Byzantine Rome (Past Imperfect) [New ed.] 9781641890052, 9781641890045, 9781641890069, 1641890053

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
Introduction: The Sensibility of a Civilization
Chapter 1: Imaging Christianity in Rome
Chapter 2: A Question of Style
Chapter 3: Rome in the Time of Iconoclasm
Chapter 4: Forms of Separation
Epilogue: Old St. Peter’s as Museum and Microcosm
Further Reading
Appendix: Dates of Medieval Roman Monuments

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PAST IMPERFECT See further

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Byzantine Rome Annie Montgomery Labatt

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Contents

Introduction: The Sensibility of a Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1. Imaging Christianity in Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Chapter 2. A Question of Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Chapter 3. Rome in the Time of Iconoclasm . . . . . . . . . . 77 Chapter 4. Forms of Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Epilogue: Old St. Peter’s as Museum and Microcosm������� 147 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Appendix: Dates of Medieval Roman Monuments . . . . . . . 169

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. “Palimpsest Wall,” Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome. 2nd to 8th century, fresco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Figure 2. “Putti making wine,” Santa Costanza, Rome. 4th century, mosaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Figure 3. Sant’Agnese fuori le mura, Rome. 625–628, mosaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Figure 4. “Healing of the Paralytic,” San Saba, Rome. 7th century, fresco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Figure 5. “Anastasis,” San Clemente, Rome. 9th century, fresco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Figure 6. “Anastasis,” left (north) niche in the San Zeno chapel, Santa Prassede, Rome. 9th century, mosaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Figure 7. “Transfiguration,” Triumphal arch at SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, Rome. 815, mosaic . . . . . . 97 Figure 8. Jacopo Torriti, “Koimesis,” S. Maria Maggiore, Rome. 1290–1325, mosaic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Figure 9. Ecclesia from the apse mosaic of Old St. Peter’s, Rome. 1198–1216, mosaic . . . . . . . . 136

Introduction

The Sensibility of a Civilization

We must look for the ways in which a given epoch solved for itself aesthetic problems as they presented themselves at the time to the sensibilities and the culture of its people. Then our historical inquiries will be a contribution, not to whatever we conceive ‘aesthetics’ to be, but rather to the history of a specific civilization, from the standpoint of its own sensibility and its own aesthetic consciousness. Umberto Eco1

As the focus for much of the greatest cultural, theological, and political activity of the medieval period, the city of Rome offers opportunities to look for the kinds of answers to which Umberto Eco alludes—the aesthetic solutions that define a culture. One of those major questions is about the nature of the relationship between Rome and the Eastern Empire, the Byzantine Empire. Was it one of antagonism? Dependence? Influence? Deference? Artistic evidence provides a lens into the terms of this relationship as they shifted between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries. But it is important to recognize that the very posing of this particular question implies an assumption of difference, even of cultural incompatibility. In fact, although the East and the West did not consistently share political or theological views, the verita1  Umberto Eco, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, trans. Hugh Bedin (New Haven: Yale University Press 2002), 2.

2  Introduction ble outpouring of paintings, mosaics, reliquaries, and architecture in Rome during the medieval period tells a story that is characterized by sharing and exchange, not by a cultural differentiation. The church of Santa Maria Antiqua is an example of the ways in which assumptions about a separated East and West obfuscate the truer, and, frankly, more interesting cultural dynamics at the core of this pan-Mediterranean medieval period. In 2016, an exhibition opened within the walls of S. Maria Antiqua, a church in the Roman Forum that had been partially destroyed by an earthquake in 847, forgotten and then lost until the nineteenth century, sought for a year, rediscovered in 1900, and then closed for 116 years for conservation.2 Frescoes, ranging from the sixth to ninth centuries, line the church—along the side aisles and the low-lying walls of the space preceding the choir, all along the walls of the choir and in the two side chapels on either side of the apse. Whereas the paintings in the left side aisle of the church are still part of the original fabric of the building, paintings from various periods of production that had been removed from the walls have been placed in the walkways in much of the right side aisle. The famous palimpsest wall sitting to the right of the apse has no fewer than six layers of artistic activity—mosaics from the second half of the fourth century, fifth- or sixth-century frescoes, a sixth-century Maria Regina, an Annunciation from the late sixth or early seventh century, frescoes of saints Basil and John Chrysostom (650–663), and a final layer of paint from the time of Pope John VII (705–707). The exhibition, Santa Maria Antiqua tra Roma e Bisanzio, used technology—videos, light shows, recordings—to explain this complex site. The exhibition and the revelation of S.  Maria Antiqua allowed an invaluable opportunity to confront the profusion of medieval images still extant in Rome today. The search for medieval Rome reveals a city of survivals, where medieval buildings are anything but “few and far between,” 2  Maria Andaloro, Giulia Bordi, and Giuseppe Morganti, Santa Maria Antiqua tra Roma e Bisanzio (Milan: Electa, 2016).

The Sensibility of a Civilization  3

Figure 1. “Palimpsest Wall,” Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome. 2nd to 8th century, fresco. Photo: Reuters / Alamy Stock Photo.

4  Introduction as a recent book claims.3 S.  Maria Antiqua is one medieval church which all by itself exhibits layers and layers of medieval paintings. The story of S. Maria Antiqua might almost stand as a metaphor for the challenges faced historically in the search for an understanding of medieval Rome. After the earthquake in 847, S. Maria Antiqua was no longer active and was forgotten. At the turn of the twentieth century, early archaeologists like Giacomo Boni attempted to find the church, which appeared in documentation such as the Liber Pontificalis, a compendium of the biographies of popes from St. Peter through the fifteenth century. But the church appeared nowhere in the landscape of the Roman Forum. Once it was discovered under the Baroque church Santa Maria Liberatrice, Boni petitioned successfully to have the later church destroyed, which was done in February of 1900. Although the major excavations of S. Maria Antiqua started the next month, it was not until the exhibition in 2016 that the public was allowed within the walls of the church. The exhibition was a perfect antithesis of the White Cube aesthetic of contemporary galleries with their blank walls, regularized space sizes, single source of light, wall labels, and individualized experiences. Where the contemporary curator would likely install headphones for a video or sound installation, at S. Maria Antiqua the sound “leaked” or bled throughout the space, filling the church with sound. Most notably, these sounds came from videos that were projected at intervals onto the walls of the two side chapels—the Theodotus Chapel on the left (714–752) and the Chapel of the Medical Saints on the right (705–707). Light, image, sound, space—all brought together a story of the many painted layers of this once lost church and communicated to the viewer a sense of artistic richness and variety. The innovative video projections in the exhibition were particularly helpful in interpreting the famous palimpsest wall. One of the first cohesive images on this wall that becomes 3  Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney, The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art (New York: Norton, 2017), 114.

The Sensibility of a Civilization  5

visible to the eye is a queenly Madonna, a Maria Regina type, who sits on a bejewelled throne with the Christ Child on her lap. Her right hand points to his breast, while in her left she dangles a white handkerchief. Directly to the right of her partial face—only her right eye remains—is another, more complete head, a haloed male figure, whose heavily lined brow contrasts with the Madonna’s high arching eyebrows and bright open eyes. Further to the right of the composition are two angels, one slightly lower than the Maria Regina and one slightly above her. Both lean in her direction wearing large white robes, and, although it is not possible to see what the upper angel holds, the lower one offers what appears to be a red crown. The lower angel and the Maria Regina belong to the sixth century, while the saint flanking her belongs to the painting campaign of Pope John VII (705–707). The angel that hovers above, deemed the “beautiful angel” by early scholars, is dated to the late sixth or early seventh century. The reason that the upper angel was promoted as “beautiful” instead of the lower one has to do with the complicated scholarly discourse that surrounded the monument of S. Maria Antiqua. A heavy-handed stylistic debate shaped the discourse on the paintings. Ernst Kitzinger considered the particularly impressionistic brushstrokes as proof of a “perennial Hellenism.”4 Hellenism here was meant to refer to the more naturalistic Greek art of antiquity. (This becomes more complicated still when one realizes that Hellenism is 4  Ernst Kitzinger, “Byzantine Art in the Period between Justinian and Iconoclasm,” Berichte zum XI. Internationalen ByzantinistenKongress München (Munich: Beck, 1958), 1–50; Kitzinger, “On some Icons of the Seventh Century,” in Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr., ed. K. Weizmann (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955): 132–150; Kitzinger, “The Hellenistic Heritage in Byzantine Art Reconsidered,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 31, no. 2 (1981): 657–75. See also Leslie Brubaker, “100 Years of Solitude: Santa Maria Antiqua and the History of Byzantine Art History,” in Santa Maria Antiqua al Foro Romano cento anni dopo, ed. John Osborne, J. Rasmus Brandt, and Giuseppe Morganti (Rome: Campisano, 2004), 41–47.

6  Introduction frequently the term used pejoratively for the later, hyperstyled Greek art produced from the fourth century to first century bce.) Here the word is used positively, as a means of saying the Roman fresco has a naturalism to it that befits the ancients. But Kitzinger pointed out a second style that co-existed during the seventh century, an abstract style that contrasted with the naturalistic one. He associated a more abstract style with the contemporary art of the Greek East, and this was used to explain, for example, the stricter outlines in the face of the lower angel or the formality of the standing saints. The application of “beautiful” for the one angel, a term that continues to be used today, suggested a preference for one style over the other; it indicated a superiority of the earlier, ancient Greek style. But both styles were understood to have been inspired by the East. The methodology of associating both styles with Eastern sources showed a tendency or a desire to link these paintings to sites in the East. This was not only a case of styles and ideas permeating the West through the transmission of ideas. The assertion was that the artists doing the work were also from the East, were Byzantine. Thus, S.  Maria Antiqua was determined by early scholars to have been a space in which Eastern artists with varying affinities for Greek art of the past were working, and as such the church was nestled into the category of Byzantine. Interestingly, the association of Rome and the East, and the affirmation of their commonalities, did not lead to a thesis that proclaimed a world of exchange and shared ideas. Instead, scholars made sharper distinctions between the East and the West, claiming that S. Maria Antiqua was an outlier in Rome, not even Roman at all, but different and Byzantine. The term, “proto-Byzantine,” favoured in scholarship of the twentieth century, implied that certain image types were previews of what would become popular in the East.5 The idea was that the images were underground 5  Ernst Kitzinger first uses the term “proto-Byzantine” in 1958 in “Byzantine Art in the Period between Justinian and Iconoclasm,” 41. The term appears in a transcribed conversation between Per

The Sensibility of a Civilization  7

survivals of Eastern art that would have been erased in the Iconoclastic period had they not found a safe haven in Rome. “Proto-Byzantine” suggests that the Roman art was already Byzantine or Eastern, in a sense—that it was on the Eastern side of a presumed East–West divide. By the time of the publication of Richard Krautheimer’s book Rome: Profile of a City in 1980, S. Maria Antiqua was part of a struggle, stuck between East and West, belonging to two warring parents. The title of the chapter in which the church appears is “Rome between East and West,” and this is, incidentally, the title of the exhibition that opened the doors of the church to the public. The closed classification of the styles of the paintings mirrored the fact that the church was physically cut off from the outside world. The categorization was set in stone, isolated from scrutiny, like the church itself. There are aspects of early medieval churches that could be interpreted as pointing towards a division between the East and the West. But it is imperative to approach these aspects with caution. For instance, the Liber Pontificalis, the compilation of papal biographies, indicates that Pope John VII was Greekborn. This combined with the fact that he patronized a church with a number of Eastern saints might point towards a Byzantinizing moment. John also patronized images that have Byzantine associations. He introduced the image of the Anastasis in the space of the church of S. Maria Antiqua three times. The Anastasis, the descent into hell, is the scene of Resurrection in the Greek Orthodox Church. It appears prominently in most Greek Orthodox art, and powerfully in the apse of the great Jonas Nordhagen and Kitzinger in Nordhagen, “Italo-Byzantine Wall Painting of the Early Middle Ages, an 80-Year-Old Enigma in Scholarship,” in Bizanzio, Roma e l’Italia nell’alto medioevo, 3–9 aprile 1986 (Spoleto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1988): 593–624. The term appears again throughout the writings of both scholars, most recently in Nordhagen, “The Presence of Greek Artists in Rome in the Early Middle Ages. A Puzzle Solved,” Bizantinistica: Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Slavi 14 (2012): 183–91.

8  Introduction Eastern church called the Chora (1315–1321). But the Anastasis scene first appears in Rome. The earliest known example is in S. Maria Antiqua. Was John bringing with him an iconography that was already established in the East? That is possible, although no early examples survive in the East. It is just as possible that the artists of S. Maria Antiqua were inspired to try a new representation of Christ’s descent into hell after the Crucifixion and before the Resurrection. Even if John did associate himself solely with the East, and there is no evidence that he did, would he introduce a new image because of his heritage or as a means of pointing specifically to his own different upbringing or different visual tradition? It is hard to make this claim, especially when much of S. Maria Antiqua has iconography that is not unusual or from a different culture. What benefit would there have been to John’s pointing towards difference when his role as pope was to ensure a strong and unified Church? It is also unlikely that John’s origin as a “Greek” would have been of note to the eighth-century Romans. The men who eventually became popes moved throughout the Roman Empire, especially during the early medieval period. In fact, John was born not in Greece at all, but in Calabria, in the “toe” of Italy, which Justinian had brought into the fold of the unified Christian empire with his grand campaigns of the early sixth century. John lived in many places, and we know that his father was an important general in the army and spent a number of years in Rome. It is tempting to tie together certain pieces of information and see evidence of an Eastern-versus-Western competition or even antagonism during certain periods of Rome’s artistic history, verification of something that might feel like a Byzantine moment. But the differences that define Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions are of a later medieval period. The distinctions that are visible in the eleventh and twelfth centuries did not define the art of the earlier periods, certainly not those of the pre-Iconoclastic centuries. After a recent Byzantine Studies Conference, a yearly meeting that moves from city to city, a colleague discussed her first trip to Rome and how shocked she was that Rome is

The Sensibility of a Civilization  9

“so Byzantine!” Generally speaking, Byzantinists do not study Rome. When they go to Rome, possibly as tourists, they are studying something that is familiar to their research, something that touches on the Byzantine. It feels Byzantine. Obviously, that is not a scholarly assessment, and it connotes the connoisseurial sense of style that the earlier scholars relied upon, an imperfect science at best, seeing a different kind of stroke here and a more or less meaningful highlight there. But it is worth thinking through the weighty scholarship of the early art historians and that visceral reaction from my fellow Byzantinist. What was she responding to? What exactly was Kitzinger looking at when he was making his assessments? What does it mean to see something as “Byzantine” or that connotes “Byzantine”? What do we mean when we use the word today as opposed to the twentieth century? What are we saying we see when we see it? There may be a validity to the term, or a usefulness to it. The word was first used in the sixteenth century by Italian scholars as a means of showing the differences between the Old Rome (Western Rome) and the New Rome (Constantinople). This interesting repurposing of the original name of the city upon which Constantinople was built, Byzantion, helped create a language that would explain the differences in the medieval world. But when used without caution, the word “Byzantine” puts us at risk of being pulled into a conversation based on impressions and presumed divisions. The result is that, instead of focusing on why the church was commissioned in the first place and what its imagery meant to its viewers, a church like S. Maria Antiqua is defined as either Roman or Eastern and nowhere between. In short, Byzantine is a word that does few favours to those of us trying to understand the churches of medieval Rome. Our tendency to see Eastern-ness, our use of that word Byzantine, is coloured by early twentieth-century scholarship, which used the term in a categorical way that asserted divisions before they existed. Early scholars helped us see the divergence of the two artistic cultures. They brought many of

10  Introduction these medieval monuments to light, places that had not been discussed before. But sometimes they introduced those differences where they did not belong, before those cultures had split. These scholars were writing in an age of newly configured nation states, after territories and geographical boundaries had been fought over viciously in the many wars of the twentieth century, wars which directly involved and affected the lives of these authors. Undoubtedly influenced by nineteenth-century nationalism and the twentieth-century establishment of nation states, the scholars were tempted to see in medieval art the presence of modern cultural differences. Because of this there is an overstated emphasis on the concept of influence and origin. The question behind these wars, “who owns what,” filters into the analysis about which monument, which style, which iconography is Eastern and which is Western. Greece and Turkey become Byzantium. Rome does not, except for a few moments of “Byzantine conquest.” What is lost in this aim to localize styles and artistry of the medieval moment is the fact that during this period there was a continual artistic exchange and sharing of ideas throughout the Mediterranean, one that had nothing to do with twentieth-century geopolitical divides. This book considers complementary interactions between the East and West. Documented, historical touchpoints naturally help us read the monuments created during these periods. Theological controversies and political shifts provide important signposts for the sense of the chronology of the period. The ebb and flow of the interactions between East and West during the period from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries influence the shape and the production of the monuments of medieval Rome. But there is a danger of tying art and even medieval politics too closely, a fallacy of one-toone, cause and effect, of putting art in the constant position of respondent. Another point of caution is the role of style in the consideration of these early medieval monuments. Stylistic assess­­­ments are generally used as justifications for the categorization as Eastern or Western, for the existence of the

The Sensibility of a Civilization  11

term Byzantine. But it is important to establish the fluidity or instability of style, especially during the early medieval period. Medieval monuments reveal a great range of styles. Although there is rarely a use of atmospheric depth or linear perspective, configurations of figures and folds belong on a wide spectrum of naturalism. The mosaics at Ravenna from the sixth-century church San  Vitale provide an example of how the images of this early medieval period deny strict stylistic definition. Perhaps the representation of Emperor Justinian seems flat, abstract, and starkly frontal, terms associated with Byzantine art, terms that appear in art-historical textbooks. But flat compared to what? To a Renaissance painting? Perhaps so. But taken on its own terms, the rich and modulated shading of Justinian’s robe, his forceful and weighty stance, his unremitting stare, and the modulations of his face, and how those are distinguished from the others in his retinue—these all are features that defy stylistic characteristics affiliated with the word Byzantine. Many of these qualities align with the David Plates from the beginning of the seventh century, which employ such naturalism in the represented bodies that their style is considered to be a hold-over of the classical past. S. Vitale is called Byzantine because it is “abstract” even though the church is in Italy. The David Plates are called remnants of a classical past because they are naturalistic even though they were produced in the heart of Byzantium, in Constantinople. Certain fold types such as the “double-line” fold, much valued by the scholar Kurt Weitzman, were considered to be indicative of a Byzantine style or artist.6 But a variety of styles is ever-present. Styles do not go dormant. They shift and change and appear in various settings. We can rely on style as a means of explaining artistic decisions that were made in church programs. But we cannot safely rely on them to represent particular values, motivations, or affiliations. 6  Kurt Weitzmann, The Miniatures of the Sacra Parallela, Parisinus Graecus 923 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 20–24.

12  Introduction It is important to emphasize that, in the period covered in this book, artists were guided and funded by people in power. Unlike, say, Impressionist painters who, even if they were not well-to-do, could find the means to produce a painting—a brush, a pigment, a canvas—the medieval craftsmanship in these monuments would not have been produced without the support of an institution. These paintings and mosaics were not portable or private, as in the case of the modern artist. These were intended for considerable and lasting scrutiny. Artistic responses to current events certainly must have existed, but those works of art were in large part relegated to spaces outside of the church, and are less likely to have survived because they were not protected by the walls and sacristans of the church. It is likely, for example, that there were versions of so-called “talking statues,” to which anonymous letters with critical commentaries were attached. Medieval art was not immune to political events, especially during periods dominated by conversations about how art should work, as in the Iconoclastic period. But by its nature, the art that exists from this period asserts itself as being above politics. These churches were not “talking statues.” By its very presence, the art of the medieval period is affirming wealth, support, faith, an audience, and skill. Even though the popes were intricately involved in the political landscape of the time, their artistic patronage generally spoke a language of stability, not politics. When medieval art responds to shifts in power or theological debates, it does so obliquely. The main focus is not about pointing to difference but about affirming power and permanence. We might sense that something looks Byzantine. It might have features that look like or appear in works of art from the East. But when studied closely, the art of Rome does not support the word Byzantine at all, or at least not until the later medieval period when artistic practices in the West and the East reflect distinct iconographical and liturgical traditions. The word Byzantine must be handled with care. Umberto Eco warns that it is essential to fight against our visceral and conditioned viewpoints. We must do our best to

The Sensibility of a Civilization  13

think of the ways in which “a given epoch solved aesthetic problems at the time” in light of the “sensibilities and the culture of its people.” If difference does not affect sensibility and consciousness, Eco would say, it is not really different, it is just one “aesthetic option,” just a style. It is only after considering the information that we have in front of us, the actual visual documents, from the standpoint of that civilization’s specific point of view, that our inquiries are relevant. To the best of our ability we must step away from our pre-set notions. In the case of the medieval art of Rome, this means revisiting the validity of the presumed cultural division between the East and the West and challenging the use of the word Byzantine. That methodological quest for categorization, for an Eastern art and a separate Western art, falls flat in the face of the paintings as they were shown in the exhibition at S.  Maria Antiqua. The paintings in the exhibition revealed a multiplicity of styles all coexisting in the same space, on the same walls, presumably clearly communicating to all of the viewers, many of whom were from Rome and many of whom were not. These fresco-filled walls told a story that was less about the East and more about the relationship to Rome—to the Palatine Hill, to the popes, to the continual production of paintings. The ability to see, through the videos in the side chapels, the various stages of decoration over the centuries of the space’s existence allowed an understanding of a story of artistic pride and prowess, not one of conquest and subservience. The exhibition showed that this site, and by extension the rest of the city, was not an Eastern enclave, but a hub of continuing creativity that revealed pan-Mediterranean inspirations, a pan-Mediterranean aesthetic. This book discusses the word Byzantine and how it affects the way the monumental art, the frescoes and mosaics of Rome, have been described. The iconographies and styles of the decorative programs shift a great deal, which allows a consideration of shared or shifting preferences throughout medieval Roman Christendom. By looking at iconographies, controversies, and styles, we can determine when the East should be considered culturally different. It is only when that

14  Introduction dissimilarity is fully established that it is appropriate to call that culture Byzantine. Before that time, both Rome and the pan-Mediterranean culture it shared cannot be called Byzantine at all. In that sense, this book’s title refers to something that was not really there. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as Byzantine Rome.

Chapter 1

Imaging Christianity in Rome

When Constantine selected Byzantion as the capital of the Roman Empire in 324, the city was relatively unknown and certainly not as influential as city-states like Athens or Corinth. Perhaps Constantine wanted a site that was more easily defendable than Rome, perhaps he wanted to highlight the site of his victory over his rival Licinius I, or perhaps he wanted a clean slate upon which his new streets, new forum, enlarged stadium, and three new churches could stand out in a way they might not in the already chockablock city of Rome. What is certain is that the move was not inspired by an attempt to create a rift between the East and the West. Ironically, the name of the city upon which Constantine settled the new capital ultimately did become the source of a distinction between two completely separate cultures made by later sixteenth-century historians—Byzantion became Byzantine. But in the fourth century, the name Byzantion was essentially forgotten, only used by antiquarians. The rest of the community quickly adopted the name Constantinople. Constantine may not have had difficulty with the new name, despite the fact that there was no official decree about the name change. Officially the name was New Rome. It was to act as a balance to the western Rome, as a means of providing stability to the expansive Roman Empire. The new capital had the advantage of being on the sea route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and the land route that connected the Persian and Danube frontiers. New Rome would thus be

16  Chapter 1 better able to unite the expanse of the empire than the landlocked Rome. Constantinople was a complementary site. It was not supposed to make Rome into a different, discrete, separate, or subsidiary entity. If later authorities argued about the primacy, one cannot assume that this was a widespread conversation during the fourth century, or one that would have affected the artists of each capital. Documentary evidence does not point to a contentious reception to the founding of Constantinople. Nor does cultural evidence. Visual evidence, the great building programs that Constantine endorsed in both great centres, indicates that the earliest years of this newly Christianized empire were not coloured by a sense of opposition or antagonism. Thus, although the shifting of the capital may have had defensive and mercantile aims, although there may have been seeds of a theological separation, the continuity of artistic and architectural production indicates that Rome had not been left behind and that, rather, the city was very much a part of the continuum of the Roman Empire. Both Rome and Constantinople functioned with the same aims— to continue to have a prosperous empire, a large and unified Roman Christian Empire, which would be visible and manifested through impressive artistic campaigns. Both cities were spaces in which the visual language for Christian iconographies was being shaped, crafted, and tested. Both employed art that was readily available, art that was originally from non-Christian sources, thereby showing the impermeability of the Roman traditions despite the adoption of new religions, the accession of new emperors, the addition of new cities. The early period of artistic production in Rome and Constantinople reveals a shared vision, in keeping with Constantine’s, that the empire would grow, thereby justifying its expansive and expanded power. The move to Constantinople was not a reboot of Rome, as though the Western city was no longer working. This was not an example of the East establishing itself as distinct from the West, as a sort of early Byzantinizing moment. The art of this period reveals an inter-

Imaging Christianity in Rome  17

est in establishing a visual rhetoric that would proclaim this newly expanded and reconfigured Christian empire. Artistic re-imaginings and innovation were shared by both Eastern and Western Romes. Constantinople witnessed a great new wave of buildings—the Great Palace, the foundations of Hagia Sophia, a university, hippodromes, and numerous baths. The main church, the Church of the Holy Apostles, dedicated in 330, was destroyed after the city fell in 1453. But archaeological records and writings by Eusebius of Caesarea indicate that it was a cross-shaped church that contained a rotunda mausoleum. This site copied the shape and arrangement of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem, which housed the round Tomb of Christ called the Anastasis, another building that was patronized by Constantine. This particular formation—the round mausoleum within a larger complex containing a longitudinal building—inspired the Mausoleum of Costanza in Rome, named for the daughter of Constantine who was known as Constantina or Costanza. This building may have also been intended as the burial site for Costanza, although there is some debate as to whether or not she would have warranted the splendour of such a site. Another possible candidate was her younger sister Helena, who was married to a very important figure, the emperor Julian the Apostate. Whether or not either the elder or the younger was the inspiration for the building, both women were buried in the space, and the eldest was given posthumous privilege when Pope Nicholas  I (858–867) named the site after Costanza. Both women died outside of Rome, Costanza in Bithynia in 354 and Helena in Gaul in 360, perhaps further confirmation that Rome was still no less central to the notion of empire, even if Constantine had relocated his administrative apparatus. Santa Costanza is located northeast of the centre of modern-day Rome, about a mile and a quarter (or two kilometres) outside of the Aurelian Walls on the Via Nomentana. It sits between two buildings. One of those, on the left of S. Costanza when facing the entrance, is Sant’Agnese, which was built by Pope Honorius in the early seventh century. The other build-

18  Chapter 1 ing, which only exists as a massive and impressive ruin, was the original Sant’Agnese, a large funerary hall, which is understood to have been built by Constantine in 326 on his last visit to Rome. The ruins reveal a building that measured almost 33 feet (ten metres) wide and 300 feet (ninety metres) long. The southern wall of the building originally abutted the exterior ring of S. Costanza. The shape of the funerary hall took a basilical form, much like the other major structures associated with Constantine in Rome—St. Peter’s, San Giovanni in Laterano, and San Paolo fuori le mura. The remnants of the walls of the hall extend under S. Costanza. This is significant because it means that the building of S.  Costanza necessitated the destruction of a section of the funerary hall, a section that some scholars believe served as a private baptismal space for the imperial family. Thus the monument built for S. Costanza was important enough to necessitate a substantial reconstruction of the Constantinian building. The setting and the architectural shape point to the funerary nature of the space. S.  Costanza is in the configuration of the most prominent mausoleum type of ancient Rome, that of a circular plan with concentric rings. This was the shape of the mausoleums for Emperors Augustus (28 bce) and Hadrian (134–139 ce). Most notably, the structure of the round mausoleum type was used for the Anastasis building in the complex of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The round mausoleum of the Anastasis is understood to be where Christ was buried before the Resurrection. Like the structure of the Anastasis, S. Costanza was composed of concentric rings or ambulatories. Originally S.  Costanza had an outer ambulatory in addition to an internal one. As it stands today, it is composed of a single barrel-vaulted ambulatory that opens up into a circular central area that rises approximately 130 feet (forty metres). Light floods in through twelve windows in the dome, while twelve pairs of Roman columns separate the ambulatory from the central space. The decorations of the space also revealed a funerary purpose, one that related to a specifically Christian understanding of death. Although the vaults of the space are still

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filled with original fourth-century mosaics, many are no longer extant. Originally the cupola also housed mosaics, but they were destroyed in 1620. Before they were destroyed, the sixteenth-century artists Francisco de Hollanda and Pomponio Ugonio recorded the mosaics, illustrating and sketching a number of Old Testament scenes. The Old Testament stories were understood to allude to the Christian narrative. For instance, Noah’s story of surviving the flood was understood as a prefiguration of Christ because the waters of baptism washed away man’s original sin. Noah’s ark was also understood as a prefiguration of the Church as a source of salvation. Abel’s murder was a prefiguration of Christ’s death. Jonah’s time in the belly of the whale was tied to the time Christ spent in the tomb. His ability to escape death was likened to Christ’s ability to overcome death. These Old Testament scenes were extremely important in catacombs, also spaces associated with funerals. In the missing mosaics there was a Nilotic scene as well, with small putti playing on boats and animals related to the water—dolphins, octopi, ducks, and swans. Although not all of the figures in these scenes would have made the leap from non-Christian to Christian, many could participate in both worlds. Dolphins, which also appeared in catacombs, were associated with fish in a general sense, and with the wellknown acrostic of Christ’s name, Ichthys. Birds were linked, as they had been in antiquity, with the human soul, which could move from one world to the next. Birds are also present in the mosaics that still fill the vaults of S. Costanza. Generally these appear to be birds connected with hunting, such as pheasants and ducks. But in the vaults there are also peacocks, which were significantly identifiable with Christianity. It was understood that peacocks had flesh that did not spoil, a characteristic associated with the body and flesh of Christ. Peacocks appear in catacombs, in these mosaics, on the porphyry tomb of S. Costanza, and consistently in later medieval mosaics within this Roman sphere. Of great significance to the Christian tradition was the Eucharistic Mass, where the blood of Christ was represented by wine and his body by

20  Chapter 1

Figure 2. “Putti making wine,” Santa Costanza, Rome. 4th century, mosaic. Photo: © Paolo Romiti / Alamy Stock Photo.

