscripts and paintings, be they from Acre or Cyprus, from the East, or from Byzantium in particular.469 The following examples show that the transfer and knowledge of “foreign” sources and models often depended on individuals and chance. These are, to be sure, variations of an equation with multiple solutions. There is, for example, a case in point that may assist in expanding the range of source material acquisition. It is most extraordinary because it is rendered in pictures. I refer to a miniature in the Havi seu continens translated from the Arabic by the SicilianJewish physician and translator Faraj ben Salim, also known as Farragut of Girgenti (c. 1279–1282). It is preserved today in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It depicts the sultan of Tunis offering an Arabic text by Rhazez to Charles I of Anjou (1226– 1285), and Charles I then ordering the translation of this text by Faraj ben Salim

467 Ibid., 93. 468 See Folda’s statements in my note 463. 469 This little chapter offers some new evidence in addition to Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, passim.

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The Larger Problems (fig. 7).470 Charles I of Anjou, given his Sicilian and Neapolitan connections and aspirations, had Arabic translators and scribes in his entourage.471 It is tempting to see this isolated example as the tip of an iceberg, one reflecting the personal exchanges of valuable artefacts, among them illustrated books, between eastern and western sovereigns as gifts, at the highest royal, as well as lesser aristocratic levels.472 This could explain some instances of the influence of first-rate Byzantine manuscripts and their illuminations — perhaps in second-hand copies — on western productions in the crusader realm.473 Another not so diplomatic or generous source of “oriental” manuscripts by western clients was their acquisition as booty. When, for example, the crusaders conquered Syrian Tripoli in 1109, the library of that city evidently fell into their hands. There are conflicting historical references in this respect, but the existence of libraries in Jerusalem and Acre before their Frankish conquest cannot be gainsaid.474 The knowledge and appre-

470 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 6912, fol. iv; Rhazez, Havi seu continens, Faraj ben Salim interpretatio. Naples 1279–1282. F. Avril and M. Th. Gousset, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine italienne (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1984), vol. 2, plate CXIII; see also Jens. T. Wollesen, “Sub specie ludi,” esp. 296, fig. 14. The Al Hawi text was written by the Persian theologian, alchemist and physician Muhammad ibn Zakaiya Razi, who lived between 865 and 925, and is a comprehensive treatise on medicine. The legend goes that, while writing this work day and night for fifteen years, al-Razi lost his eyesight and his hand became paralyzed. 471 In this respect, note also the case of the collaboration of patron and translator in the case of the Hospitaller knight William of St. Stephen in Acre in 1282. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 247, reports another example of an exchange of diplomatic gifts between a certain Brother Yves le Breton and the “Old Man of the Mountain,” Sheik al-Jabal. 472 See also Jacoby, “Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” 87, referring to the report of the Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir and the “unusual behaviour of Henry of Champagne. In order to improve his relations with Saladin, the Frankish ruler requested from him in 1192 the gift of a robe of honour … “ 473 Within the context of the Arsenal Bible, Daniel Weiss, Saint Louis, 150–51, categorically rejects such an exchange: “Byzantine books, in contrast, were beautiful objects written in a language that most of the crusaders would not have understood. It is equally unlikely that such an array of extensively illustrated Byzantine works would have been present in the workshop or elsewhere in the crusader capital.” In general see also Anthony Cutler, “Gifts and Gift Exchange as Aspects of the Byzantine, Arab, and Related Economies,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001); 247–78, and idem, “Everywhere and Nowhere: The Invisible Muslim and Christian Self-Fashioning in the Culture of Outremer,” in France and the Holy Land, 253–81, passim. 474 Henri Lammens, “The Crusaders and the Library of Tripoli in Syria,” Al Mashrik 20 (1922): 107–11. See also Arab Historians of the Crusades, 25; and Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 34–35. Further on, Folda, ibid., states that “some 4,000 manuscripts came then into the possession of King Baldwin III at Acre in 1154 as spoils from the shipwrecked transport carrying the library of Usa¯mah ibn-Munquidh.” I already questioned the proper survival of such manuscripts one hundred years later. Further on, most likely these manuscripts were of Arabic origin and therefore not much relevant in our context. See also Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 38 n. 59, with reference to H. E. Mayer and his review of Buchthal’s Miniature Painting.

Acquisitions & Transfers ciation of such “acquisitions” was naturally left to informed connoisseurs who took part in these war campaigns.475 Beyond these libraries there were, on a much smaller scale, the personal treasures and belongings of many Muslim sultans or warlords. When they were besieged and conquered, books, textiles and luxurious vessels for daily and religious use, that had been produced for eminent patrons, changed ownership.476 This was the case, to introduce a western example, with the book on falconry, the De arte venandi cum avibus made originally for Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1194–1250). The book was lost in the turmoil during Frederick II’s siege of Parma in 1248, then surfaced and was offered to Charles I of Anjou by a certain Bottatius, citizen of Milan. Knowing full well its value, Charles I of Anjou acquired the book, and most likely gave it to his royal brother, King Louis IX.477 Then there is the question of the extent to which noble French families of Outremer mingled not only with local Muslims, but also with the “growing presence of Oriental Christians in Acre from 1191 to 1291”, a fact which “should be taken into account when we deal with their role as cultural and artistic intermediaries.”478 David Jacoby further informs us that silken cloth, wimples, and garments from Antioch, which produces both Byzantine and Islamic silks, as well as silks manufactures in Muslim countries, were available in Acre (…) Contacts were also furthered by the absence of enforced residential segregation of which there is no trace in Acre, contrary to what has often been claimed. The Latins acquired in that context some spoken Arabic. In addition, Arabic was introduced into Frankish households by the marriage of Latins with baptized Muslim or with Oriental Christian women, as well as by the employment of indigenous servants, wet-nurses, and slaves (…) The Franks were also receptive to other elements proper to Eastern material culture. They used Eastern artifacts, such as ceramics, brasses, glassware, jewelry, and textiles, manufactures in line with Oriental traditions in the Levant and farther east, provided these lacked any adverse cultural connotation.479

Last but not least, there is the oft quoted and surprisingly minute eye-witness account of the family palace of the so-called Old Lord of Beirut, John of Ibelin (c. 1179–1236). 475 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 39, also says of William of Tyre: “the library he had amassed at the cathedral in Tyre.” 476 See various Western and Muslim instances as cited by Arab Historians, 25, 27, 29, 75, 117. 477 Wollesen, “Sub specie ludi”, 296–98. Another, equally exciting loss of an early fourteenth-century luxurious manuscript of the Miracles de Notre Dame under battle conditions is referenced by Black, “Soissons Manuscript,” 254–55. 478 Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 103, and 107; see also MacEvitt, Rough Tolerance, passim; Steven Runciman, The Families of Outremer: The Feudal Nobility of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099–1291 (University of London: the Athlone Press, 1960), passim. 479 Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 107–8. See also Jacoby, “Aspects of Life in Frankish Acre,” 95. See also Maria Georgopolou, “Orientalism and Crusader Art: Constructing a New Canon”, Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture in Confluence and Dialogue 5 (1999), 289–321, passim and esp. 291. Also Kitzinger, “The Byzantine Contribution,” 34–35.

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The Larger Problems It is a remarkable record of a spectacular inventory recorded in the Itinerarium terrae sanctae of the German ambassador Wilbrand of Oldenburg (before 1180–1233),480 who visited this place in 1212: The walls of the house are entirely covered with revetments of marble plaques done in the finest work, which resemble multi-colored wall hangings. The ceiling is painted in the color of the sky, with such facility that one seems to see clouds pass, elsewhere a wind blowing, while the sun marks by its passage the course of the year, the months, the days, the weeks, the hour and the moments of its movement in the zodiac. Syrians, Muslims and Greeks boast of their virtuosity in this art and compete with each other in producing such delightful work.481

All these sources testify to multicultural, multi-ethnic and transient societies in the Holy Land and in Acre, and a blending of cultures that facilitated the exchange and amalgamation of artistic motifs, patterns, and models in all media, that were closely connected with their lives. This brings us to the last issue in this chapter, namely the exchange and the distributions of gifts, an important, though neglected, issue addressed by Anthony Cutler who reminds us that “… it is clear that the Mediterranean was covered by a gift network, following or even preceding patterns of commercial exchange, that brought luxuries to all who participated in the diplomatic game and independent of their confessional affiliation or ethnic origin.”482 Among these gifts were luxurious, exotic metal vessels made for daily and ceremonial use.483 Given the extensive relations of the Lusignan kings Hugh III and Henry II with the Holy Land and Acre, this commercial trade and the exchange of gifts extended also to Cyprus. The pictorial decorations of these vessels, which must not be disjointed from their carriers, are traditionally cate480 For John of Ibelin, see Peter Edbury, John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1997); Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174–1277 (London: MacMillan Press, 1973); Malcolm Barber, ed., The Military Orders: History and Heritage (London: Ashgate, 2008), 136. For Wilbrand see Edbury, John of Ibelin, 29; Aryeh Grabois, “Terre sainte et Orient latin versus par Willebrand d’Oldenbourg,” in Dei Gesta per Francos: Mélanges Jean Richard, 261–68. For the English translation of this passage of the Itinerarium see Joshua Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), 451–52. Also: Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 136–37, and n. 593, n. 328. 481 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 136. 482 Cutler, “Everywhere,” 262 (my emphasis). See also Burkhardt et al., “Hybridisierung,” passim. 483 Hoffman, “Pathways of Portability,” 17–50, and eadem, “Christian-Islamic Encounters on Thirteenth-Century Ayyubid Metalwork: Local Culture, Authenticity, and Memory,” Gesta 43 (2004): 129–42; Katzenstein and Lowry, “Christian Themes,” 53–68; Baer, Metalwork in Medieval Islamic Art, passim, and eadem, Ayyubid Metalwork with Christian Images (Leiden: Brill, 1989), passim; Schneider, “The Freer Canteen,” passim. For the varying role of metal precious objects in Outremer see Cutler, “Everywhere,” passim.

Acquisitions & Transfers gorized as “minor arts.”484 However, they may offer major clues concerning the circumstances of how East meets West and vice versa. There is one most challenging Muslim-type of metalwork from the early fourteenth century. It is a courtly object, in the words of Annemarie Weyl Carr, “in a purely high style (…) a splendid brass basin, once damascened with gold and silver.”485 She reasonably associates the type of metalwork with the rule of the Sultan Qualawun Nasir al-Din Muhammed (1285–1341), and identifies the king’s emblem on the vessel as that of King Hugh IV (c. 1293–1359) of Cyprus, emphasizing that it is “the only example known to have been made for a Christian ruler”.486 This artifact pretends to be of Muslim origin. However, on further reflection the scholar concludes, based on competent earlier research, that “it seems that the vessel must have been made on Cyprus, where a Muslim-trained master drew for his French on a Cypriot accustomed to Hugh’s formulae.”487 This idea seems to be confirmed by eloquent Arabic, thuluth-type of inscriptions that are but translations of the vessel’s French text: “Of what was made for the most high Excellency, the splendid, noble Eminence Hugh, who has received the favours [of God], who rises in the van of the elite-troops of the Frankish kings, Hugh of Lusignan, may his power endure.”488 Most remarkably, in addition the vessel celebrates king Hugh IV also in a French inscription: “Très haut et puissant roi Hugues de Jherusalem et de Chipre que Dieu manteigne.”489 484 According to Katzenstein and Lowry, “Christian Themes,” 54: “To date, fifteen objects with Christian themes have been identified: three pyxes, three incense burners, three ewers, three large plates, a candlestick, a canteen, and a basin, however, these items do not form a coherent group.” 485 Weyl Carr, “Lusignan Kings,” 246. The basin is now in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, inv. no. MAO 101. Here is Weyl Carr’s description of the artifact (246 f.): “27.5 centimeters deep and 57 centimeters across, the basin is made of sheet brass and was originally inlaid with gold and silver. It is adorned most conspicuously with eight superbly executed Arabic inscriptions that repeat the same text, one upright on the external and one upright on the internal wall of the vessel, and six in radially arranged emblems that break the bands of the upright characters. The radially arranged emblems alternate with emblems bearing shield-shaped blasons set in fields of peonies. The basin’s bottom bears a design of radially arranged medallions occupied by astrological symbols. The sun at the center is encircled by personifications of the planets and these, in turn, are embraced by the zodiac. Around the rim runs a ninth inscription. This inscription, however, is in French, and invokes one Hugh, King of Cyprus. It is his crest that is displayed in the emblems below; the crest representing him bears the arms of Jerusalem. In design and technique the vessel is purely Mamluk- (…). Basins like this were objects of personal use and luxurious display. Dimensions, script, and ornament belong to a phase of damascened metalwork produced in the late thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth centuries; the great majority was made in Egypt during the reign of the Sultan Qualawun Nasir al-Din Mohammad, who maintained a particularly lavish patronage until his death in 1341.” 486 Weyl Carr, “Lusignan Kings,” 247. 487 Ibid., 247–48. 488 Ibid., 248. Thuluth is a type of post-kufic Islamic calligraphy. 489 Ibid., 247.

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The Larger Problems Hugh IV, so it appears, glorified himself with the praise of his adversary! However, considering the historical circumstances — the more recent loss of Outremer with the cataclysmic fall of Acre in 1291— where was the Muslim ruler from whom he could have claimed to have received this vessel as gift? From a modern point of view, so it seems, this basin was a sort of fake gift, and a special one indeed. Or were these just “luxury items in a local Middle Eastern technique that was prized by everyone, Moslem and Christian alike”? 490 It appears that this material, Muslim-type of splendor appealed to the king. But what about its political connotations as they are manifested in its Arabic type of inscription? The basin, no doubt, claims to be of Muslim origin. At first glance, the Muslim appearance of the vessel prevails. However, the added French eloge on the flat rim on its top, visually and loudly topping — with its Gothic type of lettering — the Arabic face of the basin, reveals that it was not produced in the Muslim world, meaning that its exotic pseudo-Muslim provenance was only imitated. It overlays the Muslim connotations. In art historical understanding, this vessel was thus turned into an “indigenous” artifact with strong Lusignan accents. Taking into account the eastern, Outremer, Byzantine and Armenian contacts and connection of the Lusignan kings, I do not believe that this vessel substituted for a real, original Muslim object that otherwise could not be obtained. To the contrary, I assume that this is a purposefullymade reproduction. In fact, this is a playful, sophisticated appropriation of a pseudoMuslim, made-in-Cyprus artifact into the royal Cypriot realm. No doubt, similar to the appreciation of Arabic science by the above mentioned kings Charles of Anjou and Alfonso el Sabio, king Hugh IV of Cyprus, too, appreciated Muslim objects of intrinsic value, and appropriated the fake Muslim luxury item for his domain.491 This particular vessel shows that the visual records of a cultural, material exchange between East and West are not as straight-forward as they often seem to be. In other words, the basin does not fit well into either Eastern or Western category. At any rate, this vessel, discovered by Henry René Allemagne, throws a most interesting light on the sophisticated interchange of Western and Muslim products, gifts and even “fake” gifts—the latter a most interesting variation of a theme.492

490 Ibid., 248. 491 A remarkable process which bears resemblance to our present museum practice, see Susan M. Pearce, ed. Museums and the Appropriation of Culture. New Research in Museum Studies 4 (London: Athlone Press, 1994), passim. 492 Henry René Allemagne, “Notice sur un basin en cuivre executé pour Hugues du Lusignan Roi de Chypre (1324–1361),” in Camille Enlart, L’Art gothique, 2: 743–56. See also David Storm Rice, “Arabic Inscriptions on a Brass Basin Made for Hugh IV de Lusignan,” Studi orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi della Vida, Pubblicazioni dell’Istituto per l’Oriente 52, 2 vols. (Rome, 1956), 2:390–402. For the role of gifts see Cutler, “Everywhere,” passim.