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bread. While the peacocks represented the body of Christ, the proliferation of wine-related scenes in the vaults related to Christ’s blood. Blue-bodied putti in open-air structures crush piles of grapes with their feet, producing wine that fills jugs below. Similarly-hued figures climb a swirling series of grape vines to pick the grapes for their colleagues, using long hooked canes to pull the vines closer. Among the vines are more birds in various states of flight, which are also perhaps foraging for fruit. Not only were the artists of S.  Costanza looking to catacomb art or imagery associated with biblical stories, they were also looking at mosaic programs that were from secular and non-Christian spaces. One of the archaeological sites with imagery that corresponds closely with the mosaics at S. Costanza is in Gaul, in Saint-Romain-en-Gal. The site is only twenty-four miles (about forty kilometres) from the location of the capital of Roman Gaul, modern day Lyon, which is presumptively where Helena, Constantine’s mother, lived and died. Now housed in the National Archaeological Museum of France, the mosaics show men and women working in vineyards—gathering clusters of grapes, leading oxen through fields to be plowed, and stamping on grapes that sit under an outdoor roofed structure with a row of columns. Each vignette is of equal size and set up in a clear, structured grid outlined in thick, multi-coloured braids. The three men in the wine-making scene move in expressive dance-like positions, not unlike the three figures at S. Costanza, who also pick up their legs and splay their arms as they work. Both mosaics show the vintners in colonnaded, open-air spaces, and working in rectangular troughs that are angled in precisely the same direction. Just to the left of the scene showing the wine-making is a vignette with two barefoot plowmen who goad two oxen through the fields. Similarly, at S. Costanza, to the left of the wine-making scene are two figures who are also attempting to make two recalcitrant oxen move forward, in this case to pull a cart of grapes. The mosaics at S. Costanza and their relationship with the imagery in the mosaics of Gaul demonstrate that the lines

22  Chapter 1 of artistic communication were tightly woven throughout the Roman Empire. This communication traversed even greater distances. Plump, winged putti pick grapes in a dense vineyard in a third-century house in the Roman city of Thysdrus, modern day El Djem in Tunisia, and at a third-century site in Merida, the capital of Extremadura, Spain. But there are a few distinctive shifts in the imagery at S.  Costanza, changes that pull the non-Christian elements into a Christian artistic lexicon. One of the main differences between the ancient Roman and early Christian Roman mosaics is that the figures in S. Costanza are blue or purple, depending on the lighting, rather than the naturalistic flesh tones in the earlier mosaics. They are also less organized than their artistic relatives. At S.  Costanza the vignettes appear without the framing devices found in the earlier sites. What is more, they seem to be meant for a laugh. The putti crushing the wine almost appear to be dancing rather than working. One is eating a bushel of grapes while he stamps, another holds out his hand so that he too can share in the fruit, and a third carries a snake above his head. Unlike its artistic relatives, the S. Costanza mosaic is not simply about making wine—it is meant to direct the viewer to thinking about the blood of Christ and the practice of the Eucharist. These scenes are alluding to something deeper, more mysterious, and specifically Christian. This vignette offers a reading that is beyond the picture plane. It allows the viewer to consider a more abstract concept, that one thing can be retained both in its original state (grape) even while becoming something new (wine). Metamorphosis would be essential to the conceptualization of major moments of Christianity, most notably Christ’s Transfiguration, the Resurrection, and the celebration of the Eucharist, which depended on the presence, essence, and transformation of wine. Although the other mosaics also used three figures, at S. Costanza the use of three allowed an extra interpretation, one that could point to the notion of the Trinity. Even the presence of the snake alerts the viewer that this is not a scene solely about workers and wine. It suggests the magico-religious, as snakes

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were used in worship in various pre-Christian cults. But the snake, especially when tied to the fruit, could also allude to original sin, and it could also point towards Moses’ staff, which is transformed miraculously into a snake and then back into a staff. At S. Costanza, the Christian gloss, allegory, and symbolism allowed a new realm of interpretive readings. There are also in S.  Costanza two repeated segments of mosaics that have a “carpet” look. These are made up of seemingly infinite, intertwining loops and swirling forms. In each space created by these circular forms are figures who twist and turn—sometimes they appear to exchange glances, sometimes they are isolated busts that are repeated at intervals. Birds, ducks, and lambs appear, as do the blue boys from the vintner mosaic, although this time they have wings and wear red scarfs that flutter as they move. The final mosaic segment is filled with highly naturalistic branches, plates, birds, and horns. Although the early Christian Roman mosaic is more densely packed, it makes an interesting comparison to the second-century mosaic known as The Unswept Floor, a copy of a second-century bce mosaic from Greece, produced in Rome by the Greek artist Herakleitos. In The Unswept Floor, scattered table scraps seem to have fallen on the floor, discarded, to be enjoyed by a fortunate mouse. That scattered effect is also present at S. Costanza, and it is used to relish the splendour of the objects—rich blues and greens, golden highlights, lush garlands, stately birds. But, unlike its Roman predecessors, these mosaics are not on the floor. Though the segmentation of the mosaics, in their discrete frames, might suggest the square format of the floor in a room in a Roman domus, these mosaics sit in a much more complicated setting, a deeply arched and rounded arcade. The scattered shells, bowls, pheasants, and twigs of fruit trees are depicted as though they have fallen on the floor even though they are on the ceiling. The majority of the ancient Roman mosaics do not have mosaics on the ceiling, although there are extant examples such as the micro-mosaic images in the Domus Aurea (64–68 ce). It is hard to say if this shift from floor to ceiling would have been

24  Chapter 1 perceived as a radical move by the visitors to the fourth-century space. But one might argue that the shift, one that was employed in the mosaics of the Christian era, had an ideological message, that indeed these mosaics had messages that were not solely about funny blue men making wine or beautiful gold-rimmed vessels which look as though they have been discarded after a celebration, funereal or otherwise. This is about a break with naturalism. These images are not meant to trick the viewer and mimic the residue of a luxurious feast, they are meant to point to a different kind of reality, one in which laws of time and gravity are of relatively little importance. These mosaics point to a more symbolic form of representation, one in which the heavens are literally the focus instead of the weighty ground defined by human bodies and experiences. These are untouchable, distant mosaics, glittering with a promise of an eternal life that is, as of yet, out of reach. In fact, the designs are so detailed that one might wish for closer observation or an easier vantage point. This shift from floor to ceiling is also relevant because later medieval churches embrace this shift. Although there are exceptions, including an incredible twelfth-century floor mosaic in Otranto Cathedral, most Christian spaces adopted the practice of placing mosaics along nave walls and in the space of the apse rather than on the floor. Historically, major scholars in the Byzantine field discussed S. Costanza at the beginning of publications that were written specifically about the East, about Byzantium. As such, the monument became a lead-in to the narrative that ultimately pulled eastward. The implication is almost Vasarian—S. Costanza was Giotto’s Arena Chapel, the Komenians or Palaeologans were the Eastern Michelangelos. In essence, these early scholars were introducing the glories of the East with S. Costanza as one of its earliest monuments, thereby insinuating that the Roman site was laying the groundwork for Byzantium, was a “proto-Byzantine” monument. Rather than seeing S. Costanza as a first step in the birth of a separate culture, a “Byzantium,” we should think about this site as one of the first examples of the development of a common

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visual rhetoric that would draw from well-known imageries and recast them to communicate and espouse Christian ideologies. The mosaics in Santa Pudenziana, dated to the beginning of the fifth century, might suggest that in the forty or so years after S. Costanza’s construction there was at least an enhanced sense of the East and a possible Eastern-ness. In the mosaic, Christ sits enthroned amidst his apostles, who converse and converge at his feet. Peter and Paul flank the jewelled and golden throne, sitting or more likely standing, just so that their heads align with the bright red cushion upon which Christ sits. They gesture towards Christ with their right hands, while the other apostles twist and turn towards each other. Although they do not all look in the direction of Christ, they are positioned so that they direct the focus of the viewer towards Christ, as they are situated in a V-shape that leads from the lowest corners of the mosaic towards the central, seated judge-like Christ. The V-shaped jumble of men, all wearing different brightly-coloured togas, culminates in a hill that frames the torso of Christ and supports the sign of his suffering and torture, a jewelled crucifix. The hill itself is composed of various colours, the same bright colours of the robes worn by the apostles. The visual associations between the apostles and the hill, through the shared V-shape and combined colours, creates a relationship between the men who support Christ and his teachings, which continue to be shared after his death, and the hill that upholds the jewelled cross, which represents his triumph over death. The hill of Golgotha, known to have been the site of Christ’s Crucifixion, locates the landscape behind the Christ and the apostles as the city of Jerusalem and, by extension, alludes to the building campaign of Constantine, specifically his Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In addition to aggrandizing Rome and Constantinople through large building campaigns, Constantine instated a “Holy Land plan,” essentially a plan to reclaim the city of Jerusalem for Christians. According to tradition, Helena travelled to the site of Christ’s death and found the True Cross through a series of miracles. Although the

26  Chapter 1 story of the finding of the True Cross had been established by the time of the Pudenziana mosaic it was not widespread. For example, the fourth-century theologian Cyril Bishop of Jerusalem did not know about the legend. It was only towards the end of the fourth century that the discovery story became really prominent and well-known. The fact that the legend of the discovery was relatively new to the Christian tradition suggests that the Cross appearing on the hill might very well have been meant to impress and inspire the viewer, to present the viewer with new and revealing information about Constantine and his ability to reclaim places and sites important to the re-united Christian empire. Since this is one of the earliest instances of the Cross having been appropriated as a symbol of glory, shown jewelled and embellished, it would have been remarkable if not startling. The floating busts of the four evangelists, imagery drawn from the apocalypse, would have also been surprising. The mosaic is one of the earliest examples of the evangelists appearing as animals, the other example being San  Giovanni in Fonte in Naples. The mosaic is an awe-inspiring vision—distant lands, newly discovered treasures related to Christ, hovering half-bodies related to the end of time. But does this imagery point away from Rome towards this distant and different place, towards a new centre of power, one based in the East? Actually, this mosaic suggests a message of relationships, of an empire built on bringing together and establishing harmonies among significant Christian sites. Constantine was reclaiming the Holy Land, bringing it into this newly established Christian empire. Instead of asserting a difference or exoticism about Jerusalem, the mosaic shows Jerusalem to be very much like Rome. Golgotha itself has a site-specificity; however, the buildings that surround it are not architecturally distinct. Rounded domes, pitched roofs, crenelated towers—these are all forms that could have been found in any ancient or late antique city. The exedra with Christ, the apostles, and the two women with wreaths could allude just as naturally to the arcaded rostra where Constantine I stands on the Arch of Constantine. It is also similar to

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the balcony where Theodosius I (r. 379–395) appears, wreath in hand, flanked by his supporters, on the marble base of the obelisk that once sat in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Thus the representation of Jerusalem is meant to suggest that it is similar to Rome and to Constantinople. These cities all speak the same artistic and architectural language. They are all part of a cohesive universe. These similarities also imply a sharing that is more metaphorical. Although the True Cross was found in Jerusalem, the mosaic suggests that it is possible to imagine and envision the cross in other spaces or holy cities as well. In fact, that is what this mosaic does. It provides the visitor with an image of a vision of the cross. This vision would be enhanced, perhaps, by an actual cross being carried in the space of the church, down the nave, towards the apse. Rather than representing a sense of a distant and inaccessible East, the mosaic promotes an interconnectedness in this expanded Christian empire. The mosaic offered the viewer a series of points of reference—the understanding of Helena having found the True Cross; the notion of the glorious, jewel-encrusted cross as a prominent apparition (which Constantine experienced before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge); and the emphasis on the role played by major cities as the location of that piety and sacredness. Most of all, the mosaic showed that Rome was part of a broader conversation, part of a conglomerate of compatible Christian cities, which all shared the same visual and visionary language. S. Pudenziana is parallelled by other contemporary images such as the mosaic at Hosios David in Thessaloniki. In the Thessalonian mosaic, dated between 400 and 549, Christ appears seated on an arched rainbow extending his right arm, and holding a text in his left. Surrounding a round form that encases Christ are the four winged half-bodies of the apocalyptic figures, each of which represented one of the four evangelists. There is no large, looming cross in the Greek mosaic, but Christ does have a crossed nimbus embellished by jewels. Jewels also decorate the books held by the evangelists and the band that runs around the mosaic. The mosaic at Hosios

28  Chapter 1 David was for a more private audience, a community of monks belonging to the Latomos Monastery, whereas S. Pudenziana was intended for the general public. However, the mosaics show that, despite a great geographical distance and differences in the composition of the viewers, the medium and the content were shared and sharable. Like the interchangeable cityscapes, these mosaics would have been comprehensible and communicative no matter where in the world they were. It is true that the presence of the central and jewelled cross might seem to align with later Eastern imagery. During the years of Iconoclasm (726–787 and 814–842) the cross was extolled as an acceptable means of representing Christ. The cross was famously inserted over and in the stead of figural images, and even after the re-sanctioning of figural imagery the cross was a prominent and prevalent example of appropriate and venerable images in the later medieval Eastern canon. But the danger of looking at later imagery for an understanding of the mosaic at S.  Pudenziana is that it bases the value and meaning of the mosaic in something that did not yet exist. This methodology, this proleptic thinking, is at the root of the wrongful application of the word Byzantine to these earlier monuments. Instead of looking hundreds of years into the future for parallels with the jewelled cross imagery, it is more reasonable to connect the jewelled cross at S.  Pudenziana to those that appear in Santa Sabina and Santa Maria Maggiore, both of which are dated to 432–440, just a few decades after S. Pudenziana, or in the centre of the apse at Sant’Apollinare in Classe (549) in Ravenna. One event that sits heavily between the two late fourth-century and the two early fifth-century Roman churches is the Sack of Rome in 410, the shocking encroachment by Visigothic forces led by King Alaric. Although it was once believed that Alaric’s invasion was supported or even endorsed by the East, the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius  III called for three days of mourning. Contemporary medieval writers, when discussing the episode, focused predominantly on the fact that sacred spaces had been left unattended. To them the sacking was a reminder of the importance of faith

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and a focus on the Christian life. It was this event that motivated St.  Augustine to write his famous City of God. Strikingly, Sozomen, Orosius, and Jerome write a great deal about women protecting the city while defending their honour. In one account, a woman whose honour is being threatened by a barbarian man leads him to St. Peter’s, where she escapes. It is notable that each of the extant churches from the early period were initiated by women or dedicated to women—Costanza, Pudenziana, Sabina, and Maria. Although the invasion was a great shock and permeated the work of prominent writers of the day, it is difficult to see evidence of this event in the art of the period. Responses to politics do not make their way into works of art in the church spaces. Nor is there any substantive artistic shift between the monuments created before and after the invasion. Religious imagery emphasizes continuity and consistency. It seems to deny the presence of politics, the threat of disruption, in favour of the slow development of a visual lexicon that asserts the inviolable authority of the Christian Roman Empire. One of the shared patterns that provides a tie between this early cluster of churches is the presence of two prominent women. On the triumphal arch at S.  Maria Maggiore, dated to the early fifth century, a woman dressed in gold appears in the Nativity scene, which takes place in the left uppermost portion of the mosaic. She then reappears below, seated on the left side of the Christ Child who sits on a jewelled throne. But there is another woman in this scene, a woman who wears a long purple robe over a gold undergarment. The second woman carries a small white handkerchief in her left hand and puts her right hand to her chin. Her simple dress and close association with other images of Mary from this time and before has led at least one scholar to argue that the woman in the dark purple is the real Virgin Mary and the woman in gold is Sarah. Although the answer is far from settled, and may never be, it has been suggested that the woman in the darker garb might be the indication of the Old Testament, of the old faith, and the woman in gold and jewels is the queenly Madonna. The woman in gold appears in

30  Chapter 1 the narrative of the triumphal arch a total of four times, two of which are on the right side of the triumphal arch. Perhaps the two women in the arch are two versions of the Virgin Mary herself. Mary has many iterations, just as she has many types in later Eastern icons, such as the Hodegetria, Eleousa, Pafsolype, and Hagiosoritissa. Perhaps these are two manifestations of the same woman who can be simultaneously humble and queenly, veiled and crowned, virgin and mother. Whomever these women represent, they are cut from the same cloth, if not in clothing then in gesture and posture. In their appearance on either side of the throne the women make a similar and remarkable gesture. They both elevate their right knees to meet their right elbows. The woman in gold holds her right hand to her breast and the woman in purple holds her hand to her chin. Strangely enough there is nothing to support their elevated feet. Yet this position—perhaps of reverence—is significant enough to move past the awkwardness of the pose. The point is that they are in unison. They are gesturing and contemplating Christ in the same manner. There was a value to the equation or composition of having two women flanking and presenting the enthroned Christ, and this is a characteristic that is of significance for the scenes of the theophany, such as at S. Pudenziana. Just as the two Mary-like figures have caused confusion, the identity of the two women at S. Pudenziana has been a matter of debate. These two women stand to either side of Christ and extend golden wreaths over the heads of Peter and Paul. Both women wear gold cloaks that cover their heads, which they bow deferentially. Some have thought they might be Pudenziana and Prassede, the two sisters responsible for establishing Christian communities in this church and around the corner at Santa Prassede. Other scholars have argued that they are “Ecclesia ex gentibus” and “Ecclesia ex circumcisione.” These titles accompany two standing women on the west wall of S. Sabina (432–440). The women at S. Sabina appear in the same dress worn by one of the two Mary-like figures in S. Maria Maggiore, a long, dark-blue garment and a head-cov-

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ering of the same colour. There is nothing in the dress that clearly differentiates the churches—they are almost identical. Both women wear purple, both make a gesture of blessing or speaking with their right hands, both have their heads covered. Without the inscriptions it would not be possible to say what they represent or who they are. Below the figures of the women are inscriptions that identify the woman on the left as Ecclesia ex Circumcisione (Church of the Jews) and the women on the right as Ecclesia ex Gentibus (Church of the Gentiles). This mosaic is not about one religion superseding the other, unlike later medieval representations in which the Church of the Jews or Synagoga has a broken spear or a blindfold to indicate insufficient knowledge or flawed beliefs, while the Christian Church stands triumphantly. The mosaic at S. Sabina shows a cohesive Christian Church that is created through a sacred relationship between the converted faithful. A seventeenth-century drawing by Giovanni Ciampini recorded the existence of mosaics that covered most of the entrance wall. These included images of the four living creatures and, in the upper left-hand corner, God holding a closed book. In addition, above the female figures were St. Peter on the left and St. Paul on the right. Peter preached to the Jews in Jerusalem, thus he was placed over the figure of Ecclesia ex Circumcisione. St. Paul had converted the Gentiles and as such he is affiliated with the Ecclesia ex Gentibus. Thus these women are meant to represent two parts of the same Church, a community descended from people converted by Peter and by Paul. S. Costanza does not have a pair of women. However a sixteenth-century watercolour of the monument shows that the now-lost mosaics included an image of Susanna confronting the elders. The configuration of Susanna was much like the female figures at S. Sabina. Her toga, which in the watercolour was recorded as being yellow rather than the deep purple of S. Sabina, shows Susanna holding up her right hand and presenting a book in her left, presumably as she teaches a lesson to the group of men that appear to exit the space to the right of the composition. The young Daniel sits on a throne placed between Susanna and the exiting elders. Susanna has

32  Chapter 1 been interpreted as a prefiguration of Christ. But she is also a symbol of Ecclesia to many early Church Fathers, including Jerome (347–420), because of her ability to stand for truth, faith, and justice in the face of false accusations. Despite the disruptions caused by the Sack of Rome, the visual evidence reveals little of that impact. Instead, images show shared consistency. Many features tie these four early Chris­­ tian monuments together visually. The four winged evan­­gelists appear in S. Pudenziana and S. Maria Maggiore. S. Sabina also had the evangelists, as we know from Ciampini’s seventeenth-century drawings. As in S. Pudenziana, the jewelled cross appears in the very apex of the triumphal arch at S. Maria Maggiore. Saints Peter and Paul are also present. While they flank the throne with the seated Christ at S. Pudenziana, at S.  Maria Maggiore the two apostles are on either side of the throne with the jewelled cross, which represents the body, the suffering, and the redemption of Christ. These many shared features create a visual lexicon, one which may have served to provide connections and associations for the Roman worshippers. There are ways in which the decorations at S. Maria Maggiore do introduce a possible reaction to the events of 410. As previously mentioned, imagery in monuments such as the catacombs and S. Costanza are allusive and predictive. They point to the future of Christ’s Resurrection through symbols and stories generated from the Old Testament. The Old Testament scenes at S.  Maria Maggiore also have referential scenes, such as the scene of Melchizedek at an altar table. This Old Testament priest was understood to be a prefiguration of Christ because he blesses Abram after bringing out bread and wine. However, a disproportionate number of scenes, especially those on the right side of the nave, are dedicated to representing battles from the Old Testament, such as Moses and the battle with the Amalekites, Joshua and the taking of Jericho, and Joshua and the defeat of the Amorites. This emphasis on battles and war may reflect responses to the Sack of Rome, to the fears engendered by having the city walls breached. Even in scenes that are not about war,

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fortified buildings stand prominently in many Old Testament scenes, alluding to the importance of strength, power, and the protection of a civilization, of a chosen people. The fortified cities, characterized by tall crenelated walls, that appear high up on the walls of the church relate visually to the representations of Bethlehem and Jerusalem that appear at the base of the triumphal arch, dated to the same years as the nave mosaics (432–440). Both of these holy cities are composed of golden walls covered with jewels and pearls. A tall arched entry point allows a parallax view into a colonnade of tall white columns, and above the entryway to these cities hang large, jewelled crosses. The variegated walls and pearl-topped towers of Bethlehem and Jerusalem also correspond to the elegantly dressed men that appear above—the Magi. Here we do in fact find a differentiated East, but this is not the East of the Eastern Empire, of Christian Constantinople. Rather, the Magi represent a more mysterious East, one loosely associated with the Near East or at least an exoticized version of it. Even when compared with the woman clad in gold the Magi are the most spectacularly dressed figures in the mosaic, with brightly variegated and multicoloured tops, tunics, and leggings lined with pearls and jewels. Their caps, of the Phrygian style, are also lined with pearls. In their appearance on the right side of the mosaic, where they are in conversation with Herod, the mosaicist appears to embellish their dress even further, putting additional colours between the bands of pearls. These elegantly dressed figures stand out considerably. They are men from an Eastern part of the world, as described in the Bible. But the mosaicists are pointing to this elegance as an expression of a mysterious tradition and culture. As travellers, as magic-doers, as witnesses, and as emissaries, they belong to a different visual idiom than those in togas. The Magi are almost more mysterious or inscrutable than the angels. Only the Magi and the angels look at the star in the panel with Christ on the throne, while the two Maries focus on Christ and Joseph looks out of the panel altogether, into the nave. The Magi are meant to introduce the spectacular into the mosaic, to heighten the

34  Chapter 1 sense of mystery and also to provide a contrast—the most elegant emissaries of the king become servants to a small child dressed only in robes of white. The Magi follow a different code of dress or heritage. They are representative of the mysterious and emphatically distant temporally and culturally. There is a sense of a geographical distance too. The Phrygian cap, for example, is associated with the more distant Near East. But such caps are a murkily understood reference to that part of the world. These are not specific, historical allusions. They are features that can connote the unknown and a sense of mystery. The scholarly conversation about a conflict between East and West makes its first claim over the church of SS.  Cosmas and Damian, built into the Temple of Peace in the Roman Forum (526–530). When writing about SS.  Cosmas and Damian, early scholars like Krautheimer emphasized that these were the last mosaics with a fully Roman (understood to be classical or late antique) appearance before the “Byzantine conquest,” when the figures lost their fluidity and fullness. The so-called conquest created a break in the Roman, classical style, before the return of that style in the ninth century. But attempting to establish whether the mosaic is fully Roman or un-Roman is misleading and uninformative. The message of the mosaic is still that of a unified Roman empire, with a cohesive and communal Christian worldview, where saints, iconography, style, and medium were shared and valued. It is possible to identify a few features in the mosaic that point, albeit obliquely, to the East. However, these instances are indications not of conflict but of a shared system of holiness. The two doctor saints, Cosmas and Damian, are known to have been from the East, born in Syria. Although it appears that the prominence of the saints first arose in Constantinople, the cult soon spread throughout the broader empire. The mosaic shows the West, manifested in the presence of Peter and Paul, the representatives of the city of the Church of Rome. Peter and Paul are presenting the two lesser saints. But Cosmas and Damian are not subordinate because they are Eastern or un-Roman; they are subordinate in the hier-

Imaging Christianity in Rome  35

archy of the Church. This is a similar pyramid to the one in S.  Pudenziana, a chain of command that ties together all parts of the empire in faith. Arm in arm they approach Christ. Unity of faith and empire is what the mosaic expresses. This is not to say that geographical distance is irrelevant. The medical saint on the right, the man with Peter, carries a prominently placed orange pouch in addition to a golden wreath, like the wreath that previously was offered by the women in S.  Pudenziana. Topped with a yellow cross, the pouch alludes to his medical practice, as this would hold surgical implements, but it also looks a great deal like a pilgrim’s pouch, indicating that he does come from elsewhere and is a traveller. Certainly he is itinerant, presumably moving about so as to heal his patients, but that does not mean that he is seen as different or foreign. He is not from the unknowable, mysterious East like the Magi. He participates fully with his fellow saints in the mosaic, indicating that he is very much a part of the brotherhood of saintly bodies. The bright orange of the pouch carried by the saint links visually with the sleeve of the figure to the far right of the composition, who is labelled as St.  Theodore. This is Theodore of Amasea, who is sometimes known as Theodore Tyro, coming from the Greek word meaning “recently enlisted soldier or recruit.” He was understood to have been a saint in Amasya, in Northern Turkey, who was martyred for not worshipping in pagan rites. Over this saint’s bright undergarment is a large silk cloak covered in crosses that is pinned at the shoulder with a golden fibula. He also wears a dark purple tabula, indicating his high office in the military. Theodore’s dress is significantly finer than that of Cosmas and Damian, which makes sense because the brothers did not accept payment for their medical services. Therefore it would stand to reason that Cosmas and Damian are dressed less elegantly. The justification for such finery on Theodore seems to have little to do with his occupation as a soldier. The tradition holds, however, in later representations of the saint, where he appears in military garb that is elevated, elaborate, and elegant. It is also the case in the church dedicated to S. The-

36  Chapter 1 odore (mid sixth century), which, although the mosaic is greatly damaged, shows the saint being presented by Peter to Christ, who sits on a globe. The elegant silk that Theodore wears in SS. Cosmas and Damian might be an indication of an Eastern origin. Silk production at this time was centred in the Eastern Mediterranean. Perhaps the elegance of Theodore’s cloak is a reference to his Eastern dress. One significant source of early medieval silks was Egypt, which is intriguing because of the iconography of Theodore’s visage. Especially when contrasted with that of Peter and the medical saint between them, Theodore has a narrower face with a long beard that ends in a point that touches the top of his cloak. The pointed beard looks like that of Paul, although Theodore has a healthier head of hair. This appears to be the same facial configuration as at the Roman church of S.  Theodore and a sixth- to seventh-century icon from Sinai showing the Madonna enthroned with the small Christ Child on her lap. Theodore appears to the right of the Madonna in almost the exact configuration— the same pointed beard, curls on his head, an elegant silk robe with a golden clasp, and penetrating eyes with heavily arched eyebrows. The veneration, the decoration, and the facial configuration all appear to be welcome incorporations from Eastern sources, embraced, like the medical saints, in this church. The mosaic is about establishing and asserting a unified Roman empire, where what might seem to be distinctions and differences are blended into one community. This communal vision is represented in the mosaic—the saints all walk together towards Christ. This vision would have been enacted in the space of the church as the congregants also approached the image of Christ in the mosaic as part of a cohesive Christian community. Like S. Costanza, S. Pudenziana, S. Sabina, and S. Maria Maggiore, SS. Cosmas and Damian shared images and motifs that did not point to a differentiated East and West. These monuments were a means of creating and continuing conversations about the story of Christ. Visitors to these sites would have recognized and compared similar scenes. Despite dif-

Imaging Christianity in Rome  37

ferences in the sizes and locations of these buildings—from a mausoleum (S.  Costanza), to smaller house-style basilicas (S. Pudenziana, S. Sabina), to one of the largest spaces (S. Maria Maggiore), to a converted pagan temple (SS. Cosmas and Damian)—these were all part of a broader conversation about the newly established Christian landscape, one that was in Rome but that embraced other parts of the Christian empire. But SS.  Cosmas and Damian does introduce a political angle, one that seems to be missing in the earlier monuments, through the inclusion of a living individual, Pope Felix IV (r. 525–530). Felix approaches from the left of the mosaic wearing a liturgical stole and carrying a model of the church in hand. Although it is a nineteenth-century reconstruction and therefore stylistically problematic, the mosaic documents the first occasion of a pope inserting himself into an apsidal mosaic. One can only speculate about the precise reason that he added himself to the mosaic, but it is likely that Felix was eager to establish himself there because of the events leading up to his being named pope. In 523 Justin I, the emperor from 518 to 527, determined that Arianism would no longer be tolerated in the West. The ruler of Italy and king of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric, sent Pope John I (r. 523–526), Felix’s predecessor, to the East to have the edict overturned. Although John was received with great reverence by Justin, the edict was only temporarily revoked. When John returned to Italy, Theodoric had him put in prison, where he died shortly thereafter. Theodoric announced that Felix would be the new pope. Thus the presence of St. Theodore was Felix’s nod to his patron, who would stay in power until August of 526. Putting Theodore in the mosaic showed gratitude to Theodoric and the Ostrogoths. When Theodoric’s son died in 534, Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565) took full advantage of the situation. He sent his general Belisarius and 7,500 men to Sicily to take all the territories held by Arian Christians. It is possible that Justin’s original edict against the Arian Ostrogoths was instigated by Justinian. The result was a temporary reunification of the

38  Chapter 1 empire, and a sixth-century building campaign that included S. Vitale in Ravenna. But Felix’s mosaic in SS. Cosmas and Damian bears resemblance to the later mosaic program of S. Vitale in Ravenna. On either side of the altar of that sixth-century church are two facing mosaic panels, each of which is dominated by an imperial figure—Emperor Justinian on one side and Empress Theodora on the other. Theodore at SS. Cosmas and Damian is closely connected to the image of the similarly named empress. They stand in the very same pose and wear a comparable embellished silk robe clasped with a golden fibula. Theodora also carries a golden, bejewelled paten in the same way that Theodore carries the golden, bejewelled wreath. S. Vitale and the other mosaic programs of Ravenna play a very significant role in conversations about the relationship between Rome and the East. These mosaics present features that have been claimed to be categorically and classically Byzantine in style—frontal figures, a solid gold background, limited perspectival depth. The figures have been deemed static, lacking the elegance of previous classical art. But, as with most art-historical labels, this categorization is limited and undermines the subtle lyricisms contained in the modulation of the mosaic cubes, which render the fall of the robe, the movement of the body, and the relationship with space. The apsidal mosaic also denies many of these simplistic classifications—showing a recession in the landscape of Paradise, the weight of the globe upon which Christ sits, the accents and inflections in the patterned robes worn by the saints. In fact, anyone who starts looking for a single style in these mosaics will be disappointed. There is a stylistic variety within these monuments, just as there was throughout the East, and throughout the Christian empire. This classification of “Byzantine” is especially tricky because it has stuck. S. Vitale seems to have become the gold standard for defining Byzantine as a whole. In many ways it has become the starting point for what was and what was not Byzantine. The assumption that S. Vitale was Byzantine, or that it would have been considered to be from a different,

Imaging Christianity in Rome  39

Eastern culture, provided the wedge and justification that introduced East versus West, even though these monuments were not produced with a wedge in mind. Monuments were placed on either side of the divide by scholars, hindering a full appreciation of the medieval mosaics and an acknowledgment of a shared heritage, of a pan-Mediterranean culture. A shared heritage, a unified culture—these were Justinian’s aims, this was his conviction. His desire was to unify the Roman Empire, now as a Christian empire, both theologically (without Arianism or other heresies) and geographically. Ravenna was not supposed to be a Byzantine outpost in the West. It was supposed to be the capital of the Western sphere of the empire, a complement to the capital of the East, Constantinople. This desire for a common, shared vision, for a cohesive empire, is evident in the artistic programs. S.  Vitale and SS. Cosmas and Damian share styles and iconographies. Saint Theodore and the Empress Theodora could exchange places without disrupting the tone or aesthetic of their respective mosaics. As much as he wanted Belisarius to remove the Arian Ostrogoths, Justinian did not destroy the monuments from these earlier rulers. At S. Apollinare Nuovo he removed only evidence of men and women that were affiliated with the court of Theodoric. He did not destroy the church. He did not put a completely new mosaic program in the nave. When Justinian made his grand attempt to reunite the old Roman Empire politically, he was in fact building on a cultural unity that already existed. Politics engenders breaks and disruptions. This art points to a language of continuity, collaboration, and cohesiveness. Justinian’s artistic programs were participating in and contributing to a wide cultural community of shared styles and iconographies.

Chapter 2

A Question of Style

In the medieval period, images were central in the creation of a common culture, of a shared language that could embrace and overcome differences found in actual language, geographical distances, theological incompatibility, and political preferences. The legibility or the ability to identify certain types of images—an Anastasis, a scene of the Seven Sleepers, the healing of the paralytic—would have been part of that commonly held visual literacy. Although it is possible to interpret stories and scenes— why they were chosen, how they moved, the message they could convey—it is far more difficult to interpret the role or meaning carried by style, by the form of an outline or the stroke of a brush. Style is malleable and, as such, a tricky signifier. It is difficult to assign meaning to a particular or unique detail. How much should we attribute to a “dynamic” fold in drapery, the curly-cue of garment, the size and shape of a hand, the outline of an eye? The benefit of seeing similar patterns or particular styles is that we can identify certain preferences and possibly the movements of certain workshops of artists. But even then, this assumes that all artists working in those groups shared the same training and that they repeated the same habits and preferences throughout their careers. Although we do not know much about the artists of this period, it would seem safe to say that they were capable of responding to their environments, to the demands of their patrons, and to the shifting preferences of their patrons

42  Chapter 2 and viewers. They would have had the ability to shift gears stylistically when they needed to. As they moved, as new members joined their workshop or as they interacted with different artists and saw different images, new ideas were introduced, new styles were shared, and their own database of styles expanded. The styles of artistic periods are not uniform. Just as we should not attach artists to a single style, we should not assume that a certain time period, patron, or even a church has one particular look. The churches from the early medieval period, from the seventh to ninth centuries—Sant’Agnese fuori le mura, Santa Maria in Via Lata, San Saba, Santa Maria Secundicerii,1 the lower church of San Clemente, and S. Maria Antiqua—all show a wide range of styles with fully compatible visual imagery. The correct way to look at style is as one of several variants appearing in a wide cultural community, not as a means of creating categories or divisions between cultures. Instead of considering this period as one of stylistic diversity and iconographical exchange, however, the traditional scholarly narrative holds that these churches were the victims of the “Byzantine Conquest.” The argument, generated by Richard Krautheimer, was that a huge shift in style in the early seventh century—from natural to abstract—indicated that Byzantines had come to Italy and brought with them their artistic tradition, one that was distinctive and distinguishable from that of Rome. Byzantines impressed their traditions upon the West so as to “strengthen their hold on the Roman Church and the city.”2 Krautheimer’s big break between East and West comes to Italy through Justinian. After Justinian 1  The church has been known as Santa Maria Egiziaca; however, John Osborne has argued that the title is more likely S. Maria Secundicerii. See: John Osborne, “A Note on the Medieval Name of the So-called ‘Temple of Fortuna Virilis’ at Rome,” Papers of the British School at Rome 56 (1988): 210–12. 2  Richard Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Prince­ton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 89.

A Question of Style  43

arrives, Roman images and styles were replaced, or, by this narrative, conquered, by those of the East. In addition to reducing Rome to a subsidiary of the East and artists to drones in service of the empire, this narrative intricately links politics and art. Politically there was friction between the East and the West. A fight for control of the Italian peninsula between the Eastern Empire under Justinian and the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy lasted from 535 to 554. Rome was attacked by the Ostrogothic army between 537 and 538 and, for the next two hundred years, was subject to the exarchs of Ravenna, who acted as representatives of the East. Justinian did not create a perfectly balanced empire. Eastern emperors and Roman popes were frequently at odds with each other. Popes would balk at paying revenues to the Eastern imperial government, especially since the East was ineffectual at quelling the attacks by the Lombards. Emperors would punish the popes, as when Emperor Leo III (r. 717–741) took away the papal jurisdiction over Sicily, southern Italy, and Illyricum in the Balkans. But the art of this period does not reflect that tension. The imagery is not about propaganda or difference. We do not see any images of emperors with their troops and advisors. Popes, saints, evangelists, lambs— these mosaics speak a language of continuity and stability in the Christian empire. Stylistic variations therein are evidence of the creativity of the medieval artists. Culturally Rome was anything but a hapless victim of conquest. It is not possible to be culturally subjugated by a shared culture, by a culture with the same aims and the same aesthetics. The campaigns of Justinian surely introduced artistic novelties. But these were not deviations, not rejections of the pre-existing visual lexicon. The imagery of Justinian expanded the visual lexicon, introducing stylistic and iconographic novelties that added to a commonly shared tradition. The medieval art of Rome continued with familiar themes and compositions that welcomed stylistic variations. A comparison of SS. Cosmas and Damian (526–530) with the apsidal decoration at Sant’Agnese fuori le mura (625–628) appears to signal a dramatic stylistic shift. This shift was,

44  Chapter 2

Figure 3. Sant’Agnese fuori le mura, Rome. 625–628, mosaic. Photo: © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 4.0.

A Question of Style  45

for Krautheimer, evidence of the effects of the Byzantine Conquest. At Sant’Agnese figures had become “stiff, as if flattened out against the gold ground. Modeling has disappeared, the bodies are dehydrated, the drapery, where it is not a heavy, almost metallic sheath, is articulated by just a few dark lines; the palette is sombre, the colouring of a face rendered only by two yellowish-brown phthisic spots on the cheeks.”3 The later mosaic might seem to be a reversal of the characteristics of the earlier church with its deeply saturated colours, weighty bodies, and symbolic details. The apse of SS. Cosmas and Damian is also completely filled with figures and imagery, in an early version of horror vacui but without the horror. The gold background at Agnese is prominent and predominant as a backdrop for just three thin, standing figures. The two mosaics do espouse different styles. But a change in style does not necessarily point to a difference in political or cultural values. The modulation of the cubes that gradate slowly from shade to shade at SS. Cosmas and Damian are missing in the face of Agnes. The details are simple outlines created with one or two lines of black cubes, as in the case of her eyebrows and her eyes. The cheeks are indicated by two squares that sit unconvincingly low on her face, which are all the more unnatural and seem all the more random since there are no other contours on her face. It is a flat, white canvas. But a comparison with the two figures that flank the saint suggest that the simplicity has a purpose. Even within the same mosaic there are variations in style. On the right of Agnes is Pope Symmachus (498–514), who supported an earlier restoration campaign of the apse of the basilica; on the left is the figure of Pope Honorius I (625–638), who refurbished the mosaic and the church, a model of which he holds, with his arms and hands covered by a purple-hued liturgical garment. The face of Honorius may be generalized in some ways, but there are features that might suggest a certain specificity or portrait-like quality to the image—his face is long and narrow 3  Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 97.

46  Chapter 2 as is his nose, he has a tonsured cut, and he wears a beard with a thin mustache. Portrait or not, his face has shading and colouristic nuances that would not be wholly out of place in the Cosmas and Damian mosaic. Any difference in style should not be seen as evidence of forgotten or repressed artistry, as though the artists had lost their ability to create a more naturalistic style. Rather, these artists were making choices from a series of options, selecting from multiple stylistic possibilities. In addition to refurbishing the site of Agnes’ burial, Honorius supported the construction of many monuments in Rome that were dedicated to saints that were better known in the East, or with regions of Italy, like Sicily, that were closely affiliated with the East—Lucy (Syracuse), Hadrian (Nicomedia), the Quattro Coronati (Pannonia), Andrew (Patras), and Bartholomew (Armenia). Honorius also patronized a new church in honour of the martyr S. Apollinare in the portico of St. Peter’s. (Apollinare was the first bishop of Ravenna, a city that had a significant tie to Constantinople since it served as the key administrative stronghold in Italy for the troops of Justinian.) But Honorius’ dedication to bringing these Eastern and lesser known saints into Rome through his concentrated building campaign has much to do with his ambition as a peacemaker. He made every effort to end the Three Chapters Schism and he famously agreed to support the patriarch of Constantinople’s position on monothelitism, in the spirit of ending the ceaseless debates on the subject. They did not end, and his amenability was posthumously condemned. Honorius’ desire was to create connections and ties between the disparate parts of the empire, and this is one of the messages communicated by the mosaic at Sant’Agnese. Symmachus looks very much like Honorius. The former pope’s visage was going to have to be imagined to some degree, as he had died many years before. But the fact that Honorius makes Symmachus look so similar to himself is worth consideration. The repetition of his face in that of Symmachus illustrates the fact that Honorius’ work as pope is very much in the tradition of his papal predecessors. The inscription at the

A Question of Style  47

base of the mosaic does not mention destruction or rebuilding, even though the Liber Pontificalis asserts that Honorius built the entire church “from the ground up.” Rather, words like shining and gleaming buttress the text, suggesting that Honorius is polishing up something that is already sturdy and worthy. He looks like Symmachus and looks to Symmachus, telling the viewer to do the same. It almost appears that his gift of the church to the Virgin is simultaneously a gift to the previous pope. In fact, Honorius stands on the same zone of lighter green tesserae as Symmachus. Agnes stands in front of the two men, her left foot placed between the lighter and darker zones and her right foot fully in the latter. She is, as a saint, on a different level than the fully human popes. The way in which Honorius looks directly at the earlier pope and the fact that the two popes are on the same plane indicates a direct correspondence between them that denies the amount of time, more than a century, which separated their papacies. Honorius shows deference to the history of Rome by pointing to his predecessor and to a saint whose life and death was located in Rome. But even though this all seems very Rome-centric, Honorius also references other regions in the empire in the mosaic, specifically through the figure of Agnes. Her dress, by quoting artistic details from throughout the pan-Mediterranean sphere, becomes a reflection of the artistry and, by extension, the cultural cohesion of that unified Christian empire. One of the most important monuments that Honorius references is S.  Vitale in Ravenna. The pattern of round, blue gems next to rectangular, green gems with interspersed pearls in the frame of Sant’Agnese is a prominent device at S.  Vitale, most notably around the scene of Empress Theodora and her retinue. The flowers that run along the hem of Theodora’s inner garment and in two parallel lines on the garment of the woman to her left, understood to be Belisarius’s wife Antonina, are much like the little flowers that line the loros or sash worn by Agnes. They might be poppies or some variety of rose, both of which were elements of medieval medicine. Poppies also had associations with sleep and

48  Chapter 2 death, while the red rose was a symbol of Christ’s Passion and the blood of the martyrs. The woman to the right of Antonina wears a dress decorated with little blue ducks in profile. Across the space of the choir, the emperor Justinian wears a tablion decorated with the same blue ducks, here surrounded by red roundels, and a single blue duck appears on his right epaulette. The same blue bird appears twice on the dress of St. Agnes, once above her right shin and again on a garment draped over her left arm. This bird is surrounded by four red flowers and situated within a medallion with eight points. A medallion in the same shape decorates the white garment that covers the left hand of Antonina in the Theodora mosaic. The intersection of the two squares of this medallion shape shared by Agnes and Antonina creates an eight-pointed star, a common shape in early medieval textiles and a motif that became popular in Islamic art. The shape was understood to protect the wearer against the evil eye. The apotropaic function of the medallion shape may also explain the prominence and prevalence of the blue duck, which may also have been a symbol of good fortune. The grouping of birds has been associated with images of familial prosperity. The presence of the duck also introduces another culture peripherally related to the Roman sphere of influence, the Persians, who interpreted ducks as symbols of purity and enlightenment. The duck motif appears quite frequently in silk pieces associated with Egypt and Syria. The representation of silks in the medieval mosaics of the late antique period, for example in the garments at S. Vitale, points to the significance of the silk trade throughout the Mediterranean. S. Vitale also has representations of ducks among the scenes of paradise, in the mosaicked canopy. Blue ducks also appear in an earlier monument in Ravenna, the Archbishop’s Chapel, which was constructed at the end of the fifth century during the Arian Ostrogothic rule. It is possible that Justinian’s mosaicists were appropriating those symbols for the mosaics of S. Vitale, making them into ornamentation for the emperor, to show that he had conquered the city politically, theologically, and culturally. In the case of Sant’Agnese, the little blue ducks open up a

A Question of Style  49

wide range of associations with images from Ravenna, and more broadly with cultures throughout the Mediterranean. The image of Agnes could be interpreted as pulling together a variety of sources and cultures, as though she is quite literally embodying those disparate parts of the pan-Mediterranean sphere in her dress. In her body, dress, and posture Agnes also references Christ and the cross. Agnes carries a scroll, which no other female saint from the period is shown doing. It is not clear exactly what the scroll is meant to contain. It is not the scroll with the seven seals from the apocalypse, although it is bound and marked with a cross and may allude to Agnes’ inevitable presence at the day of the Last Judgment. The accounts about Agnes do not emphasize her learnedness, as do the stories, for example, of St.  Catherine of Alexandria. Nevertheless, the scroll indicates her wisdom and her piety. These characteristics are affirmed by the visual correspondence between her scroll and the shape of the white pages of the gospel book held by Symmachus. The gems that compose the cover of the gospel book—the gold, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls—reappear in the loros of the female saint. Perhaps she was even interpreted as functioning like the cover, as a protector of the holy words contained in the gospel. The long loros that she wears also echoes the shape of the cross on the cover of the gospel book. As a saint she takes on the mantel of Christ, and here she is wearing the shape of the cross. That cross-like dress may also have to do with the fact that Honorius instated the Feast Day of the Elevation of the Cross. During the ceremony of the feast day, an elevated cross carried throughout the church would have visually corresponded with the figure of Agnes in the apse. By embodying the suffering of Christ, by carrying and wearing his cross, she is able to stand above and withstand the instruments of her martyrdom, the sword and the billowing red flames, which she appears to step right through, even touching the flames with her right foot. One unusual aspect of Agnes is the imbalance of her stance. Her left shoe is set along the central axis, just under

50  Chapter 2 her face. Her right foot seems to be moving, a movement which is further heightened by her bent right knee. Thus the suggestion is that she is shifting towards the right, towards Symmachus, even though her upper body is completely balanced and stable, showing no movement at all. Interestingly, this very position is replicated in the figure of Mary in the mosaic at San  Venantius, which is dated to the years just after the death of Honorius, during the pontificate of John IV (r. 640–642). In this mosaic Mary also stands above an inscription reminiscent of the inscription at Sant’Agnese—the lettering is uppercase and in bright white tesserae with a dark blue background. The inscription at Sant’Agnese is gold, but the effect is similar because the bright lettering is also set against a dark blue. Mary and Agnes are also placed above specific and similar phrases. Under Mary’s feet are the words “simili fulgente” (similarly gleaming) and under Agnes’ are the words “inter sidera lucem” (amid the starry light). A similar emphasis on light and brightness appears in a seventh-century mosaic at the round church of Santo Stefano. The church as it stands today has two concentric rings; however, originally it had three concentric rings with a diameter of 217 feet (66 metres). The three rings were intersected by the four arms of a Greek cross, each of which terminated in a chapel. The only chapel to remain is that which served as the altar for the church, a chapel that is dedicated to the saints Primus and Felicianus. The relics of the brother saints and the mosaic representing them were added to this chapel under the pontificate of Theodore I, who became pope in 642, just after John IV. The inscription below the apse mosaic does not identify the brothers nor does it accurately describe its placement (it says the mosaic is on the roof) but it does point to the golden quality of the vision and the special appearance of the “starry face” of Christ with its “wondrously divine air,” which appears above a centrally placed golden and bejewelled cross.4 The presence of the face of Christ in the centre of 4  “Thou lookest on a golden roof with heavenly apex and a starry face shining with a wondrously divine air.”

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the mosaic and its association with the large cross brings to mind the configuration of the apse mosaic at Sant’Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna (ca. 561), where Christ’s face appears in the centre of the cross, just where the two bars of the golden wood intersect. The cross in S. Stefano is in many ways like the cross in Ravenna—it is gold, it is covered in square and rounded gems with pearls, and it has splayed ends on the arms. (This is the same configuration as the loros worn by Agnes.) In many ways, this mosaic is an extension of the ideas visually promulgated in the mosaics commissioned by Theodore’s predecessors. The brotherly saints who appear as mirror images of each other bring to mind the similarities of Honorius and Symmachus and the saintly brothers Cosmas and Damian. Balance and brotherly love clearly create structure and order that is significant and worth emphasizing for these early seventh-century popes. Theodore’s mosaic at S. Stefano places the bust of Christ at the top of the kind of cross that resonates visually with Agnes’s body and dress. Perhaps not coincidentally, the saints Felicianus and Primus were both martyred on the Via Nomentana, which is where Agnes’s church stands. The final results may vary but the parts, the components of the visual rhetoric, draw from the same visual repositories. The First Council of Nicaea (325) had established the fact that Christ was both divine and human, but the conflict over his exact nature continued through the early medieval period, involving a number of councils, schisms, and vocal Monophysite sects and opponents. This group held that Christ was only one in nature—wholly divine or wholly human but not both. Honorius was branded a Monophysite as a result of an exchange with Sergius I, the patriarch of Constantinople. John IV and Theodore I were opposed to the Monophysite stance, as is evidenced by the emphasis in their mosaics on Christ as both a man and divine. The bust of Christ in the seventh-century mosaics of S.  Venantius and S.  Stefano illustrated his humanity through the presence of his calm, bearded face. The face of Christ was then juxtaposed with aspects of his divinity. At S. Venatinus Christ floats in the sky with two angels while saints, martyrs, and the beasts of the

52  Chapter 2 apocalypse appear nearby. In the chapel at S.  Stefano, the splendid cross is melded with the face of Christ, thereby illustrating his nature as both human and divine. As the Monophysite debates show, theological controversies did not fall along geographic divisions. The artistic decisions were similarly fluid. The fact that Theodore I was born in Jerusalem might suggest that he would have played a role in the narrative promulgated by early twentieth-century scholars of the field who argued that popes from the East were imposing Eastern artistic styles on Western monuments. But just because the seventeenth-century writer Anastasius Bibliothecarius calls Theodore “natione Grecus” does not mean that he was considered a foreigner in the seventh century, and the fact that his commission fits within artistic parameters that are fully consistent with other works of art from the period implies that he did not consider himself to be different, or that he did not want or need to be.5 There is an aspect of Jerusalem in his particular commission, a touch of the personal. The round shape of S. Stefano relates specifically to the Rotunda of the Anastasis at Jerusalem, which is also home to a famous jewelled cross. However, this monument was part of the history of the entire Christian Church and would not have been seen as “belonging” to the East. The forms and figures found in these mosaics reveal that the artists and their patrons are very much responding and referring to artistic programs throughout the Mediterranean, which inherently defies the so-called East-versus-West division. Even in the face of theological controversies and papal politics, the mosaic programs reveal borrowing and sharing in ways that suggest a cohesive understanding of how to visualize holiness. Within the realm of pictorial narrative, style is also shared, and shows a great deal of variety. The narratival paintings at churches such as S. Saba, S. Maria in Via Lata, SS. Giovanni 5  Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Historia, de vitis Romanorum Pont­ ificum, ab Petro Apostolo usque ad Nicolaum I (Mainz: Ioannes Albinus, 1602), 67.

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e Paolo, and S.  Maria Antiqua have delicate bodies, bodies that show great movement, complicated scenery, and bright white highlights. This might seem to be a far remove from the golden background, static poses, and emphatic jewellery of Sant’Agnese. But rather than being at odds with each other, or reflecting a cultural war, this wide range of styles and iconographies shows how artistically vibrant Rome was during the early medieval period. S.  Maria in Via Lata was dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the fifth century. The space of worship included a diaconia which provided care for the poor. The church was built within the pre-existing porch of a first-century Roman building. Floods in the ninth century forced the community at S.  Maria in Via Lata to construct a new church on top of the older structure in the eleventh century. The diaconia thus became used as a crypt, where the paintings stayed until they were moved to the current museum of the Crypta Balbi, one of the branches of the National Museum of Rome. The room of medieval frescoes in the Crypta Balbi gives an incredible sense of how many paintings there once were in Rome. Flooding, earthquakes, and new construction all contributed to the loss of paintings which would have historiated most of the visual experiences of the Romans. Walls were not wasted. Extensive programs decorated the facades of these churches as well. It is absolutely worth remembering that what we can study, the stories and styles that we do have as documents, are only a tiny fraction of what was once there or what is possibly still resting in unknown or hidden repositories. A seventh-century fresco from the Via Lata church showing the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus hints at the number and kind of narrative cycles that would have been present all throughout Rome. Two men in liturgical garb swiftly approach a red, craggy, overhanging rock which alludes to the cave in which the seven men slept for two hundred years, escaping the persecution of the Christians under Emperor Decius and awaking in the period of Christian acceptance, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II (408–450). The garments

54  Chapter 2 of the two liturgical men have dramatic, angular lines and bright highlights, which heighten the sense that the men are moving quickly, as does the angle of their bodies and the fact that their feet are quite far apart. They move in the direction of the cave and towards a haloed man who bends forward in a generous bow. On the adjoining wall his six companions await their introduction to the Christian world. The men on this wall are harder to decipher and appear to have been damaged in the transfer of the fresco, which was discovered under a palimpsest of later paintings. But the interaction between the fifth-century churchmen and the third-century martyrs reveals a style quite distinct from that of the mosaics at Sant’Agnese. Lithe bodies move and bend and respond to each other in dramatic ways. The faces of the “modern” men are in a three-quarter profile, giving an early naturalism to the visitors discovering the men in the cave, while the first of the seven saints twists his head to face the viewer, looking out of the mouth of the cave for the first time. This story says much about the way the members of this church viewed themselves, as true and constant believers with a historic knowledge of the true faith. The world changed around the sleepers; they had to wait for it to catch up to their beliefs. The Via Lata building changed from being pagan and driven by commerce to Christian and wholly religious. It makes sense that the community of this church chose this story as a means of asserting the fact that they, like the sleepers, were always there, representing the continuity of Christianity, persevering through the world’s changes. The fact that the chapel with the frescoes was flanked by two rectangular spaces—one that functioned as a hall and another as a storage space—would have heightened the cave-like setting for the cave-oriented story. How interesting it is to consider the seventh-century viewers and how they would have been brought into this story of discovery, thereby extending the legacy and legend. The worshipper would have acted out the part of the discoverer, arriving at and identifying the story, thereby reenacting the uncovering of the sleeping Christians. But worshippers could also identify with the awakening faith-

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Figure 4. “Healing of the Paralytic,” San Saba, Rome. 7th century, fresco. Photo: Author.

56  Chapter 2 ful, as they too were now in a cave-like space and asserting their Christian lives, praying or giving alms to the poor. The self-referential significance of the story would not have lasted long, as this painting was painted over soon after. With its quick and fluid forms and splashes of highlights, stylistically the sleepers scene differs from the later painting, dated to the eighth century, of St.  Erasmus being brought to Diocletian, also now in the Crypta Balbi. The style here retains those bright white highlights, but there is less of the naturalism found in the earlier painting. Erasmus seems to levitate across the image, floating in front of the two persecutors. The highlights are also more strident, and body parts, such as Erasmus’ stomach, are compartmentalized and have a pattern-book quality to them. The persecutors stand unconvincingly in awkward poses, their bodies composed of jagged and uncoordinated geometries. The lines are also harsher and less subtle. The random lines on the boots of the men or the round dots on the knees of these men are meaningless and strange punctuations. The resultant sense of arbitrariness throughout is perhaps appropriate for a scene of suffering and draconian condemnation. But the shift between the fluidity in the style of the sleepers and that of this later moment is of significance. However, this is not to say that there was a clear chronological shift from fluid to abstract, from subtle to awkward. The softer, more fluid style from the earlier period is comparable to another narrative cycle, one that appears in S. Saba and shows the healing of the paralytic. This fresco is dated to the eighth and ninth centuries. The composition of the paralytic scene is anchored by a skeletal building composed of thin columns with a simple and open rectangular roof. This composition allows the artist to show the entirety of the drama, of the man being lowered on his bier into the space where Christ is preaching. The paralytic appears twice in the fresco—once as he is being lowered through the roof and a second time after he is healed by Christ. In the first of the two appearances the paralytic is a ghostly white, twisting his arms around himself and appearing as though he is already

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cloaked in the wrappings of the dead. When he appears in front of Christ he has been given his life back; the white wrappings become a pink tunic, his skin takes on a fleshy hue, and he walks away with his bed on his back. The only allusion to an actual architectural detail is the Corinthian capitals which appear about a third of the way down from the transparent roof. The capitals suggest a building with an ancient Roman heritage, as do the men in the togas at the left of the composition who hover behind Christ. This grouping of men, presumably those who question Christ’s decision to heal the paralytic and absolve his sins, is balanced by a second grouping at the right of the scene. Both groups of men huddle and turn to each other, establishing their like-mindedness. Interestingly, while the men on the left are of the period, wearing togas appropriate to first-century Capernaum, where the biblical scene takes place, the men on the right are wearing dress of a liturgical style, with various coloured robes and a pallium around their shoulders, a style that is appropriate to the time that this fresco was being made. Perhaps the point is an intentional anachronism—that Christ is healing the paralytic then and always. The priests and liturgical officials are as much witnesses as the biblical witnesses. In this case, the scene of the paralytic is saying something quite similar to the sleepers scene, which is that the miracles of Christ and the Christian world are timeless and ever present, and the witnessing by the ancients is shared with the witnessing by the faithful of all times and epochs. The unspoken corollary is that art unlocks these truths for the faithful and for its witnesses, bringing to visual form what others have seen and will see. In focusing on the act of witnessing, the painting seems to illustrate the end of the biblical passage, where the men proclaim, “We have never seen anything like this” (Mark 2:12). The healing of the paralytic was one of the scenes that contributed to the common culture that was shared throughout the pan-Mediterranean sphere. The scene appears on many early Christian sarcophagi and in decorative programs found in the catacombs. In these earlier instances the images

58  Chapter 2 are all of the paralytic walking with his bed on his back, without any indication of his being lowered through the roof. This is relevant because there are actually two scenes in the Bible where Christ heals a paralytic. One occurs in Capernaum, where the sick man is lowered through the roof, as is shown in S. Saba. The other happens in Bethesda, when Jesus tells the paralytic to “pick up your bed and walk.” (John 5:1–14). Both paralytic scenes are illustrated separately in Ravenna, in the sixth-century church Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. These scenes appear in the uppermost zone of the north walls, and were part of a decorative campaign that Theodoric commissioned in the early sixth century. Although Justinian modified a number of Theodoric’s mosaics after wresting controlled of the city, he did not change these. The miracle at Bethesda is the first mosaic in the series. The paralytic walks away with his bed on his back, as in many early Christian examples, but also at S. Saba. The third mosaic in the nave series shows the miracle at Capernaum. The paralytic is lowered into (or in this representation, in front of) the house. Christ is the same height as the building; he and the building essentially fill the rectangular space of the frame. The paralytic and his two companions are quite small, which may have been a device to indicate that those figures were at a distance, but which would have made the scene quite difficult to see, considering how distant these mosaics are from the viewer. This is true too of the emphasis on the naturalism of the scene and the very delicate shading of the tesserae, which would have been hard to appreciate from afar. The gradations of the colours embedded in the puckering and folding robes worn by the apostle and Christ are fully convincing, as is the sense of their weight, their gestures, and the physicality conveyed by the way the robes fall. S. Saba reveals the dynamic evolution of images happening during this period. In fact, S. Saba blends the two paralytic scenes—merging the image of the man carrying his bed and the man being lowered through the roof. Images were being shared and borrowed and manipulated for different spaces, media, and audiences.

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If one were to look for an Eastern association with the paralytic scene it would not be difficult to do. This configuration becomes very popular in later art, affiliated with a style that had become definably Byzantine, and was borrowed for having that association, as in the twelfth-century mosaics of Monreale in Sicily and the twelfth-century mosaics at San Marco in Venice. The scene was important in Eastern manuscript and wall decorations as well, such as at the Decani Monastery from the fourteenth century and the walls of Mistras, also of the fourteenth century. If one has pre-determined that Ravenna is a Byzantine monument, the borrowing of these mosaics at S.  Saba would simply be an extension of the Byzantine impact. However, the mosaics at Ravenna were not meant to suggest a big break. They were not trying to create a differentiated East. In fact, the mosaics at Sant’Apollinare Nuovo were actually created by an Arian Ostrogoth, a Westerner. The fact that Justinian left the mosaics as they were, when he did change others, suggests that he approved of their message. The paralytic story and others like it were considered a means of communicating, of creating a common vocabulary. The scene of the Anastasis is a particularly important example of this iconographical sharing. This is one of the iconographical scenes that was labelled by early scholars as proto-Byzantine. It was also inserted into the Byzantine Conquest narrative as an example of an Eastern scene being brought into Rome and being used instead of Roman images. Embedded in the conquest narrative is the idea that certain images already existed in the East, somehow even belonged to the East, and were imported into the West. However, the earliest known examples of the Anastasis appear in Rome. The first dated example appears in S. Maria Antiqua. There are actually two that were painted there at the same time— one that was in the outer vestibule and one situated along the ramp that connected the church to the Palatine Hill. The second example, which is in far better condition than the first, shows Christ leaning to the left to grab the outstretched wrist of Adam as Eve looks on. Christ uses the crumpled form of

60  Chapter 2 the devil as his footstool. The composition is one of drama and action. Christ is like a powerful pinwheel. His bent right leg, mirrored by the angle of his left, his hunched body, the connection of his arm with Adam’s, and the way the devil pulls on Adam’s bent right knee, all create an energized circle of action and determination. The fact that the birthplace of the patron, Pope John VII, was not in Rome does not mean that the image that he patronized came from outside of Rome. It is strange to think about ownership of an iconographical type to begin with. But even if the Anastasis image was first painted in the East, the fact that it had a significant life in the West is the more salient point. The point is that the Anastasis was a Roman image and it communicated something that resonated with the citizens of Rome. It appeared throughout the city: at SS. Giovanni e Paolo (eighth century), San Crisogono (eighth to ninth), in the San Zeno chapel in S. Prassede (ninth), and twice at S. Clemente (both from the ninth). Throughout Rome there are a number of examples of iconographies and styles that are repeated, correspondences that tie together the artistic landscape of the city. The frescoes from the interior of S.  Maria Secundicerii introduce a style that is distinctive in a number of ways, and yet they show a kinship with other Roman monuments. Dated to the end of the ninth century (872–882), the painting cycle shows moments from the Infancy of the Virgin, stories derived from the Protoevangelium of James the Minor (ca.  145) and the Gospel of Pseudo Matthew (ca. 650–850). In one scene Joachim, labelled in Latin, sits in the opening of a cave. Animals in the distance scamper over hills while three men in short tunics and boots that rise to the middle of their calves gesture towards Joachim. If he were to stand, Joachim would be three times taller than the visitors. The three men are angels, or have been interpreted as such. They go to the desert looking for Joachim after he has withdrawn to the wilderness to fast and do penance for forty days because his sacrifice in the temple has been rejected. The style of the scene is not particularly naturalistic or even elegant. The opening of the cave

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Figure 5. “Anastasis,” San Clemente, Rome. 9th century, fresco. Photo: Author. © Basilica di San Clemente.

is composed of curious tongue-shaped forms, and Joachim sits on a rock that indicates its cragginess with a series of zig-zags. The bodies are also stylized. Joachim’s chin is heavy and blocky, as are his hands and feet. The drapery of his toga is a combination of separate, geometric forms with styl-

62  Chapter 2 ized shadows that flare geometrically. The three “angels” do not stand in the landscape in any convincing way, and their musculature is angular and composed of compartmentalized forms. The Joachim scene is not common, but its format is reminiscent of the standard scene of the Three Maries who come to the tomb and see an angel instead of the body of Christ. Important examples of that scene include the wooden door of S. Sabina (ca. 424); a mosaic in the uppermost nave of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, which sat, incidentally, directly across from the Paralytic of Capernaum (sixth century); and the ninth-century fresco at S.  Clemente that appeared just below an Anastasis scene. Joachim appears to take the place of the angel—he sits at the front of a cave, he wears a toga, carries a staff, has a halo, and gestures upwards as if to say, “he is not here.” Another scene at S. Maria Secundicerii shows a penitent woman at the feet of St.  Basil (330–379). Basil was born in Caesarea and spent his life there, although he was very involved in conversations with Pope Damascus (305–384) about heresies such as Arianism. In the fresco, Basil appears on the left side of the composition. He is framed by an archway and gestures towards the penitent woman, who holds the right foot of the saint and leans to put her face to his foot. The scene is accompanied by a Latin inscription, which appears below Basil’s extended arm and above the kneeling woman. The style is consistent—large hands and eyes, angular draperies with stylized geometrical patterns. These are simple, clear, and legible forms. This particular style corresponds with a fresco in the lower church of S. Clemente, which is also dated to the ninth century. This fresco appears in a lunette-like shape and shows a scene of the Anastasis on the right side, with Christ holding Adam by his wrist, and a portrait of a man surrounded by a square shape on the left. Although there has been some debate regarding the identity of this figure, it is most likely an image of Cyril (826–869), the saint who was famous for his missionary work among the Slavs, alongside his brother Methodius. Cyril was invited to Rome by Nicolas I (858–867).

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When Cyril came to Rome, he brought with him relics of St.  Clement, which were then housed at the S.  Clemente church. This bearded man holds his right hand aloft and carries a bejewelled gospel book in his left. He also wears a head-covering that deserves attention—a thin white cloth with delicate red geometric patterning. The impression is that of an embroidered linen. The head covering is nearly identical to a textile on the bed in the scene of the Annunciation at S. Maria Secundicerii.6 The connections go even further. The gospel books held by both Cyril and Basil have the exact same organization of jewels and pearls, and the column to the left of Basil and the right of Cyril both have the same decorative patterns in the middle and are similarly wrapped with hanging, crisscrossing draperies. The configuration of Basil’s hand is almost identical to that of Cyril—long fingers and emphatically articulated divisions of the palm. Also the ornamental dashes of red lines on the robe of Christ in the S. Clemente Anastasis are just like those on the toga of Basil. Stylistic correspondences reveal an interconnected quality to the churches in Rome, and perhaps the movements and activities of certain artists, or at least artists who preferred these kinds of details. But it is hard to attribute particular meaning to stylistic shifts. Is there, for example, any meaning to the stylistic affiliations between representations of Cyril and Basil? Is there any particular indication that these figures were supposed to be seen as being different or distinctly Eastern? As both men were from the East, it is worth considering whether or not there are intimations of an Eastern-ness in their representations and, if so, what that might have been meant to convey to the Roman viewer. Basil of Caesarea has a significant presence in Rome during the early medieval period, appearing in the cycle in S.  Maria Secundicerii and twice in S.  Maria Antiqua. The 6  John Osborne, “Dating Medieval Mural Paintings in Rome: A Case Study from San Lorenzo fuori le mura,” in Roma Felix: Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome, ed. Éamonn Ó Carragáin and Carol L. Neuman de Vegvar (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 191–206, at 204.