Art and Life

This chapter addresses other vital components which, remarkably enough, have only received marginal attention to date, namely the connection of these pictures, and the books where they appear, with the lives of their regrettably anonymous consumers.493 It should be emphasized that the Histoires Universelles of the second half of the thirteenth century contain not the faintest reference to their producers or commissioners! 494 It seems that they were produced without individual patrons in mind, but to be readily acquired on the market by whoever fancied the subject of the book. Certainly, these books served to instruire et plaire and catered to the demands of mostly chivalresque, aristocratic clients, lawyers, and probably also merchants for “commemoration, edification, and especially exemplification and panegyric.”495 As mentioned above, among these clients may have been those who were immediately involved in the crusades; however, I propose that the main customers were those who observed and enjoyed the fascinating Outremer theatre of war and adventure from a comfortable distance. Certainly, they were all interested in the “historical” portions of these books, elements that pertain especially to the updated continuations of History of Outremer based on William of Tyre’s account, but I assume they were even more interested in the adventures now illustrated with pictures, and in chivalric values and the higher truth they celebrated.”496 These medieval histories and their illustrated reinterpretation of antique heroes and their battles transposed to the contemporary medieval 493 Briefly mentioned by Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 415. 494 There is the well-known exception of the manuscript in the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale Ms. 20125 where, according to Meyer, Les premières compilations françaises d’histoire ancienne, 52: “En tête de l’ouvrage un prologue de 284 vers où l’auteur nous fait savoir pour qui il a entrepris son travail et quelle étendue ils se proposait de lui donner: «Por qu’il plaise le chastelain De l’Isle Rogier, mon seignor…»”. Meyer continues (56): “Le passage capital dans ce long préambule est celui où l’auteur anonyme désigne comme son seigneur et protecteur le chatelain de Lille Roger (vv. 262–5). M. de Reissenberg pense que qu’il s’agit de ‘Roger, troisième du nom, neuvième châtelaine, qui morut en 1229.’” 495 Suzanne Fleischmann, “On the Representation of History and Fiction in the Middle Ages,” History and Theory 22 (1983): 291. 496 Fleischmann, “History and Fiction,” 285, 289. Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” passim.

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Art and Life mind did not just appeal to bookish clients. They were an integral part of the chivalresque culture of the time, and often mises-en-scène in secular plays and other cheerful occasions.497 They describe role-playing games and the staging of antique mythological deeds as performed by Antiope, Hercules, and Theseus, and contemporary Arthurian romance themes as well: 498 Fu la feste la plus belle que l’on sache .c. ans a d’envissures et de behors, et contrefirent la table ronde et la raine de Femenie, c’est asaver chevaliers vestus come dames et josteent ensemble; puis firent nounains quy estoient avé moines et bendoient les uns as autres; et contrefirent Lanselot et Tristan et Pilamedes et mout d’autres jeus biaus et delitables et plaissans.499

As will become apparent below, these issues are neither characteristic of nor restricted to Crusader Art, artists and crusader patrons; they were deeply rooted within the French aristocratic realm. It is, however, significant for present research directions that — except for Jacoby — the surviving testimony of such tableaux vivants and festivities is cited to mainly establish a hypothetical date link between the London Histoire Universelle and Cypriot King Henry II. The histories of Troy — the assumed ancestors of the Franks — and of the Amazons occupy conspicuous places within the Histoires Universelles. They were prime exempla of chivalrous virtues and role models, I believe, not only for the knights actually involved in the crusades in Outremer, but the more so for those in France, Italy, or Cyprus, who wanted to “participate” in these events from a safe distance 500. There is, however, a larger historical context involving reference to mythological themes and to the phenomenon of myth as such.

497 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 68, briefly mentions that “there are numerous indications that the narrative was to be read, or rather recited, to an audience.” Jacoby, “La littérature française,” passim, gives complex evidence of such instances. For related issues see Paul Saenger, “Silent Reading,” and idem, “Books of Hours and the Reading Habits of the Late Middle Ages,” Scrittura e Civiltà 9 (1985): 239–70. 498 Roger Sherman Loomis, “Chivalric and Dramatic Imitations of Arthurian Romance,” in Mediaeval Studies in Memory of Arthur Kingsley Porter, ed. W. R. W. Koehler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939), 1:79–97, and idem, “Were There Theatres in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Speculum 20 (1945): 92–95. See also the description of a similar event in Minervini, “Manoscritti negli stati crociati,” 94, mentioning: “Filippo di Novara parlando della festa organizzata da Jean d’Ibelin a Cipro per l’investitura dei suoi due figli (1223), ricorda in questa occasione siano state rappresentate «des aventures de Bretaigne et de la Table Reonde»,” and the extensive examples described in Jacoby, “Knightly Values,” 166–74. For the Cypriot context see Edbury, “Franks,” 82–84, and Grivaud, “Literature,” 277–84. 499 Jacoby, “La littérature française,” 630 (my emphasis). 500 See also the role of the Trojan War stories in the context of contemporary French romances, such as Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart, where Liénor’s wedding dress sports scenes of the Trojan War: see Patricia Terry and Nancy Vine Durling, The Romance of the Rose or Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 8–9.

Art and Life It seems that myth — now endorsed, enforced and stimulated by pictures — substituted for the actual reality since, in Daniel Weiss’s words, “in the wake of the fortuitous conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the Crusades came to be associated, gradually, but ever more consistently, with failure.”501 The catastrophic disaster of the idea of Outremer and the subsequent rise of its myth in pictures fall exactly into the time of the crusade campaigns of Louis IX. These were first marked by brief success, then resulted in a fiasco and his captivity, followed by his brief recovery and pitiful and miserable death, probably caused by dysentery, in 1270 in Tunis. I believe that the swan song not only of the crusade as an idea, and but even more of the role of the French aristocracy who took the lead in this endeavour, is partly testified to by the emergence of the Histoires Universelles—a French “invention” in some way stimulated by crusading aspects. This raises important issues regarding the individual attitudes of those members of a (French) aristocratic, chivalric society who closed their mind to reality and instead vividly pursued, by way of virtue and the imagination, a myth, an anachronistic fantasy, based on notions of the glorious antiquity and, of course, the biblical Old Testament. Bianca Kühnel came to similar conclusions but took this issue to the extreme, when she wrote — however, with Acre on her mind: The Acre producers of illuminated manuscripts were aware of the latest developments in philosophical and legal thought shaping the concept of royalty in the second half of the thirteenth century and wanted to apply them to their own state. Therefore they translated these thoughts into unique visual images, meant to enable the high-positioned sponsors of these manuscripts to come to terms with their precarious political and military situation and especially with the prospect of being driven from the Holy Land in a near future.502

According to Kühnel, the illuminators of the Histoires Universelles would have been charged with a Speculum principis-like endeavour. Moreover, her hypothesis attaches an untimely and unlikely socio-political role to pictures (and their devisors) that we only know much later, for example from the realm of Italian communal monumental painting of the later fourteenth century.503 I am more inclined to subscribe to Gabrielle Spiegel’s idea of Romancing the Past as it was “represented by the rise of vernacular prose history.”504 For Spiegel it seems to be incontrovertible that they [a small group of patrons whose disastrous social and political histories during the periods when they patronized vernacular prose histories], if not all French aristocrats

501 Weiss, Saint Louis, 3 (my emphasis). 502 Kühnel, “Perception of History,” 180. 503 See Hans Belting, “The New Role of Narrative in Public Painting of the Trecento: Historia and Allegory,” Studies in the History of Art 16 (1985): 151–168, and Hans Belting and Dieter Blume, Malerei und Stadtkultur in der Dantezeit (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1989), passim. 504 Spiegel, Romancing the Past, 3.

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Art and Life suffered from the anxieties and sentiments of decline as described. For these nobles, I contend, the patronage and consumption of vernacular historiography represented a search for ethical and ideological legitimacy that was displaced to the realm of culture, taking the form of a re-created past that could correct the deficiencies of a problematic present.505

This anachronism, however, is a common and powerful political tool for the sublimation of reality for more than the medieval era. Here, we should take care to distinguish between an anachronism typical of medieval times, with its continuity from antiquity infused with elements derived from the Old Testament. The emphasis on antique sources and heritage, or the “awareness of the classical past as a distinct historical era” is, however, a new moment in medieval history called as the “Renaissance of the Twelfth Century,” which came to full bloom during the thirteenth century.506 Today, we are aware that recourse to some anachronistic myth was vital to life until the recent present. The disposal and abandonment today of this mythic recourse marks a significant change of paradigms, namely the true and irrevocable end of antiquity and of types of endings and beginnings having no precedents in the past.

Returning to the medieval realm, reference to tying contemporary issues to remote pseudo-factual, biblical or imagined historical events was a common strategy. After all, many medieval, and specifically Carolingian church foundations go back to prestigious Constantinian predecessors. Even the much later illustrious works of Mabillon and of the Benedictine monk Montfaucon (1655–1741)507 were attempts to pictorially manifest and document the presence and heritage of the French kings in apocryphal but prestigious Merovingian sculpture. It seems, therefore, that this anachronism is intricately bound to the threat of a vanishing identity or, alternatively, an attempt at establishing identity by reference to a historical or some more mythical authoritative and often heroic past. This is certainly true for the concept of the Histoires Universelles, which manifest the conflict between temporal experience, conscience and myth. What, then, is the character of this identity that has become a fashionable research aspect of not only Crusader Art ? 508 Is it an abstract notion born in our modern mind? Aaron Gurevich, an authority rarely if at all cited in this respect, has aptly covered the history of the Origins of European Individualism, including the voices of Colin Morris, 505 Ibid., 4–5. 506 Ibid., 103 ff. 507 Jacques Vanuxem, “The Theories of Mabillon and Montfaucon on French Sculpture of the Twelfth Century,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 20 (1957): 45–58. 508 See Weyl Carr, “Correlative Spaces,” passim; Derbes and Sandona, “Amazons and Crusaders,” passim; Zeitler, “Falsifiers,” passim.

Artists or Artisans Charles Homer Haskins, Georg Misch, Caroline Walker Bynum, and Jacques le Goff.509 In my view, he rightly objected that the approach used by Morris, and indeed by many other scholars, is geared to a present-day audience. Those who follow the same path as Morris formulate the question, from which they start out, as follows: at what period in the Middle Ages were the “lineaments of modern man” to be discerned for the first time? In other words, attention is focused not on the medieval person as such, as found in its own society and its own age, but on the prerequisites or precursors of the modern individual. 510

Further on, Gurevich advises that: a more promising approach would seem to be examination of personality and individuality within the framework of the social and cultural relations of the period in which the subject lived. Our modern era confronts the historian with certain problems – of that there can be no doubt – but it is important to resolve these in their capacity as something linked to a distant past as an integral component of fundamental processes operating in that chapter of the past, within the whole system of human relations of the period under investigation.511

Gurevich’s ideas anticipate Beltings’ statement that a society produces images and pictures as an existential exchange. In sum, it is “essential to scrutinize the self-awareness of individuals within the context of the social groups of which they were part.”512 I believe that Spiegel’s work best fulfills these conditions. At this point in time, however, we have no way of linking any of the surviving Histoires Universelles with specific individuals whether as commissioner or patron: the Histoires remain strangely anonymous. After all, their raison d’être should not be associated solely with the crusaders, but with the general crisis of the chivalresque aristocratic society in France of which crusaders undoubtedly formed a significant part.513

Artists or Artisans I acknowledged earlier that the stylistic similarities that are the core of Buchthal’s, Folda’s and Weiss’s arguments do exist. However, I also added that the crux of the problem is in their interpretation. The following stylistic evaluation fits the Nicosia cathedral panel perfectly well: Their doll-like appearance and standardized gestures make them look lifeless and dull; the single scenes fail to carry conviction, and the narrative as a whole is, as it were, toned down into a kind of pantomine. Their drawing careless and sketchy, the modelling flat and schematic; the human 509 510 511 512 513

Gurevich, Individualism, passim. Ibid., 9–10 (my emphases). Ibid., 10. Ibid., 10. This is also an interesting phenomenon of our times. The more reality fails, the more pictures (movies) we produce in order to review or remodel the past.

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Art and Life figures are now exclusively rendered in black outlines, and their size is out of proportion to that of the building.514

This passage was, nevertheless, never intended to describe the Nicosia cathedral panel. Instead, it is Buchthal’s view of the quality of the Dijon Histoire Universelle and the Paris version of William of Tyre’s History of Outremer quoted earlier,515 and it somehow concurs with Mouriki’s statement cited above.516 At the same time, it so perfectly characterizes the Nicosia panel figures that they could not be described better. The great divide between Buchthal and myself lies in the interpretation of these well-characterized figures. What remains once we abandon the retroactive Renaissance artistic perspectives and stylistic criteria that conditioned, if not obscured his view? Then, those who executed both the illuminations of the Histoires and the paintings of the Nicosia panel are ostensibly stripped of their prestigious label artists. They become anonymous craftsmen or professional medieval designers of not necessarily unrelated realms in France, Acre and Lusignan Cyprus — and elsewhere. And at this point in time, in modern terms, most of them remain nameless. A distinction between western and eastern notions of artists must be made. If, depending on the medium, the late medieval western artist showed a growing tendency to develop individual ambitions, different paradigms apply to eastern artists. In this respect, Hans Belting remarked concerning the mosaics and frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) in Istanbul, that the unity of style found in a Western workshop should not be expected here. In this case, it is sometimes the models rather than individual hands, which impress us at first sight. This observation may apply to Byzantine, and even medieval, art in general. Late Byzantine artists, however, possessed models in a quantity and of a variety not accessible in preceding ages. Furthermore, the uninhibited exploitation of models was so advanced that what was actually a type passes for a fresh creation. Occasionally, the artists seem to be hiding behind their figures and attempting no more than a play on current, as well as farfetched, “quotations.” In such circumstances it is exceedingly difficult to identify securely individual painters. The artists wish to astonish us by novel effects rather than to be recognized by a personal idiom. It is easier to sum up their collective attitude than to isolate their respective contributions. In fact, an analysis of the workshop as a whole ought to allow for figural “quotations” better explained by their function.517

514 515 516 517

Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 89. See page 68 and 138. See page 118. Hans Belting, “The Style of the Mosaics,” in Hans Belting, Cyril Mango, Doula Mouriki, The Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Djami at Istanbul), Dumbarton Oaks Studies 15 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1978), 85 (my emphasis).

Artists or Artisans I believe that we should abandon the idea of individual, creative artists and their masterpieces for that period and for the medium of manuscript illumination.518 Even if some of them were labeled as masters, or are known by their names, were they masters by fifteenth-century or Renaissance criteria? Definitely not. More important are the scarcely known production economics, pictorial patterns, conventions, workshop traditions, and the availability and the use of powerful pictorial models, which have yet to be explored. A host of other criteria could also be added: historical circumstances in general, the social status of both commissioners and consumers, perhaps “with just a smattering of education,”519 the undisclosed role of religious and secular advisors, the availability of appropriate workshops, and, of course, money, then oil, bread, cheese and wine, as compensation for it all. Buchthal tried to make both ends meet when he wrote that the artists of Byzantine and western manuscripts develop certain features of their models in a “highly original and individual manner,” and when he recognized that there was “something like a common workshop tradition” that existed “throughout the whole period.”520 Of this “common workshop tradition”, certainly more powerful than any “individual manner,” there is no record. Here the pictures are the evidence, even if it is often next to impossible to decode. Rightly, in my view, Harvey Stahl criticizes that the stock of types for the William of Tyre manuscripts which Buchthal derives from the Histoire Universelle tradition were all available earlier and, one must assume, continually in manuscripts like the Morgan Picture Book. The same is true of other formulas cited by Folda as distinctive of Acre illumination, such as soldiers scaling city walls by ladder while protecting themselves with shields, or soldiers encamped or sleeping before the battle. Indeed, the Morgan manuscript represents, perhaps better than any surviving source, the extent and richness of formulas available at mid-century. A study of these formulas, of their origin and the stages of their evolution, remains to be undertaken. But for the moment one must assume that pictorial formulas were so widely circulated that the occurrence of the same formula in two different manuscripts is no indication of the manuscripts’ being related, especially if the text passages illustrated are not the same.521

As will become apparent, these common features belong to, yet proceed beyond the lingua franca, since obviously they were not limited to the Frankish Outremer world. I believe that the next chapter shows that most painters in Outremer and in Cyprus worked according to certain ruling patterns and conventions that left a very narrow margin for individual artistic expression, if indeed this was their objective. 518 For a different approach, following in Folda’s footsteps, see Corrie, “Sinai, Acre, Tripoli,” passim, esp. 426–42, where she establishes stylistic relationships of Sinai images and Acre painters, the latter also having executed the illuminations of the London Histoire Universelle. 519 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 68. 520 Buchthal, ibid., xxxii. 521 Harvey Stahl in his review of Folda’s Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 421 (my emphasis).

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Art and Life

Templates and Conventions Earlier I related the schematic structure of scenes and the figural style of the Nicosia cathedral panel to those used in illuminated manuscripts of the time, such as in the Histoires Universelles, William of Tyre’s History of Outremer, and the Vie de la Sainte Vierge. Therefore, I suggest having a closer look in particular at the previously discussed London Histoire Universelle. The facial types and the draperies of some of the figures in this book show amazing analogies with those of the Nicosia cathedral panel. Let me first focus on the faces of folio 161v, depicting Brutus with the senators (pl. 5), and compare them with those of the Carmelite monks of the Nicosia cathedral panel. The facial configuration or design of the people in the London Histoire Universelle and the Nicosia cathedral panel are nearly identical. I refrain from a lengthy verbal description to corroborate these similarities. Instead, I invite the reader to carefully compare, for example, the images relating to the London Histoire Universelle and the Nicosia cathedral panel (pls. 5, 16, 31). These analogies also include the blue and red color key, upper lips, eyes, noses, the highlighting, eyebrows, draperies and — with some exceptions— hairdos. The draperies of the Nicosia cathedral altarpiece figures, like many in the London manuscript, are usually indicated by black lines without any attempt at plasticity. On one hand, this lack of volume may be due to the panel’s poor state of preservation, on the other, the figures of scene A4 of the Nicosia cathedral panel depicting the Healing of the Lame show instances of elliptically highlighted draperies which find their equivalent, among others, in the tunic of the “senator” on the left in the London Histoire Universelle Brutus page (pl. 5). In general, the London miniatures show more sophistication and variety in this respect, due in all probability to a more sophisticated or superior model book repertory. Beyond these facial and drapery features there are analogies that belong to the domain of figural forms. Most depictions of enthroned rulers in the London Histoire Universelle are based on one slightly varied model which is repeated many times throughout the book, as in folios 64r (pl. 31) (Joseph), 161v (pl. 5) (Brutus), 179v (Nabuchodonosor), and 203r (Alexander).522 These are, however, not exclusive to the London Histoire Universelle, but are also found in its putative predecessors in Dijon and Brussels and elsewhere; they obviously belong to a stock repertory of ruler representations such as that depicting King Ninus enthroned in the Histoire Universelle in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, Ms. fr. 20125, fol. 83v.523 However, the figure style, facial design and hairdo of the London Histoire Universelle differ significantly from the 522 Buchthal, Miniature Paintings, plates 98c, 118b, 119c, 121c. 523 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, fig. 65. See also ibid., fig. 117 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, History of Outremer, Ms. fr. 9084, fol. 395v), fig. 124, (Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque Municipale, History of Outremer, Ms. 142, fol. 60v), fig. 146 (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, History of Outremer, Ms. Plu. LXI. 10, fol. 70v).

Templates and Conventions above mentioned examples with their emphasis on a more painterly, opaque mode. The figures in the London manuscript, especially of Brutus seated on a throne, find their equivalent in the enthroned ruler of the first Nicosia cathedral panel scene (pl. 13). The clusters of people attending or witnessing miracles in the Nicosia cathedral panel do not show much variation save for features that distinguish monks and knights, laymen, and males from females. This is similarly true for the groups of people populating many scenes in the London Histoire Universelle. Their stances and gestures, including their stereotyped empty gazes in folios 48r, 58r, 64r (pl. 31), 65v, 67r, 69r, 75v, 101v, and 203r, are mirrored in many scenes on the Nicosia cathedral panel, such as those shown in pls. 13–15, 19, 22–24.524 Besides these intricate analogies between the London Histoire Universelle and the Nicosia cathedral altarpiece — which I shall attempt to interpret later — substantial formal resemblances exist between this panel and William of Tyre’s illustrated History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, or Histoire d’Outremer in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, MS. fr. 2628. According to Buchthal, this is the oldest of three manuscripts “given to the scriptorium of Acre,” and the “stylistic counterpart[s] of the three copies of the Histoire Universelle in Dijon, Brussels and London.”525 According to Buchthal, it “corresponds to the Dijon manuscript, and should be attributed to the same decade, i.e. 1260/70.” 526 The pictorial features shared by the book and the Nicosia cathedral panel include wooden door panel decorations, wave patterns, and ships (pls. 21, 29, fig. 20). Further on, the Parisian book shows in the top part of a historiated E-initial depicting Prayers offered at the Holy Sepulchre on folio 1r of Book 1— an altar ciborium with suspended oil lamps, with a king, lay men and a monk praying to either side (fig. 18).527 This very much resembles an analogous setting, including the respective type of clustered audiences, in one of the scenes on the Kakopetria St. Nicholas panel and describing the funeral of St. Nicholas (Fig. 19).

Buchthal devoted many pages to the resourcefulness of Acre school illuminators, and in particular to those of the Histoires Universelles, primarily focusing on the use of iconographical prototypes of classical antique, western and eastern origin. However, he deemed 524 For reproductions of the London Histoire Universelle miniatures see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plates 93c, 96c, 98c, 99b, 100c, 101c, 103, 107c, and 121c. 525 Ibid., 88–89. 526 Ibid., 89. 527 Ibid., plates 130g, 132b, e. For the William of Tyre History of Outremer in the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale fr. 2628, fol. 1r, see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plate 130a. A similar architectural scheme is used to portray the Holy Sepulchre in the History of Outremer in the Bibliothèque de la Ville, Ms. 828, fol. 1r in Lyon, depicting The Visit of Peter the Hermit at the Holy Sepulchre. See Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, fig. 23.

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Art and Life the repetitive use of formal stock repertory as an “unimaginative reportage of the earlier manuscripts in which different stories were often illustrated by the same hackneyed and stereotyped formulas.”528 More specifically, he considered the formal analogies between the Dijon Histoire Universelle and the “monotonous and dull” Paris fr. 2628 version of William of Tyre’s History of Outremer as: obvious borrowings, groups of riders and their horses are almost interchangeable: the horses step out in the same way, the knights are similarly grouped and carry identical arms (…) There are the same boats manned by similar crews, and even the rendering of the sea in rows of waves forming full circles is the same (…) and the groups of mourners surrounding the death-bed perform the same stereotyped gestures of grief.529

It is, in my opinion, precisely this quality— although stripped of its negative connotations — that should be recognized as an important and persistent element related not only to a putative Acre scriptorium, but to French book illuminations of the time — a procedure also applied to both the Nicosia cathedral and the Kakopetria St. Nicholas panels. The pictorial elements of these pictures were put together in ways similar to what Germans call “Versatzstücke” or “Bauklötze,” meaning props or building blocks of more or less readily available pictorial templates or formulae, that serve as elements of a picture construction kit capable of performing a variety of tasks or meanings defined by the theme of their assembly.530 Of course, these meanings could be understood only with the help of the literary context within which they appeared — a context that was then amalgamated in the mind of the reader. To give some examples from the Histoire Universelle preserved in the Municipal Library in Dijon: the design of the ship on curly waves that carries Aeneas away from Dido on fol. 114v (pl. 32) is exactly reproduced and even triplicated in the miniature that depicts Jason and the Argonauts on fol. 89v (fig. 20).531 The scheme of a seated old man with raised hands is equally used to depict Isaac on fol. 32v (pl. 33), Joseph on fol. 42r (pl. 34), and Jacob on fol. 52r (pl. 35). Last, but not least, I cannot refrain from pointing out some rather interesting peculiarities that, again, reflect the nonchalant “mechanical” use of workshop model patterns: the meandering drapery motif of the back of the cloak of Abraham532, who is with his knife

528 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 79. 529 Ibid., 90 (my emphasis). 530 See also Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, 111–12, regarding Matthew Paris’s use of pattern book motifs. 531 Fol. 89v is reproduced in Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, plate 6; for fol. 114v see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plate 115a. See also Lisa Mahoney’s remarks regarding a similar procedure in the London Histoire Universelle in Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 41–42. 532 As also applied to the figure of Jacob on fol. 59v of Dijon 562 (“Coment le pharaon demanda a iacob de son aage”); see Buchthal, Miniature Painting, fig. 100a.

Templates and Conventions point blank pursuing his son Isaac on fol. 26r (pl. 36), was also applied to the front of Abrahams tunic while he serves his unexpected angelic guests on fol. 21v (pl. 37).

I believe that the rendering of these particular schematic facial types and hairdos reflects the use of model or pattern books which mirrored established stylistic conventions rather than reveal the stylistic personality of artists.533 Within the realm of French manuscript productions of the second half of the thirteenth-century, the linear design of hairdos of male or female lay people, including the minimal hairdo of monks’ tonsures, was multiplied by the use of the same schematic prerequisites. The monk and the youth, for example, on fol. 272r of the Histoire d’Outremer in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale fr. 9084,534 is echoed in the respective “portraits” on folio 81r (pl. 28) of the Vie et les Miracles de Notre Dame in St. Petersburg, which, I safely assume, is not at all related to the Paris manuscript. There are minor differences, to be sure, but the overall patterns are shared by these and other ateliers. One manuscript, thought by Buchthal to have been executed in Acre “exclusively on the evidence of style,”535 shows a less linear and more painterly and opaque rendering of the hairdos. This is the Histoire Universelle, MS 562 in the Bibliothèque Municipale in Dijon. For that specific feature it is stylistically related, as also recognized by Folda on different grounds, to the London Histoire Universelle.536 Buchthal dates the Dijon

533 See also Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 410: “However, the kind of resources identified here is the kind of imagery that we must imagine was partly, perhaps substantially, provided by model books. The fact that different imagery is found for the same scenes in Brussels and the Dijon books at least suggests that the artists were using different model books, and may in fact have been in different shops, very possibly closely related – may be right next door – but different.” 534 Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, fig. 113. 535 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 69. 536 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 423. The figures of William of Tyre’s History of Outremer in Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 828, dated by Folda “shortly after 1277,” show similar characteristics. See Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 404, 406–7, and fig. 237. See also those “little people” in another version of the History of Outremer now in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS fr. 2628, identified by Folda as the “earliest and decorated History of Outremer that survives from Acre” (Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 346, and fig. 202). For the uncertain relationship between both manuscripts, see Folda, who concludes that “the similarities found in MS. fr. 2628 and Dijon MS 562 exist because they are both early secular illustrated manuscripts. Their common features in terms of iconographic formulae and conventions can be explained by their relatively early date and the fact that their artists are both dealing with developing a new secular repertory of images, rather than depending one on the other.” He adds: “In any case MS fr. 2628 seems earlier than Dijon MS 562, not later, based on format and style … Clearly the two manuscripts are also done by different artists in different styles” (Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 347).