64  Chapter 2 first appearance at S. Maria Antiqua was in a seventh-century fresco to the right of the apsidal wall. This was the second layer of painting on the palimpsest wall. Basil stands with three other leading Church Fathers—Leo  I, Gregory Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom, each of whom holds scrolls with extracts in Greek from his own writings. The writings of these men were of particular interest in the seventh century because they were fundamental to the Lateran Council of 649. Basil had written prominently during the debates of the Council of Nicaea, which was held in 325 in Constantinople. The purpose of this earlier council was to establish final agreement and support for the Nicene Creed, a set of doctrinal traditions that would establish once and for all that Jesus was divine and co-eternal with God the Father, and would thereby put an end to the Arian controversy. It did not. The Arian heresy continued to find supporters, as did Basil’s writings combatting that same heresy. His writings lived on in later anti-Arian campaigns and on the walls of S.  Maria Antiqua, by the apse and again in a fresco from the mideighth century where he stands with a long line of popes. The fresco takes up much of the left aisle of S. Maria Antiqua and contains a total of twenty-two saints. At the centre of the standing saints is Christ, seated on a bejewelled chair and wearing purple robes. This fresco is the first visual statement that points to a division between the East and the West, at least geographically. To the left of Christ are men associated with the West, while those on the right are from the East. The fresco shows a tie between origin and identity. The geographical orientation of these writers and thinkers is established as something of note. But the ultimate message is one of harmony, of the fact that these saints all come together in a unified statement of the stability of the church and the papacy. All of the saints are standing at the same level, in the same position, with the same holy book, incidentally with the very configuration of jewels that appears on the book held by St. Cyril at S.  Clemente and St.  Basil in S.  Maria Secundicerii. Basil stands three places to the right of Christ, against a simple red

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and blue wall, where the red is the backdrop for the bodies and the blue for the haloed heads. Another significant feature that connects all of the saints, despite geographical orientation, is the use of Greek. The Old Testament scenes that appear above the saints use Latin in the inscriptions. The use of Greek for the saints themselves has inspired suggestions that this part of the church was designed specifically for use by Greek-speaking clerics.7 An altar, which would have sat under the figure of Christ, indicates that this would have been a special space for the celebration of the Mass. But it does not necessarily mean that the space was for a certain group of speakers, especially since Latin is used in the register above, for the narrative scenes. The artist at S.  Maria Antiqua establishes distinctions between the clothing of these historical saints, and indicates that these individuals come from disparate parts of the empire. But the effect is not the establishment of two contrasting traditions. Most of the differences are minor sartorial variations. It would seem that the artist introduces nuances of this sort as a means of showing that these are distinct individuals, not that they are culturally dissimilar. Cyril, Basil, Clement, Chrysostom—these men all have different hair styles and coloured robes, and they wear their pallia differently, but they are all the same in their understanding of Christ and the Church. The variances in dress establish the long history, the weighty temporal presence of the Church. The appearance and standardization of the bodies asserts that all of these distinct individuals are subsumed into the faith of the Church, into a single devotion towards Christ who is both man and God. The fresco attests that styles change (in hair, in favoured colours, in use of the pallia), but that those distinctions are reflections of the widespread, unified 7  Stephen J. Lucey, “Art and Socio-Cultural Identity in Early Medieval Rome: The Patrons of Santa Maria Antiqua,” in Roma Felix: Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome, ed. Éamonn Ó Carragáin and Carol L. Neuman de Vegvar (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 139–58, at 149.

66  Chapter 2 understanding and support of the Church. Together those variations are harmonious. It is in this capacity that the appearance of Cyril in the lunette at S. Clemente should be understood. He does wear a headdress that associates the saint with an Eastern tradition. Interestingly, Cyril was born in Thessaloniki and spent much of his time as an official at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. However, the head-covering suggests an Armenian or Coptic association, which is perhaps more relevant to the diplomatic missions that Cyril undertook later in life when in ca.  860 he went to the Muslim court at Samarra and to the Khazars in the Caucasus. Although the Khazars did not convert to Christianity, it was here that Cyril came upon the relics of the first-century bishop of Rome, St. Clement, the relics that Cyril brought to Rome the year before his death in 867. Before visiting Rome, Cyril was sent to Moravia (the modern Czech Republic and Slovakia) by Byzantine emperor Michael III with the mission of spreading Christianity. Frankish bishops also positioned in Moravia, hoping to establish their own presence and control over the unconverted masses, resented Cyril’s use of Slavic for church services rather than Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but he responded by saying: “We know of numerous peoples who possess writing, and render glory unto God, each in his own tongue. Surely these are obvious: Armenians, Persians, Abkhasians, Iberians, Sogdians, Goths, Avars, Turks, Khazars, Arabs, Egyptians and many others… Falls not God’s rain upon all equally? And shines not the sun also upon all?”8 Cyril’s headdress relates less to the Greek cities and Moravian regions and more to the peoples mentioned in this quote. In fact, it might be possible that Cyril was given a Coptic-style headdress because of his name. Cyril only took this name at the end of his life. The earlier, famous saint Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 376–444) was from Alexandria and born in Roman Egypt. Could the head covering be a nod to his namesake? Could the portrait have been inspired by the painting 8  Quoted in Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 133.

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of Cyril of Alexandria in the long line of saints at S. Maria Antiqua? The thin face, long beard, and wrinkled brow at S. Maria Antiqua reappears in the visage of Cyril at S.  Clemente, as does the emphatic black line under the later saint’s lower lip, perhaps a representation of the shadow created by the chin. It would be hard to prove that Cyril’s portraitist drew inspiration from the S. Maria Antiqua fresco; however, there are some interesting associations that link the two portraits. Cyril at S.  Clemente wears a long, dark blue robe covered with white dots in cross formations. It might be that the many decorations punctuating the robe worn by the later St. Cyril are abstractions of the cross worn by the earlier St. Cyril. This cross type has four bulbous endings and is one of the two “Greek” style crosses that appear on a number of the pallia worn by the saints to the left of Christ at S. Maria Antiqua. The other “Greek” cross type has flared, triangular endings. This type appears in the ornamentation on Cyril’s headdress at S. Clemente, most notably at the top of his head, on either side of his brow, and flanking his mouth. Cyril’s headdress does indicate his particular history and his background. It is clear that he is not from Rome. However, it is relevant that, even with those distinctive features, Cyril is an integral part of the fabric of the church. He is part of a painting that is in keeping with the most prominent iconographies of the time. Again, if one assumes that the Anastasis cannot be Roman, that it was the property of an Eastern Empire, the portrait of Cyril accrues a heightened sense of otherness. However, the Anastasis, Cyril, and even his headdress, were all part of the Roman artistic landscape. Cyril’s special headdress, white dots and all, is also present elsewhere in Rome, in another fresco from S. Saba showing a group of seven monastic figures. This fragmentary fresco now sits in a vestibule filled with other pieces from the eighth-century painting program. It is possible to discern two rows of men, although there might originally have been more. Three of the monks have brown, pointed beards, and they all have hoods in various shades of brown, sepia, and black. Most intriguing is the way that they look to the right

68  Chapter 2 and the left with intensity—large almond eyes exchanging knowing glances. Like the groupings of men in the paralytic fresco, these holy men look to and relate to each other, showing their unity of thought and beliefs, which also is reflected in their similarities of dress. But these men are depicted very differently from those in the paralytic scene. The monks wear dark and round head coverings that are embellished in the centre with a simple cross created by four white dots of paint. The head dress is comparable to those worn by Coptic monks, a hood known as the qalansuwa. The hood is also similar to those worn today by Armenian monks, although the cross embellishment is reserved for higher officials. Presumably this was also the kind of head covering worn by the monks that originally came from Palestine. It is difficult to identify the exact sect referred to in these hoods. What is certain is that this headdress is not what was worn by Western monks. It might be a natural urge to connect the Greek inscription in the paralytic scene with the painting of the monks and then conclude that there is something particularly Greek or Eastern being asserted. It would be reasonable to assume that there were individuals who were considered or even self-identified as Eastern, since the church was next to a monastery composed of monks from the East. But it is important to establish that these were not precisely Greek monks. They are called “Greek” in the Latin texts like the Liber Pontificalis, but the monks that came to Rome were from S. Saba in Palestine. “Greek” was a convenient catch-all term for Roman biographers. It is significant that the artists at S. Saba selected Greek as the language for their inscriptions. The artist did not choose Syriac, Armenian, Arabic, Aramaic or Georgian, all languages that would have been prominent at Mar Saba in Palestine. John of Damascus, one of Mar Saba’s most famous residents and writers, wrote in Greek, although he grew up in Damascus speaking Syriac, Greek, and Arabic, as his family likely belonged to Arab-Christian tribes. The artist of the S. Saba fresco chose a language that would have resonated with the Roman audiences, perhaps not as easily as Latin—although

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one must question the ability of Romans to read much Latin— but certainly more easily than the languages from Armenia, Georgia, and Syria. Thus, even if the frescoes were meant predominantly for the appreciation of the monks and not the broader populace, the artists selected a language that was able to introduce a different background or tradition, but that would not have been illegible or alien to the rest of the Roman community. The inscriptions at S.  Maria in Via Lata are in both Greek and Latin, as are many in S. Maria Antiqua, indicating that both languages were being used in Rome. Both languages were legible to some members of the community, perhaps not to all, and certainly not to those who could read in neither language, which was probably not a negligible number. Ultimately the image was the main form of communication, because it transcended linguistic differences. It is worth being cautious about these monks. Imagery can be representative of the experience of its spectators, as at S. Maria in Via Lata, where the image of the discovery of the men in the cave was placed in a cave-like space. But it is not necessary to assume that the imagery is a direct representation of its spectators. Just because the image is of monks and there were monks in these spaces does not mean that these images are supposed to be the specific monks at S. Saba. The original monks had come to Italy in the seventh century, some one hundred years before the painting. We do not know whether or not the monks at S.  Saba would have still been wearing these head coverings in the eighth century. So, are these supposed to be the monks of the seventh century or of the eighth century? Or are these monks perhaps meant to be more suggestive, representing the pious men of distant communities of the faithful, and alluding to the Holy Land in a general way? It might be tempting to suggest that these paintings had a special meaning for the monks that were in S. Saba. But that hypothesis would suggest that these monks were all from the East, even a hundred years after the founding of the church. It is entirely possible that some of the monks at S. Saba, at least by the time of the painting, were from Rome. By showing figures from various time periods

70  Chapter 2 sharing the same walls and inhabiting or witnessing the same stories—characters from the biblical past (in the account of the paralytic), contemporary men of the cloth (shown witnessing the paralytic story), and the members of the monastery (both of the past and of the present)—the paintings of the paralytic and the monks indicate that the program as a whole was meant to bring the community together. Thus even though the men are wearing distinctive headdresses, it does not follow that the images were asserting difference or anti-Roman-ness. Instead of seeing these fresco fragments as proof of a completely different and isolated community, as being somehow un-Western, it is more appropriate to see these frescoes as being informative for the broader public. Perhaps the frescoes are sharing an image related to the history of their brethren, not in a polarizing way, but in a welcoming or at least explanatory way. These frescoes were meant to be appreciated by non-Greek speakers as well, which is evident in the fact that nothing about the frescoes would have been incompatible with the styles or iconographies of other medieval monuments in Rome. Nor should we assume that the members of this community identified themselves as being different or, more to the point, anti-Roman. In fact, when Pope Hadrian sent an embassy to Constantinople in 785, one of the ambassadors was called Petrus and was a priest at S. Saba. What was significant was not that Petrus was more Eastern or more “Byzantine,” but that he had the Greek language skills needed by the pope. Most significant is that Petrus was working on behalf of the papacy, which shows the connections and relationships between seemingly different groups, one of whose greatest forms of communication was art. A number of groups of Greek speakers came into Rome in this early medieval period. From 678 to 752, the popes were predominantly from Greek-speaking regions. At the Lateran Council of 649 two houses with monks from the Near East were established—the Renati on the Esquiline Hill which housed Greek-speaking Chalcedonian Armenians, and a monastery of the Cilicians which was close to S.  Paolo fuori le

A Question of Style  71

mura. Rome was a safe haven during the Arab conquests, although other disruptions like the state-enforced Monothelitism (until 680) and Iconoclasm (726–787 and 814–842) were also disruptive and may have inspired groups of monks to move from regions in the East towards Rome, which was comparatively more stable and possibly more ecumenical. There does not seem to be evidence of the opposite, of Roman communities leaving to find refuge in the East. Rome thus emerges as a place in which many religious cultures were able to find safety, where people of various traditions could create or recreate the patterns of worship and artistry that they knew in their homeland. It is possible to identify features of Eastern-ness being introduced in images from the early medieval period, particularly through specific indicators in dress and the use of Greek for inscriptions. But this should not be seen as establishing a break between the East and the West. Greek was not a language that was unknown in Rome. It may have been more accessible to a more elite or educated audience. But Greek was not a lost language, just as the Greek dress was not so unknown that it would have been perceived as strange or foreign or Byzantine. The presence of Greek-speaking communities introduced a range of dress, liturgy, and language to the environs of Rome. Just how surprising the presence of these visitors was is hard to say. When the artist Antonio di Puccio Pisano, more commonly known as Pisanello, sketched Emperor John  VIII Palaeologus and his retinue in 1438, he was recording something unusual and striking—a Turkish-style quiver, an ornamented scabbard, and dramatic hats. The drawing, housed at the the Art Institute in Chicago, reveals the Renaissance artist’s fascination with his subjects. He approaches each figure from all sides, capturing the elegance of the headwear, the long braids, and the pointed beards with the eye of a scientist or someone who is greatly enchanted and wants to record all he sees before it is gone, returned to the mysterious Constantinople. Pisanello works with a quick and speedy pen, uses both sides of the paper he has on hand, and dis-

72  Chapter 2 penses with perspective (most notably in the proportions of a man shown sitting on a horse), all in the interest of rendering the dress of the visitors. The early medieval period does not provide such sketches. There is no evidence of one culture staring curiously at another. The monks of S. Saba could have been interpreted in this light, as evidence of a community unlike others in the region. But it is more likely that the frescoes were an integrated part of the program, not evidence of an anthropological fascination with difference. Whereas the Eastern visitors in the fifteenth century were distinctive enough to elicit the curiosity of Western artists, Rome was home to so many different sects of Christianity during the early period that it is quite likely that variety in dress, evidence of Coptic, Armenian, and Georgian customs, may have been the norm. East and West were not as clearly defined as they had become in the Renaissance because the East and the West were living together, were in frequent contact, in Rome and its environs. Rome was so much the home for Eastern saints, Eastern popes, Eastern icons, and Eastern communities that, if anything, the city was defined by hybridity, not division. Attempting to distinguish cultures based on style is particularly fraught. Styles shift dramatically throughout this period. The blocky forms and geometrically composed draperies at S. Maria Secundicerii and at S. Clemente are unlike the delicate, thin bodies at S.  Maria in Via Lata, S.  Saba, and SS. Giovanni e Paolo. The peripheral figures in S. Maria Secundicerii (872–882), such as the men finding Joachim in the desert, have the same anatomy as the men torturing S. Erasmus in S. Maria in Via Lata (eighth century) and Christ’s persecutors in the eighth-century Theodotus Chapel at S. Maria Antiqua. S. Maria Antiqua is a special case because it was the recipient of so many phases of frescoes that we are able to see a huge variety of styles. The church is almost like a database of medieval style options. And these were not in conflict with each other. Sometimes newer imagery covered the old, as in the case of the palimpsest wall. However, frequently earlier frescoes were not covered, and these coexisted with-

A Question of Style  73

out trouble with the newer paintings. In fact, there is little indication that style carried as much weight as we moderns put on it. We might trace aspects of the abstraction found in the central figure of Agnese at Sant’Agnese (625–28) in many of the mosaics of the ninth century—Santa Maria in Domnica, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, S. Prassede, and S. Marco (827–844). But we might also find evidence of the naturalism at SS. Cosmas and Damian in those same ninth-century mosaics. Both are possible because style cannot be easily catalogued and prescribed. It is a tricky tool of analysis and an outright problematic one when it is used to decipher cultural shifts and identities. The church that has been most paralyzed by the web of stylistic analysis is Santa Maria at Castelseprio in northern Italy. The figures at Castelseprio also have a delicacy to them—long fingers and noses, wispy wings, intricately falling draperies. However, the bodies are weighty. The style has been understood as having all manner of origins, from the West to the Constantinopolitan East to Alexandrian Egypt. Could the artist have come from a school in Egypt that was displaced by Persian and Arab conquest, who found his new home in Rome and then became part of a mission from Rome to convert Lombards from Arianism to orthodoxy, as has been asserted?9 That might be. But artists were able to learn new styles. How could they not when their livelihood depended on it? Stylistic analysis is problematic because it does not account for the fact that artists were sharing ideas and capable of doing different styles. The fact that such diverse styles were omnipresent indicates that there was a multitude of acceptable and appreciated styles throughout Rome, that they were not specific to certain time periods. Nor were they specific to certain viewers or parishioners. As such, it is difficult to see that the look or aesthetic would indicate anything particular or differentiated about the artist or the consumer and viewer. 9  Charles R. Morey, “Castelseprio and the Byzantine ‘Renai­ ssance’,” The Art Bulletin 34, no. 3 (1952): 173–201, at 200.

74  Chapter 2 It is a mistake to explain Rome through an Eastern lens, to look for evidence of a Byzantine presence or meaning in the art produced during the early medieval period. The art of this period indicates a close relationship with Eastern saints and Church Fathers. It also tells of a shared privileging of certain biblical and extra-biblical accounts, like the Anastasis, and apocryphal episodes such as the scenes from the Protoevangelium. These elements do not indicate that the East is asserting its influence on the walls of the West or that Westerners are seeing an emphatic Eastern-ness in the imagery. It is difficult to know exactly what was being imported and what was not, as many of the contemporaneous examples of Eastern styles are missing. But even if one were to know the exact origin of an image or the popularity of a text, that information would not be very relevant. The point is that texts and images were being shared. The meaning comes through the use, presence, development, and appreciation, not the first point of discovery. What these painting and mosaic programs point to is a rich community of viewers. Despite the fact that many came from different parts of the Mediterranean region, the overriding impression is that they give a sense of belonging to the same civilization, an empire with one of its major hubs centred in Rome. Even if these communities found refuge in particular spaces or churches, the images that they created were not meant to be cryptic and isolationist. The art tells of a shared Christian worldview—similar stories, similar saints. During the early medieval period there were certainly individuals who were leaving regions in the East to find a home in Rome. They naturally brought their own traditions and cultures with them. But the sense conveyed by the art is not that these people were hoping to establish themselves as being different and distinct. Flexible styles, similar biblical and apocryphal stories, shared experimental iconographies—these all point to a sense of Rome as a place that welcomed and absorbed newcomers, and where those newcomers contributed to a sense of a broader Christian community rather than cutting themselves off and creating fief-

A Question of Style  75

doms of dissimilarity. This is not a story of conquest. This is a period in which a common visual language was being shaped and shared throughout the Mediterranean sphere with little regard to politics and no evidence of a conflicting style with the designation of “Byzantine.”

Chapter 3

Rome in the Time of Iconoclasm

It seems natural that, as the Christian visual lexicon was expanding, being shared throughout the Mediterranean, and becoming a definitive part of Christian traditions, questions would start to circulate about the role and nature of images, how they were read and what they might convey. In and of itself this would not have been of great note. An image-based culture would necessitate or at least generate image-based theories and practices. However, during much of the seventh century, the East was experiencing a great deal of turmoil, losing territories, losing battles. Instability in these Eastern territories appears to have inspired a proliferation and a greater dependence on sacred or miracle working images, a phenomenon that worried the theologians, who saw a growing need for the regulation of the veneration of these sacred images. Confrontation with the growing military power of Arab forces likely inspired further questioning about the role of images in the church. Although scholars refute the idea that Islamic approaches to images were relevant to Iconoclasm, it is certainly conceivable that Islamic opposition to figural images had at least some influence on changing attitudes in Constantinople.1 At any rate, what would otherwise have been under the jurisdiction of the church received imperial consideration, ultimately leading to a prohibition of rep1  Leslie Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012), 124–25.

78  Chapter 3 resentations of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints—the period called Iconoclasm. The first wave lasted from 726 to 787. After a brief pause, Iconoclasm was yet again announced, and the ban on images resumed from 814 to 842. From the Roman perspective, the first wave of Iconoclasm coincided with the paintings in the Theodotus Chapel at S.  Maria Antiqua (742–752), the paintings at S.  Saba, the frescoes in Santa Susanna, and the Oratory in SS. Giovanni e Paolo. The second wave started with the mosaics of Leo III, continued during the papacy of Paschal I, and concluded two years before the pontificate of Gregory IV ended. The significant monuments of the period included SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, S. Maria in Domnica, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and S. Prassede. Taken in these terms, the contrast between the East and West would seem to be obvious—the West was artistically productive and the East was artistically inactive. But even though these two realms of the empire had different rules regarding the production of images, there is no evidence in Roman church art that the East was seen to be of a different tradition or separate culture. The Roman mosaics of this period do address certain issues that were of particular concern to those debating the validity of the figural, most notably the ability to represent Christ as both fully human and fully divine without compromising either. But this is not a means of rejecting the East or conveying that this intense consideration of images is of little interest. Quite the contrary. The very fact that mosaics were being produced that responded and related to concerns about images meant that the popes valued these conversations and wanted to confirm the capacities of the visual. These mosaics were meant to embrace the community of the faithful, to assert together, as a community, that images were of great value and had great potency in illustrating the miracles of Christ. The mosaics were in Rome, but the message was meant to be shared with the community of all Christians, East and West. Both the East and the West were responding to the issues being raised. Responses varied, but they were responses to the same concern.

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Despite the etymology of the word iconoclasm, which includes the Greek word klas, the past tense stem of klan meaning “to break,” ostensibly an aggressive and violent word, it is important to take a measured account of this moment or epoch. Much of the documentation from these years of Iconoclasm is polemical, as would be expected. The people writing about the government and about the decisions of the patriarch are heated and aim to make a case, to sway the reader, who is also, presumably, well-educated, elite, and interested in hearing the nuances of theological argumentation. Because of the rhetorical nature of these documents, the narrative is one of contrasts and extremes. For instance, defences of images from the Iconoclastic period bemoan the fact that the monks are terribly oppressed because they are great supporters of the production of art. These same authors describe a moment during which no art is produced at all and in which all art that does exist is being systematically destroyed. It is an inflammatory account, and not unlike the image of men and women during the French Revolution wielding pitchforks and decapitating the stone statues on Gothic cathedrals that they had mistaken for kings and queens. The word iconoclast appears most prominently in the acts of the seventh ecumenical council which took place in Nikaia in 787. It was during this council that Iconoclasm was ended, albeit temporarily. The authors of the texts were motivated to establish that those who had opposed image production were erroneous. As such they characterized their opponents in language that was charged and negative—as image breakers. Most of the documents containing the rebuttals, the arguments in favour of limiting and controlling the production of art, no longer exist. They were either destroyed in 842 or rewritten by the “winners”—the Iconophiles. Considering the fact that the Iconophiles tampered with texts from the period, one might be justified in wondering just which side was the most destructive, the Iconoclasts or the Iconophiles. In fact, there is very little evidence that the Iconoclasts destroyed images at all. Rather, there was a re-configuring of images. For example, an image of the Virgin in the

80  Chapter 3 church at Nikaia was replaced with an image of the Cross. It is significant that the images were not completely destroyed and that there was something visual put in its place. These kinds of changes were calculated to re-orient and control the meaning of the image, which church authorities felt had been misapprehended by the overly zealous faithful. The establishment of the Cross as the primary image allowed the faithful to understand a series of tenets about the ways that viewers were supposed to comprehend art: that in images Christ’s human nature is inappropriately made separate from his divine nature; that the saints and the Virgin are on a loftier plane because they live with God and thus should not be in an earthly space; and that the Eucharist was the only true image of Christ. There were probably some Christian faithful who took the imperial pronouncements to extremes and did destroy images. But the overall sense is that images were being redesigned, not rejected and destroyed. In fact, liturgical vessels and altar cloths with images of saints could not be touched without the permission of the patriarch and the emperor. The relationship with Rome is relevant to the Iconoclasm narrative because the popes were certainly aware of and participating in these conversations about the nature of images and how they work. Increasingly, the popes took note of the new policy established by the emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775). Popes Paul I (r. 757–767) and Stephen III (r.  768–772) hosted synods that condemned the image policy from the East. But these synods were about more than images. The years during the reign of Constantine  V saw a shift in the relationship between Constantinople and Rome. Whereas popes had traditionally looked to their Eastern compatriots for protection, they had started to turn to the Franks because the East was unable to provide as much support as it once had. As the Lombards threatened the Papal States, the popes increasingly deepened their relationship with the Frankish West. The Eastern forces were in their own crisis. By 751, the territories in northern Italy and Calabria and Sicily in the south were no longer in the control of the Eastern

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Empire. Most problematic were the troubles inspired by the Arab forces who were gaining great strength and threatening the integrity of the boundaries of the empire. In fact, the synod called by Pope Stephen  III was prompted by a letter from patriarchs in lands under Arab rule. If we accept that the debate about images was theologically driven and not advocating a rejection of images altogether, it is worth considering that these popes might have been exaggerating the situation, making the image issue a means of distancing themselves because they recognized that their Eastern allies were a potential drain rather than a source of support.2 In other words, perhaps Paul and Stephen exacerbated the image debate, brought it to the fore, so that they might have an excuse to distance themselves from the East and secure their position with the Franks, who were more likely to help with the growing Lombard problem. Pope Paschal I (r. 817–824) is one of the most prominent and visible popes to have lived through the Iconoclastic period. In 818 or 819, Paschal wrote a letter to the iconoclast emperor Leo  V that asserted the iconophile stance. Suspicions have been cast about the actual authorship of this note.3 It might be that Paschal was signing a document written by members of his retinue, Greek-speaking iconophiles familiar with the precise arguments in favour of images. This does not mean that Paschal was any less an image supporter. He was surely in favour of the creation of images, as evidenced by his many artistic commissions. But it might be that, as in the case of his predecessors, Iconoclasm was one issue among many. It might be that Iconoclasm, though significant, did not 2  Brukaber, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm, 59: “A swing away from acceptance of Byzantine authority is clear by 781, when imperial coins ceased to be minted in Rome. The break became final by 798, when the chancery shifted decisively to dating by the regnal years of the popes and the Frankish kings, omitting the Byzantine emperor entirely.”

3  Erik Thunø, Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medi­ eval Rome (Rome: Bretschneider, 2002), 135–37.

82  Chapter 3 completely define all aspects of this period, as scholars would have us believe. By the time he came to the papal throne, Paschal had witnessed much of the back and forth with image policies. Although his birthdate is unclear, he was probably alive at the end of the first wave, and he was pope for seven years of the second period of Iconoclasm. In 820 Leo V was murdered by his successor Michael II, who ruled until 829. Michael was unable to get very involved in ecclesiastical politics, as he was busy quelling a civil war started by Thomas the Slav. Paschal and Michael were not writing to each other, lobbing insults, debating the details of the image-theory dogma. Both appear to have been busy protecting their territories and negotiating shifting allegiances therein. Michael was consumed in fighting the Abbasids and the Slavs, hoping to protect the integrity of the Eastern Empire. Paschal was involved in protecting Rome and making that sense of protection clear in the way that he patronized churches and church decorations. Each of the churches that he supported was in a different section of the city. Paschal was strategically shaping his city of Rome and he was doing it with mosaics set within new churches named for women with great significance to Rome—Prassede, Cecilia, and the Madonna. Although Paschal’s patronage was not limited to these three churches, this is where he made his biggest mark. The placement of the three is significant in that it suggests an alternate or complementary route to the major basilicas. S. Prassede is next to S. Maria Maggiore. S. Maria in Domnica is next to S. Giovanni in Laterano. S. Cecilia is close to Santa Maria in Trastevere which, although not a major basilica and perhaps not in good condition at this time, was still a prominent destination for pilgrims. Each of these three churches is identifiable as part of Paschal’s vision, as he and his emphatic monogram appear in each. The mosaics all have a consistent style and comparable compositions. S. Prassede and S. Cecilia share many features with mosaics at SS. Cosmas and Damian. Christ stands in the centre of the apse flanked immediately by Peter and Paul. Other saints and holy figures follow behind carrying evidence

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of their devotion, such as jewelled crowns. The clouds are the same thin red and blue slivers as at SS. Cosmas and Damian, and the phoenix hovers in the palm tree. S. Maria in Domnica is slightly different in that it shows Mary in the centre of the apse. She sits with the Christ Child on her lap and appears surrounded by angels whose blue haloes seem to proliferate endlessly. Inscriptions in gold, jewelled borders, prominent greens and blues—there is a particular Paschalian look. One of the main sources for the Paschalian programs is the Liber Pontificalis. The unknown author of Paschal’s biography does not describe the mosaics at the three churches in any detail, although he does praise the workmanship as being of the highest quality. Nor does the source mention Iconoclasm. The only substantive reference to any sort of dealings with the East is in the discussion of S. Prassede. It says that Paschal gathered a community of “Greeks” which he placed in a monastery dedicated to S.  Prassede where they would chant psalms “in the Greek manner.” But what exactly was Paschal doing when he gathered this community of Greeks? One of the first questions to ask is whether or not Paschal was protecting them. Or, otherwise put, did the Greek monks need protecting? Greek holy monks in their hagiographies are chronicled as having been forced from the capital. It is difficult to assess how accurate these accounts of mass exiles are. Because of the great expansion of monasticism during the ninth century, it may have been that these monks were compelled to move out of Constantinople in order to grow their complexes elsewhere. The idea that monks were persecuted by the emperors in support of Iconoclasm is problematic when we acknowledge that monks like Theodore of Studios (ca.  759–826) or Methodios (788/800–847), who were the most active and vocal about the failings of Iconoclasm, were allowed to write consistently and were even, as in the case of Methodios, brought to the court as an advisor to the emperor.4 4  Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm, 92–93.

84  Chapter 3 The case of Methodios is indicative of the instability of the imperial court. He moves in and out of favour throughout his career. Before being called to work for the emperor, Methodios was in exile because of a trip he had taken to Rome between the years of 815 and 820. The purpose of his trip was to inform the pope that the iconophilic patriarch Nicephoros (r. 806–815) had been deposed by Leo V (r. 813–820) because of his support of images. Methodios remained in Rome for those five years and only returned in 820 in the hopes that the new emperor Michael  II would be a more sympathetic ruler. Instead, Michael put Methodios in exile, where he remained for eight years until the next emperor, Theophilos, brought him to the court. Methodios ultimately became the patriarch, a position which he held from 843 until his death in 847. It is striking that Methodios was in Rome during the early years of Paschal’s new campaign. Although Paschal’s three churches were not officially completed until 822, Methodios would have seen them nearing completion. Might he have commented on the mosaics and their iconographies? Might he and Paschal have discussed the increasing importance of the veneration of the saints? Could Methodios have been an inspiration for Paschal’s interest in hosting monks from the Greek sphere simply because the pope saw eye-to-eye with the future patriarch? One must look carefully at the sources from this period to consider any biases their authors might have had in their assertions of Paschal’s protection. Could it be that the biographer in the Liber Pontificalis is playing the part of vocal Iconophile, participating in the image debate by highlighting cultural differences with the purpose of explicitly demonstrating Paschal and the papacy’s strong stance against flawed Greek thinking? Perhaps in highlighting the Greeks as being in need, the biographer hopes to heighten the beneficence of the pope. Also, the more the Greeks were represented as being in need, the more impetus there would be for an affiliation with the Franks. The aims of the author are especially important because if one approaches the emigration of Greek monks with conflict in mind, with the assumption of a

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distinct and contentious relationship between East and West, it is easy to fall into a pattern of finding in the mosaics much that is “Byzantine,” and to equate “Greek” with difference. There is also a tendency to romanticize the notion of exile in a way that might be something of a modern phenomenon, tied to the histories of men and women that were expelled from their countries during the wars of the twentieth century, wars that forced many of the earlier scholars of the field to leave their homelands and find refuge in Western countries. Thus, scholarship tends to see the ninth century as one in which Pope Paschal was providing safe haven for monks who were beleaguered and persecuted by an oppressive imperial regime implementing the iconoclastic dictates. The scholarly narrative also posits that the Greeks, with their special protection from the pope, have been granted their own special chapel with images that might remind them of their left-behind homes. This is the explanation offered for the collection of images in the S. Zeno chapel at S. Prassede, which includes scenes that become prominent in the East—an Anastasis, the prepared throne, a clipeate scene showing the bust of Christ, and the scene known as the Deësis in which is Christ flanked by John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary.5 By this account, not only are the monks protected, but so is their imagery. The pope is able to assert his iconophilia and his rejection of Byzantine Iconoclasm by providing a place for the Byzantine images to exist, not to be destroyed, not to be forgotten. As 5  Gillian Mackie, “The Zeno Chapel—a Prayer for Salvation,” The Papers of the British School at Rome 57 (1989): 172–99, at 184–85: “Whereas images of the transfiguration or of the prepared throne might refer to western models, any iconographic combination that includes the deesis obviously has a Byzantine origin, since this is a uniquely Eastern formula which symbolizes the Last Judgment in Byzantine art. Its presence here is firm proof of an eastern component in the Zeno chapel programme. Since the deesis is the key to the entire decoration of the upper walls and vault, the whole upper zone must be read as eastern… Thus the programme of this entire area, of which the deesis forms so integral a part, must be Byzantine in origin.”