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Art and Life manuscript to 1260/70, sees it as the product “of the same scriptorium as the Arsenal Bible,” and hails it as holding “a key position in the history of medieval illumination out of all proportions to its importance as a work of art.”537 These relationships may be complex, but they do not necessarily point to internal scriptorium connections. Certainly, the Noah figures in Dijon 562, fol. 6r (pl. 38) and London Add. 15268, fol. 7v (the lower register) show an amazing range of analogies that I do not want to discuss here in detail.538 However, Lisa Mahoney devoted specific attention to the London figure of Noah, “radically different from the other figures depicted in terms of style, a difference especially pronounced in the characteristics and modeling of facial features and in the rendering of the drapery,”539 which “suggests that the sole figure of Noah has been transplanted from a Byzantine model, a model that did not guide the design of the whole of the scene.”540 Mahoney concluded that the “uneasy model-copy relationship identified in this miniature strongly suggests that more importance was placed on the conveyance of the model’s style than on its applicability.”541 Finally, she argues that: the sanctity attributed to this style must have been confirmed by the models used in the manufacture of the London pictorial cycle, not to mention its employment in the most important monuments commemorating biblical events in the Holy Land—such as the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem and the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Associations with the Byzantine style as it manifested itself in the Levant, together with the assertions of the frontispiece, allowed it to serve an additional function, namely, as a tool for securing the Christian character of this history.542

I do not share Mahoney’s notion of “sanctity,” but I do agree with her reference to the “conveyance of the model’s style,” perhaps a model of great authority and proliferation not just for the context of these particular manuscripts in Dijon and London. The same stylistic features that characterize the figure of Noah also occur in a totally different context of geography and medium, namely in the frescoes featuring the story of Abraham and Noah attributed to a Roman workshop in the Upper Church of San Fran-

537 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 69. Oddly enough, Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, reproduces no photo of any of its illuminations. This “key position” in Buchthal’s and in more general terms has never been evaluated; I intend to do this in the near future. 538 Buchthal, Miniature Painting, plates 84a (Dijon), 85 (London). 539 Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 40. 540 Ibid., 41. 541 Ibid., 42. The Dijon Histoire Universelle, just as its related copies, shows a remarkably “economic” mode of production: the same models of old men are applied to different personalities, such as to Noah (fol. 6), Abraham (fol. 26), Isaac (fol. 32) and Jacob (fol. 42). See Maraszak, Étude du manuscript 562, 78. 542 Mahoney, “Dialectical Identity,” 42 (my emphases).

Templates and Conventions cesco in Assisi and datable to the 1280s.543 In this case, a model reference to the Holy Land seems to be too far-fetched. Instead, a more general link with an unknown Palaeologan Constantinopolitan model via Roman channels (Torriti) — as was also observed by Buchthal for the London Histoire Universelle — earlier reflected in the Palaeologan frescoes of Sopoc´ani of the 1260s—would make more sense. It seems that such figures had a topos-like quality since they are also featured in the naos frescoes in Asinou and in Pyrga on Cyprus.544 They may, at that time, have become the standard repertory for such figures in both East and West—not just for scriptoria in Outremer.545

In my recent publication on the frescoes of the so-called Royal Chapel in Pyrga on Cyprus, I devoted many pages to the phenomenon of a “scriptura franca.” There, I referred to the French tituli of these frescoes and attempted to assign them to a certain date and origin, and to pin down specific paleographic sources.546 This turned out to be impossible. When compared with lapidary inscriptions of the early fourteenth century in France and Italy, the letter type of these tituli is next to identical and follows a convention. I here suggest that similar conventions determined the analogous letter style of the text and of the initials in the Histoires Universelles in question without referring to individual artistic relationships. The ductus of the text, for example, in the London (pl. 39) and Dijon (pl. 40) manuscripts are identical; and the ornamental pattern vocabulary used to form more sophisticated initial letters is the same, varying by degree of complexity. I argue that the production of figures, their draperies, facial features, hairdo, etc. corresponded to similar writing schemes. The common way of illuminating the manu543 For Assisi see: Alfred Nicholson, “The Roman School at Assisi,” The Art Bulletin 12 (1930): 270– 300, figs. 10 (Noah), 14 (Sacrifice of Isaac); Alessandro Tomei, Iacobus Torriti Pictor: Una vicenda figurativa del tardo Duecento Romano (Rome 1990); Ernst Kitzinger, “The Byzantine Contribution,” esp. 45, where he refers, regarding the Byzantine model sources, to a “strong influence from the Byzantine «volume style».” See also Otto Demus, who writes, within the spirit of his time, that “in addition, we have works of Italian pupils of Greek masters, disciples who almost became Greek in their faithful adherence to Byzantine standards of modeling and design. In any case, this is one of the sources from which Torriti, the Isaac Master (whoever he was) and, finally, Cavallini drew their inspiration. The mighty figure of Abraham in the Sacrifice of Isaac in the Upper Church of Assisi would fit very well with the frescoes of Sopocˇani, where it might have been designed in the 1260’s or 1270’s by one of the less precocious assistants of the chief master” (Byzantine Art and the West, 226–27). 544 Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, fig. 43a (Sopocˇani), fig. 19 (top right), 6a, 16. 545 In this context see also Corrie, “Sinai, Acre, Tripoli,” 446, who identifies “Mediterranean Christian art of the mid-thirteenth century as a consciously hybrid art facilitated by the movement of artists and work.” 546 Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, 85–89.

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Art and Life scripts in question then becomes a way of writing in pictorial terms by following an established, normative model vocabulary.

The similarities and analogies between the manuscripts mentioned above and the Nicosia cathedral altar piece play an intricate and essential role in our study. It seems that both used comparable repertories of pictorial construction and model books for their facial and drapery codes, and for scenic components in whole and in part. Within the perspective of this study the question arises whether these analogies point to an Acre scriptorium. In order to arrive at such a conclusion we need to know much more of workshop practices not only on a general level, but in particular regarding the circumstances in Acre of which, pace Folda, next to nothing is known.547 Whatever their origin, how can we explain these stylistic and formal similarities without succumbing to a retroactive Renaissance type of artistic Crusader Art interpretation? The correspondences established by Buchthal between the redactions of the Dijon, Brussels, and London Histoires Universelle propose far-reaching theories in this respect, but their origin might not be Acre, but Paris, or more likely Cyprus. The relationship between the Nicosia cathedral panel, the London Histoire Universelle, and the Paris Outremer history book would, according to Buchthal and in all probability Folda and Weiss, constitute enough evidence to propose yet another affiliate of the crusader Acre school, namely a “Nicosia cathedral crusader altarpiece master.” And indeed, Folda sees both the Nicosia cathedral and St. Nicholas panels as forming “the core of an independent Crusader art on Cyprus in the late thirteenth century.”548 The adjective “independent,” to be sure, requires greater definition. This master would, as a refugee from Acre, be endowed with a hypothetical dramatic narrative. Accordingly, his origins would be seen in the workshop that executed the miniatures of the Paris History of Outremer and the London Histoire Universelle. We could proclaim the discovery of the missing link between Acre and Cyprus despite the chronological distance between these monuments, in particular of the Paris History of Outremer, of nearly a generation. The extension of the artistic capabilities from miniature illumination to panel painting need not pose much of a problem either. It seems that the versatility of artists of the Acre school across media confinements has already been established with the Arsenal Bible artist of the Franciscan fresco cycle in Constantinople in the 1240s, despite its fragmentary state: the surviving evidence measures roughly 21 centimetres. It is tempting to yield to this conclusion which seems to fit so perfectly well with the established and generally accepted views. But let us proceed with a pseudo-Morellian stylistic examination of the Cypriot realm. 547 See Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 423. 548 Folda, “Crusader Art in the Kingdom of Cyprus,” 221 (my emphasis).

The Cyprus Connection

The Acre or Cyprus question gains new momentum when we encounter close stylistic similarities in the London Histoire Universelle and Nicosia cathedral altarpiece with the “mediocre” frescoes of the so-called Royal chapel at Pyrga in Cyprus. Many of these frescoes are no longer in a good state of preservation, but the one depicting the Last Supper in Pyrga offers excellent material for facial comparisons (pl. 41). Hair caps, noses, highlights, eyebrows, and “spectacles” are nearly identical to those on the Nicosia cathedral panel (pl. 16), and share the same features with the London Histoire Universelle (pl. 31). The Pyrga frescoes are traditionally dated into the first third of the fifteenth century. One would now have to explain the persistence of the Acre school style roughly over two centuries, from the 1240s to the 1420s. However, I recently redated, I believe on good grounds, the Pyrga cycle at least to the reign of Henry II Lusignan of Cyprus (1270 –1324), and preferably to the early fourteenth century.549 This new date, then, would for some be another testimony for the continuation of the crusader Acre school in Cyprus.

There remain other more problematic if not disturbing Cypriot candidates waiting to obscure the view of a putative Acre School. These are the painters of the prophets in the early fourteenth-century narthex vault of the Phorviotissa in Asinou (pls. 42– 43).550 Compared with the apostles in Pyrga’s Last Supper scene (pl. 41), the faces in the Asinou narthex vault reveal an amazing similarity. According to Morellian criteria, applied to Crusader-artist type of research, they must have been painted by the same artist. However, this observation pertains only to the faces, whereas the draperies of both Pyrga and Asinou speak a different pictorial language. I addressed this issue in my recent publication on the Pyrga frescoes.551 549 Wollesen, Patrons and Painters on Cyprus, passim. 550 Ibid., 95–101. 551 Ibid., 95–99.

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The Cyprus Connection To further complicate matters, the faces of the Asinou narthex prophets are not the result of individual painterly style, but of templates that are facsimiles of the same style as manifested in the overpainted fresco of the enthroned Virgin with Christ flanked by two angels in the south wall of the naos (pl. 44).552 In this respect I explained elsewhere that, as far as Asinou is concerned, the narthex apostles exactly re-enact the Comnenian style, as does the scene in which an enthroned Christ accompanied by angels receives a donation from Nicephoros Magistros, as well as the overpainted fresco panel of the enthroned Virgin with Christ flanked by two angels. In these two scenes, we meet exactly the same facial features previously described in detail for the narthex apostles, including the sharp downturn of the lower eyelid accentuation. Obviously, the early fourteenth-century decoration in Asinou was meant to blend perfectly into the original twelfth-century space, therefore, this retro-stylistic strategy can be well explained within that realm. However, the exact analogies between the Asinou narthex apostles’ faces and the young faces in Pyrga pose significant problems, showing the limited value of stylistic criteria applied from a western artistic perspective and the deceptiveness of Morellian stylistic comparisons.553

In sum, might not the naos frescoes of the Phorviotissa of Asinou be the source and the solution of our Acre style? The answer may depend on one’s art historical approach. Yes, if one follows the Morellian stylistic strategy and Renaissance-based artistic formations as claimed by Buchthal and Folda. No, if one believes that the painters in the narthex of the Phorviotissa in Asinou did not follow idiosyncratic ideas of style, but subscribed to a larger stylistic concept, such as Doula Mouriki’s maniera cypria 554 — a retroactive Comnenian convention, envisioned by Mouriki for thirteenth-century Cypriot icons which she finds “closely related to the contemporary monumental painting preserved on the island. In both media we note a closer adherence to the Comnenian tradition in the works painted in the earlier phase, while those that were made in the second half of the thirteenth century reveal a more substantial indebtedness to Western art.555 In my view, the templates of faces so characteristic of this painterly manner became, for reasons unknown to us, a convention on Cyprus. I believe that the painters of the frescoes in Asinou and in Pyrga, as well as of the panels of the Nicosia cathedral altarpiece and the London Histoire Universelle, subscribed to this stylistic mode. The remarkable use and adaptation of this painterly mode or convention on Cyprus is independent from developments at Acre. However, if my hypothesis is correct, the 552 553 554 555

Ibid., 95. Ibid., 95 (my emphasis). See her definition of the maniera cypria as cited on page 16. Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 385. See also the discussion of Mouriki’s maniera cypria within the context of the frescoes at Lysi by Weyl Carr, A Byzantine Masterpiece, 101–4, 109–10.

The Cyprus Connection Nicosia cathedral altar piece and the St. Nicholas panel would have been executed after the fall of Acre; this is also valid for the London Histoire Universelle, a book which I believe was commissioned on Cyprus.556

Let me now summarize earlier indications that would support the production in Cyprus of this manuscript and its siblings in Dijon and Brussels — a Cyprus origin of the latter manuscript has been suggested by Sir George Hill.557 According to Folda, the Histoire Universelle in Dijon, Bibl. Municipale MS 562 is unrelated to Arsenal Bible in a direct way, but relates to “an overall Franco-Byzantine Crusader style.”558 He speculates that “we might think that the patronage for this kind of manuscript could extend beyond the «native nobility» to recently arrived soldiers of the French regiment, or of one of the military orders,”559 and that “what is also notable is that Byzantine formulas that do not appear in the Western manuscripts appear here, which must have been clearly copied directly from Greek thirteenth-century prototypes. It is this strong Byzantine connection, both iconographically and stylistically, in the Genesis cycle of Dijon MS 562 that provides us with important evidence for what the Franco-Byzantine style by a Crusader painter looked like in Acre during the 1260s.”560 Once the reader distances herself from any putative Acre constraints, an attribution to Cyprus, already suggested for historical reasons, appears even more likely. The date of the Dijon manuscript is undocumented except for the volatile “evidence” of stylistic criteria. In fact, it would be easy to substitute Cyprus for Acre, thereby incorporating a Comnenian Byzantine stylistic scheme with Palaeologan accents (see below) that was so authoritative for the London Histoire Universelle and is also found in the Pyrga frescoes. There would be also no problem, in my opinion, as to the availability of not only the Lusignan kings and the native French Cypriot nobility — who relished the rather stable conditions on Cyprus. In addition, there was most notably the presence of the Hospitallers, and the documented existence of Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian houses. Further on, one should take the more or less transitory residency of knights, lawyers, 556 This contradicts, to some extent, my theories regarding the tentative Acre origin of the Pyrga fresco style, but then, research proceeds, and thoughts and ideas are in flux. 557 See my note 197, where he denies the existence of a school of illumination in Cyprus. Folda, Crusader Manuscript Illumination, 25 n. 114: “We agree with Buchthal that there is no justification for arguing that Bernard d’Acre wrote Brussels MS. 10175 on Cyprus. Rather, it seems that the manuscript later found its way to Cyprus and the library of the Lusignans as a result of the dispersal of crusader property when crusader mainland territory was completely lost in 1291.” 558 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 347. 559 Ibid., 350. 560 Ibid. (my emphasis).

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The Cyprus Connection and merchants from Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, and, of course, France into the account. Their presence is well documented for Acre, and, as concerns Cyprus, it seems that most of them lived in the prosperous port of Famagusta, as is well documented by Peter W. Edbury and David Jacoby.561 Jacoby remarked in this respect that while thirteenth-century Acre was clearly the main center of the Frankish Levant for the copying and illumination of manuscripts and the main market for this commodity, it is by no means certain that it had a quasi-monopolistic standing in this respect, as generally assumed. It may thus be wise to reassess the geographic attributions of the manuscripts presently ascribed to Acre by taking Cyprus into account.562

Cumulatively, these all are potential patrons for books and of figural art regardless of the fall of Acre, but the more so after its fall.563

William of Tyre’s History of Outremer in Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 828, would follow a similar pattern. Although it was originally dated to the late 1270s, one could think of a later date.564 There are also strong parallels between the Histoires Universelles in Dijon and Brussels, “modest works by second-rate painters, artists with comparatively little training.”565 Folda claims that the one in Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 10175 from the 1270s is not done by the same artist who worked on Dijon 562, but that they are closely related. This relationship could have been either a common workshop or an exchange of schemes, patterns or model books. Buchthal refers to Byzantine models for both the Dijon and Brussels editions, and closes the circle of Acre-related manuscripts by claiming that both manuscripts relate to the Arsenal Bible.566 He asserts that they reflect “a procedure comparable to that employed by the master of the Arsenal Bible, who worked in the same scriptorium only a few years earlier, and who modified his 561 Jacoby, “Famagusta,” passim; Edbury’s articles: “Famagusta in 1300,” “Famagusta Society ca. 1300,” “The Genoese Community in Famagusta.” 562 Jacoby, “Society, Culture, and the Arts in Crusader Acre,” 119–20; my emphasis. 563 There is exhaustive material regarding potential Cypriot clients for relatively prestigious commissions: see works of Weyl Carr, Jacoby, and Coureas. For the literary patronage of the Frankish Lusignan nobility see Grivaud, “Literature,” 227–29, 231–37. See also Jacoby, “Famagusta,” 152–53, and 154: “We may therefore ascribe the initial phase of the growth of Famagusta in the late thirteenth century to the settlement and activity of the refugees who arrived in Cyprus before 1291. In that year Tyre, Acre, Sidon, Beirut, Haifa, Tortosa and Athlit, the last Frankish strongholds on the mainland, and possibly Gibelet fell within a period of three months. Those who escaped had no choice but to flee to Cyprus.” He adds in his note 47 of the same page that “only the nobles and the rich escaped from Tyre.” 564 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 405–7. 565 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 409, based on Buchthal’s verdict. What are the criteria of “training”? 566 As reported by Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 410.