86  Chapter 3 such, by the same logic, the S. Zeno chapel acts as a little room of curios, a safety box for iconographies that would otherwise be forgotten. Finally, there is a suggestion that, because these are unusual images and because there are Greeks nearby, the mosaics are actually by an Eastern hand.6 A number of details problematize this account. One is that this chapel would not have been approached by anyone—Greek or Roman—as a collection of scenes that were unusual or different. When the chapel is taken as a whole, these so-called Greek images are very much part of an integral and cohesive vision, one that refers to Rome and its visual histories. The ancient Roman past provides a framework, quite literally, for the structure of the chapel. Ancient spolia line the doorway into the chapel—two richly purple columns are topped with an ancient entablature. But both of these are modified for the purpose of the chapel by a medieval hand. A medieval artist recreated the egg-anddart motif on the ancient entablature, and medieval capitals were added to antique Roman columns.7 Re-configurations of earlier works of art were not uncommon. The viewer was not meant to see differences, to register anachronisms. The viewer was supposed to see homogeneity and continuity, which is very much the broader message that Paschal and his artists were trying to communicate—that the glorious past was ever present and would never be lost. Artists were able to continue their skills as though no time had passed, as part of a continued and unbroken legacy of masters. The correlative is that viewers, the faithful, were supposed to read art in that way, without a distinction of hands and styles and histories. 6  Mackie, “The Zeno Chapel,” 181. See also Beat Brenk, “Zum Bild­ pro­­gramm der Zenokapelle in Rome,” Archivio Español de Arqu­eologia 45–47 (1972–74): 213–22 and Nordhagen, “The Presence of Greek Artists in Rome,” 183–91. 7  Caroline Goodson, The Rome of Pope Paschal I: Papal Power, Urban Renovation, Church Rebuilding and Relic Translation, 817–824 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 161.

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Above the doorway to the chapel, on the external façade, is an elaborate mosaic which almost overpowers the entryway. This mosaic is composed of two arches that are filled with saints and holy figures all in bust-length form and in round medallions. The outer arch is filled with male saints who are set against gold backgrounds. Christ appears at the zenith of this frame with a cross outlined in red behind his head. The inner arch, which frames a grated window, is set against a gold background. The figures here are placed in light blue medallions, except for the figure at the summit, the Virgin Mary, who holds the Christ Child and is placed against a gold background, which is only distinguished from the rest of the arch by a thin red circular frame. Although this series is predominantly made up of female saints, the two figures flanking the Virgin are male—on her right is a tonsured cleric with a yellow tunic and on her left is an elderly priest, also tonsured, with a beard, and wearing a red chasuble. This organization of multiple medallions filled with holy individuals is a tradition borrowed from early Christian programs, such as at S.  Giovanni Evangelista in Ravenna and at S.  Sabina, where medallion images once adorned the triumphal arch. Another reference to an early Christian tradition is that of the shape and structure of the chapel itself, which is a clear reference to funerary architecture, most specifically that of the catacombs, from which Paschal was actively retrieving the bones of the saints to house them in the city, in more glorious and visible settings. Although it is grander or larger in scale than most catacomb cubicula, walking into the mosaicked chapel has the effect of going into a very different kind of space from that of the larger church. The way that the mosaic above the doorway seems to press down and overwhelm the entryway has the effect of making the visitor feel cowed by the experience of walking in. The weight of the mosaic and the heavy entablature makes the viewer feel like she is bowing a bit to enter. The shift from the larger church to the smaller space has an immediate effect. The mosaics are closer and they surround the viewer in a more intimate way than the triumphal arch in the main church.

88  Chapter 3

Figure 6. “Anastasis,” left (north) niche in the San Zeno chapel, Santa Prassede, Rome. 9th century, mosaic. Photo: Author.

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There is less light and what does emerge from above a small window high on the south wall adds to a sense of being in a space meant for private devotion and heightened study of the scenes. Because many of the scenes do allude to funereal messages, the connections and associations with death and prayers for that purpose also add to the sense that this is a space for a particular sort of prayer and a particular sort of experience, one that is tied to the deep and continuous history of Christianity. More recently introduced iconographies would have participated in that continuity, would have been seen to complement the imagery and purpose of the chapel. As we have seen, the Anastasis would not have been seen as a new or surprising image because it had appeared in monuments as early as the beginning of the eighth century. It is safe to assume that the instances of those Anastasis images that still exist are a much smaller sampling of what would have been in Rome at the time. The image of the throne of Christ that waits in preparation for the Second Coming would have also had a familiarity, as it appeared in various early Christian monuments, such as the fifth-century S. Maria Maggiore and the sixth-century Arian Baptistery in Ravenna. It is worth pointing out that the names presently associated with some of these scenes were not established until after the ninth century. Hetoimasia for the prepared throne, Pantokrator for Christ in a bust-length format, Deësis for Christ flanked by the Virgin and John—these terms were all established after the conclusion of Iconoclasm. These words, as their language might suggest, were created in the East. In fact, labelling of these images first start appearing in the East. The addition of inscriptions as labels in post-Iconoclastic art in the East was one of the ways that Eastern authorities could control, catalogue, and canonize their religious art. The use of Greek, post-Iconoclastic terminology by scholars inevitably casts these scenes in a particular light, making them seem inherently and intrinsically Greek, even though these scenes had been present in Rome for over a hundred years. Because these images had been prominent in Rome long

90  Chapter 3 before the period of Iconoclasm, these scenes could not have been seen as different or “Byzantine.” In the uppermost zone of the altar wall of the chapel, the Virgin and John flank a window, creating the framework for a Deësis scene. The symbolic presence of Christ is thus represented by the light that comes through the window (the only natural source of light in the chapel). Christ’s body is also represented philosophically by the altar below or figurally in the dome, where he appears in a medallion supported by four caryatids whose feet rest on the four columns that sit in each of the corners of the space. The combination of the Virgin and John the Baptist praying on behalf of humanity towards an enthroned Christ is extremely important in post-iconoclastic Eastern imagery. But the image in no way belonged to the East; it would not have indicated Eastern-ness to its viewers either of Greek or Roman descent in ninth-century Rome. The deësis scene also appeared in S. Maria Antiqua in the painting campaign by John  VII (705–707), set facing the entrance to the Theodotus Chapel. But even if Roman viewers were unfamiliar with that example, the image communicates clearly that the Virgin and John have a close relationship with each other and with Christ. The theologians would have seen in the configuration an opportunity to discuss the meaning of Christ’s presence in the light and as the light. This scene also would have allowed for considerations of Christ’s manifestation in the Eucharist or the relevance of the scene to the Second Coming—all Christological topics that were relevant in both East and West. The image of Christ in the clipeus at the centre of the vault has also been deemed a Pantokrator type, an image that has associations with Christ as Judge. Again, the word Pantokrator first appears in the twelfth century, in this case in mosaics patronized by Normans in Sicily. The image of Christ portrayed in a bust-length portrait would not yet have a particularly Eastern connotation at this point. Christ appears in truncated forms in some of the earliest representations, for example in the early Christian catacombs and sarcophagi. This representation of Christ thus brings important

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traditional funereal associations, not indications of a tradition smuggled by monks out of the East. Over the left (north) niche (in the same recessed archway that houses the Anastasis) is an image of Christ as the Lamb standing on a mountain from which four rivers flow, rivers which allude to the rivers of Paradise. The mountain is flanked by four deer, two male with long antlers and two female. The stags bow down to drink, a motif that alludes to Psalm 42, while the two females, standing behind the stags, look up towards the Lamb. Because this scene appears with greater regularity in early Christian art and does not become a prominent motif in later Byzantine art, it gets little mention in discussions of the chapel. But the episode of the Lamb of God is integral to the impact of the chapel as a collection of early Christian scenes (such as the stag at the four rivers), newer iconographies (the Anastasis), and Paschal’s personal sentiment. The chapel was built in part as a monument in honour of Paschal’s mother’s death, and her tomb may have originally been set below, in this same niche. Below the scene of the Lamb of God is a series of four bust-length images showing, from left to right, Paschal’s mother Theodora shown in a square nimbus, S. Prassede, the Virgin, and S. Pudentiana. The square halo was used to show either that the individual was alive at the time of the construction or that this was intended as a likeness. All three episodes are meant to be read as a whole, the message being one that combines hoped-for-salvation and evidence of that promise of salvation. Visual connections tie together the entire chapel. One visual motif that reappears throughout the chapel is that of a bright blue medallion outlined in white tesserae. The lamb’s halo is bright blue with a white outline. This is the same hue as the blue in the mandorla that surrounds Christ as he reaches for Adam and Eve in the Anastasis. The rays of white light emanating from Christ’s mandorla are just like the rays that form the cross behind the Lamb’s head within the nimbus. Surrounding Christ and composing the halo of the lamb is a turquoise shade of blue, which also appears behind the heads of the four angels that support the medallion of Christ

92  Chapter 3 in the centre of the ceiling. This vaulted space is also related to the Anastasis scene, because white rays that stem from Christ’s body in the Anastasis echo the bright white bodies of the angels in the vault, which also appear as offshoots of Christ’s body, supporting and radiating from him. In the Anastasis scene there is an angel that is looking over Christ’s left shoulder. The angel has been studied as being unusual because it does not become part of the standard iconography, nor does it appear in earlier examples. However, it would seem that, more than just an odd one-off, this is a perfect example of how the artists of the chapel would have taken standard images and used them to interconnect the imagery throughout the chapel. The angel with Christ in the Anastasis, which appears as a supporting figure, is related to the supportive angels in the vault. These details engage the viewers theologically, mentally, and physically by encouraging them to seek out endless associations, to twist and turn to find the connected cues throughout. The imagery of lifting up Christ is another visual theme that unites the different scenes in the chapel. The lunette facing that of the four women shows Christ flanked by two male saints—the man on the right is a deacon or a cleric and the figure on the left is a monk. The three form a mountain-like shape, with Christ in the centre, the cross in his nimbus composed of bright turquoise tesserae cubes. The Transfiguration scene that appears in the lunette over the altar, to the left of the lunette with Christ, shows the uppermost portion of the scene where on a literal mountain Christ reveals his divinity to the apostles Peter, James, and John in the presence of Moses and Elijah. Here too Christ is elevated and central to the scene. On the final lunette, above the four women, Christ appears as the lamb, also raised up on a mountain top. These scenes of Christ being uplifted are further articulated by the sequence of mosaic arches with jewels and floral themes that draw attention to the upward thrust of all the images in the space, which reaches its summit in the face of Christ in the centre of the vault. Above the doorway, on the final wall that the viewer would have seen while exiting the

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chapel, Peter and Paul gesture dramatically upwards towards another image alluding to Christ, the gold cross that sits atop the empty throne. On the opposing wall, the Virgin and John both gesture upwards towards the window that stands for Christ in the Deësis scene. The imagery and motifs that assert the raising of Christ ultimately point to the elevation of the Eucharist which would have been celebrated at the altar. Hierarchy, “cross in square” format, icon-like figures against the golden mosaic—these features of the S.  Zeno chapel have all been considered indications of a “strong Byzantine component.” But taking the images out of the context of the chapel and the entire church creates a heightened and over-stated separation of ideologies. This methodology suggests that these images would have seemed incompatible with the rest of the program of the chapel and suggests that the two cultures were inherently defined by contrasts—East versus West. When the chapel is read as a whole the visual evidence speaks otherwise. The S.  Zeno chapel is very much a part of the entirety of the church and is connected visually and thematically to the main apse of the church. The elevation of Christ is also celebrated in the space of the main apsidal conch and the two framing triumphal arches. In the conch he is centrally placed, hovering amidst sliver-thin clouds in various shades of red and blue. He is significantly larger than those flanking him as he ascends into the heavens. A semicircle of clouds in blue and white create a frame for the hand of God which offers Christ a jewelled crown of heaven. Between the two regions composed of clouds, there is an empty area, a space in which all that is visible is the bust of Christ against a blue background. Although in the S. Zeno chapel the bust of Christ shows him with both hands on a scroll, and in the main church he holds aloft one hand (which interestingly has a cross shape in red tesserae in the centre), the two are related to each other and speaking the same visual language. The programs are wholly related to each other and complementary. The manner in which Peter and Paul introduce the sister saints Prassede and Pudentiana to the centrally placed

94  Chapter 3 Christ is not unlike the way they gesture towards the empty throne in the chapel. The expectant throne reappears in the triumphal arch directly above the figure of Christ in the apse. The only difference is that the lamb has now joined the cross on the throne. Elements and aspects from the decorations of the mosaics in the main space of the church and in the chapel reappear and reassert each other. There is power and meaning in the fact that they can be connected and compared with such variety. In the main church, and in the other churches Paschal rebuilt, the personal plays a role. Paschal himself appears in the S. Prassede apse as well as in S. Cecilia and S. Maria in Domnica. In S. Prassede and S. Cecilia Paschal stands to the far left of the composition, while in S.  Maria in Domnica he kneels at the throne of the Virgin, holding her right red shoe. In each of these representations of Paschal, the pope wears a white garment covered with a yellow tunic. He wears a white stole around his neck, decorated with a red cross. His tonsured head is framed with a turquoise square halo, outlined with thick black tesserae. Although his clothing and accoutrements are similar in each case, his face is not. In S. Prassede his jaw is rounded and his face ovoid, at S. Cecilia his jaw is pointed and his eyes set far from each other, and at S. Maria in Domnica the shape of his face is somewhere between the two, although his hair extends pretty wildly from either side of his head. The shading of the face at S. Prassede shows the most delicacy and detail—orange and white highlights give his visage a greater subtlety in his rosy cheeks, furrowed brow, and heavily shaded jowls. The other two examples are more formulaic. Even within commissions by the same pope, produced in the same time frame, there are stylistic variations. If we were to make comparisons to the churches of the previous chapter, the representation of the pope at S.  Cecilia and S.  Maria in Domnica would be more on the Sant’Agnese or abstract side of the spectrum while the Paschal of S.  Prassede would be closer to the weighty naturalism of SS. Cosmas and Damian. The pope also asserts himself in each church through his monogram. The monogram appears once at S.  Cecilia and

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S.  Maria in Domnica, just in the centre of the intrados, the underside of the triumphal arch. In both cases the monogram sits at the centre of an elaborate garland. There are two triumphal arches at S. Prassede, allowing for two intrados, and Paschal placed his monogram in both. Paschal’s name creates and affirms the central axis that connects the different faces and versions of Christ. The bright blue background and white lettering is a direct reference to the very colours of the halos and medallions in the Zeno chapel. The same blue and white circles provide an emphatic link in the chain of circular forms that orient the apse and the triumphal arches along a central axis. The concatenation begins below the body of Christ, in the zone where the twelve white lambs move in the direction of the central lamb, the Lamb of God, who again appears on a mountain from which flow the four rivers. The chain of circular evidences of Christ’s presence progresses from the nimbus on the lamb in the lower zone, towards the halo of Christ in the apse, up to the round crown in the hand of God, to the medallion of Paschal, then to the blue mandorla around the lamb on the throne on the first triumphal arch, through a second monogram of Paschal, and then to the halo of Christ on the second triumphal arch, where he stands within the circular walls of the Heavenly Jerusalem. The S. Prassede mosaic program does not harbour specific references to an Eastern culture. Nor is there any hint or nod to a Greek monastery or a Greek chapel nearby. And that is because these mosaics fit within the greater scheme of Paschal’s campaign for a refurbished Roman visual idiom. The only reference to the actual Holy Land in S. Prassede is through the mention of biblical rivers, such as the Jordan, which is labelled below the feet of Christ in bright white lettering. A thin blue line of tesserae alludes to the river and makes a border between the upper zone of the apse and the space inhabited by the lambs. In the lower zone, the centrally placed lamb also stands above four different rivers from the East—Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates—which are not labelled. But this feature is a traditional form borrowed from SS. Cosmas and Damian.

96  Chapter 3 Paschal borrowed much from SS. Cosmas and Damian— the presence of the Jordan River, the variegated clouds, the phoenix in the palm tree, the general composition with Christ in the centre. But he did add his own touches. For example, preceding the name of the Jordan is the shape of a cross, and at the end of the word is an elaborate finial in the form of an ivy-shaped leaf (the hedera). This same ivy shape appears throughout the longer mosaic inscription as a means of creating breaks between the phrases. The hedera only appears in Paschal’s mosaics, not in SS. Cosmas and Damian. This detail is quite common in epigrams, both Latin and Greek, from the Flavian period through the sixth century. It is interesting that Paschal adds this interpunct. Perhaps it was a device that pointed towards the many epigrams that would have been in the catacombs from which he was retrieving the saints. Or perhaps Paschal was showing his knowledge of other important Roman churches in the area. The fifth-century mosaic at Sant’Andrea cata Barbara also appears to have used hederae in the inscription, as did the apse in S. Peter’s. Perhaps Paschal had seen the use of the hedera in the inscription of his predecessor Pope Paul (755–765) in S.  Silvestro listing the saints Paul had transferred there, and was inspired by both the format of the writing and the practice of moving the bodies of the saints. The Transfiguration in the S. Zeno chapel had been anticipated in SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, the one major monument of Paschal’s immediate predecessor, Leo III (r.  795–816). The spectre of Iconoclasm may have been a motivating force in the Transfiguration iconography. In this biblical episode, recounted in the synoptic gospels, Christ travels to a mountain to pray with the apostles Peter, James, and John. While there, Christ undergoes a transformation. He is literally “metamorphosed,” the Greek word for Transfiguration. The Old Testament prophets Moses and Elijah appear and Christ reveals his divinity: “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” (Matthew 17:1–3). Like the Anastasis, the Transfiguration later becomes a central image in the East. But the Transfiguration appears multiple

Figure 7. “Transfiguration,” Triumphal arch at SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, Rome. 815, mosaic. Photo: Matt Hural.

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98  Chapter 3 times in Rome in the ninth century; then, as the Iconoclastic period concludes, it stops being a major scene in Rome. The main church program patronized by Leo  III was at SS.  Nereo ed Achilleo in 815. The mosaics of the triumphal arch are not purely medieval. In 1596 the mosaics of the triumphal arch and the conch were demolished. The mosaics in the triumphal arch were rebuilt by Cardinal Baronio in the following years, 1596–1602. As part of that process Baronio consulted a painting that was made at the time of the demolition.8 The mosaic presents an image of the Transfiguration, flanked by an Annunciation scene on the left and, on the right, an image of the Virgin presenting the Christ Child, who sits on her lap. The central Transfiguration scene shows Christ standing in a bright blue mandorla. Moses, with a long white beard, stands on Christ’s right, and a more youthful Elijah stands on Christ’s left. The three apostles have fallen on their knees and turn their heads towards the nave, away from Christ, revealing their shock and awe at seeing him in this radiant state. The Transfiguration scene was significant because it was capable of proclaiming and illustrating Christ’s special nature, that he was both human and divine. One of the main arguments proffered by those concerned about image production, the so-called iconoclasts, was that art could not represent the divinity of Christ because it separated his two indivisible natures and solely showed his human nature. But the Transfiguration was a moment of biblical proof, wherein Christ revealed both his divinity and humanity simultaneously. As John of Damascus explained in his homily about the Transfiguration, this moment showed that the sacred could be revealed in material form: “And the body shines like the sun; for the radiance of light comes from the body. For all properties of the one incarnate Word of God have become 8  The fresco in the apse had to be completely removed. Alexandra Herz, “Cardinal Cesare Baronio’s Restoration of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo and S. Cesareo de’Appia,” The Art Bulletin 70, no. 4 (1988): 590–620, at 606.

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common, those of the flesh and those of the uncircumscribable Godhead.” Thus the Transfiguration proved that divinity could be expressed through the physical, human body of Christ. By extension art—the stones or paint or glass that formed the image—had the ability to similarly reveal the dual nature of Christ. The Transfiguration scene also responded to another concern made by those opposed to images, that of innovation. Articulated during the synod of 754 at Hiereia, the concern was that the new proliferation in image production was counter to the tradition of the Church and therefore threatened the stability of its message. However, the Transfiguration did have a historical precedent, one that predated the synod and any novelty of images that the troubled bishops would have witnessed in their lifetime—the sixth-century mosaic of the Transfiguration at St.  Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai. There, as in Leo’s mosaic, the three apostles fall on their faces in shock and reverence as Christ appears in bright white garments and encased in a mandorla that emits bursts of light. Leo’s mosaic is not exactly like the sixth-century example. The Sinai mosaic has a bright golden background and only the hint of a landscape—only a thin green line suggests a mountain. The Sinai Transfiguration also appears in the conch of the apse rather than on the triumphal arch. Nevertheless, the ninth-century artists in Rome appear to have borrowed a number of critical features from the sixth-century Egyptian mosaic. Thus Leo selected an iconography that could respond to two of the main iconoclastic concerns. First, the Transfiguration affirmed that art could show both natures of Christ, and second, it was visual proof of the long historical tradition of image production. The Sinai mosaic was created during the rule of Emperor Justinian. As such, Leo shows deference to the rich and venerable history of image production specifically by selecting an example from a period in which the East and the West were not going through the trauma of debating about the role of images, a period in which the Church had eradicated divisions and differences (heresies like Arianism) instead of introducing them.

100  Chapter 3 Justinian’s artists, it should be said, did produce a Transfiguration scene closer to Rome, in the church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna. This Transfiguration shows Christ in clipeate form in the centre of a large golden and bejewelled cross. The brightness of the vision is implied through the gold of the cross and the many stars that surround it; however, in this example Christ does not have bright white garments. Moses and Elijah, who appear on either side of the cross, do wear white. Instead of the three apostles there are three white lambs that look up as lambs do, with little emotion, just like the similar lambs below who march towards an image of the praying St. Apollinare. It is interesting that the type that Leo selected was the one at Sinai. It may be that he chose the more distant configuration because it showed all of Christ’s body. It allowed the viewer to see the entire physicality of Christ’s human form. Rather than a symbol, the cross, the Sinai type allowed the artists to show that Christ’s body is fully and physically visible, fully and physically changed or transfigured. Leo’s decision to show the apostles responding in such a dramatic way may have also been a means of acknowledging the declarations of the acts of the Council of 787, in which it was determined that all Christians must perform proskynesis, a bowing or kneeling before a holy image. However, it does seem that Leo was looking at both examples of the Transfiguration. By placing a large jewelled cross in the apse, a mosaic that is now unfortunately lost, Leo also was showing deference to the Sant’Apollinare scene, to the significance of the cross as an essential representation of Christ. The cross also shows that Leo’s mosaic is not solely a refutation of the arguments set forth against the production of images. In many ways Leo is recognizing the concerns verbalized during these debates by those opposed to image production. The large, centrally placed cross may have been another acknowledgement of the concerns about images, specifically which kinds of images, if any, were appropriate. The Council of 754 established that the main symbol that was able to represent Christ was the cross. By placing the jew-

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elled cross in the apse, Leo’s mosaic appears to acknowledge that the cross is central to Christian theology. Perhaps Leo also wanted to show that the cross does not lose its power, it remains the main focus, even when placed in a setting with narrative images. In fact, perhaps the point is that the narrative scenes heighten the sense of the cross’s power. The idea that narratival or figural imagery can heighten the accepted symbolic representations of Christ also is implied in the placement of the Transfiguration scene. The other image accepted by the synod of 754 was that of the Eucharistic wafer, because it is understood that the bread is the body of Christ. The placement of the scene of the Transfiguration on the triumphal arch at SS. Nereo ed Achilleo is significant because it is just above the altar, just above the space of the church in which the priest elevates the holy wafer during the celebration of the Mass. The uplifted rounded wafer would also relate visually to the encircled image of Christ at the summit of the arch, an oval that encompasses the image of the body of Christ. The mosaic seems to say the Eucharist and the image are similar, maybe even complementary, because they both represent the same body and the same divinity. The use of the mosaic medium further heightened the message about the revelatory power of art. The tiny mosaic cubes were set at different angles and as such would catch and reflect the light as it moved through the space of the church. In other words, the mosaic could change right in front of the viewer. The medium, like Christ himself, manifested the capacities of change, of transfiguration. It is changing but not changed, just as Christ was changed but unchanged at the time of the Transfiguration, and just as the Eucharistic wafer stayed bread even as it also came to contain the presence of Christ during the Mass. The final refutation of Iconoclasm depended on the argument of the significance of the Incarnation. The mosaics at SS.  Nereo ed Achilleo highlight the significance and the authenticity of the Incarnation by showing the essential role of the Virgin, through whom the Christ child is born and made

102  Chapter 3 flesh. The Virgin Mary plays an essential role as a framing device for Leo’s Transfiguration, both in the sense that she is at the left and right of the mosaic and because she frames and protects the body of Christ in her lap. Many details point to the thoughtful design of this mosaic. On the left of the triumphal arch the Virgin is visited by the Archangel Gabriel, who tells her that she will be a mother. On the right she sits with the Christ Child on her lap as Gabriel looks on. In the Annunciation the Virgin holds her right hand just over her stomach. The placement of her light-coloured palm in the Annunciation is balanced by the baby on the right side of the arch and links the two scenes. The fact that the baby is placed just where her hand was in the previous scene emphasizes the fact that his body is of her body, that her flesh literally produces his. Her active role in producing the child is also alluded to in the fact that she is weaving. At the Annunciation she holds red thread in her left hand. The idea that she is crafting the child, that she makes him just as she spins the wool, asserts her active role in the birth. The red wool woven by the Virgin was also understood to have produced the veil that was torn in two at the Crucifixion (Matt. 27:50–51). The red veil that originally hovered behind the cross in the nowlost apse mosaic would have been a further allusion to her creative work. The fact that this veil, the one from the lost mosaic, was not shown torn apart could have been a metaphor for Christ’s Resurrection, indicating the fact that Christ triumphed over death. The focus on the Incarnation in the mosaic indicates that Leo was aware of the discussions being had during the icon debates. One of the most significant justifications for religious portraiture was that Christ had appeared on earth through the Incarnation. The ability to physically see Christ demonstrated that both his human and divine natures were visible and, as such, could be justifiably represented. Denying the ability to represent Christ was the same as denying the Incarnation. Leo’s mosaic enacts the Incarnation for the viewer, thereby showing both that it happened and that its happening could be represented. Merging the Incarnation with the

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Transfiguration, even splicing them together, asserted the duality of Christ’s nature. The mosaic illustrated that Christ was both very human and very divine, and that his human nature was inextricable from his divine nature. The Transfiguration appears twice in Pope Paschal’s S. Prassede—once in the S. Zeno chapel and once in the main church. Both instances, as at SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, are in the spaces above the apsidal area. In the main church the scene appears in the centre of the triumphal arch that sits above the apse. In the chapel, the Transfiguration appears above the niche that sits on top of the altar. Later additions from the seventeenth century have affected the ability to see the Transfiguration scene properly, or as it was originally constructed. Changes made to the altar disrupt a full understanding of the space. In the late twelfth or early thirteenth-century a mosaic of the Virgin enthroned with the Christ Child on her lap was added to the niche above the altar and below the Transfiguration mosaic. This unsettled a number of the mosaic tesserae in the Transfiguration scene and covered whatever was originally in the niche. It is possible that the original mosaic also had an enthroned Virgin and Child and the later mosaic was restoring what Paschal’s artists originally put there, although this is not something we will probably ever know with any certainty. But if we assume that the later mosaic of the Virgin and Child was in line with the original composition, we can assert a connection between SS. Nereo ed Achilleo and the S. Zeno Transfiguration, an emphasis on connecting the Incarnation with the Transfiguration. The viewer would see the fully human Christ Child on the lap of his mother, and then look up to witness, as the Old Testament figures and the three apostles in the Transfiguration do, the fruition of Christ’s capacities and the proof of his dual nature. The climax would have been the scene of the Virgin both praying to and gesturing towards the metaphorical presence of her son as the bright light, the very thing that emanated during the Transfiguration and that is written in the document held by Christ in the scene on the altar: Ego sum lux.

104  Chapter 3 The Transfiguration in the main church focuses on a slightly different theological aspect of the iconography, one that fulfils the promise that Christ makes at the time of the meeting on the mountain. Christ tells the apostles not to speak of the vision until the “Son of Man is risen from the dead.” The mosaic in the apse shows Christ hovering among the clouds, in the pose of Ascension. When he appears above, in the triumphal arch, Christ is in the centre of the large jewelled fortification, the walls of the Heavenly Jerusalem. He stands almost exactly as he does on the triumphal arch of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, right foot extended, holding a scroll in his left hand. However, at S. Prassede Christ is dressed in a bright golden garment with red highlights and outlines. This is not an exact representation of the biblical moment of the Transfiguration, since the gospels emphasize the brightness and whiteness of Christ’s garments. Additionally, two angels flank Christ instead of Moses and Elijah. Yet the Old Testament prophets do appear in the composition at the far ends of the heavenly walls. Moses stands on the right, preceded by an angel in red, and Elijah stands on the left, holding a tablet that reads “lege” or law. The three biblical witnesses are part of a larger group of apostles and saints, but the expansion of the community does not negate the fact that the components of the Transfiguration are here. In fact, it might seem that this is an extension of the Transfiguration moment. Perhaps this representation alludes to both the original Transfiguration, when Christ temporarily reveals his divinity, and the moment of Judgment, when his divinity will be on full and permanent display. This image of the expanded community of saints and witnesses is also an allusion to Paschal’s efforts to return the bodies of the saints into the protective walls of the city and the newly built and refurbished churches. The presence of the Virgin reminds the viewer of Christ’s humanity, as do the figures of the men and women who have become saints, who also now represent both the human and eternal. Although these mosaics showed how art could visualize complex theological concepts, thereby visually contradicting the iconoclastic arguments, it does not follow that these

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images were anti-Eastern statements or evidence that the West was distancing itself from the East. The assumption that the East was pro-iconoclasm and the West was pro-images again inserts a fallacious wedge between the two cultures. Many people in the East wished for Iconoclasm to be over. The fact of the matter is that the conversation was not about Rome versus Constantinople. The policy of Iconoclasm was divisive and people took sides, but not in a way that broke down along geographical lines. We should be cautious in assuming that, because Leo’s mosaic was created at the start of the second wave of Iconoclasm, the pope was responding specifically to that pronouncement, actively refuting the claims that images should not be prominent. Why would he or Paschal produce mosaics that were intended to persuade iconoclastic theologians and politicians of the East, people who were unlikely to be frequenting these buildings? Although these mosaics may have been responding to or acknowledging the controversies about images happening in the East, they were first and foremost for the community of the faithful that frequented the church. These mosaics were not an attack on Iconoclasts, they were a proclamation of the power of art in an ecumenical way, a message that would have been relevant and unifying to all of the members of a unified Christian empire. This was not about distancing from the East. It was not a politicized commentary. When popes asserted their political views artistically they did so in different kinds of spaces. Leo, for instance, illustrated a very clear chain of political authority in the mosaics that he patronized in Triclinium Leoninum, a dining hall that was part of the medieval Lateran Palace. The hall had three conches and, according to the Liber Pontificalis, was covered in mosaics, marbles, and paintings. As at SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, the mosaics in the Triclinium were dilapidated by the sixteenth century. The majority of the complex, including the dining hall, was destroyed in 1586 by Domenico Fontana. However, the central, focal apse of the central conch was recorded in a watercolour. A restoration was undertaken in 1623 by Cardinal Barberini. Later, Clement XII (r. 1730–1740) had this recon-

106  Chapter 3 structed wall rotated so that it would not obstruct the square in front of the Lateran Basilica. Today the large, reconstructed edifice sits facing the Lateran, facing the south, reversing the original orientation of the apse. The centre of the mosaic shows Christ holding a book that reads, “pax vobis” (Peace to you), which is an un-medieval phrase and somewhat irrelevant to the passage being illustrated, that of The Great Commission (Matthew 28:16–20). This post-Resurrection scene takes place in Galilee, on another mountain. Scenes on the left and right of the triumphal arch expand upon the idea of Christ telling his apostles to spread the word; however, these images involve individuals that derived their authority through a more political, imperial sphere. On the left Christ gives keys to Pope Sylvester and a banner to Constantine the Great. On the right Peter, now enthroned, passes the special pallium to Pope Leo III and a banner to Charlemagne. The fact that the mosaic leaves out Eastern representatives suggests that Leo wants to emphasize not only that it is through the papacy that authority is granted, but that the East is no longer a major player. Constantine might have been the representative of the Eastern sphere. However, he is shown wearing clothes that are far more relevant to the West. His radiated crown and leggings are more in keeping with Western styles of dress and basically a repetition of what Charlemagne wears on the right side of the triclinium mosaic. In the Triclinium we see explicitly the Pope turning to Western influences, creating a separation from the East. There is an awkwardness to the technique of these restored mosaics. Peter’s garments, for example, are difficult to register visually—they seem to be a collection of disjointed geometrical shapes. The uppermost part of his body is far too long for his seated position and his arms are far too short. It is almost as though the later early-modern restorers were trying to capture the non-naturalistic approach of medieval artists by being intentionally clumsy and ungainly, a fact that just underscores the talent of the medieval artists who brought grace and naturalism even to their more stylized forms and figures.

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There is a more inherent awkwardness in the mosaics at S. Marco, in the apsidal mosaics commissioned by Pope Gregory IV (r. 827–844) just as Iconoclasm was being proclaimed to be over in the East. It is uncomfortable to apply qualitative terminologies to works of art from the medieval period. Value statements are suited for the world of the art market, where connoisseurial assessments matter, where an association to a famous artist adds prestige or value. However, when compared to other mosaics of this period there is a perceptible difference. The folds in the drapery are blocky and fall as repetitive lines. Christ’s face is a blank slate and his dark beard comes to a simple, symmetrical, geometrical point, lacking in highlights or gradations in hue. The plinths upon which each of the figures stand are strewn unevenly across the base of the mosaic. The lower register, a block of green, is not in a consistent line. The top jumps to different heights even as it seems to be meant to run consistently along the base of the mosaic and along the top of the plinths. The lettering on the plinths, which is meant to identify the saints, seems accidental as many of the words are pressed together in uneven ways. This is most notable in Gregory’s monogram. Like Paschal’s, the monogram appears in the intrados, in the middle of a multicoloured garland in white lettering on a turquoise background. But whereas Paschal’s emblem is legible and consistent, the letters composing Gregory’s are of inconsistent sizes and in a jumble. It is clear that Gregory was modelling much of his mosaic on the work of Paschal. Although Gregory chooses a gold background and Paschal a deep blue, both popes place Christ in the centre of the composition and have a group of figures flanking him, three on each side. At the far left Gregory stands as Paschal did at S.  Prassede and S.  Cecilia, with a square halo and a model of the church in his arms. This overt borrowing is in keeping with the tradition of the period and extends back to the arrangement at SS. Cosmas and Damian. But S. Marco is the last in this group of comparable compositions. It would seem to reflect something like an ending, the forecast of a change of fashion. The fact that this mosaic, this

108  Chapter 3 final instantiation, coincides with the end of Iconoclasm is significant. The period of this group of mosaics related to a time of confluence, where iconographies were being developed and images were being shared. Even when art was not being produced in the East at the same pace as Rome, what was being produced was an expression of an image-based culture that included the East and the West. As the East started to rigidify its definitions of art and what was acceptable in the canon, turning inwards culturally, Rome would keep expanding its lexicon, embracing different styles and images from all over the Western sphere. S. Marco was participating in a conversation that was over. It was saying what had already been said. Religious art allowed the broader community of faithful to communicate and coalesce through the language of the biblical narratives and miracles. But as artistic images were drawn into theological debates and political policies, it was inevitable that there would be a reevaluation of the imagery, a reconsideration of the images that worked best, that communicated best. At least this seems to have been the case in the East. While the East formalized its iconographical lexicon, Rome continued to produce mosaics that expanded that lexicon. This involved dropping images like the Transfiguration and the Anastasis and introducing more complex images focusing on the Virgin. The question as to why images like the Transfiguration and the Anastasis did not work for Rome any longer is an interesting one. The Anastasis may have been seen as redundant or even incompatible with the Last Judgment scene, which started to become a major feature in Western churches. The Transfiguration may have been perceived as being too tied to the debates about images. Perhaps it was now less critical to visualize Christ’s dual nature. Perhaps patrons and audience members wanted something different. The market for images in Rome seems to have been voracious and ever-evolving in a way that was not the case in the East. Presumably the East did not need to argue about the duality of Christ in images since the iconoclastic debates had concluded. However, Iconoclasm had had a second wind.

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What was to say it would not have a third? Perhaps the Eastern theologians were eager to absorb, adopt, and promote these very images because they had been prominent at the time when images needed defending. Images like the Anastasis and the Transfiguration, which had been prominent in Rome, were embraced in the East, where there was a need to codify the consumption of images. The anxiety about innovation and change, which was a point of contention during the iconoclastic debates, meant that there was a benefit to turning to images that already existed, including those that had already held significance in Rome. Meanwhile Rome, as a city with multiple viewpoints and various communities, continued to create images, always within the confines of the early Christian tradition, but with an eye towards new configurations, which included a heightened emphasis on Mary, on Ecclesia, and on affiliations with the West.

Chapter 4

Forms of Separation

In the years after the conclusion of Iconoclasm, select images were embraced in the East as being critical to the Christian narrative. This selection was part of an effort to define the Church and its position vis-à-vis the relevance and role of images. In essence, the church was protecting itself from a third wave of Iconoclasm, and one way of doing that was to formalize the way things looked and the way they would be interpreted. Certain scenes representing the twelve major feast days—including the Anastasis, the Transfiguration, the Nativity and Baptism, and Pentecost—were determined to be essential to the religious calendar and relevant to the walls of the church. Within the defined parameters of selected iconographies there was room for slight variations, but for the most part these images were showing an accountability to the Church, to the set program that had been vetted by Church authorities. In a sense, then, the religious images being produced were physical evidence of the validity of an image-based system. Art acted as a document or a certificate of proof that the battle about images had been waged and won. The stabilization of iconographies was like the creation of a new language, a visual language that was shared and repeated and, thereby, codified. By canonizing the aesthetics, all that were involved—artists, theologians, politicians— were signing on for and were part of the crafting of a culture. While the Eastern iconographical lexicon was codified in and after the ninth century, Roman art continued to absorb

112  Chapter 4 inspiration from the pan-Mediterranean sphere as well as the imperial courts further West, such as imagery from the Franco-German regions. As ever, newer inspirations were inventively blended with imagery from the past, from the earlier medieval period and antiquity. The combination of the traditional and the inventive is vividly present in the apse mosaic at S. Clemente, dated to the 1120s. The vine scroll, for example, was a familiar motif in Rome and throughout the Mediterranean. Green vine scrolls were used to fill the vaults of S. Costanza (fourth century) and the conch of the chapel dedicated to Saints Cyprianus and Justina in the baptistery at the Lateran (fifth century). They also surrounded the Ara Pacis, which was consecrated in honour of Emperor Augustus in the first century bce. A massive vine scroll appears again in the twelfth-century apse mosaic at S.  Clemente. Swirling acanthus leaves provide a verdant labyrinth filled with members of the Christian community, mythological figures, animals of all varieties, flowering forms, bushels of fruit, and burning lamps. What might have been a tired trope was infused with new life through a seemingly endless supply of visual forms. The mosaic at S.  Clemente was meant to commemorate a new church, a structure that had been recently built above the older basilica with the “Cyril Anastasis,” which had been filled in with rubble at the end of the eleventh century. The shape and placement of the new building alluded to the history and significance of the earlier church. Similarly, the mosaic asserted its novelty through familiar forms. Newness was embedded in an admiring nod to the past. At the centre of the mosaic is a Crucifixion scene, another example of the familiar infused with innovation. It is from the base of this dark-blue cross that the seemingly endless proliferation of the green vines originates. Christ’s lifeless body is contained within the outlines of the cross, upon which are also twelve white doves. His head rests heavily on his right shoulder, while faint droplets of blood emanate from his hands and his side. Little splashes of red punctuate the mosaic in the form of small red flowers that appear throughout and bright flames emanating from the various fire-burn-

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ing lamps. The colour red also appears in the snake at the base of the cross. The placement of the red-flecked serpent, an allusion to the serpent of the Garden of Eden, under the cross illustrates the understanding that Christ’s sacrifice will triumph over and redeem the suffering caused by the original sin. Red appears again in the clothes of John the Evangelist, who stands to the right of the cross. On the left side of the cross is the Virgin, who sombrely holds both hands aloft in the direction of her son. There are similar Crucifixion compositions in Rome, such as in the Theodotus chapel in S. Maria Antiqua (ca. 741–752). The greatest differences between the eighth-century fresco and the twelfth-century mosaic appear in the presentation of Christ. In the fresco he is wearing a long colobium, an allusion to ecclesiastic garb. The garment allows the viewer to see the place that Longinus stabs Christ. Longinus stands, spear in hand, on the left with the Virgin. Christ tilts his head towards the left, gesturing towards mother and persecutor, without closing his eyes or even resting his head. Christ is muscular and, through his substantive body, he appears to be an extension of the cross, to almost hold it up. His arms are extended dramatically and in such an emphatically straight line that the man and the cross appear to be one unit—the tips of his fingers meet the end of the cross bar and his feet reach almost to the base. His garment also emphasizes the connection between man and cross. Two yellow lines on Christ’s colobium move from his shoulders to the hem, terminating mid-shin. The colour of these bands matches the shape and orientation of the upright beam of the wooden cross. The uppermost part of the cross is obscured by Christ’s halo, which itself contains a cross. The message is one of the triumph of Christ through the cross—his body, his face, and his halo reiterate the shape and presence of the cross. Christ encompasses and supersedes that instrument of torture. Through his sacrifice, Christ transforms the meaning of the cross shape and of the notion of suffering. Christ suffers differently at S. Clemente. The cross encompasses Christ, acting like a large frame for his frail body.

114  Chapter 4 Christ’s body becomes a major focal point because, instead of the long colobium garment, in the mosaic he wears a cloth wrapped around his waist, a cloth known as the perizoma in Greek tradition. The use of the shorter cloth allows the artist to draw attention to the torso and legs of Christ as a means of accentuating the flesh and blood of Christ. The Christ of S. Clemente does not hold up his head, and his eyes are shut. The arms of Christ in S. Clemente are thin and bent, signalling his death and his human suffering. Christ is certainly the ultimate focal point; however, one might argue that the proliferation of imagery in the rest of the apsidal program draws a good deal of attention from the diminutive and almost frail body of Christ. The combination of innovative Crucifixion and traditional images is typical of S. Clemente. Despite the fact that the appearance of Christ at the moment of the Crucifixion changes dramatically between the two monuments, the images of Mary and John are relatively standardized. Taken on its own, the composition of Christ on the cross flanked by the Virgin and John has a deep affinity with Eastern images. The Virgin with furrowed brow, wearing the deep-blue mantle with delicate golden details and fringe, is very much in keeping with instances of the Crucifixion found in the East, such as Daphni (ca. 1000) or Hosios Loukas, which has two eleventh-century Crucifixion scenes, one in the narthex and one in the crypt. These examples all have the same positioning of Mary and John. The same formula appears in a mid-tenthcentury ivory produced in Constantinople and now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In fact, although she accompanies a different John, the Virgin in the Deësis scene in the S. Zeno chapel is in the same position as the Roman and Eastern examples. Mary consistently wears the blue garment and gestures towards her son in sorrow and in prayer, and she typically wears red shoes. The positioning of the Madonna at the Crucifixion as it came to be presented and expected in the East follows the trend of the Anastasis and the Transfiguration images; this formation had an early life in Rome and then became promi-

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nent in the post-iconoclastic East. An earlier Crucifixion scene in the sixth-century Rabbula Gospels painted in Syria shows Mary and John standing together on Christ’s right side. The Theodotus Chapel is the first extant example where the two balance each other on either side of the cross. The Crucifixion with Mary and John does continue to have an important presence in the West, and in this sense it differs from the Transfiguration and the Anastasis. But it does corroborate a cultural trend wherein the early medieval period witnesses a pan-Mediterraean exchange of artistic ideas which are explored and experimented with in papal programs, and that those images then find a home in the post-iconoclastic East where they are codified and copied. The Madonna in the S. Clemente apse mosaic is standard in another way. It is part of an icon culture. The codification and copying of images was most prevalent in the East in the form of what we now call an icon. The presence of an icon was not a post-Iconoclastic phenomenon. Icon simply means image, and there were many of those. However, the specific definition of icon as it is known today—a rectangular, wooden form painted with a holy image that is of variable size but not too large to carry in a procession, and that belongs to a family of duplicates—took a more specific shape and came to be seen as a specific category in the ninth century. The institutionalization of the icon took shape with the establishment of theories affiliated with how icons work or should be venerated, with anecdotes about miracles being performed that might come from patristic literature, and with the concept of the icon as a means of protecting emperors during times of war and peril. Although panels with the Theotokos existed before Iconoclasm, the only evidence of those images being carried in public processions appears after Iconoclasm. The recording of these processions means that they were more official, sanctioned by the church. This new status as a portable focus of civic unity was different. It was a new role for this kind of image. The icon was something that was compact and self-sufficient. Its power was circumscribed and contained within the space of a rectangular form. It does

116  Chapter 4 seem that the assertion and repetition of this size and shape was also a visual rebuttal to one of the main grievances of the Iconoclasts, which was that God was not circumscribable and that images threatened to misrepresent or confuse that significant point. The icon was something that could fully live in the church, move throughout the church, and leave the church without changing its significance. The flexibility and multi-contextual meaning of the icon seems to further respond to the concerns that resonate throughout the iconoclastic debates about the capacity of all viewers to understand images. The significance of the icon, the image that can be repeated and moved, asserts the capacities of the viewer and the inviolability of the image. Post-iconoclastic practices even seem to have been responding to the biblical injunction forbidding images by enacting the passage in which God instructs Moses to make golden statues of cherubim for the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was to have been carried (Exodus 25:14) just like the images that were being carried through the streets on special holidays. Because icons were portable and could be copied with regularity, much like a document, they could disseminate information about the validity of images. But it is important to stress that Romans also valued and venerated icon-shaped images; they also had an icon culture of their own. There are many ways in which the culture of icon veneration in Rome mirrors the traditions of the East. Again, in the earlier years, the two cultures were developing a tradition of image veneration that was compatible and similar. The Madonna in the S. Clemente apse refers to a specific icon, the S. Sisto Madonna. The S. Sisto icon is formally consistent with the now-standardized definition of an icon— it is rectangular, portable, a focused image of a holy figure, and associated with miracles. The S. Sisto Madonna is shown with both of her hands aloft in a position of prayer, just as in the S. Clemente and S. Zeno mosaics. She looks towards the viewer with a mournfulness through heavily lidded brown eyes. Only the upper portion of her body is shown. Her head is covered in the blue mantle with a gold cross just above the

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centre of her brow, as at S. Clemente, and a thin outline of a halo inscribed in gold leaf background encircles her head. The position of the Madonna is much like that of the “Hagiosoritissa” type, a version of the Madonna that became prominent in the post-Iconoclastic East, leading some scholars to suggest that the S. Sisto icon is in fact a pre-Iconoclast example of this particular type that was preserved in Rome. As in the case of most miracle-working icons, the painting is of an unknown date and its origin is unclear.1 The difficulty of dating this icon and others like it is very much part of their identity and relevance—a point that held true for both the Western and Eastern traditions. From the point of view of the faithful, not knowing, not specifying a particular date, is part of understanding the icon as a miraculous object worthy of devotion. By the eleventh century a legend argued that this painting had been started by St. Luke and coloured by angels. Thus the icon was given a saintly start and a miraculous final touch, both characteristics that would be appropriate to a miracle-working image. As in the East, it was common for icons to be moved throughout the city during important processions. The most famous example of processional practices occurred in honour of the Feast of the Assumption and went from the night of August 14 to the morning of August 15. In this procession an encaustic panel showing the enthroned Christ (sixth/seventh century) was carried from its sanctuary in the Sancta Sanctorum of the Lateran (where it still resides today) through the Forum to S. Maria Maggiore, stopping on the way at the church of Santa Maria Nova, to “see” or “visit” the famed icons held at the two Marian churches. The event was first documented in the ninth century. The fact that the S. Sisto Madonna is shown by herself, making a gesture of prayer, suggests that she may have been meant to interact with 1  Gerhard Wolf, “Icons and Sites: Cult Images of the Virgin in Mediaeval Rome,” in Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Burlington: Ashgate, 2005), 23–51, at 28.

118  Chapter 4 other images, which could have been from within the church where she was placed or from other churches altogether. It would seem that there is little differentiation, then, in the icon-oriented traditions in the West and in the East, as both cultures carried their famous icons through civic spaces on special holidays, thereby expressing a great confidence in the power of the image. It is worth pointing out that, by the twelfth century, the popes were no longer participating in the procession of the Lateran icon. Although the icon retained its importance, there was perhaps a diminished significance of the procession of the icon or icons in general, a trend that did not hold true in the East. Most documentation about icon practice in Rome starts to appear in the eleventh century. This does not mean that icons were not being venerated or carried in processions before the eleventh century. But considering the timing of these documents it is likely that these texts were written as a response to the more formalized and authoritative practices and theories about icon veneration in the East. It is also significant that during the eleventh century, icons were given early dates and origin stories that included Constantinople, as in the case of the S. Sisto icon. It is possible that the association of the S.  Sisto icon with Constantinople reveals an understanding that there was something Eastern about icon veneration. By associating the icon with the historical East, those writing the history of the S. Sisto Madonna may have been taking advantage of the special value imbued by the relationship between the East and the icon. This shift indicates a differentiation in cultures. It suggests a separation between Western audiences and Eastern practices. The East had accrued a sense of distance and a close association with the miraculous in a way that it had not had before and in a way that was newly distinguishable and sought-after. Another important feature of icon veneration was the proliferation or copying of special miracle-working icons. The copy played a significant role in the Eastern tradition of icon theory and icon production. Each copy of the image was understood to retain the holiness of the original. The most

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salient aspect of the copy is not the hand of the artist or when he was living. Rather, the focus is in how the work of art connects to an unknown, distant past. Its significance is found in the fact that it is out of time or beyond time, which renders the specifics of the artist as an individual irrelevant and focuses the attention on the subject. The icon is understood to carry a permanent and transferable holiness. Each version of the image, each icon, retains a special form of divinity because each icon is connected to the original presence of the saint or holy figure, to the moment in which their likeness was captured and they were physically present. As articulated by Basil of Caesarea (fourth century), “The honour paid to the images passes to the prototype.” The official ruling after Iconoclasm was that the image did not have “real presence.” In practice, however, the veneration of icons retained the notion that the image could provide a portal towards the original being, towards the prototype.2 The proliferation of the S.  Sisto image throughout the city of Rome is a perfect example of the prototype concept in action. The S. Sisto Madonna was one of the most copied icons in Rome. The icons at S. Maria in Via Lata, Sant’Alessio, and Santa Maria in Ara Coeli all show the Madonna in the same pose of prayer or intercession. The dating of this process of copying is hard to establish. The S. Sisto icon was most likely created between the sixth and eighth centuries, although the later accounts attribute the work to the hand of St. Luke. The Madonna of Aracoeli, one of the icons belonging to the S. Sisto family and certainly a copy, was also claimed to have been painted by St. Luke. But, whereas many Eastern icons are truly indistinguishable and un-datable, the Roman examples are not exact copies of the original image. In the Sant’Alessio icon, for example, the Madonna wears a red-tinted garment that is decorated in patterns composed of four gold squares. Painted jewels ornament the crest of her head, forming a sort of semi-circular crown within her head covering. Whereas the S.  Sisto 2  Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm, 109–12.

120  Chapter 4 icon has a smooth, burnished halo, the Sant’Alessio icon has a halo composed of decorative patterns, an effect created by punching or stamping forms into gold leaf, which was a popular technique in thirteenth-century Italian images. The conceptualization of the ways in which icons should be venerated actually is quite similar. It was in the actualization of those theories that the West and the East diverged. The way the prototype was referenced in Eastern icons was more literal. In Rome there was a more liberal understanding of the practice, a broader understanding of the visual requirements necessary for the honour to pass from one image to another. The quantity of icons also differentiates the Eastern and Western patterns of icon veneration. In the East, icons started lining the walls of churches and forming the wall dividing the congregation and the altar, a composite of many icons known as the iconostasis. In the West, although there are many important icons, they do not fill the walls. Unlike in the East, Roman churches rarely had multiple icons. The miracle-working icons were (and still are) generally isolated and placed in special focal points of the church. For example, the icon at S. Maria Maggiore, known as the Salus Populi Romani, was placed above the door leading from the main church to the baptistery. Roman churches also copied icons in a way that does not appear to have been practised in the East, by quoting the form of a miracle-working Madonna and placing her in a new, larger setting. The gesture of the S. Sisto icon, for example, reappears in the pose and posture of the Madonna in the S.  Clemente mosaic. But this is not just about copying the icon. The quotation shows deference to the icon by showing that its value is transferable. The significance of the icon is not limited to one setting and one format. It is not defined by specific outlines and singularity. The icon is an inspiration and a participant in multiple settings. It can function isolated in a church while simultaneously participating in a vision of the Crucifixion and the life-giving cross elsewhere in the city. This act of cutting and pasting miracle-working icons into bigger programs as at S. Clemente is a specifically Roman way

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of interacting with icons. These quotations were a means of referring to important icons while finding ways of showing the expansive principles of their power and authority. The notion of a direct, exact copy did not seem to appeal to the Western viewers, artists, and theologians as it did to those in the East. The twelfth-century mosaic at S. Maria Nova helps visualize the way that apse mosaics “copied” or referenced icons, and how those visual relationships tied together the Roman community of churches. The mosaic is associated with the papacy of Alexander III and given the specific date of 1161. (The church was renamed Santa Francesca Romana in the sixteenth century.) This mosaic is another example of the Madonna taking centre stage. She sits on a grand, lyrebacked throne which is set against a golden background. Although he is a child in this mosaic, Christ reaches his right arm around his mother, in a manner reminiscent of the way he embraces his mother in the apsidal mosaic of S. Maria in Trastevere. Here he clasps his right hand around her neck and reaches for her with his left. The S. Maria Nova mosaic also alludes to another image at S. Maria in Trastevere, the Madonna della Clemenza, a large painted icon dated to the eighth century and housed in a side chapel. In both the icon and the mosaic, the Madonna is centrally placed and seated on a throne. In both, she is symmetrical in her presentation and wears an embellished collar over her dress—blue in the mosaic and dark purple in the Clemenza icon. The placement of the Christ Child and the way he interacts with his mother in the S. Maria Nova mosaic seems to refer to another icon, the Salus Populi Romani. The icon shows the Virgin holding the Christ child on her left hip. She thus asserts her traditional role as the protector of the body of Christ. With his right arm the child makes a gesture of benediction. The angle of the child’s left arm and the manner in which he extends his left leg so that it crosses over his right makes a parallelogram shape. The mosaic is slightly different; the boy stands, wrapping his right arm around his mother, kicking out his left leg and balancing on the end of the red pillow. His vigorous gesture makes him appear much

122  Chapter 4 more animated. But the angles of the arms and legs repeat the parallelogram shape, and make it clear that the holy icon was a definite source of inspiration. Also, as in the icon, the child looks at his mother while she looks elsewhere. Thus the mosaic is meant to remind the viewer of other images, specifically miracle-working icons, in other prominent churches of the city. We know little about the communities that worshipped in the various churches throughout Rome. Why did certain groups pick certain churches as their place of worship? In the case of S. Prassede, the congregation may have had a greater number of Greek individuals because of the proximity to the Greek monastery. However, it is hard to know what might have otherwise motivated congregants. Did they, like particular popes, have an affinity for certain decorative programs, or was their choice based on familial history, on proximity to their homes, on their source of income? Documentation that might help register the meaning of these spaces and their decoration to the visitors is lacking. But it does not seem that these churches were trying to particularize themselves by choosing radical or differentiating imagery. There may have been competition between the different churches for patronage and renovation. But one gets the sense that there was a desire and an effort to establish relationships between holy spaces. An affiliation with other churches in the region may have been a source of prestige, a means of heightening authority and acclaim, for the patrons and congregants of the churches. There was clearly a visual conversation happening between different churches and different communities. The fact that these programs are quoting icons from other churches suggests an interconnectedness to the city of Rome. The icons were known throughout the city because of these quotations. While at the Lateran, the visitor could be thinking about an icon that was on the other side of town in a chapel at S. Maria in Trastevere. The visitor at S. Maria Nova could reflect on an icon in S. Maria Maggiore. The visitor at S.  Maria Maggiore would be visually connected with the S. Sisto icon. The images were like visual cues for experienc-

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ing the miracle-working principles of the icons without actual being physically in their presence. These icons were like a medieval internet—a web of reciprocal and shared signals that connected the citizens and worshippers of Rome. The icons participated in a broad economy of similarly venerable images throughout the city. In the late medieval apses of two great Marian churches there is a mixture of newer influences and traditional ties to the East. As at S.  Clemente, the S.  Sisto icon acts as a starter image, and is incorporated by cutting and pasting into a bigger program. But the reference to the East is now made much more overt, heightened by more-or-less explicit borrowings of very clearly Eastern iconography. The apse of S.  Maria in Trastevere, commissioned by Pope Innocent  II, was completed between 1140 and 1143. The apse of S. Maria Maggiore, produced by artist Jacopo Torriti, was completed between 1290 and 1325.3 Finally, in what may be a kind of dialogue, in 1296 Pietro Cavallini added a band of mosaics below the apse of S. Maria in Trastevere, complementing the twelfth century program. It was in the lower zones at S. Maria in Trastevere and S. Maria Maggiore that honorific borrowings alluded specifically to the East, through iconographies that were distinctively Eastern and would have been seen as such. The representation of the Madonna in the apse of S. Maria in Trastevere (1140–1143) refers to the S. Sisto icon. In both there is delicate shading at her chin, her nose is long and thin, her eyebrows thick and heavy, and her mouth tight and short. Even the slightly darkened area between the eyebrows in the S. Sisto icon is repeated in the Trastevere mosaic. But the two, icon and mosaic, are not exact duplicates of each other. The mosaic shows the Madonna seated on a grand throne with her son, who embraces her with his right arm. Because Christ is on her left, the Madonna turns to gesture in the opposite direction of the S. Sisto icon. She is also not quite holding her arms up as the Madonna in the icon does. 3  An inscription in the apse records the date of 1296, but scholars have put the date of completion anywhere between 1290 and 1325.

124  Chapter 4 The position of her hands quotes the S. Sisto icon, but instead of holding out her hands in a gesture of prayer, she holds up a scroll with text from the Song of Songs: “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand shall embrace me” (Song of Songs 2:6–7 and 8:3). The Virgin’s text is a response to the words in the book that Christ holds open, which quote the Responsory of one of the readings associated with the Feast of the Assumption: “Come thou whom I have chosen and I shall place thee on my throne.” The text from the Song of Songs provided biblical support for the notion of the Queen of Heaven, or the idea that the Virgin was crowned by Christ after her Assumption. The mosaic shows the Madonna wearing the crown and sharing the throne of Heaven with him. As at S.  Clemente, the Madonna at S. Maria in Trastevere is not on the central axis. Christ is in the centre of the mosaic and the Madonna is to the left. However, it is significant that she shares the throne with him and plays a major role in the meaning of the composition. Focus in the S. Clemente mosaic is far more fractured because of the extreme complexity of the mosaic, with its many vignettes and personages. But at S. Maria in Trastevere she is fundamental and focal in her own right. Much of this is established through her elaborate and elegant costume. Her external garment is covered in hanging pearls and jewels alongside rondels with quatrefoil shapes inside. White starbursts appear between the rondels, and all of this busy activity is set against a gold backdrop. Over her lap is a white garment covered in small golden stars, the same pattern that decorates the cloth hanging at the back of the jewelled throne. Thus, although Christ takes centre stage, it is the Madonna’s entry into Heaven and ascension onto the throne that is ultimately being celebrated. This configuration of the Madonna in the apse at S. Maria in Trastevere was distinctively Western in inspiration. Pope Innocent  II’s election was contested. Two popes were proclaimed, Innocent II and Anacletus II. Sent into exile by Anacletus II, Innocent II spent time in France where he was protected by Bernard of Clairvaux, the famous French Cistercian

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abbot, who convinced King Henry I of England that Innocent was the true pope. Bernard and Innocent travelled to Italy together, during which time the abbot persuaded Roger II of Sicily to support Innocent. For eight years Innocent was in limbo, and much of that time he spent abroad, establishing relationships with kings and bishops of the West, such as Henry and King Lothair III of Germany. In that time of exile, Innocent must have seen images of the Coronation of the Virgin. The Coronation of the Virgin was an iconographical scene that had its origin in the twelfth-century imperial courts of the West, specifically Spain, England, and France. This conceptualization of the royal Madonna developed alongside the growing monarchical regimes in the West, which were crafting and enforcing their own imperial iconography. This is not a scene that has relevance in the East. The coronation imagery and devotion was a Western phenomenon. Albeit encased in visual language that would have been fully familiar to the Roman viewer, the presence of the Madonna in a centralized position that clearly had associations with Western imageries would likely have signalled an association with a new source of power, the monarchs of the West, particularly those who were responsible for protecting the papacy and supporting its goals by paying for and supplying men for the crusades to the Holy Land. The thirteenth century would have an increasing number of popes that came from French territories or regions considered to belong to the Holy Roman Empire. The medieval visitor at S. Maria in Trastevere would have thought the experience to be remarkable, not simply because of the use of the Song of Songs, but also in the depiction of Mary and her Son in the centre of the main portion of the apsidal mosaic. There had been nothing like it in Rome. In fact, although the iconography was significant in the West, the massive expression of it in golden mosaics would have probably been surprising for Innocent’s new Western allies as well, Bernard of Clairvaux included, especially considering his reservations about grand artistic programs. Part of the surprise would have been that S. Maria in Trastevere was not

126  Chapter 4 an exact version of the Coronation iconography. The composition is very much in keeping with the general concept of the Virgin Mary being welcomed into Heaven by her son and sharing the throne. But the Madonna in the twelfth-century mosaic already wears her crown, and as such this scene is an Enthronement rather than a Coronation. The later fourteenth-century mosaic at S. Maria Maggiore is a true example of the Coronation. In showing a faithful version of the Coronation iconography, the later mosaic indicates that the relationship between Rome and the West had only gotten stronger between the time of the S. Maria in Trastevere and S. Maria Maggiore mosaics. The representation of Mary in S.  Maria in Trastevere is also tied to philosophies in the West about Mary as a representative and an embodiment of the Church or Ecclesia. Patristic authors such as St. Augustine and St. Ambrose had written about Mary as the Church. In fact, both scholars had studied the Song of Songs and provided the exegesis that allowed the erotic poem to have an allegorical reading in which Christ was welcoming the Virgin as a figuration of the Church. These writings were used extensively by Bernard of Clairvaux and Innocent II. The Madonna at S. Maria in Trastevere thus represents both Christ’s mother and his bride, his sponsa, the Church. The ways in which the patristics discussed the experience of the Mother as Ecclesia joining her Son is reflected in the configuration of the Virgin’s elaborate robe in S. Maria in Trastevere. The quatrefoil shape that is repeated on her dress was prominent as a form for baptismal fonts, particularly early Christian baptismal fonts, an essential component in any church building. Many patristic writers discuss passages of the Song of Songs as having references to the Baptism, such as Apponius (fifth century), who likens the kisses of Christ received by the soul to the cleansing of the baptismal rite. The shapes are interesting because they relate to the frequent use of the quatrefoil to encase scenes in stained glass windows from the period, most notably in France. Thus the Madonna is dressed as though she is made of the walls