The Cyprus Connection Byzantine model by adding a certain number of western types and scenes. The common workshop tradition is made equally obvious …” 567 The Dijon and Brussels manuscripts are grouped with the London Histoire Universelle. Folda writes: “Buchthal’s analysis has made clear the fact that Add. MS 15268 has a cycle of miniatures comparable to those found in Dijon MS 562 and Brussels MS 10175,”568 and continues: “Buchthal suggested that the London codex was probably done in the same scriptorium as the two earlier Acre Histoires Universelles.”569 Again, the same (undefined) Byzantine models dominate the scene, and all these manuscripts are tentatively grouped with the Arsenal Bible at their core. This style is then celebrated as a new style and related to Palaeologan Constantinopolitan models, as expressed by Buchthal and quoted by Folda: The French features are still based on works like the Bible Moralisée and the Morgan Picture Book, and lack the sophistication of Gothic illumination from the period after the return of St. Louis from the Holy Land; but the Byzantine element, especially obvious in the Genesis miniatures, is now derived from a new style, which appears at Constantinople only after the middle of the century, with the restoration of a Greek dynasty to the imperial throne. 570

This reference is celebrated as the „influence of the new Palaeologan Byzantine art,” that is the Palaeologan revival style in Constantinople from the 1260s, and signaled by references to the style of the exemplary Deesis mosaics in the south gallery of the Hagia Sophia.571 Strangely, there is no follow-up comparison between these monuments. The proposed impact of this particular Constantinopolitan Palaeologan model in Acre during the last quarter of the thirteenth century remains a non sequitur.572 Certainly, one must inquire whether one can compare this particular illumination with a monumental mosaic with its own inherent traditions, with regard to the longstanding theological, political, and pictorial authoritative iconography of Constantinopolitan imagery and its situation within a very specific political picture programme in the Hagia Sophia and afterwards. How authentic a stylistic transfer or mirroring of style can this be, once one takes into account various indirect means of transfer, model books or pattern books? Furthermore, as to the potential Cypriot origin of execution, one must ask whether the artist could have used authoritative Comnenian patterns infused with the knowledge of current Palaeologan models. I suggest that art-historical 567 568 569 570 571 572

Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 74, Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 410. Folda, ibid., 410. Ibid., 420. Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 74, Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 420 (my emphases). Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 420. For the issue of Cyprus and Constantinopolitan Palaeologan art see Wollesen, Patrons and Painters, 95–101. The problem of Palaeologan influence in Cyprus is a thorny one. Mouriki, “ThirteenthCentury Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 373, referring to the St. Nicholas panel, denies any reference to Palaeologan models, but remarks (380) on the existence of a “provincial Palaeologan style.”

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The Cyprus Connection analysis should leave enough room, and voids, for the actual experience that remains unknown to us. For that matter, we should look more closely at the censer angels of the Nicosia cathedral alter piece (pls. 45– 46). Their facial schemes fit well into Comnenian patterns with a slightly increased degree of plasticity. Their draperies do not. The highlighting of the upper torso is rather similar, whereas the lower part of the tunics features different patterns. In this respect, their individual drapery modes are quite distinct from each other: the left hand angel (pl. 45) sports more angular folds, while the other (pl. 46) shows more rounded shapes. How do we explain the origin of these differences? The answer to these questions depends on the questioner’s perspective. I believe that there is a division into two camps, one of which supports the Buchthal-Folda view of Crusader style, and the “other” that is expressed in this study. Were both angels executed by the same painter? Were the stylistic diversities due to two different painters, or do they reflect a variation of censer angel models in a pattern book used by the same painter? None of these queries can be answered without evidence which does not exist, because the “artists,” as some of us define them, do not (yet) exist. What can be said, however, is that these drapery patterns adhere to Palaeologan modes even though their exact origin is obscure. They do not, as I see it, directly mirror Constantinopolitan patterns; may be, they reflect Italian interpretations thereof. In any respect it is an interpretation of Byzantine patterns of unknown painters.573

Not only their presence or survival in an Acre-after-1291 perspective on Cyprus, but the production of the Histoires in Dijon, Brussels, and London, as well as the Lyon Histoire d’Outremer on Cyprus during the reign of Henry II Lusignan should be seriously considered. Interestingly, Folda — when summarizing his findings regarding the three Histoires Universelles in Dijon, Brussels and London — connects these books with a “revival of illustrated manuscript production in Acre in 1286/8” and associates this renewal of industry with the “arrival of the new king, Henry II of Cyprus, in Acre.” 574 Again, what is it, in accepted art-historical terms, that makes Acre instead of Cyprus the favoured location of production of these manuscripts? In my view, it is not Acre in the first place, but the intrinsic idea of Crusader Art — which is bound to Acre. In other words, we should evaluate the possibility that small workshops executed these books, a complex mixture of French textual modules and, where miniatures were concerned, of retrospective stylistic Comnenian schemes with Palaeologan updates on Cyprus at the time. 573 Wollesen, Patrons and Painters, 96–101. 574 Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 434.

The Cyprus Connection A Cyprus setting of production would also explain the demand for these manuscripts. The commissioners, many of them from their own experience, knew of Outremer, but now followed the crusaders’ wars from a safe distance.

In my opinion, the atelier that executed the London Histoire Universelle significantly contributed to, if it not actually executed the Nicosia cathedral panel. Both follow the same stylistic and formal modules and Cypriot prescriptions. The London Histoire Universelle, in tandem with its off-spring, offers many explanations for the style and formal analogies met in the Nicosia cathedral panel, including the knowledge of other French manuscripts that celebrate the blissful intervention of Mary.

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Rolling Eyeballs

Last but not least, let me turn to and put to rest the feature of “rolling eyeballs” and the so-called “spectacle effect” which is crucial for the establishment of the Acre school. Regarding the Perugia Missal, Buchthal observed that: Most of the figures are fleshy and thick-set, with big heads and staring eyes; the black lines running from the eyes in the direction of the ears … recur several times, in such an exaggerated form that the figures almost look as if they were wearing spectacles. Generally the style is more linear … there are no rounded draperies, no highlights, no sharp distinction between light and shaded parts.575

This statement is echoed by Daniel Weiss, who writes: “One characteristic motif of the Acre style is the fine black line extending from the eye to ear in almost all the figures, leading to what Buchthal termed the «spectacle effect».” 576 One should keep in mind that Folda identifies the scribe of the Perugia Missal as being of French origin and attributes the full-page illumination with the Crucifixion to a French artist.577 As for an Acre provenance, Folda refers to the July 12 entry in its calendar: a commemoration of the “dedicatio ecclesie Acconensis,” with an octave on July for this dedication. This seems clearly to be a reference to the retaking of the city of Acre by the Crusaders on 12 July 1191 and a rededication of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. It is an important reference because it provides a clear liturgical link between this manuscript and the city of Acre, where we interpret the codex to have been done and where this codex was intended to be used, presumably in that church.578

In particular, the monuments sharing this stylistic phenomenon are the Perugia Missal (pl. 2), the Arsenal Bible (pl. 1) — a book linked “indissolubly to Acre and to King Louis IX,” 579 which is actually not at all the case — and the poor remains of a figure of St. Francis in the Kalenderhane Djami in Constantinople (fig. 4), the two earlier being

575 576 577 578 579

Buchthal, 50–51 (my emphasis). See also Weiss, Saint Louis, 86. Weiss, Saint Louis, 86. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 295, 297. Ibid., 295 (my emphasis on his chain of conjectures). Ibid., 285 (my emphasis).

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Rolling Eyeballs understood as “an artistic bridge linking Paris and Acre.” 580 The other common denominator is a style characterized by a blending of certain French Gothic and Byzantine influences and traditions. Nevertheless, according to Folda, there are fine distinguishing marks regarding the depiction of eyes: The handling of the convention for delineating the eyes is a major index for identifying the painters participating in the Acre style. This mode of painting the eyes and their relation to the face and head differs, however, according to the way it is carried out. Although the linear definition of the eyes can be seen in the fresco and in the miniatures with a linear extension back toward the side of the head in these figures, the emphasis is much more on the deeply shaded glancing eye and the threedimensionality of the head, than on the rolling eyeballs and the somewhat popeyed look of the Arsenal Bible masters. In fact, if anything, the Perugia Missal painter is slightly closer to the Arsenal master in this respect than is the St. Francis painter. But both the St. Francis master and the first Perugia Missal artist are more interested in a sculpturesque, volumetric, instead of a decorative linear effect.581

Accordingly, it seems that the eye treatment results not from an artistic idiosyncrasy or an individual, but from a painterly convention. These faces are characterized by a mélange of linear and volumetric forms with an emphasis on plasticity and volume. The source of this convention, as rightly termed by Folda, is in my opinion Cyprus, which is nearer by far to Acre than Byzantium and includes Constantinopolitan elements. Popping eyes, eye rolls, spectacle eyes, stocky proportions etc. also occur, in a slightly simplified and a somewhat flatter manner in the London Histoire Universelle (pls. 5, 31). The eyes of the senator with the bluish ermine collar at the front on fol. 161v perfectly mirror the “spectacle effect” as described by Buchthal or Folda. Verres define the eye treatment of the Carmelite monks on the Nicosia cathedral panel (pl. 30). Close examination of their faces reveals that one design was used for all. This is not very inspiring to modern viewers, but it fulfills an economic purpose in medieval terms — the collective “portrayal” of ten Carmelite monks. It is quite instructive to see how the artist(s) reproduced the same face from memory and practiced it over and over again with minor or no changes: that is, the shape of the eyes and eyebrows, the typical indented upper lip, the highlights on the bridge of the nose, the forehead, and those rosy cheeks. The small figures in the scenes flanking the Hodegetria have

580 Ibid. On p. 301 Folda says: “There is no doubt that the St. Francis painter is related to the Arsenal Bible.” Weitzmann, “Sinai,” 189, extends this feature to some crusader icons: “So characteristic is this feature that it becomes a trademark of the majority of icons with which we are here concerned; actually, only the two surely Italian examples are to be excepted … Buchthal noticed the very same facial feature in the miniatures of some manuscripts which he attributed to a scriptorium at Acre, and he, too, takes this as one of the most conspicuous details which the products of the Acre scriptorium have in common.” 581 Ibid., 301 (my emphases).

Rolling Eyeballs exactly the same features. Without exception, these “little people”582 sport a cap-like hairdo with strands of hair combed into the middle of the forehead (pls. 13, 16, 19). These same analogies occur in the faces of the apostles attending the Last Supper in Pyrga, which leads us to the prophets in the narthex of the Phorviotissa in Asinou. I am tempted to add a characteristic lip treatment to the catalogue of stylistic identifiers; the emphatically indented upper lip is common to all monuments in question, including the figures of the Arsenal Bible. The typical hair caps are shared by all figures, as well as by David in the Arsenal Bible (pl. 1). This figure in particular seems to be a facsimile of one of the Asinou narthex prophets. There is no distinguishing feature that would allow for the differentiation of brush stroke or hand of an individual painter. We are looking at stylistic templates. Therefore, in my opinion, it is impossible to identify or to distinguish individual artists by isolated facial designs only (“spectacle effects,” “pop eyes,” “protruding eyes,” “a fine black line extending from the eye to ear,” or “rolling eyes”) as the basis for a complete art-historical pictorial crusade category.583 I believe that these features form part of common, authoritative schemes, patterns or templates which, with a Palaeologan touch, seem to have been related to Cyprus.

I do not mean to gather all the monuments discussed here under a Cypriot umbrella. However, when it comes to pinpointing likely resources for a powerful stylistic convention, could not Cyprus have been the nearest and most plausible point of reference for the textual devisors, illuminators, even the “mediocre” clients, including French Cypriot Lusignan commissioners?

582 See page 110. 583 See also Cormack and Mihalarias, “A Crusader Painting of St George,” 132–39, esp. 134 and 137: “According to Weitzmann, the feature of the «rolling» eyes is found on a number of other panels from Sinai, and he accordingly proposed to recognise a group of paintings produced by artists of French descent working at Acre. He does not unequivocally state that all the icons in his group were by one artist, and this aspect of these attributions will need further researches.” Mouriki, “Thirteenth-Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” 393–406, esp. 405, tackles the arduous issue of the Sinai icons and their Cypriot roots.