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of the church, thereby furthering the idea of her body as a manifestation of the church and suggesting an affiliation with Western structures and forms of church decoration. The lily also figures in the Song of Songs and the corresponding commentary: “I am a flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.” Lily-like flowers—three white petals—also appear in the mosaic of S. Maria in Trastevere, most notably at the back of the throne and as delicate white finials on the arm rests. These flowers refer to the text of the poem, to the Madonna herself—as the lily was increasingly associated with her as a symbol of her purity—and to the fleur-de-lys that was appropriated by the French rulers as a symbol of their piety and power. Thus, the French affiliations were part of the presentation of the Virgin in S. Maria in Trastevere. These iconographical choices were showing leanings towards Western associates and Western influences. The late thirteenth-century apse mosaic at S. Maria Maggiore also quotes the S. Sisto icon in a representation of the Madonna joining her son as the Queen of Heaven. The artist for the apse, the zone between the windows, and the second triumphal arch was Jacopo Torriti. The apsidal area shows the traditional Coronation of the Virgin. As Christ holds a crown over the head of the Madonna, she gestures towards him in precisely the same position as the S. Sisto icon—hands open, elbows bent. As at S.  Maria in Trastevere, the S.  Sisto icon acts as a starter for the complex apsidal mosaic, as a focal fulcrum for the larger program. The Madonna and Christ are set apart in a dark blue mandorla filled with golden stars. Around them is a proliferation of vegetation and bird imagery, much like the earlier S.  Clemente and not unlike the even earlier S. Costanza. Peacocks, mallards, doves, pheasants, blue pelicans—these all cavort among swirling blue and green acanthus leaves that wind around the blue mandorla surrounding Christ and his mother. Saints and holy figures gesture towards the central globe-like mandorla, while beneath their feet small putti frolic in a river monitored by a bearded river god. The effect is the very opposite of focus and meditative

128  Chapter 4 calm. Here the eye bounces from place to place; the patterns are vibrant and distracting. The angular wings of the angels, the multi-directional glances of the birds, the infinite details, the inconsistent scale—the effect is pulsating, almost frenetic, as though aspiring to surprise the viewer, to overwhelm the viewer, showing the omnipresence of the power of Christ in all living forms. A significant feature in the mosaics at S. Maria Maggiore is a deliberate use of iconographies that had Eastern associations. The very presence of these scenes in the mosaic programs shows a great respect for these iconographies and their associated traditions. But these scenes also point towards those traditions in a way that implies an inherent distinctiveness, that there was something different about the art of the East. These borrowings appear in the lower zone of the apse, which hosts a series of framed spaces, in intervals created by the lancet windows. These spaces support discrete images, individual scenes that might be called icon-like. Two of these happen to be iconographical types that were, by this point, specifically affiliated with the East. Unlike the Anastasis and the Transfiguration, which truly had lives in the West before becoming integral to the church imagery of the East, the Koimesis or the Dormition of the Virgin first appears in Eastern imagery. Apocryphal accounts recounting the end of the Virgin’s life circulated as early as the sixth century. A date for the celebration of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin was established in the East around the year 600, and in the West during the papacy of Leo IV (r. 847–855). But the specific imagery visualizing this feast day only started appearing in the East, and during the tenth century. It is this scene, the Koimesis, which appears directly in the centre of the zone below the main part of the apse and just above the altar. The scene shows the Virgin reclining with her hands over her chest. She is flanked by the apostles, all of whom are mourning her death, and by pious bystanders—ecclesiastical figures on the left and mourning women on the right. The emphasis on the horizontal form, inclusive of the mourners and the extended body of the Virgin, suggests a sarcopha-

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gal form, which is appropriate as this is an image of death. Although some writers of the time believed that the Virgin was simply assumed into Heaven, the predominant belief was that she really died, and this is what the image conveys. As she dies, her soul is immediately lifted by Christ into Heaven. Christ is shown standing behind the bier holding a swaddled soul, that of the Virgin, which he will carry to Heaven accompanied by angels. In the case of the mosaic at S. Maria Maggiore, the Koimesis scene reverses the position of mother and son that appears above. In both scenes the Virgin appears in the same pose as the S. Sisto icon. In the apsidal conch she sits on Christ’s right, whereas in the lower zone she leans into his right shoulder while facing left. The other scene in S. Maria Maggiore that has specifically Eastern associations is the Nativity, which appears to the left of the Koimesis, on the other side of the second lancet window. Early configurations of the Nativity set the Virgin to the side, placing the focus on Christ in the manger. By the sixth century, the Virgin had become integral to the story. She is placed in proximity to the Christ Child in a position that shows her fatigue from the birth. She lies against a large, round bed that encompasses her body and appears almost like a mandorla of sorts. This bed/mandorla combination indicates both her humanity and her divinity. The bed shows that she needs rest, thus emphasizing her human labours, while also acting as a large bodily halo that shows her divinity. This is the case in examples both from the West (such as the sixth-century ivory from the throne of Maximian) and in Palestinian examples dated to the seventh century. But a distinction between these configurations appears to have developed. The Nativity in the sixth-century ivory alludes faintly to a setting in a landscape, possibly against a hill of sorts. But the images from Palestine show clearly that she is lying in the mouth of a cave. It is this detail that becomes essential in the East. There are a few instances of Western medieval artists using the cave motif; however, it was standard in the East, and in the thirteenth century it was recognizable as an Eastern image.

130  Chapter 4 The other scenes in this lower zone—the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple— do not have distinctively Eastern characteristics. But the fact that the Koimesis interrupts the narrative flow of the otherwise chronological series of stories is perhaps indicative of a different style, one in which theological relevance takes precedence. In the case of Eastern icons, narrative does not dominate. Representations of the feast days generally follow the liturgical calendar, showing deference to the institution of the Church and the progression of the liturgical year, rather than a strict chronological timeline. It would seem that this is an example of a post-iconoclastic Eastern interest in creating an intellectualized or institutionalized structure to the reading of the art. Although the Koimesis and the Nativity were established in a particular form in the East, it is impossible to say with certainty the degree to which a Roman viewer would have seen the images as expressing difference. These iconographies were fully compatible with the complete program. But the fact that these scenes were less common in Rome or did not appear as frequently in Rome suggests that the presence of the Dormition and the Koimesis might have signalled something of a different order. The fact that these scenes are framed and distinct from the main apse suggests a distancing as well, perhaps a suggestion that these episodes are meant to complement but not compete with the main image. As in Eastern sites like Hosios Loukas (twelfth century) or the frescoed Sopoćani (thirteenth century), each scene is given its own space, its own discrete setting. Those walls are a composite of separate, framed episodes. The central apse mosaic at S. Maria Maggiore has no such framing devices. Thus the S. Maria Maggiore apse blends two different artistic modes— Western and Eastern, mingled and framed—to create a new combination for the late thirteenth century. The Koimesis and the Dormition were also included in the zone that was added to the mosaic at S. Maria in Trastevere. As Torriti was finishing his mosaics at S. Maria Maggiore (ca. 1296), another well-known Roman artist, Pietro Cavallini,

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Figure 8. Jacopo Torriti, “Koimesis,” S. Maria Maggiore, Rome. 1290–1325, mosaic. Photo: © Paul Rushton / Alamy Stock Photo.

132  Chapter 4 started a series of images to complement the mosaic program at S. Maria in Trastevere. The additions by Cavallini to the church in Trastevere are related to the motivations of the pope at the time, Boniface VIII (r.  1294–1303). Because S.  Maria Maggiore was under the auspices of the pope’s greatest rivals, the Colonna cardinals, Boniface turned to Trastevere as his major Marian church. The elaboration of the mosaic was important because of the upcoming Holy Year, which was Boniface’s innovation. The Holy Year was meant to be and was a most efficacious way of bringing pilgrims, capital, and esteem to the holy city. Although not on the official pilgrimage route, Trastevere was a natural stopping point for pilgrims moving between St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s, and Boniface meant to take advantage of this to show his capacities for patronage. Having a Marian church with which to associate his name was essential to Boniface’s plans for the Jubilee. Cavallini, like Torriti, introduced the Koimesis and the Nativity in a way that pointed to an Eastern origin. Just as Torriti did at S. Maria Maggiore, at S. Maria in Trastevere Cavallini took advantage of the natural breaks or frames created by arched windows. At S. Maria Maggiore the windows are not set at equal intervals—there are two on the left side of the apse and two on the right. This allowed Torriti to focus attention on the Koimesis by placing it in the largest area and in the centre, just beneath the Coronation. At S. Maria in Trastevere the windows were placed with equal spacing, so each scene was the same size and given the same weight. Cavallini used these discrete spaces for the episodes in Christ’s life with a chronological flow. Thus, instead of highlighting the Koimesis as Torriti did, Cavallini’s Koimesis is at the end of the cycle, following the chronological flow of Mary’s life. Although Cavallini did not centre the Koimesis, this does not mean that he was less interested in indicating an Eastern quality in his mosaics. The Koimesis is balanced by the Birth of the Virgin, where St. Anne reclines on a bed, the base of which mirrors the arcaded structure at the base of Mary’s throne in the apse above. Ladies in waiting attend to the new mother, while the baby Mary receives her first bath. The

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scene is set in an interior space with pink walls and hanging curtains. This is the configuration that was more characteristic in the West of scenes showing the birth of Christ. But the Nativity, which appears after the Annunciation scene, takes place in the cave, as at S.  Maria Maggiore. The decision to place both types essentially side by side would have indicated the differences, that there were two different configurations, two ways of telling the similar stories, and, implicitly, two different cultures. Cavallini’s additions, in a sense, would have rewritten the mosaic by Innocent II. Over the two centuries, the understanding of the East as a place with a different culture or the definition of what might be considered Eastern had shifted. What might have seemed fully in keeping with Roman traditions in the twelfth century would have struck the fourteenth-century viewer differently. This would especially have been the case when the later viewer was being given an additional, reinforced connection to the East through the added iconographies. Without those specific additions, the twelfth-century apse has few identifiers that point to a differentiated tradition. The twelfth-century mosaic relies on fully recognizable Roman features—a gold background, the canopy with the hand of God, the evangelists, the defiling lambs—which would have established the mosaic as being in keeping with the established traditions. But Cavallini’s addition of the Koimesis and the less familiar version of the Nativity would have introduced a new gloss to the mosaic, a new lens or perspective. Those scenes highlighted certain features of the mosaic that, in this new light, might have seemed less familiar. A gold background, hanging pearls—details that were once part of a common, shared heritage seem now to have become associated with a less familiar tradition, of something somehow different, antiquated, or Eastern. Thus it seems that these later mosaics were intentionally using an Eastern style—compositional structures and iconographies that were more common in the East. As with the icons that were given provenances that put their place of production in the East and during the time of St. Luke, the

134  Chapter 4 thirteenth-century mosaics of Rome were borrowing or quoting the East so as to heighten the sense of the authority and timelessness of these imageries. One barometer of the changing relationship between the East and West can be seen in the details of the iconography of the Maria Regina, which shows the Madonna enthroned with the Christ Child on her lap and wearing a crown embellished with hanging pearls. This iconography was prominent in Rome during the eighth and ninth centuries.4 The Maria Regina iconography used the imperial regalia, most notably hanging pearls on a crown, to present Mary as the Queen of Heaven. The image is an example of an iconography that does not need to be seen as either Eastern or Western, but as drawing from the full range of the shared pan-Mediterranean culture. The pearls are significant and constitutive features of the iconography. But as the crown changes and the pearls disappear or are used to distinguish a figure other than the Virgin, the tie to the East and imperial regalia is lost. The S. Maria in Trastevere mosaic borrows the pearls from the Maria Regina iconography. In the mosaic, the Madonna is not an exact example of the Maria Regina type because the Christ Child is not sitting on her lap. However, the pearls draw on the shared and historical cultural association with the East. Significantly, the crown at S.  Maria in Trastevere does not merely contain jewels and pearls. The crown also has a more Western or French style, with radiating spokes, three of which terminate in tri-lobed, lily-like forms that are very much like the French fleur-de-lys. These symbolic flowers function perfectly well with the pearls. They co-exist in a way that reads not as “Byzantium and Rome” but as “Rome and France.” As the crowns change, as they lose their pearls completely and start sharing features found in Western imperial 4  The Maria Regina appears in a number of medieval churches, such as the lower church of S. Clemente (eighth century), S. Susanna (eighth century), and Santa Maria Antiqua (sixth and eighth centuries).

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regalia, another tie to the shared culture with the East is severed. This is more than a matter of style. It is a matter of cultural change and a measure of the shifting in the relationship between East and West. By the late thirteenth-century mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore, pearls do not appear on the Madonna’s crown. Rome was establishing a greater relationship with the West and no longer engaging with the East to the same degree that it had before the ninth century. As Rome looked to the West in all manner of papal matters, its artistic inspirations were generated from this new direction. What was once part of a shared tradition in the Mediterranean, such as the use of pearls in crowns, was no longer contemporary or relevant. The crown that represented authority was being worn by French kings, not by the emperors and empresses of the past empire. The shift in focus away from the East culturally and geographically left iconographies like Madonnas in pearls to a different time and a distant tradition. Ironically, in the East the Madonna does not appear in post-iconoclastic images with pearls. Only empresses wear the hanging pearls, and even those examples are infrequent. Nevertheless, the style seems to have become associated with the Eastern tradition, and in fact that is at the core of the scholarly debate about where the Maria Regina iconography comes from and who can claim ownership, the East or the West. This change can also be seen by comparing the Madonna della Clemenza icon in S. Maria in Trastevere with a now-lost fresco from the St.  Nicholas Chapel (1130–1138) in the Lateran Palace complex. The fresco in the chapel was recorded in the seventeenth century by the artists Antonio Eclissi and Gelasio Caetani before it was destroyed in the eighteenth century. In both the icon and the lost fresco, the enthroned Madonna holds the Christ Child on her lap, providing him extra support with her left hand, while her right is raised to hold some sort of standard. It is difficult to decipher what she is holding in the icon, but in the later mural she held a crossed staff. Two angels lean outwards from either side of the throne in both images. John VII kneels at the base of the throne in the icon, while two popes appear kneeling in the fresco—Pope

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Figure 9. Ecclesia from the apse mosaic of Old St. Peter’s, Rome. 1198–1216, mosaic. Photo: © Adam Eastland Art + Architecture / Alamy Stock Photo.

Calixtus II (r. 1119–1124) and Anacletus II (r. 1130–1138), Innocent II’s great rival and the patron of the chapel. But there is one major and significant shift from the icon to the fresco. The pearls that frame the face of the Madonna in the earlier icon were removed from the chapel fresco. In the chapel the Madonna wore a crown with five radiating

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forms, in keeping with the more French style. The hanging pearls had actually been changed into wavy locks of hair. In fact, the queenly Madonna of the twelfth-century mosaic at S. Maria Nova also eschews pearls for lilies. Five white lilies emerge from the triangular and structural crown. Her hair is braided with strands of white tesserae. But those small cubes do not read as pearls. The last major apsidal program showing a female in a crown with pearls appears to have been in the apsidal mosaic in Old St. Peter’s, which was demolished with the church in 1592. But this figure is neither Eastern, imperial, nor a Virgin Mary. She is Ecclesia Romana, the personification of the Church itself. This mosaic demonstrates how far iconographical ties had evolved from a unified East and West. The apse mosaic in Old St. Peter’s had been reconstructed during the pontificate of Innocent  III (r.  1198–1216). Although the general composition of the conch was retained—that of Christ enthroned in the centre of the apse flanked by Peter and Paul—the lower register was changed to incorporate a central group which included Innocent himself and the female personification of Ecclesia. The pope and the personification flanked an image of the Agnus Dei who stood, according to the custom, on a short mountain top. Unlike previous instances, however, the lamb exuded blood from his chest into a chalice. Behind the lamb was a decorated cross which sat on a large throne. This triptych—pope, lamb, church—referenced the authority of Christ and the Church. Whereas in the mosaic at S.  Maria in Trastevere the Madonna was both mother and Church, at Old St. Peter’s the female figure was most closely linked with Ecclesia. A relationship with the Madonna is implicit. Just beneath the female figure is the word mater. However, the passage is speaking about St. Peter’s, “the mother of all churches,” and the title next to her body says ecclesia romana. The figure represents Rome and its community. Watercolours of the lost mosaic show that she originally held a banner with a key, representing the authority of St. Peter, given to him by Christ, to have control over the gates of Heaven.

138  Chapter 4 A few segments of the actual mosaic were preserved, including the heads of Pope Innocent III and Ecclesia Romana, who wears a crown decorated with pearls. Pearls cover the body of the crown and two long strands terminating in single pearls hang from either side. The crown is striking because it is shaped like the façade of a church. It is triangular and composed of three segments, the central area looking much like a doorway. The three rounded forms at the top of the crown suggest both the radiant spokes of a crown and also the type of finial or crenellation that one might find on a church building. White, round pearl-like shapes that outline the crown suggest the appearance of columns, another architectural allusion. At a distance these kinds of details may not have been fully legible. But they do introduce a specificity that reinforces that the figure of the Ecclesia Romana embodies the Church. Ecclesia Romana’s crown also seems to allude to the two familiar structures at either end of the lower zone of the apse, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, from which the lambs emerge and process towards the centre. The two hanging pearls on her crown are reminiscent of the hanging objects—jewels, crosses, pearls—that appear in the entryways of many of the depictions of these two cities of the Holy Land, as at, for example, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Prassede, and S. Marco. It is difficult to see precisely what was hanging in the doorways of the holy cities in Old St. Peter’s, although there appears to be an object in the entry of the city on the left. The structures of Bethlehem and Jerusalem in the Old St. Peter’s mosaic are like many other iterations in the sense that they point to the holy cities that are eternally present and significant. But the lambs are walking from those structures towards a set of new structures, towards the Agnus Dei, whose mountaintop is placed in front of a tabernacle-like space composed of a throne occupied by a jewelled cross and framed by a hanging curtain. This central, focal point is protected by the Ecclesia Romana, representing the Church, a new foundational city. Perhaps Innocent’s mosaic is asserting that Ecclesia Romana is the new iteration of those past citadels, that this Church,

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the Church of Rome, embodied by and in St. Peter’s, assumes the authority once represented by other holy cities. Is the Romana of the title Ecclesia Romana referring specifically to Rome the city or to the empire, to what was Constantine or Justinian’s Rome? Or is Romana something else altogether? Is this an example of further distancing from the East or a reassertion of the unified Church? Because of Innocent III’s political role throughout the known world—intervening in the election of the next king of Germany, excommunicating King John of England, witnessing the fall of Constantinople in the failed Fourth Crusade, and then appealing for yet another crusade—it is most likely that this mosaic was an assertion of the pope’s spiritual authority over the whole Christian community. It seems as though Romana, in this instance, is no longer about the broader Roman Empire of the Constantinian dream or about the Holy Roman Empire. It seems to refer to this special city of Rome, a city that has a sanctified tradition and past. This mosaic was focusing on the power of the pope and the way that the power of the whole Church was manifested through him. The pope is representing the papacy itself, which is now a politicized entity that must protect itself or justify itself in the shifting landscape of power and authority—at a time when the West is making claims that threaten the independence and the uncontested authority of the papacy, authority distributed through the Hand of God, through Christ, to his representative on earth, Peter. Even as a sense of difference between East and West was emerging and establishing itself, Roman traditions, the visual language of Roman icons and the power of the papacy, were constantly being shaped and asserted. Western stylistic choices start to appear more frequently, but all in the spirit of affirming the authority of the papacy. The most predominant and consistent visual evidence stresses the traditions and sacrosanct holdings within the city. These images unfailingly emphasize the power of the whole Christian community as embodied in Rome and the Church. The primacy of the papacy was at the core of the Donation of Constantine, a document that started to circulate in

140  Chapter 4 the ninth century, around the time that Iconoclasm was being resolved. The document, purported to have been written in the fourth century, asserted that the emperor Constantine had given all of the authority in the western part of the Roman Empire to Pope Sylvester. The purpose of this antedated document was to establish that the pope had full authority and that this would hold true in any future interactions with the imperial powers of the East. Thus the successors of Constantine would be beholden to the successors of Sylvester. The fresco cycle in the chapel of St. Sylvester at the basilica of Santi Quattro Coronati (thirteenth century) champions the significance of the Donation of Constantine. These painted walls show episodes from the life of the emperor Constantine and his relationship to St. Sylvester, who was pope from 314 until 335. In addition to the Donation text, the Golden Legend (composed around 1260) was an important source for the painted anecdotes. Just above the entry door is a framed scene of the sick emperor, who lies on his bed in a feverish dream. In this dream Peter and Paul appear and advise the emperor to ask Sylvester for help with his leprosy rather than bathe in the blood of three thousand children as his advisors have recommended. Constantine, dressed in a splendid robe covered with roundels surrounded by pearls, circular patterns that mirror his leprotic lesions, takes the advice of the two apostles. He travels to Rome to meet with the pope. In the fresco this journey is shown to be long and arduous. The travels are shown as two separate episodes. The doubling of this part of the story indicates the length of the journey. The two scenes also bridge the corner of the chapel wall, further emphasizing that Constantine is travelling long distances and moving from one world to another. Once Constantine arrives, the pope shows him an icon of the same two apostles. The pope bends slightly forward towards the emperor, backed by two tonsured men, one of whom holds his hands in a gesture just like that of the S. Sisto icon. Constantine is also accompanied by two men who gesture towards the icon. The dress of the emperor’s men shows that they are unlike the men of Rome. They wear cloaks held together by fibulae and tunics that do not go below

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their knees. The figure in the front, whose entire body is visible, appears to wear tight leggings that are wrapped around his legs, and both wear soft conical hats known as Phrygian caps. The Phrygian cap was associated with a generalized Near Eastern culture. For example, Phrygian hats, short tunics, and tight leggings were characteristic features in representations of the three Magi, so as to indicate that the men were from an unspecified Eastern realm and that they had mysterious and magical properties of divination. The thirteenth-century fresco cycle shows the cultural division between the East and the West. The two cultures were now beyond suggestions or hints of difference. There was no longer a sense of a Justinianic unification of East and West. Even Constantine, the originator of a unified Roman Christendom, is, in these frescoes, reduced in stature—he is surrounded by bad advisors, he cannot interpret his own dream, he is dependent on the help of the pope. The pope, incidentally, can only explain Constantine’s dream to him through a work of art, through an icon. As throughout the medieval period, art is a point of contact and communication. The icon may be the only point of a common understanding. The fresco heightens the difference between the two cultures by showing that the two are not equals, that the East is at a great geographical distance, and that there is something curious, mysterious, and different in the figures that come from the East. A large triptych at the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme is an example of a heightened sense that Eastern Christianity had become culturally different. Once opened, the centre of the large leather casing shows a mosaic icon of the Man of Sorrows made of tiny tesserae. This iconographical type shows Christ from the waist up with the cross behind him. His arms are crossed in front of his body, exposing the holes in his hands, and his head sags on his right shoulder. Like the Koimesis and the cave-based Nativity, the Man of Sorrows was an iconography that was prominent in the East and would have been seen as such. The technique also suggested an Eastern-ness. The miniature mosaic technique

142  Chapter 4 had been newly revived, having been taken from the ancient Greek and Roman tradition. Turning to the perceptibly antiquated technique was perhaps a way for Eastern artists to intentionally add a sense of allure and mystery to the holy icons so valued by the Western audience. Surrounding the icon and making up the wings of the triptych are innumerable relics, each of which resides in its own individuated niche and is sealed in by a glass cover. Each relic is wrapped in cloth and labelled with the name of a saint. The labels are difficult to read and, when legible, are not of well-known or recognizable saints. The fact that these relics themselves are hidden in their wrappings, unidentifiable and unknowable, also adds to the general sense of mystery. The reliquary was brought to Rome by Raimondello Orsini de Balzo, who carried the icon from Sinai, which he visited on a pilgrimage in 1380. The mosaic received its large frame later in the fourteenth century. On the back of the icon is a painted image of St.  Catherine of Alexandria standing against a gold ground. This companion icon, which was completed around the same time as the mosaic, asserted that the piece had saintly qualities and an Eastern provenance. The mosaic is most likely from the late thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries. But it is difficult to say precisely how the fourteenth-century Roman viewers understood the dating of the object. The top of the large encasement has the name of Pope Gregory (r. 590–604) in gold lettering. According to tradition, the pope saw an image of Christ in this particular configuration while performing Mass. Gregory came to be linked with the Man of Sorrows image. In fact, he was understood to have created or instigated this very icon. Perhaps the Romans thought it was from the time of Gregory. Perhaps they knew it as a contemporary work of art. Perhaps they believed both could be and were true. Either way, the actual dating of the object was not as significant as the traditions with which it was associated, many of which were considered timeless—the suffering of Christ, a venerable pope, and his capacity to have a vision of Christ, a vision that could be permanently recorded in an image.

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By the fourteenth century, icons had become closely associated with the East as a culture that was now less familiar and identifiably different. Iconographies were new and unknown, not from a shared visual repository. Sharing was more problematic to do because the East was physically more separated. Travel to the Holy Land was more difficult because much of that land was under the control of Muslim forces. Thus when the Man of Sorrows icon came to Rome, it brought with it an added sense of holiness because it came from the Holy Land itself. It is significant that the icon found its home in a church dedicated to Jerusalem and which housed relics, including soil from the Holy Land, that were known to have been brought to Rome by Constantine’s mother Helena. Even though by the measure of pearls and crowns Rome was disengaging from the East, apparently the East was becoming an explicit source for new and possibly exoticized images. With the Torriti and Cavallini mosaics, and by the time of the S.  Gerusalemme icon, we finally have what we might call a Byzantine Rome. As we have seen, it is not necessary to deploy a romanticized narrative of people from the East finding refuge from Iconoclasm to explain the presence of Eastern images in a period when all parts of Christendom were drawing from a large economy of images throughout the Mediterranean. Even when there are instances of differences, such as the head-covering that St. Cyril wears in S. Clemente, the overriding message is one of Christian cohesiveness—the Slavic saint is incorporated into an image of resurrection, just as he became a member of the Roman community. Seeking a Byzantine presence in Rome presumes that the East and West were already separate entities, that a cultural split had already taken place. This assumption reduces the medieval art in Rome to an imaginary cultural battle and takes away from the vitality of Rome, from the ways in which artists were creatively drawing inspiration from the pan-Mediterranean and blending those contemporary inspirations with well-known forms and figures, even from as far back as antiquity—putti, ducks, vine scrolls, and pearls.

144  Chapter 4 Eventually the East and the West do show cultural distinctions—styles and iconographies do become identifiably distinct, and Byzantine is just as good a word as any to identify true cultural distinctions. The seeds of separation were apparent at the time of the conclusion of Iconoclasm. The cultures were no longer in synch in the same way that they had been before, and that was increasingly the case. The East focused inwards, while the Rome looked toward the more prosperous Frankish courts, which became a new source of imagery and artistry. By the eleventh century, imagery coming from the East was materially different from the West, and intentionally so. In this period the word Byzantine is finally useful because it relates to this campaign to establish an aesthetic that differentiates itself. In the eleventh century something that was Eastern could be quoted or appropriated in a way that connoted a different place or a different culture. The icon, for instance, became inherently tied to the traditions of the East because it was there that the icon as such, as a special kind of image, took on a particular role and status. It was in the East that the icon was documented, implemented, and disseminated. Icons were relevant in Rome, but their significance was tied to the East; more and more they pointed to a different culture and a different set of traditions. This trajectory of appreciating icons differently, which started in motion after Iconoclasm and picked up speed in the eleventh century, is fully evident in the early seventeenth-century settings created for the medieval icons in Rome. As part of the response during the Counter-Reformation to Protestant critiques of holy icons, papal patronage encouraged and supported large displays that would act as frames for the icons. In 1606 Peter Paul Rubens was brought to Rome by the Oratorian fathers of S. Maria Vallicella for the creation of a high altar that would incorporate a miraculous image of the Madonna and Child. Churches throughout Rome, such as S. Maria del Popolo, S. Pietro in Vincoli, and S. Maria della Vittoria, house holy images within elaborate Baroque settings. The Salus Populi Romani icon at S. Maria Maggiore was moved from its placement above the door of the bap-

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tistery to the Pauline Chapel, where it was placed above the chapel’s altar in the midst of a grand design composed of seven large gilt angels set against a background of lapis lazuli (1611–1615). Red jasper columns, green Sicilian marble, and precious stones complete the scene. This opulence, in addition to overwhelming the icon to some degree, enhanced the status of the image, inspiring the viewer to comprehend its great significance and value. Implicit in this ornate presentation is the sense that this object, this special work of art, needed the special framing. By the seventeenth century the viewer might not have been as familiar with the significance of the image. The icon itself connoted a sense of difference, a sense of Eastern-ness. This association was encouraged by the assertions that St. Luke, who lived and worked predominantly in Syria and Thebes, had painted the icon of the Salus Populi Romani. The aesthetic differences between icon and frame heightened the cultural differences. The calm represented in the face of the Madonna and Child, the muted and sombre tones of the paint in their clothes, and the simplicity of the composition contrast greatly with the eruption of forms, the large, sculptural bodies, and the explosively variegated marbles and precious stones. The icon and frame speak completely different visual languages, clear evidence of an artistic and cultural divergence. Whereas the traditions of the West and the East had been intertwined and exchangeable throughout much of the medieval period, by the seventeenth century the distancing that had started in the eleventh was in full form. The prominent placement and the luxury of these grand encasements showed a great respect for the role of the icon and its Eastern heritage and associations. But the fact that the icon was set apart from the rest of the space through such assertively different shapes, forms, and styles, highlights the large remove that had been established between Rome and Byzantium.

Epilogue

Old St. Peter’s as Museum and Microcosm

The word “Byzantine” fits uncomfortably within the broad sweep of artistic commissions in Rome between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries. Ultimately the word tells us more about its modern creators and users than it says about medieval viewers. We may see Byzantine features in the art of medieval Rome, but only because we are familiar with the art that was created later, because we know about the Byzantine aesthetic that emerged and defined the later culture. Some of that later aesthetic does appear as an option in the imagery of earlier moments. But those visual documents— the mosaics and frescoes of the time—are not pointing away from Rome towards another culture. Rather they are pointing towards a common Christian civilization. The mosaics and frescoes turn to imagery whose genetics are to be found in works of ancient art and catacombs. These features reappear all through the medieval period as an assertion of the grand, unified Rome—the Rome that Constantine split without splitting. It is appropriate to approach the art of the sixth and seventh centuries with the mindset that artistic ideas were being created and shared throughout this unified Roman empire. Cultural friction was inevitable during Iconoclasm. The effects appeared in the aftermath, most notably in the establishment of rules and theories about the viewing of art, and in the creation of specific traditions such the canonization of certain iconographies, the insertion of inscriptions, and the increase in the production and presence of icons. It is almost

148  Epilogue as though the East crafted a new culture, one that would be impervious to the idea of hindering image production, ensuring that there would be no third wave of Iconoclasm. Rome, however, was always a place of creativity and innovation. Peoples of many different traditions found a home in Rome. There is no sense that there was a fear or wariness of groups from afar. Rather, it seems that different Christian communities had full access to spaces in which to articulate or visualize the tenets of Christ and the Church. Two broad changes determined the shape of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. Eastern cultures shifted inwards, focusing on canonizing their ways of viewing; and the papacy was becoming more politicized. Difficulties with marauding groups of people (the Goths) that were threatening the lands of the Church forced the popes to look for support from the new Frankish powers of the Western regions. Increasingly the popes were placed in a position where they were asserting themselves as having an untouchable power even while they were asking for that power to be given protection. By the time of the paintings of the Quattro Coronati, Constantine’s story has changed. In the fourth century, by tradition, Constantine’s vision hovered in the sky, as a direct missive from God, and his dream was about Rome being more powerful. By the thirteenth century, Constantine’s dream is fever-induced and mystifying, and he travels back to Rome to make sense of things through the tutelage of the Church. Rather than a unified Christian Roman empire, the East and the West are seen as separate entities which necessitate travel, explanation, and special dispensations. Cultures are different—bathing in the blood of babies versus baptism—and the pope is the hero. Nowhere in this configuration is Constantine the sponsor of Christianity. He is not seen as being the builder of the great basilicas that shaped Rome. He is aligned with a different world, a different tradition, a place that could be easily deemed Byzantine because of its association with different ways of doing things. But the historical Constantine did shape the city of Rome through his building projects. And it is significant that, despite shifting trends, Constantine’s great church, Old St.  Peter’s,

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was a major through-line. S.  Maria Antiqua provides a time capsule of artistic and papal energies from the sixth to the ninth centuries, but Old St. Peter’s was a witness to the entire medieval period, from the fourth to the sixteenth. Each pope made his mark on this church in some capacity, if not through specific donations and gifts, then through visits or masses. Even during the years that the papacy resided at the Lateran, which it did until 1303, the place built in honour of Peter’s martyrium was always a significant landmark, and understood as a formal expression of the papacy. The walls of Old St. Peter’s thus acted like a museum for the Roman populace, a museum dedicated to the history of the papacy. Each papal addition was like a new acquisition, and acted as an articulation of that pope and as a reflection of that period. The walls of Old St. Peter’s act as a metaphor for the city in many ways. No matter how each pope might seek to differentiate himself, the ultimate purpose was to show respect to St.  Peter, the Constantinian church, the community of Christians, and the position of the papacy. Whereas churches within the city of Rome allowed popes to make particular assertions, to put themselves and their preferences on display in a way that would define the entirety of the individual church, at Old St.  Peter’s additions and contributions were cumulative and complementary. These papal gifts and embellishments at Old St. Peter’s can be read as a microcosm of shifting conceptualizations of the East. Three historical touchpoints mark the history of Rome’s relationship with the East and, increasingly, the Western world powers. The first touchpoint is the Old St. Peter’s building itself— its architectural form, its grand size, and its placement above a tomb and outside of the city walls. As in the case of the monuments like S.  Costanza, Old St.  Peter’s was at first a clear continuation of visual language from antiquity. At S. Costanza, that idiom was evident in its use of a known funerary shape, the mausoleum, and imagery appropriate to antiquity that could be rewritten to have Christian meanings. Constantine adopted the large, basilical shape, thereby expressing the power of this newly endorsed faith, and the

150  Epilogue strength and size of its community. The shape also asserted the fact that this religion was state-sanctioned, because basilicas or large spaces like this one had been heretofore used in the name of the current emperor—both in the forms of the large baths and of law courts like the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine. Thus, at S. Costanza and Old St. Peter’s the architecture was conservative or familiar. The new and bigger message that both buildings promoted was the validity and significance of Christianity. One of the significant features of these buildings is that they were Rome-specific, site-specific. They were both focused on and located above saintly bodies that were from Rome or martyred in Rome and physically buried near or under the building. Pagan deities were not physically, bodily present. In a sense, the martyrium and the associated representations of the saint or embellishments of that particular location relate to the associative properties held in antiquity, whereby a statue was a representative of the pagan deity. But the Christian saint was also physically present, was more directly in the space of the visitor. Visiting the saint’s tomb and interacting with his monument could bring about miracles. These practices and these understandings of the significance of the body of the saint were brought by Constantine to the East, where he built a similarly large range of churches dedicated to the bodies of holy men and women.1 It might not be possible to know all of Constantine’s motives for creating his city in the East. But there is no evidence that there was any sense of leaving Rome behind. Rather, he was growing the family firm, expanding the newly 1  Constantine built a number of churches in the eastern regions, such as the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the basilica of the Saviour in Nicomedia. In Constantinople, Constantine built churches dedicated to St. Acacius, St. Mocius, St. Menas, and St. Agathonicus. He founded the church of the Holy Apostles. He also contributed to churches dedicated to divine qualities, enlarging Hagia Eirene and contributing to the first Hagia Sophia building. See Gregory T. Armstrong, “Constantine’s Churches,” Gesta 6 (1967): 1–9, at 2–3.