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Conclusions

This work was born out of the thorough discontent with the term Crusader Art which is up to now deeply rooted in a niche of the history of art. However, there was growing criticism concerning this notion in the academic field of history. Strangely enough, this concern was never echoed within history’s sister discipline — art history. So far, the Crusader Art theme remained an issue for only a handful of specialized art historians — based on retrospective Renaissance concepts, by means of stylistic and artistic criteria creating a narrative drama on a colourful historical stage. The purpose of this book is to dismiss this travesty of the medieval past that fails to meet the much more complex anthropological realities of producers, patrons, and consumers in Outremer. I propose to abandon the limited and inadequate notion of Crusader Art for good reasons, since the perspective of the discipline has significantly changed, and to open up the phenomena discussed, namely the meeting of East and West or vice versa, to the newly available historical research with potential art-historical perspectives. Indeed, neither the field of history nor of art history alone can fathom the vital vicissitudes of pictures at the time. Only a multi-disciplinary approach can provide ways of tackling these diverse issues by overcoming disciplinary limitations in terms of hierotopy, anthropology, material culture and agency. I am quite aware of my shortcomings in this respect, but this is an open-ended attempt, to be continued. Specifically, I challenge, against the authoritative approaches of Buchthal, Folda and Weiss, the existence of organized monastic scriptoria in Jerusalem or Acre. Then, there is no evidence that the Arsenal Old Testament can be associated with the sojourn of king Louis IX in Acre as its patron. Further on, I dismiss the role of the Perugia Missal as the crown witness of an Acre scriptorium. In sum, the Acre school of crusader manuscript illumination is a myth. A closer look at the array of patrons and clients in Outremer shows a rich spectrum of noblemen, knights, and lawyers as the recipients of French literature in Outremer. However, most of these books, among them chansonniers, continuations of William of Tyre’s chronicle, medieval prose, such as a romanz de la terre d’outre mer, or a romanz des Loheranz etc., cannot be securely bound to Acre or Cyprus as the location of their production. As far as we know, most of these books were part of the carry-on luggage of the

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Conclusions clients mentioned above. Except for the potential patronage of a certain Hospitaller knight by the name of William of St. Stephen in Acre, who eventually became commander of the Order in Cyprus, we have no indisputable record of any knight, nobleman or lawyer as the patron of a book in Outremer. The testimony of a “Bernart d’acre” in the Brussels version of a Histoire Universelle, which is, by the way, recorded to have been in Cyprus during the fifteenth century, cannot be used to prove the theory of a scriptorium in Acre. Then, there is the case of the London Histoire Universelle. It is among the prime advocates of an Acre scriptorium. However, in my view, it cannot be associated beyond any doubt with Acre, or with the coronation ceremony of the Lusignan king of Jerusalem and Cyprus, namely Henry II (1270–1324). Further on, there is no evidence that this or the other two Histoires Universelles in Brussels and Dijon were produced between 1270 and the 1280s in Acre. Instead, I argue that the London Histoire Universelle should be linked with both the panels with Saint Nicholas and scenes of his life and the Carmelite Madonna in the Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation in Nicosia on Cyprus. The patron of the earlier panel is usually identified as a Frankish knight of the Ravendel family. This is yet another myth, as there is no evidence for this identification, and the panel does not provide any solutions regarding either its Acre or Cyprus origin. The anonymous Frankish knight and his family portrayed on the panel could have come to Cyprus regardless of the fall of Acre. The Carmelite Mary of Mercy panel has never been the subject of a detailed study. There is no biblical or apocryphal source for the scenes flanking the Virgin which, I assume, were invented ad hoc for this altar piece. Their unconventional thematical structure reflects contemporaneous political events and, at the same time, echoes repertories of the time such as the Miracles de la Sainte Vierge, and obviously should be understood with the knowledge of the design of Italian narrative altar panels. The Carmelite panel deviates from the conventional Byzantine vita icon structure and constitutes an innovation in Cyprus, certainly due to both the will of its Carmelite patrons and the competence of its painters. In my opinion, there is a close relationship between this panel, its Saint Nicholas parallel, and the London Histoire Universelle. Most likely, both panels were executed on Cyprus during the first decade of the fourteenth century. The chapters devoted to the “larger problems” shut the window on an exclusively individual, artistic (crusader) style view and open the door to the perception of the monuments within a more complex frame, namely of the new criteria for the depiction of reality at the time, and of the role of secular clients, and their need for images with a novel kind of historiographical prose literature in mind. The often mentioned “mediocre” artistic execution of the manuscripts traditionally believed to have been produced in Acre is here recognized as the typical pattern of production — a small-scale production mode of manufacturing illustrated books as economically and rapidly as possible. The chapter “Acquisitions and Transfers” addresses the exchange of pictures between the

Conclusions diverse Frankish newcomers and equally heterogeneous people in Outremer. It shows that there is no room for stereotypes based on nationalistic or past art-historical ideas. Rather, we deal with multicultural, multi-ethnic and transient societies in Outremer, the western intruders included, which allowed for a complex interchange of pictures bound to their media, such as metalwork, textiles, and books, and the societal circumstances that triggered their exchange. To be sure, these pictures should be understood not as art but as vital, pictorial components of an existential exchange. Taking into the account the complexity of this phenomenon allows for the understanding of these pictures in terms of real life. The chapter devoted to this theme shows that especially the books imported to the East must be seen within a larger perspective, as a dynamic component of the import of contemporary Frankish culture in Outremer. Further on, I argue that the failure of the crusade idea and the crisis of the French aristocracy who took the lead in this endeavour resulted in the exaltation of its myth, now illuminated with pictures. For example, the continuations of William of Tyre’s chronicle, and the Histoire Universelletype of pseudo-historical compilation, among others, are marked by an anachronism as a powerful tool to substitute for an already obsolete reality. This is, of course, an ample issue open for further investigation. Instead of evaluating the pictorial testimony especially of the three Histoires Universelles in Brussels, Dijon, and London in terms of style and artistic quality and individuality, I devote two chapters to the problems regarding artists and artisans, while, of course, emphasizing the artisan component. I attempt to show that Buchthal’s “monotonous and dull” illustrations actually reflect their compilation out of props or building blocks of more or less readily available pictorial templates or formulae that serve as elements of a picture construction kit capable of performing a variety of tasks or meanings defined by the theme of their assembly. I argue that the production of figures, their draperies, facial features, etc. corresponded to certain pictorial terms, or “writing” schemes, following an established, normative model vocabulary. The next two chapters, then, offer suggestions regarding the source of this vocabulary in Cyprus. I tentatively link the most characteristic stylistic templates that are shared by the London Histoire Universelle and the two Nicosia panels with what I think of as authoritative Cypriot Comnenian stylistic conventions as they are mirrored in the frescoes of the so-called Royal Chapel in Pyrga and the Phorviotissa church in Asinou on Cyprus. As a result of these considerations, I locate the production of the Histoires now in Dijon, Brussels and London, as well as the Lyon Histoire d’Outremer, on Cyprus during the reign of Henry II Lusignan, king of Jerusalem and Cyprus. As far as the potential clientele for book productions is concerned, we should not only think of the availability of the Lusignan kings and the native French Cypriot nobility — who relished the rather stable conditions on Cyprus. In addition, there was most notably the presence of the Hospitallers, and the documented existence of Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian houses. Further on, one should take the more or less transitory residency of Frankish

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Conclusions knights, lawyers, and merchants from Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, and, of course, France into the account. To be sure, their presence is well documented for Acre, but as for Cyprus, it seems that most of them lived in the prosperous port of Famagusta. The last chapter is devoted to the “rolling eyeballs”— a crucial feature for Buchthal’s and Folda’s adjudications, used in order to define an Acre school of crusader painting as the basis for an art-historical, pictorial crusade category. Needless to mention that I am opposed to such criteria; they are displaced marvels in an anachronistic venue of medieval art interpretation. Instead, they were part of common, authoritative schemes, patterns or templates which, with a Palaeologan touch, seem to have been related to Cyprus.

Postscriptum

This study is a sequel and continuation of my book on Patrons and Painters on Cyprus. It addresses many issues that I could not then pursue because of the lack of material and, above all, the time for the necessary research. This opportunity was provided by the sabbatical leave for the latter part of the 2010 academic year. It should be emphasized that my new proposals in no way diminish the historical research of Buchthal and the Herculean effort of Jaroslav Folda, who fully exposed and expanded the problems according to their particular perspectives. This contribution is another, however dissonant voice, or a view from another window, with reflections that I trust are neither blurred nor distorted by the Crusader Art concept.

This book is dedicated to my wife Dr Elena Lemeneva, and then to my children Léon, Hanna, and perhaps Christina, who all froze into stocky figures, displayed rolling eyeballs and a somewhat popeyed look whenever I began a dinner discourse on Acre or Cyprus.

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191

Index

Above top line 40, 41, 184 Acre School style 56, 159 Adhémar, bishop of Le Puy 83 Adrastus 84 Agency 5, 7, 171 Al-Ashraf-Khalil 52 Alfonso X el Sabio 25, 26, 74, 113, 116, 133, 144, 178, 191 Alice in the Wonderland 127 Al-Malik al-Ashraf Sala¯h al-Dı¯n Khalil ibn Qalawu¯n 28 Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Bunduqdari (Baibars, or Baybars) 27, 76, 77 Amadi, Francesco 106, 107, 179 Amaury (Amalric) of Lusignan 104, 105, 106, 107, 122 Amazons 67, 70, 75, 79, 146, 148, 180 Anachronism 148, 173 Arbor pulcherrima 113 Armchair crusader 111, 128, 134 Arsenal Bible (Old Testament) (Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5211) 7, 29, 32–35, 38, 39, 41, 48, 64, 68, 74, 75, 129–131, 133, 139, 140, 156, 158, 161, 162, 163, 167–169, 171, 187, 190, pl. 1 Art Institute in Chicago 35, fig. 2 Asadi Tusi 73 Asinou, church of the Phorviotissa 7, 8, 85, 91, 94, 96, 97, 157, 159, 160, 169, 173, pl. 10, pls. 42–44 Augustinian(s) 21, 23, 52, 161, 173 Avignon 85, 111, 113 Ayios (Saint) Kassianos 82, 88, 91, 93, 96 Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis (Saint Nicholas of the Roof ) 81, figs. 16, 19, pls. 6, 7, 9

Baldwin of Edessa (Baudouin of Boulogne, Baldwin I, king of Jerusalem) 27, 103 Baldwin II of Courtenay, emperor of Constantinople 35, 96 Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem 34, 140 Baldwin IV the Leper, king of Jerusalem 133 Barbette 85, 103 Below top line 41, 184 Belting, Hans IX, 2, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 43, 94, 95, 96, 125, 126, 128, 147, 149, 150, 177, 178 Benedictine(s) 23, 52, 106, 148 Bernard Faxit from Narbonne 98, 113, 117 Bernart d’Acre (dacre) 57, 58, 68, 69, 82, 172 Bible Moralisée 9, 25, 26, 32, 63, 64, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 163, 185, fig. 1 Bible of Saint Louis 25, 35 Bild-Anthropologie 4, 6, 125, 126, 178, 191 Blanche of Castile 25, 29, 64, fig. 1 Bohemund of Antioch 83, 110 Bottatius 141 Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. 142, Histoire d’Outremer 83, 152 Breviary of the Holy Sepulchre Ritual, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 10175 21, 22 Buchthal, Hugo 1, 2, 5–11, 21–24, 26, 27–29, 31–38, 40, 42, 47–50, 56–58, 64, 67–71, 74–77, 79, 84, 91, 103, 105, 119, 125, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135, 137–140, 146, 149–158, 160–164, 167, 168, 171, 173, 174, 175, 178, 180, 186, fig. 9 Bustron, Florio 106 Byzantium X, 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 13–18, 34, 35, 37–39, 42, 43, 45, 48, 51, 52, 58, 71, 81, 82, 87, 89, 93–96, 98, 99, 111, 117, 119, 121, 128, 133, 139–141, 144, 150, 151, 156, 157,

194

Index 160–164, 168, 172, 177, 179–181, 183–187, 189–191, figs. 5, 8, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, pls. 6, 7, 9, 12–27, 30, 45, 46 Cántigas de Santa Maria 26, 74, 113, 116, 185 Carmelite monks 152, 168, pl. 12, pl. 30, Carmelites X, 52, 53, 93, 96, 97, 98, 100, 105, 106, 107, 109, 111–123, 184, 189 Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 590 22, 55, 56 Charles I of Anjou, king of Jerusalem, king of Sicily and Albania, count of Anjou, Provence, Forcalquier and Maine, regent of Achaea, overlord of Tunis, senator of Rome) 28, 62, 76–78, 90, 96, 139–141, 180, fig. 7 Chicago (Ryerson) diptych 35, 36, fig. 2 Chronique du Templier de Tyr 59 Cimabue 118, 121, 125, 177 Clarisses 52 Codicological issues 19, 135–137, 158 Coif 85 Coinci, Gautier de 109, 113, 115, 116, 133, 178 Collective self-identification 62 Commander of the Order on Cyprus 56 Complainte d’Outremer 62 Conques, Sainte-Foy 108 Constable of Jerusalem 104 Constantin, prince 96 Constantinople 14–16, 31, 34, 35, 38, 39, 42, 43, 45, 53, 71, 94, 96, 121, 157, 158, 163, 164, 167, 168, 186, 189 Coppo di Marcovaldo 57, 95, 179 Corrie, Rebecca 14, 15, 35, 47, 57, 86, 95, 151, 157, 179 Coureas, Nicholas IX, 26, 51, 53, 57, 97, 98, 105, 113, 116, 119, 123, 131, 162, 179, 181, 182, Crusader artist(s) 10, 11, 12, 15, 38, 43, 119 Crusader naturalism 127 Cyprus IX, X, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 15–17, 25–28, 30, 31, 34, 35, 50, 51–54, 56, 57–60, 62, 65, 68–70, 73, 74, 76–83, 85, 86, 89–91, 93–98, 104–106, 109, 110, 113, 115–123, 128, 132–134, 139, 142–144, 146, 150, 151, 157–165, 169, 171–175, fig. 14, fig. 17 D’argent à l’aigle étendu de gueules 83, 90 D’argent, à la branche de fougère de sinople, nouée d’or et renversée en pal 83, 84

D’argent, à la croix potencée d’or, cantonnée de quatre croisettes du même 83, 84 David, old-testamental king 169 De arte venandi cum avibus 141 De Excidio Urbis Acconis, 53, 186 De Inventione, by Cicero 55, 132 Dedicatio ecclesie Acconensis 28, 36, 167 Demus, Otto 2, 3, 16, 122, 157, 180, 190 Derbes, Anne 14, 47, 67, 79, 95, 148, 180 Dijon Histoire Universelle (Bibliothèque municipale, MS 562) IX, 24, 58, 65, 68, 69, 74, 79, 80, 84, 103, 138, 150, 152–158, 161–164, 172, 173, 186, fig. 20, pl. 4, pl. 8, pls. 32–38, pl. 40 Domenico Lenzi 4, 127 Dominican(s) 23, 29, 40, 49, 52, 62, 94, 97, 99, 106, 107, 117, 161, 173 Dondi, Cristina 29, 37, 40–42, 49, 180 Dropsy 100, 109, 118, figs. 13, 14 Duccio 14, 95, 99, 118, 120, 121, 177, 180, 191 Edbury, Peter W. 26, 51, 52, 58–60, 95–97, 134, 142, 146, 162, 177, 179, 181, 183, 184 Enlart, Camille 51, 97, 144, 177, 181 Eudes, Count of Nevers 31, 61, 62, 179 Eyes 12, 13, 32, 35–37, 39, 73, 77, 106, 107, 110, 112, 118, 138, 152, 167–169 Fake gift 74, 144 Famagusta 26, 52, 53, 57, 58, 162, 174, 181, 183 Faraj ben Salim 139, 140, fig. 7 Fête champêtre 72 Fethiye Djami 150, 177 Fisher Toys Little People 110, 155, 169 Fleur-de-lys 84, 96, 97, 121 Florence 4, 49, 53, 57, 110, 119, 127, 128, 136, 152, 162, 174, 178, 187 Folda, Jaroslav 1–3, 5–11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 22–43, 47–49, 51, 55–57, 63–65, 68–72, 76, 79, 81–86, 90, 91, 93–95, 98, 110, 113, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 127–134, 136, 138–142, 145, 149, 151–156, 158, 160, 161–164, 167, 168, 171, 174, 175, 181, 182, 188, 189, figs. 4, 5, 10, pls. 2, 29 Fortanie 117 Franciscan Madonna, the 95, Franciscan(s) 14, 23, 40, 44, 52, 62, 63, 95, 96, 97, 106, 107, 117, 158, 161, 173, 180, 182, fig. 4, fig. 6

Index Frederick II Hohenstaufen, emperor of the Holy German empire 49, 141 Garden of Eden 74 Gelduinus 12 Genoa 26, 28, 53, 57, 58, 60, 83, 119, 162, 174, 181 Geoffrey of Beaulieu 15 Gestes des Chiprois 59, 70, 79, 133 Giotto 14, 44, 118, 125, 185 Giovanni Morelli (Ivan Lermolieff, Nicolaus Schäffer (Miasma Diabolicum) or Johannes Schwarze) 12, 13, 44, 158, 159,160, 177, 182, 185, 186, 189, fig. 6 Gislebertus 12 Glancing eye treatment 39 Godefroi de Bouillon 83 Godfrey of Bouillon, 41 Grandes chroniques de France 25, 130, 132, 133, 183 Gros tournois 52 Gurevich, Aaron 4, 148, 149, 183 Güyük, Mongol Khan 63 Henry I Lusignan (le Gros) 27 Henry II Lusignan, king of Cyprus 28, 52, 53, 62, 70, 71, 74, 76, 78, 104, 105, 122, 142, 146, 159, 164, 172, 173, 191 Hethoum I, king 96 Hethoum, prince 96 Hierotopy 6, 7, 171 Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César 65, 67 Histoire d’Outremer (History of Outremer, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea) by William of Tyre 67, 83, 110, 128, 132, 133, 136, 153, 155, 164, 173, pl. 29 Histoire Universelle IX, 7, 8, 24, 28, 33, 50, 55, 56, 58, 65, 67–80, 82–84, 91, 98, 104, 105, 110, 120, 123, 132, 138, 146, 150, 151–161, 163, 165, 168, 172, 173, 180 Hodegetria 7, 81, 82, 93, 94, 97, 98, 99, 108, 115, 117, 118, 120–122, 168, figs. 12, 13, pls. 12–27, 30, 45, 46 Holy Lance 96 Hospitaller(s) 28, 52, 53, 55, 56, 60, 70, 78, 84, 98, 99, 104, 105, 110, 132, 140, 161, 172, 173, 179, 185

Hugh III Lousignan, king of Cyprus and Jerusalem 27, 28, 74, 142 Hugh IV Lousignan, king of Cyprus 74, 143, 144, 188 Humbert of Romans 62 Ignea Sagitta by Nicholas of Narbonne 115, 186 Isabel, princess of England 49 Isabel, princess of Armenia 104 Jacoby, David IX, 3, 5, 7, 26, 28, 32, 34, 35, 47, 49, 50, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59–64, 68–70, 73, 79, 90, 116, 131, 133, 134, 136, 140, 141, 145, 146, 162, 183, 184 Jacques de Vitry, bishop 116, 133 Jean de Joinville (John of Joinville) 30, 31, 59, 189, 190 Jean Pucelle 109, 126 Jeanne d’Evreux 126 Jerusalem IX, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 30, 35, 36, 37, 40, 47, 49, 52, 55, 57, 69, 70, 75, 76, 77, 78, 86, 87, 90, 95, 96, 104, 117, 131, 133–135, 140–143, 147, 156, 171–173, 178, 180, 181, 184–188, fig. 11 John of Antioch 55, 132 John of Brienne, count 49 John of Hildesheim 111, 113, 117 John of Ibelin (the Old Lord of Beirut) 141, 142, 181 Kakopetria 8, 81–91, 93, 120, 153, 154 Kalenderhane Djami 38, 167, fig. 4 Keran Gospels 87, 91, fig. 11 Keran (Guerane), queen of Armenia 87, fig. 11 Kitzinger, Ernst 14–16, 141, 157, 184 Kühnel, Bianca 1, 2, 3, 17, 47, 67, 128, 147, 184 La Vie et les miracles de Notre Dame (Life and Miracles of the Virgin), by Gautier de Coinci 115, 116, fig. 15, pl. 28 Lamberto di Sambuceto 26, 57, 181 Lancelot 63, 70, 146 Laurenziana Histoire d’Outremer 136 Leggendae abbreviatae by John of Hildesheim 111 Leningrad-Lyon Master 129, 130, Leo (Leon) II, king of Armenia 87, fig. 11 Liber ystoriarum romanorum 78, 128 Libraria et illuminatrix 24

195

196

Index Libro de Acedrex, Dados e Tablas 25, 26, 191 Life of Saint Louis (Livre des saintes paroles et des bons faiz de nostre saint roy Looÿs) by John of Joinville 30, 59 Limassol 52, 117 Lingua franca 3, 6, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17–19, 59, 151, 179 London Histoire Universelle (British Library MS Add. 15268) 7, 8, 24, 28, 50, 65, 67–80, 84, 91, 103, 105, 110, 123, 138, 146, 151–161, 163–165, 168, 172, 173, pl. 3, 5, 31, 39 Louis VIII, king of France 63 Louis IX (Saint Louis), king of France 7, 15, 22, 25–27, 29–35, 48, 63, 64, 68, 75–77, 96, 97, 110, 132, 141, 147, 167, 171, fig. 1 Lowden, John 9, 25, 26, 34, 35, 47, 48, 64, 129, 130, 133, 185, fig. 1 Ludolph of Sudheim 59, 73 Lusignan(s) 16, 6, 27, 28, 51, 52, 57, 58, 65, 68–71, 75, 83, 93, 94, 96, 97, 104, 105, 106, 117, 142–144, 150, 159, 161, 162, 164, 169, 172, 173, 177, 181, 184, 185, 188, 190 Lyon Histoire d’Outremer (Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 828) 41, 138, 153, 162, 164, 173

Morgan Book of Kings (New York, Pierpont Morgan library, MS Morgan 638) 32, 33, 77, 78, 127, 151, 163, 187 Mouriki, Doula 1, 2, 13, 16, 17, 51, 81, 85, 93, 97, 118, 120–122, 150, 160, 163, 169, 177, 181, 186, 187 Moutoullas 16, 17, 51, 81, 93, 120, 121, 186, fig. 17

Mabillon 148, 190 Madonna del Bordone 57, 179 Mahoney, Lisa 3–5, 29, 48, 67, 68, 71, 72, 75, 76, 79, 154, 156, 180, 184 185, 187, 190 Maistre Richart et frère Othon 130 Manesse Liederhandschrift 88 Maniera cypria 13, 16, 17, 160, 184 Maniera greca 3, 13–16, 18, 19, 93, 179, 190 Marguerite de Provence 29, 32, 48, 64 Maria im Birnbaum 113 Marshal Ochine 95, 96 Marsilio Zorzi 134 Martin da Canal 68 Material culture 7, 141, 171 Melisende, queen 131 Memorialbild 89, 187 Metropolitan Museum of Art fig. 6 Montfaucon 148, 190 Montpellier 97, 111 Morgan Bible moralisée (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS Morgan 240) 25, fig. 1

Padua 33, 183 Palaeographical analysis 40, 58, 134, 135, 136 Palaeologan Constantinopolitan models 157, 163, 164 Panegyric 73, 145 Papageorghiou, Athanasios 51, 81, 82, 93, 121, 187, 190, fig. 17 Paris 15, 21, 23–26, 29, 31, 34, 35, 41, 54–56, 58, 62, 64, 70, 71, 75, 76, 83, 84, 88, 96, 103, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 116, 128, 129, 130, 131, 136, 138–140, 143, 145, 150, 152–155, 158, 168, 177–182, 185–188, figs. 7, 18, pls. 1, 29 Paris-Acre Master 55, 70, 76, 136 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 2628 (Histoire d’Outremer ) 77, 110, 138, 155, fig. 18, pl. 29 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1246 (Ordo of 1250) 63 Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS lat. 9778 (Register F) 63

Nicholas of Narbonne 115, 186 Nicosia IX, X, 7, 8, 70, 81, 82, 85, 93, 96–98, 105–107, 109, 110, 113, 116, 119–122, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 158–161, 164, 165, 168, 172, 173, figs. 8, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, pls. 6, 7, 9, 12–27, 30, 45, 46 Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria 82, 85, 96, 97, 109, 110, 116, 121, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 158, 159, 160, 161, 164, 165, 168, fig. 13, pl. 12–27, 30, 45, 46 Nicosia, Makarios III Foundation X, 7, 82, 98, 172, fig. 8, figs. 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, pls. 6, 7, 9, 12–27, 30, 45, 46 Nicosia, Saint (Hagia, Santa) Sophia 8, 70, 93, 163, fig. 12, pls. 12, 30 Ninus, king 78, 152 Noailles Continuation 30

Index Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. fr. 20125 (Histoire Universelle) 152 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Nouv. Acq. fr. 24541 108, 109, 178 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Nouv. Acq. fr. 1404 29, 129, 187 Paris, Matthew 88, 103, 154, 185, Paris Psalter (Paris MS gr. 139) 71 Paris University standards 23, 64, 129, 130 Pastiglia 121 Pear tree 100, 109, 111, 113 Perizoma 45 Perugia IX, 7, 8, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35–45, 48, 88, 89, 132, 135, 167, 168, 171, 182, 185, pl. 2 Perugia Missal (Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare MS 6) 7, 8, 29, 32, 35–45, 48, 132, 135, 167, 168, 171, pl. 2 Philip of Novara 59, 60, 134, 181 Philip II “Augustus”, king of France 103 Phoebus of Lusignan of Cyprus 57, 68 Pierre Chappe 60, 62 Pierre Honnorez de Neufchâtel 25 Pilamedes (Palamedes) 70, 146 Pisa 26, 28, 49, 53, 57, 60, 89, 119, 162, 174, 177 Popeyed look 39, 168, 175 Edward, prince of England 27, 63 Pyrga 3, 7, 8, 89, 119, 157, 159–161, 169, 173, 191, pl. 41 Qualawun Nasir al-Din Muhammed, Sultan 143 Queen Melisende Psalter, 177 Queen of the Amazons 70, 75 Raoul de Tabarie 60 Ravendel 82, 83, 90, 172 Raymond of Tripoli 83 Register E 63 Rhazez 74, 139, 140, fig. 7 Rhetorica ad Herennium by Cicero 55, 132 Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston 24, 131 Richard I, king of England 27, 117 Roger of San Severino 28, 76–78 Rolling eyeballs 8, 39, 167–169 174, 175 Rome 21, 76, 77, 78, 79, 89, 94, 125, 191, pl. 5 Roman de Garin le Loherain 61 Roman de la Rose 25, 126 Roman de Thèbes 84, 178

Romance of Troy 70 Romancing the Past 5, 58, 147, 189 Romanz de la terre d’outre mer 61, 171 Romanz des Loheranz 61 Rothelin Continuation 30, 134, 186 Rutebeuf 62 Saif ad-Din Qalawun as-Salihi 78 Sandona, Mark 47, 67, 79, 148, 180 San Francesco in Assisi 44, 125, 182 San Gimignano 73, 88, 178 Santa Maria dei Servi in Siena 57 Schutzmantel 8, 94, 95, 99, 189, pls. 10, 11 Senator of Rome 76–78, 152, 168, pl. 5 Sicilian Vespers 78, 96 Signor del Sur (Lord of Tyre) 104, 106 Siena 57, 95, 126, 179, 180, 183, 189 Sinai 2, 3, 14, 15, 17, 31, 35–37, 39, 40, 42–45, 85, 86, 95, 119, 128, 151, 157, 168, 169, 179, 187, 190, 191, figs. 3, 5, 10 Sopoc´ ani 157 Specchio Umano 4, 127 Spectacle effect 32, 159, 167–169 St. Peter of Verona 40 St. Catherine on Sinai 31, 37, 43, figs. 3, 5, 10 St. Francis of Assisi 38, 40, 167, 168, fig. 4 St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) 150, 177 St. Nicholas the Pilgrim 119 Stylianou, Andreas and Judith 17, 51, 96, 109, 189, fig. 14 Subtilitas graeca 16 Sultan of Tunis 139, fig. 7 Templar of Tyre 27, 59, 179 Templar(s) 27, 28, 52, 53, 59, 77, 86, 99, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 123, 130, 132, 179, 181 Teutonic Knights 27, 28 Thomas de Maubeuge 25 Toulouse 58, 111 Tripoli 14, 15, 35, 83, 86, 90, 132, 140, 151, 157, 179, 185 Tristan 63, 70, 146 Umbrian Master of Saint Francis 44 Usa¯mah ibn-Munquidh 34, 140 Vasari, Giorgio 13, 14, 16, 190 Vatican 43, 71

197

198

Index Venice 3, 11, 26, 28, 35, 37, 38, 43, 51–53, 59, 60, 68, 69, 110, 119, 122, 134, 136, 162, 174, 181, 183, 184, 187, 190, figs. 2, 5 Vernacular historiography 148 Weiss, Daniel 3, 18, 29, 32, 34, 35, 39, 47, 48, 63, 64, 77, 78, 96, 127, 129, 130, 140, 147, 149, 158, 167, 171, 180, 184, 185, 187–190, pl. 1 Weitzmann, Kurt 1, 2, 9, 13–16, 18, 29, 35, 36, 38–40, 42, 43, 85, 86, 93, 113, 119, 122, 168, 169, 190, fig. 3 Weyl Carr, Annemarie 1, 2, 16, 47, 51, 52, 83, 85, 87, 94, 95–97, 99, 115, 143, 148, 160, 162, 190, 191

Wilbrand of Oldenburg 142 Wiligelmus 12 William of Coventry 117 William of Rubruck 62, 63, 97, 183 William of St. Stephen 55, 56, 60, 132, 140, 172 William of Tyre, archbishop 59, 61, 65, 67, 84, 128, 133, 134, 137, 138, 141, 145, 150–155, 162, 171, 173, 181, 182, 183, 186, pl. 29 Winckelmann J. J. 11 Wollesen, Jens T. 3–6, 13, 16, 17, 26, 36, 51, 52, 62, 78, 82, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93–97, 119, 125, 140, 141, 157, 159, 163, 164, 191, figs. 8, 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, pls. 4, 6, 7–27, 30, 32–38, 40–46

List of Illustrations

Black and white figures Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11

Fig. 12 Fig. 13 Fig. 14 Fig. 15

New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Morgan 240, fol. 8r. Louis IX and his mother Blanche of Castile. Photo after Lowden, Bible Moralisée, vol. 1, col. plate X. Chicago, the Art Institute in Chicago, inv. no. 1933.1035, the Ryerson diptych. 37.7 × 29.5 cm (left wing), 37.9 × 29.5 cm (right wing). Photo courtesy of the Chicago Art Institute. Attributed to a Venetian master. Sinai, monastery of St. Catherine. Icon with the crucifixion, detail. Photo after Weitzmann, “Sinai,” fig. 1. Istanbul, Kalenderhane Djami, Chapel of St. Francis. Fresco fragment with Franciscan friars (approximately 21 cm). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 74. Sinai, monastery of St. Catherine. Bilateral icon with the crucifixion (obverse), 120.5 × 68.0 cm) diptych, the crucifixion. Veneto-Byzantine crusader styule (Folda). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 103. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Te-Igitur leaf from a Franciscan Missal from the T. Robert and Katherine States Burke collection, 175 × 140 mm. Photo after Morelli and Kanter, The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi, p. 141. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 6912, vol. 1, fol. iv, Havi seu continens. Faraj ben Salim interpretatio. The sultan of Tunis offering the Arabic text of Rhazez to Charles I. of Anjou. Photo: Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale. Nicosia. Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation. The St. Nicholas panel from the church of St. Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Stegis). Photo Wollesen. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royal, MS 10175, fol. 216v. Photo after Buchthal, Miniature Painting, fig. 122b. Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Icon with St. Sergios with a female donor (28.7 × 23.2 cm). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 82. Jerusalem, Library of the Armenian Patriarchate 2563, fol. 380r, detail: King Leon II and Queen Keran of Armenia with their sons and daughters. Photo after Der Nersessian, Armenian Kingdom, fig. 641. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Photo Wollesen. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 1. The Healing of men with dropsy? Photo Wollesen. Cyprus, St. John Lampadistis, narthex, The healing of the man with dropsy. 1453. Photo after Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus, fig. 183. St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Fr. F. v. XIV. 9., La Vie et les miracles de Notre Dame,

200

List of Illustrations

Fig. 16

Fig. 17 Fig. 18

Fig. 19

Fig. 20

fol. 144r: About an empress tempted by the devil. Photo after Voronova and Sterligov, St. Petersburg, fig. 51. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: St. Nicholas revives the three salted boys. Photo Wollesen. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Christ icon from the church of the Virgin in Moutoullas, c.1280, 89 × 66 cm. Photo after Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus, fig. 28. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 2628, fol. 1r. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 2628, fol. 1r. L-intial, prayers at the Holy Sepulchre, the king and a monk with two laymen on horseback. Photo Paris, Bibliothèque National. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: The tomb of St. Nicholas. Photo Wollesen. Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 89v. Si commence la voire estoire de troies; the sailing of the Argo. Photo Wollesen.

Colour plates Plate 1 Plate 2 Plate 3 Plate 4 Plate 5 Plate 6

Plate 7

Plate 8 Plate 9

Plate 10

Plate 11 Plate 12 Plate 13 Plate 14

Paris, the Arsenal Bible. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5211, fol. 307r, Proverbs frontispiece. Photo after Weiss, Saint Louis, plate VIII. Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 6, fol. 182v, the Perugia Missal. The Crucifixion. (19.9 × 12.7 cm). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 71. London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 1v, the Genesis. Photo British Library. Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 562, fol. 1r, the Genesis. Photo Wollesen. London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 161v: Brutus as consul with the feasting senators (Ci commence des conselles de rome le grant afaire). Photo British Library. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: the knight’s horse with shield. Photo Wollesen. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: the male donor figure with horse. Photo Wollesen. Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 562, fol. 70v; Coment polinices et thideus se combatirent por la place. Photo Wollesen. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: the female donor with her daughter. Photo Wollesen. Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex. Mary as Schutzmantel Virgin protecting a Frankish female donor with her mantle with her husband and child on the other side. Late 13th century. Photo Wollesen. Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex. Mary as Schutzmantel Virgin protecting a Frankish female donor with her mantle, detail: the female Frankish donor. Late 13th century. Photo Wollesen. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: Ten Carmelite monks. Photo Wollesen. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 1: Lay people pleading a ruler or paying tribute. Photo Wollesen. Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 2: (HIC) SERUNTUR PORTE SUPER FRATRES. Photo Wollesen.

List of Illustrations Plate 15 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 3: (H)IC APERUNTUR PORTE MIRACULOSE. Photo Wollesen. Plate 16 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 4: (HI)C CLAUD(I) AMBULANT. Photo Wollesen. Plate 17 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 5: (H)IC CECI ILLUMINANTUR. Photo Wollesen. Plate 18 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 6: (HIC MOR)TUI RESUSC(ITANTUR. Photo Wollesen. Plate 19 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 7: … UI ET … . The delivery from captivity. Photo Wollesen. Plate 20 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 8: (HIC D)EMONES EICIUNTUR. Photo Wollesen. Plate 21 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 2: (HIC) NAVES PERICULIS LIBERANTUR. Photo Wollesen. Plate 22 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B3: HIC APPARUIT DNA MULTIS SUPER PIRUM. Photo Wollesen. Plate 23 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 4: … IS AMPUTATA SANCT … . Photo Wollesen. Plate 24 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 5: HIC (L)IBERATUR QUIDAM SUB MOLA. Photo Wollesen. Plate 25 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 6: HIC PARIUNT PREGNANTES ET STERILES IPRES … Photo Wollesen. Plate 26 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 7: (HIC) PUER SUBMERSUS IN AQUA REDI(TUS) … Photo Wollesen. Plate 27 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 8: (HI)C PUER SINE CAPITE NATUS (CAP)UD RECEPIT. Photo Wollesen. Plate 28 St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Fr. F. v. XIV. 9., La Vie et les miracles de Notre Dame, fol. 81r: About the death of a money-lender. Photo after Voronova and Sterligov, St. Petersburg, fig. 47. Plate 29 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Fr. 2628, fol. 89v, Histoire d’Outremer of William of Tyre. Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 86. Plate 30 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: The Carmelite monks. Photo Wollesen. Plate 31 London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 64r: Joseph and his brothers. Photo British Library. Plate 32 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 114r. Coment eneas revint en cesile. Photo Wollesen. Plate 33 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 32r. Coment iacob dessut ysaac son pere. Photo Wollesen. Plate 34 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 42r. Si comence lestoire de ioseph. Photo Wollesen. Plate 35 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 52r. Coment les fiz iacob pristrent conseill a leur pere daler en egypte au forment. Photo Wollesen. Plate 36 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 26r. Coment li angles rescost ysahac que son pere ne li toil lavie. Photo Wollesen. Plate 37 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 21v. Coment Abraham herbaria nostre seignor qui li dist quil auroit fiz de sa feme. Photo Wollesen. Plate 38 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 6r. Coment noe entra en larche. Photo Wollesen. Plate 39 London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 161v, B-initial. Photo British Library. Plate 40 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 145v. B-initial. Photo Wollesen. Plate 41 Pyrga, the so-called Royal Chapel, the Last Supper. Detail: the apostles with Christ. Photo Wollesen.

201

202

List of Illustrations Plate 42 Plate 43 Plate 44 Plate 45

Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex, vault: prophets. Photo Wollesen. Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex, vault: prophets, detail. Photo Wollesen. Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, naos, south wall. The Virgin flanked by angels. Photo Wollesen Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: the left censer angel. Photo Wollesen. Plate 46 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: the right censer angel. Photo Wollesen.

Fig. 1 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Morgan 240, fol. 8r. Louis IX and his mother Blanche of Castile. Photo after Lowden, Bible Moralisée, vol. 1, col. plate X.

Fig. 2 Chicago, the Art Institute in Chicago, inv. no. 1933.1035, the Ryerson diptych. 37.7 × 29.5 cm (left wing), 37.9 × 29.5 cm (right wing). Photo courtesy of the Chicago Art Institute. Attributed to a Venetian master.

Fig. 3 Sinai, monastery of St. Catherine. Icon with the Crucifixion, detail. Photo after Weitzmann, “Sinai,” fig. 1.

Fig. 4 Istanbul, Kalenderhane Djami, Chapel of St. Francis. Fresco fragment with Franciscan friars (approximately 21 cm). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 74.

Fig. 5 Sinai, monastery of St. Catherine. Bilateral icon with the crucifixion (obverse), 120.5 × 68.0 cm) diptych, the crucifixion. Veneto-Byzantine crusader style (Folda). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 103.

Fig. 6 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Te-Igitur leaf from a Franciscan Missal from the T. Robert and Katherine States Burke collection, 175 × 140 mm. Photo after Morelli and Kanter, The Treasury of Saint Francis of Assisi, p. 141.

Fig. 7 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 6912, vol. 1, fol. iv, Havi seu continens. Faraj ben Salim interpretatio. The sultan of Tunis offering the Arabic text of Rhazez to Charles I. of Anjou. Photo: Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale.

Fig. 8 Nicosia. Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation. The St. Nicholas panel from the church of St. Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Stegis). Photo Wollesen.

Fig. 9 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royal, MS 10175, fol. 216v. Photo after Buchthal, Miniature Painting, fig. 122b.

Fig. 10 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Icon with St. Sergios with a female donor (28.7 × 23.2 cm). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 82.

Fig. 11 Jerusalem, Library of the Armenian Patriarchate 2563, fol. 380r, detail: King Leon II and Queen Keran of Armenia with their sons and daughters. Photo after Der Nersessian, Armenian Kingdom, fig. 641.

Fig. 12 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Photo Wollesen.

Fig. 13 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 1. The Healing of men with dropsy? Photo Wollesen.

Fig. 14 Cyprus, St. John Lampadistis, narthex, The healing of the man with dropsy. 1453. Photo after Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus, fig. 183.

Fig. 15 St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Fr. F. v. XIV. 9., La Vie et les miracles de Notre Dame, fol. 144r: About an empress tempted by the devil. Photo after Voronova and Sterligov, St. Petersburg, fig. 51.

Fig. 16 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: St. Nicholas revives the three salted boys. Photo Wollesen.

Fig. 17 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Christ icon from the church of the Virgin in Moutoullas, c.1280, 89 × 66 cm. Photo after Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus, fig. 28.

Fig. 18 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 2628, fol. 1r. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 2628, fol. 1r. L-intial, prayers at the Holy Sepulchre, the king and a monk with two laymen on horseback. Photo Paris, Bibliothèque National.

Fig. 19 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: The tomb of St. Nicholas. Photo Wollesen.

Fig. 20 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 89v. Si commence la voire estoire de troies; the sailing of the Argo. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 1 Paris, the Arsenal Bible. Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5211, fol. 307r, Proverbs frontispiece. Photo after Weiss, Saint Louis, plate VIII.

Plate 2 Perugia, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 6, fol. 182v, the Perugia Missal. The Crucifixion. (19.9 × 12.7 cm). Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 71.

Plate 3

London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 1v, the Genesis. Photo British Library.

Plate 4

Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 562, fol. 1r, the Genesis. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 5 London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 161v: Brutus as consul with the feasting senators (Ci commence des conselles de rome le grant afaire). Photo British Library.

Plate 6 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: the knight’s horse with shield. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 7 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: the male donor figure with horse. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 8 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 562, fol. 70v; Coment polinices et thideus se combatirent por la place. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 9 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Saint Nicholas panel from the church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof (Ayios Nikolaos tis Steyis). Detail: the female donor with her daughter. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 10 Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex. Mary as Schutzmantel Virgin protecting a Frankish female donor with her mantle with her husband and child on the other side. Late 13th century. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 11 Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex. Mary as Schutzmantel Virgin protecting a Frankish female donor with her mantle, detail: the female Frankish donor. Late 13th century. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 12 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: Ten Carmelite monks. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 13 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 1: Lay people pleading to a ruler or paying tribute. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 14 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 2: (HIC) SERUNTUR PORTE SUPER FRATRES. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 15 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 3: (H)IC APERUNTUR PORTE MIRACULOSE. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 16 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 4: (HI)C CLAUD(I) AMBULANT. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 17 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 5: (H)IC CECI ILLUMINANTUR. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 18 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 6: (HIC MOR)TUI RESUSC(ITANTUR, Photo Wollesen.

Plate 19 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 7: … UI ET … . The delivery from captivity. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 20 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene A 8: (HIC D)EMONES EICIUNTUR. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 21 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 2: (HIC) NAVES PERICULIS LIBERANTUR. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 22 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B3: HIC APPARUIT DNA MULTIS SUPER PIRUM. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 23 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 4: … IS AMPUTATA SANCT … . Photo Wollesen.

Plate 24 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 5: HIC (L)IBERATUR QUIDAM SUB MOLA. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 25 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 6: HIC PARIUNT PREGNANTES ET STERILES IPRES … Photo Wollesen.

Plate 26 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 7: (HIC) PUER SUBMERSUS IN AQUA REDI(TUS) … Photo Wollesen.

Plate 27 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Nicosia cathedral Hodegetria. Detail: scene B 8: (HI)C PUER SINE CAPITE NATUS (CAP)UD RECEPIT. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 28 St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Fr. F. v. XIV. 9., La Vie et les miracles de Notre Dame, fol. 81r: About the death of a money-lender. Photo after Voronova and Sterligov, St. Petersburg, fig. 47.

Plate 29 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Fr. 2628, fol. 89v, Histoire d’Outremer of William of Tyre. Photo after Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, fig. 86.

Plate 30 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: The Carmelite monks. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 31

London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol. 64r: Joseph and his brothers. Photo British Library.

Plate 32

Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 114r. Coment eneas revint en cesile. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 33

Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 32r. Coment iacob dessut ysaac son pere. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 34

Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 42r. Si comence lestoire de ioseph. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 35 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 52r. Coment les fiz iacob pristrent conseill a leur pere daler en egypte au forment. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 36 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 26r. Coment li angles rescost ysahac que son pere ne li toil lavie. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 37 Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 21v. Coment Abraham herbaria nostre seignor qui li dist quil auroit fiz de sa feme. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 38

Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 6r. Coment noe entra en larche. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 39

London, British Library, MS Add. 15268, fol.161v, B-initial. Photo British Library.

Plate 40

Dijon, Bibliothèque Municipale, fol. 145v. B-initial. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 41 Pyrga, the so-called Royal Chapel, the Last Supper. Detail: the apostles with Christ. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 42

Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex, vault: prophets. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 43

Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, narthex, vault: prophets, detail. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 44

Asinou, Panagia Phorviotissa, naos, south wall. The Virgin flanked by angels. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 45 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: the left censer angel. Photo Wollesen.

Plate 46 Nicosia, Byzantine Museum of the Makarios III Foundation, the Hodegetria panel from the cathedral Hagia Sophia in Nicosia. Detail: the right censer angel. Photo Wollesen.