Old St. Peter’s as Museum and Microcosm  151

confirmed Christian world in a place that would allow greater access to the Mediterranean, thereby permitting him to spread his vision with greater efficacy. These cities were two parts of the same Rome, like the representations of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in so many of the medieval mosaics— grand and basically interchangeable. In the mosaics, Christ’s followers, the small white lambs, also interchangeable, move from one city to the next, not unlike the natural exchange of East and West during the early period, without any implication of primacy. In fact, iconography in the time of Constantine appears to have been the same in both the Western and the Eastern traditions. A second touchpoint showing a shared tradition appears in the artistic donations of the eighth and ninth centuries, despite the fact that this is the period of what some scholars have called the “Byzantine conquest.” John  VII’s Oratory (705–707) appeared in the northern side-aisle situated against the (eastern) entry wall. These mosaics are known only from paintings made in the seventeenth century before demolition. In these paintings, the large mosaic wall includes a standing Madonna with the very same pearls as worn by the Madonna della Clemenza at S.  Maria in Trastevere. Instead of kneeling at her feet, as in the icon, John stands on her right, holding a small model of a building, meant to represent the oratory as a small edifice. Surrounding her is a series of biblical and extra-biblical scenes, including the Anastasis, which concludes the episodes in the lower right corner. The Anastasis is positioned to the right of a Crucifixion scene; thus the story of rebirth is the denouement. In fact, each corner of the mosaicked wall focuses on birth and rebirth. In the upper left-hand corner the large angel announces the Virgin birth, extending its right arm just as Christ does in the Anastasis scene. In the lower left, set in the distance, is the moment of Christ raising Lazarus, another rebirth, where Christ again points with an extended right arm. The upperright hand corner shows two Magi who witness a major birth and themselves experience a kind of rebirth or awakening in that they know of the new king and will not return to the old

152  Epilogue one, Herod, despite his orders to do so. In other words, the Anastasis was not unusual. It was very much integrated into the entire complex thematically and artistically. The addition of an Anastasis by Pope Formosus (891–896) to the already existing nave cycle is another example of the fact that the Anastasis was not unknown or uncommon. Exactly why Formosus added the Anastasis and a large image of the Crucifixion scene, which was four times the size of the other frames, is unclear. But the fact that he added these scenes into a preexisting monument suggests that the scene fitted well with the original cycle of images; it is very unlikely that he added it there to shock the viewers. In fact, they may not have been changes at all, but a restoration of previous images with the same scenes. These contributions to Old St. Peter’s reinforce the sense that there was no emphatic distinction between East and West, that the cultures were still considerably synchronous or culturally compatible. Finally, the third touchpoint is the apse mosaic reconfigured by Innocent III, one of the final artistic additions to Old St.  Peter’s before the church was demolished. It indicates a papacy that has been thrust into a position that is political and professional. Instead of the simple gold halo worn by John  VII or Paschal, Innocent wears the papal tiara, as does Gregory IX (r. 1227–1241), in the portrait that was originally on the façade of the basilica. Innocent drops the halo that his predecessors had worn and adopts the papal tiara. The papal tiara affirms his sanctity and his authority as the pope. Although first documented in the eighth century, the tiara was an essential part of the papal coronation by the twelfth century. It was also integrated into the papal coat of arms, heraldry which started being used by the papacy in the twelfth century. Previously, popes used the coat of arms that they had inherited from their family. But now the popes were using imagery and dress to establish the language that differentiated the status of the papacy. This move indicates that the popes were speaking the language of the Western courts, of the crests that came to represent the ruling powers in the West.

Old St. Peter’s as Museum and Microcosm  153

Would this lost museum, this lost monument to the many popes of the first thousand years of Christianity, have seemed Eastern to its visitors? Perhaps at certain points in time. Perhaps visitors during the papacy of Innocent III would have thought John  VII’s mosaic to seem old-fashioned or even Eastern or that Formosus’ additions were peculiar. As in modern day museums, there were probably aspects of the spaces that were not equally familiar or appreciated. But the ultimate result would have been a great sense of pride in the institution and its rich history. The difficulty of categorizing the mosaics of Rome becomes most evident when they are considered in the context of the traditional art-historical textbook. Does S. Maria Antiqua truly belong in a chapter about Byzantium? Is S. Clemente actually Romanesque? Would Santa Maria in Trastevere be Gothic? None of these terms really apply or add much to the discussion of these churches. These churches are best described as being Roman in the sense of the shared Eastern and Western Christendom. Even when they point to other cultures or styles or techniques, as they do, it is rarely as a means of establishing difference from other traditions or trying to assert an exotic, orientalist look. The point of these churches was, fundamentally, to bring congregants together with complete confidence in the sanctity of the city and of the pope and of the church. Some traditions did become associated with the East. But this is principally the result of the East emphasizing certain kinds of iconographies or practices, such as icon veneration and production. The same traditions were part of Rome as well, but became progressively more Eastern-seeming because they were so strong in the East. As artists of the East focused inwards, Romans were expanding their vision towards a larger Western sphere embracing broader and more diverse iconographies. What appears to be pointing to other cultures—an Eastern crown, a Western scene—is better understood as the artistry of Rome embracing ideas and images as a means of showing the pope’s expansive and extensive authority. Artistic and cultural breaks do happen. The demolition of Old St. Peter’s was itself a signpost in a period of a clear

154  Epilogue break with past traditions. The Renaissance artists and theorists famously differentiated themselves from the preceding period. The building of the new St.  Peter’s was evidence of this break. Scenes like the Anastasis and the Transfiguration and the decorative programs of grand golden mosaics in apsidal spaces do not reemerge in the West once the Quattrocento is in full effect. The adoption of these features in the Eastern culture, and the fact that they are less prevalent in the West at this later date, have contributed to the narrative that there had always been a conflict, or that Eastern and Western cultures had had to fight over iconographies, styles, and techniques. But this assumes that the two were distinct and even antagonistic towards each other. It does not assume the more natural possibility, that the Mediterranean was a space of exchange and creativity, that ideas and images were being developed, used, tried, and exchanged—the very same waves of existence that are true in all periods of art history. So when we visit Rome and we “see” bits of Byzantium, it is not that we are seeing something that is not there. But it was not there for the medieval viewers in the way it is for us, with our modern expectations and categorizations. We do see elements of the later Eastern sphere in these works of art. But the truth is that those Eastern elements were Western first or Western too. Early medieval art was universal in the sense that Roman and Eastern art were not distinguishable. Even after Iconoclasm, Roman art does not show that it is attempting to establish distance or difference. A distancing was happening, but it was happening predominantly in the East. As the East focused on crystallizing its iconographies and patterns of veneration, Roman art was embracive—borrowing, copying, and quoting from a variety of sources including, increasingly, the West. Inevitably the two cultures did gradually and slowly differentiate. The medieval viewer may not have known that there was a split even while it was happening. The S. Maria in Trastevere apse mosaic used many traditional and familiar features. It would have been a triumph because it was a masterpiece of mosaic craftsmanship and creativity, not

Old St. Peter’s as Museum and Microcosm  155

because it seemed to be more French and less Eastern. But when Cavallini rewrote the mosaics by adding explicitly Eastern iconography, it may have become more obvious that he was contributing something derived from a different culture and tradition. By the time of the S. Croce in Gerusalemme icon or the drawings by Pisanello, the East is something unknown, unfamiliar, and almost mysterious. Pisanello’s sketches show Easterners dressed in ways that are peculiar or, at the least, noteworthy. Eastern artists are associated with works of art that are understood to have travelled long distances and have been produced using techniques and media, like micro mosaics, affiliated with traditions of an unknown and distant past. That exoticism, that deepening association with a historical past, with artistic techniques that are little known, those perceptions and suggestions came to be something that made Eastern art newly different and newly appealing. Icons are given prominence in Roman churches, in ways that acknowledge and even accentuate an allusion to the East. Debates about where art comes from or who “owns” it are a modern phenomenon, one that fed the early scholarship about this material—and one that also inspires those contemporary artists who take images of the past and place them in contemporary settings, reclaiming power by appropriating images of older power structures. The art of medieval Rome knew no ownership. It used a database of visual forms that grew from the earliest imagery of Rome. Our contemporary lens might be over-primed to look for signs of the East or something Byzantine because we know the final trajectory, but medieval Christians in Rome would not have seen their images as Eastern because they did not know there was going to be a separate East. We should not see a separate East in the earlier period just because we know there will be one later. What we should do is look at what is actually in front of us, a remarkable survival of mosaics and frescoes which truly do deserve to be seen on their own terms.

Further Reading

Andaloro, Maria. La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431. Corpus e Atlante: percorsi visive. Milan: Jaca, 2006.

Through computer-generated images, this publication reconstructs major medieval churches that either no longer exist, like Old St. Peter’s, or that are today so changed that their original appearance is difficult to envision. This book integrates watercolours from seventeenth-century artists that recorded medieval paintings before their destruction or removal so as to help the viewer understand the original configuration of the church’s decorative program.

Andaloro, Maria, Giulia Bordi, and Giuseppe Morganti. Santa Maria Antiqua tra Roma e Bisanzio. Milan: Electa, 2016. The catalogue that accompanied the opening of S. Maria Antiqua to the public. Although it does not discuss the instrumental videos and laser shows that enlivened the painted walls, this volume is filled with tremendous photography and captures the excitement of the exhibition. The many scholarly articles provide a profound sense of the history of the church, but the assumption that these spaces were fundamentally “Byzantine” in nature underpins these essays.

Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. A formative study of the ways in which sacred images were venerated not as “art” but as likenesses that could manifest the presence of the divine through practices that evolved through the medieval period. Belting approaches this cultic understanding of the divine image through a discussion of devotional images in Rome, such as the icon now at Santa Francesca Romana.

158  Further Reading Bolgia, Claudia and Rosamond McKitterick, et. al. Rome across Time and Space: Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas, c. 500–1400. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. A collection of essays that address the ways in which Rome was at the centre of cultural transmissions and exchange. The essays consider the ways in which Rome was a source of inspiration artistically, architecturally, and liturgically, although the definition of Roman varied greatly throughout the Christian realm. Most notable is John Osborne’s article, in which he argues for a continued relationship between Rome and Byzantium after the late eighth century.

Brandenburg, Hugo. Ancient Churches of Rome from the Fourth to the Seventh Century. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005.

A survey of the early churches of Rome with a focus on the architectural developments from Constantine through the Carolingian period. Brandenburg’s explanation of S. Costanza and S. Sabina is of particular relevance.

Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, a.d. 200–1000. 3rd ed. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. Brown’s history of the Christian world encompasses a large territory, one that reaches far beyond the borders of Europe. The movement of people and products across huge distances created a constant and complex economy of exchange. Brown charts the slow development of the Christian identity, which was in no way a monolithic structure, in light of these exchanges. Brown concludes with the debates of the iconoclastic period, a moment in which he sees “a parting of the ways between two Christendoms” begin to emerge.

Brubaker, Leslie. Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012. A clear introduction to the history and historiography of Iconoclasm. Brubaker summarizes major issues related to the controversy, while showing the ways in which Byzantine sources created or “invented” a simplistic understanding of Iconoclasm, one that was digested and perpetuated by modern scholars.

Further Reading  159

Brubaker, Leslie and John Haldon. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca.  680–850): A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Focusing on archaeological records and visual resources, these two authors argue that the image controversy was not as definitive of the period as the historians of the day—those who supported image production—asserted in the aftermath.

Deliyannis, Deborah Mauskopf. Ravenna in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. A study of the history and politics of Ravenna, with a special focus on Ravenna’s relationship to Rome, its ties to the East, and the rise of the bishop and archbishop. Most useful are the invaluable descriptions of the major building programs that defined the medieval city.

Elsner, Jaś. Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Elsner addresses the question of why the medieval period witnessed the introduction of stylistic “abstraction” after years of classical naturalism. This discussion of stylistic change introduces philosophies underpinning these artistic choices, while indicating that these shifts cannot be simplistically correlated to changes in religious beliefs.

Evans, Helen C., ed. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557). New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art / New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Evans’s exhibition shows that these years, 1261 to 1557, which were traditionally understood as a period of decline and known pejoratively as Late Byzantine, inspired tremendous artistic accomplishments in the Eastern Empire. The final essays in the volume address the continued relationship between the East and the Latin West, identifying ways in which cultural transmissions were constant despite political and theological breaks.

160  Further Reading ——  and Brandie Ratliff, eds. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th–9th Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. This catalogue focuses on the historical tensions between Christian, Jewish, and Islamic communities while showing how those interactions fostered widespread artistic and cultural exchange.

——  and William D. Wixom, eds. The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, a.d. 843–1261. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997. This scholarly catalogue accompanied an exhibition devoted to the artistic output of the Byzantine sphere during its so-called Second Golden Age. Essays in the volume discuss such issues as the relationship with the Latin West and interactions with Islamic neighbors, while illuminating over three hundred and fifty works of art representative of the period.

Goodson, Caroline. The Rome of Pope Paschal I: Papal Power, Urban Renovation, Church Rebuilding and Relic Translation, 817–824. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

A scholarly interrogation of the building projects by Pope Paschal and how their placement along major processional routes was specifically meant to enforce papal authority. Goodson also addresses Paschal’s emphasis on promoting an enlarged cult of saint veneration. Of great interest is her discussion in chapter four of the S. Zeno chapel.

Herz, Alexandra. “Cardinal Cesare Baronio’s Restoration of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo and S. Cesareo de’Appia.” The Art Bulletin 70, no. 4 (1988): 590–620. A study of the antiquarian efforts of the seventeenth century and how that desire to create a “‘new’ Early Christian” aesthetic affected the decorative program at SS. Nereo ed Achilleo. Of great interest is Herz’s discussion of the now lost apse-conch frescoes of medieval Rome and how the loss of those frescoes inspired the “restoration” supported by Cardinal Baronio.

Further Reading  161

James, Liz. Mosaics in the Medieval World: From Late Antiquity to the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. A thorough and beautifully illustrated survey of medieval mosaics giving special attention to the ways in which they were used as a means of prestige, power, and public piety. James explores the physical act of making mosaics—how they were made, who was making them, and how much they cost. James also discusses the dangers of relying on stylistic analysis and on the widespread assumption of the “Byzantineness” of mosaics.

Jensen, Robin M. and Mark D. Ellison, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018. A broad survey of early Christian art written by many of the major scholars in the field. The first section focuses on specific media such as catacomb paintings, mosaics, glass, gems, and textiles, while the second introduces broader societal phenomena, such as the relevance of rituals, miracles, and the Christianization of the Roman household.

Kessler, Herbert L. and Johanna Zacharias. Rome 1300: On the Path of the Pilgrim. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. The authors reconstruct what a journey through medieval Rome would have been like for a pilgrim during the first Jubilee year of 1300. Following the path of the major pilgrimage route, from S. Giovanni in Laterano to S. Maria Maggiore, the authors introduce the major reliquaries and icons that were visited and that even were taken on pilgrimages themselves.

Kitzinger, Ernst. The Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West: Selected Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976. A collection of essays covering twenty-five years of scholarship, which collectively introduce Kitzinger’s understanding of the East and the West as being divided and different.

162  Further Reading ——  . “Byzantium and the West in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century: Problems of Stylistic Relationships.” Gesta 9, no. 2 (1970): 49–56. An article in which Kitzinger’s distinction between the two cultures is analyzed in distinctly stylistic terms. It is in this article that Kitzinger uses the term “dynamic” for the style that he understood to have influenced certain areas in the West, most notably twelfth-century Sicily.

Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. One of the most famous and formative books on medieval Rome. Krautheimer’s categorizations and assessments are still being grappled with even forty years after the original publication. His language of tension and friction between the cultures of the East and the West, evident in the chapter title “Rome between East and West,” reinforced the long-held paradigm of two divided and distinct cultures.

Maskarinec, Maya. City of Saints: Rebuilding Rome in the Early Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. An approach to understanding Rome in the later sixth and seventh centuries in light of the introduction by patrons and administrators of Eastern saints throughout the cityscape. By focusing on different sectors of the city, most notably the Forum Romanum and S. Maria Antiqua, the author explores the means by which these new saints found favour in Rome.

Maunder, Chris, ed. The Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary. London: Burns and Oates, 2008. A collection of essays about the development of the cult of the Virgin including discussions of the origin of the title Theotokos, the presence of the Madonna in the catacombs, and the feast of the Purification of the Virgin. The final essay by Eileen Rubery discusses the significance of the imagery of the Madonna promoted by Pope John VII.

Further Reading  163

McKitterick, Rosamond. Rome and the Invention of the Papacy: The Liber pontificalis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Rather than seeing these texts as a “straightforward repository” of biographies, McKitterick studies the Liber Pontificalis with a focus on the ways that these collected texts deliberately shaped perceptions of the papacy and Rome within the western sphere of medieval Europe.

Nagel, Alexander and Christopher S.  Wood. Anachronic Renaissance. New York: Zone, 2010. A model for challenging the traditional understanding of works of art in terms of a historical and linear series of unique events. Nagel and Wood introduce a reading of objects whereby the entire meaning of the object is not determined solely through the moment of its creation, by the creator, the patron, or the politics of the moment. This theoretical framework is relevant to understanding the medieval monuments of Rome because the creators are nameless and, although these large projects were ostensibly directed by papal patrons, the full degree of their involvement is unknown.

Nees, Lawrence. Early Medieval Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

In this general introduction to the art of the western European sphere, Nees weaves many of the monuments into his conversations about the development of Christian narrative art, devotional practices, the veneration of sacred images and icons, and relationships between Rome and the Carolingians.

Noble, Thomas F. X. Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Noble’s book addresses the participation of the Carolingians in heated debates about images. Traditionally scholarship has focused solely on Byzantine and papal responses to these debates. Noble’s discussion about the role of the Maria Regina in promoting image production and Pope Hadrian I’s defence of images are a few of the many passages in this book that help explain Rome’s relationship vis-à-vis images to the rest of western Europe.

164  Further Reading Ó Carragáin, Éamonn and Carol Neuman de Vegvar, eds. Roma Felix: Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. A collection of essays that discuss the ways in which Rome was shaped by the practice of the veneration of saints. Of particular note are John Osborne’s essay about re-dating of the frescoes at San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura and Stephen Lucey’s study of the epigraphy at S. Maria Antiqua which, he argues, reveals a bilingual community in the eighth century.

Osborne, John. Rome in the Eighth Century: A History of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Osborne describes Rome in the eighth century as a “Byzantine City,” increasingly separate from the East politically and theologically, but not yet culturally. The cultural unity he posits is an Eastern culture of the “contemporary Eastern Mediterranean.” S.  Maria Antiqua is seen in terms of what he calls Eastern iconographies and traditions. Roman culture is completely subsumed in that of Constantinople.

——  and Amanda Claridge. The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo. Series A, Part II. Early Christian and Medieval Antiquities. Volume 1: Mosaics and Wallpaintings in Roman Churches. London: Harvey Miller, 1996. A collection of the drawings and watercolours that were recorded by the seventeenth-century antiquarians of the Counter- Reformation. Introductory essays explain the importance of these early studies, while the catalogue entries introduce the many churches that were documented. Our debt to these early efforts to catalogue medieval sites is unquantifiable as many of the buildings, paintings, and mosaics in the watercolours no longer exist.

——  , J. Rasmus Brandt, and Giuseppe Marganti, eds. Santa Maria Antiqua al Foro Romano: cento anni dopo. Atti del colloquio internazionale, Roma, 5–6 maggio 2000. Roma: Campisano, 2004. With essays by the major scholars in the field—John Osborne, Leslie Brubaker, Ann van Dijk, Stephen Lucey—this compilation provides a valuable introduction to the history of S. Maria Antiqua. In many ways the exhibition of 2016 (see Andaloro above) could be seen as an expansion of the scholarship first presented in this publication.

Further Reading  165

Ringbom, Åsa, “Dolphins and Mortar Dating—Santa Costanza Reconsidered.” In Songs of Ossian: Festschrift in Honour of Professor Bo Ossian Lindberg, edited by Åsa Ringbom and Renja Suominen-Kokkonen, 22–42. Konsthistoriska Studier 27. Helsinki: Taidehistorian seura, 2003.

A thoughtful introduction to the state of research on S.  Costanza, including a useful description of the watercolours that document the now lost cupola mosaics.

Spain, Suzanne. “‘The Promised Blessing’: The Iconography of the Mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore.” The Art Bulletin 61, no. 4 (1979): 518–40. A consideration of the Marian iconography on the fifth-century triumphal arch of S. Maria Maggiore. Although her argument regarding the identification of the woman sometimes called Mary is not entirely convincing, Spain’s explanation of the many registers of the mosaic is a helpful guide to this complicated series of biblical stories.

Siecienski, A. Edward. The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. A consideration of the debate over the primacy of Peter in relation to the Christian East. Siecienski illuminates the origins of the debate. This book offers insight into conflicts that were of great importance to those with power, but had little relevance to the artistic output, at least during the early medieval period.

Spier, Jeffrey, ed. Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. An exhibition catalogue that studies the emergence of the visual formulation of Christianity. Robin Jensen’s essay (pp. 65–85) about exegesis illuminates the complexity of interpreting seemingly straightforward biblical imagery. The authors examine different significant iconographies and major decorative programs in and within the orbit of Rome.

166  Further Reading Taylor, Rabun, Katherine W. Rinne, and Spiro Kostof. Rome: An Urban History from Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

An analysis of Rome’s infrastructure, with a specific interest in aqueducts, statues, streets, tombs, walls, and buildings. Chapters 16–25 cover the medieval period, including descriptions of how popes and powerful families transformed Rome through their ambitious interventions. Each chapter ends with a substantive bibliography.

Thunø, Erik. The Apse Mosaic in Early Medieval Rome: Time, Network, and Repetition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Focusing on mosaics that follow a particular formula—titular saints, a patron pope, inscriptions about light—Thunø introduces the ways in which repetition is a meaningful part of the artistic process. Although the author, through this methodology, avoids the relevance of variations within the mosaics, his work does provide complete and helpful documentation of some of the major monumental mosaics from the early medieval period.

—— . Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medieval Rome. Rome: Bretschneider, 2002.

The author focuses on three papal reliquaries commissioned by Pope Paschal. Thunø’s argument is that the pope was visualizing his support of image production as a means of rebuking those in the East who supported the policies of Iconoclasm. In the course of the book, Thunø discusses the many iconographies represented on the reliquaries and how they relate to other monuments in Rome, while asserting that the origin of these imageries was in the East.

Treadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

A survey of the historical events of the Byzantine Empire with a focus on major figures and events. The author avoids modern interpretive ideologies like Marxism or Poststructuralism and instead focuses on establishing the chronological events that defined the period. Solid and straightforward, this text helps establish the historical framework for relationships with the Latin West.

Further Reading  167

Webb, Matilda. The Churches and Catacombs of Early Christian Rome: A Comprehensive Guide. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2001. A discussion of the churches in Rome organized as a guidebook through a series of thirteen different itineraries. The maps and ground plans orient the viewer to all of the most significant works of art and give a clear history of these complex spaces. Translations of inscriptions and references to archaeological records make this an invaluable resource for deciphering many of the medieval sites.

Weitzmann, Kurt. “Various Aspects of Byzantine Influence on the Latin Countries from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): 1–24. Weitzmann (1904–1993) was the influential predecessor of Kitzinger and Krautheimer, and the originator of the theory of the East/West divide. Here the scholar speaks of great cultural rifts: “By the time of Charlemagne, the cleavage between East and West had become so deep that one could no longer speak of a unified culture and art.” Byzantium’s exempla for the West are “recognized as being superior, and … of didactic value.” The author depends heavily on style for his arguments and analyses. The word influence is interchanged with “infiltration,” reflecting the author’s sense of style as one of power and conquest rather than of collaborative exchange.

Wickham, Chris. Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900–1150. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Although the focus is on Rome’s relationship to the rest of Italy and Latin Europe rather than the East, Wickham’s study explains, through meticulous documentation, much of the character of the city, such as its special relationship to the hinterland, or disabitato, and the power of the aristocratic leadership. Chapter six discusses the ceremonial life of the city and has a special section about eleventh- and twelfth-century church programs, which show a “variety of both patrons and imagery.”

Wolf, Gerhard. “Icons and Sites: Cult Images of the Virgin in Mediaeval Rome.” In Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, edited by Maria Vassilaki, 23–49. Burlington: Ashgate, 2005. An invaluable introduction to the five main icons of the Madonna in Rome. These portable icons were displayed and moved throughout

168  Further Reading the city. Although Wolf admits that much of what is known about the icons remains conjectural, his work documents what is known about the miracle-working icons and explains how their veneration participated in the development of papal processions.

Appendix

Dates of Medieval Roman Monuments*

Name of Church

Date

Old. St. Peter’s1 306–337 Oratory of John VII 705–707 Nave mosaics

Placement/ medium Original building Mosaics: right side aisle

Apse mosaics 1198–1216 S. Giovanni in 306–337 Laterano Chapel of 432–440 SS. Cyprian and Justina Chapel of 640–649 S. Veneziano

Original building

Patron (if known) Constantine John VII (705–707) Formosus (816–896) Innocent III (1198–1216) Constantine

Mosaics: apse

Sixtus III (432–40)

Mosaics: apse, triumphal arch

John IV (640–42) or Theodore I (642–49) Anacletus II (1130–1138)

St. Nicholas Oratory 1130–1138 Frescoes

*  For a very helpful resource for studying and seeing the medieval mosaics of Rome (and beyond) please consult the website first created by Liz James in 2018: www.medievalmosaics.com.

1  Most churches went through many phases of construction. I am only listing those that are mentioned in the text.

170  Appendix Name of Church

Date

S. Costanza

350

S. Pudenziana S. Maria Maggiore

ca. 400 432–440

S. Sabina

Mosaics: apse Mosaics: nave walls and first triumphal arch 1290–1325 Mosaics: apse and façade (Jacopo Torriti) 432–440 Wooden door (external) and mosaics over the door (internal) 468–483 Mosaics (dest. 1686) 500–620 Mosaics: apse 526–530 Mosaics: apse

Sant’Andrea Catabarbara S. Teodoro SS. Cosmas and Damian S. Lorenzo fuori le 579–590 mura Sant’Agnese fuori 625–638 le mura S. Stefano Rotundo seventh c. S. Maria Antiqua Maria Regina

Placement/ medium Mosaics in vault (and cupola)

fourth c. sixth c.

Anastasis, main 705–707 church Theodotus Chapel 741–752 Wall of Saints 757–767

Patron (if known) Costanza (d. 354) or Emperor Constantius II (r. 337–361) Sixtus III (432–440) Nicholas IV (1288–1292)

Felix IV (526–530) Triumphal arch Pelagius II mosaics (579–590) Mosaics in apse Honorius (625–638) Mosaics in Chapel Theodore I of SS. Primo e (642–649) Feliciano Original building Fresco on palimpsest wall Main fresco John VII program (705–707) Frescoes, side chapel Frescoes, left side Paul I wall (757–767)

Dates of Medieval Roman Monuments  171 Name of Church

Date

Placement/ medium S. Maria in Via Lata seventh c. Frescoes of Seven Sleepers eighth c. Fresco of St. Erasmus S. Saba eighth c. Frescoes: paralytic, monks S. Susanna eighth c. Fresco: Maria Regina SS. Giovanni e Paolo eighth c. Frescoes in Oratory S. Crisogono eighth/ninth c.Frescoes SS. Silvestro e ninth c. Frescoes Martino ai Monti S. Maria in Domnica 817–824 Mosaics: apse, triumphal arch S. Cecilia in 817–824 Mosaics: apse Trastevere S. Prassede 817–824 Mosaics: apse, two triumphal S. Zeno Chapel arches, chapel S. Marco 827–844 Mosaics: apse S. Maria 872–882 Secundicerii SS. Nereo ed 795–816 Achilleo S. Clemente Lower Church ninth c. Lower Church tenth/ eleventh c. Upper Church 1120s S. Maria Nova (S. Francesca Romana)

1161

Frescoes Mosaics: triumphal arch

Patron (if known)

Paschal I (817–824) Paschal I Paschal I Gregory IV (827–844) John VIII (872–882) Leo III (795–816)

Frescoes: “Cyril” Anastasis Frescoes Mosaics: apse, triumphal arch Mosaic: apse

Alexander III (1159–1181)

172  Appendix Name of Church

Date

Placement/ medium S. Maria in 1140–1143 Mosaic: apse, Trastevere triumphal arch 1290s–1308 Mosaics: lower zone SS. Quattro Coronati 1247 Fresco cycle

Patron (if known) Innocent II (1130–43) Boniface VIII (1294–1303)

Important Icons • Lateran acheiropoieta icon, Chapel of the Sancta Sanc­ torum, Lateran Palace, fifth–sixth centuries

• S. Maria Nova icon, S. Maria Nova, sixth–seventh centuries • S. Sisto Icon, S. Sisto Vecchio, Monte Mario, sixth–eighth centuries • Salus Populi Romani, S. Maria Maggiore, late sixth–early seventh centuries • Madonna della Clemenza, S. Maria in Trastevere, 705–707 • Madonna of the Pantheon, seventh century

• S. Alessio icon, SS. Bonifacio e Alessio, twelfth–thirteenth century • S. Maria in Aracoeli icon, S. Maria in Aracoeli, twelfth century

• Man of Sorrows, S. Croce in Gerusalemme, fourteenth century

Sites in Ravenna • S. Vitale, 547

• Sant’Apollinare Nuovo ­ ­

- Theodoric the Great, first quarter of sixth century - Justinian, 561

• Archbishop’s Chapel, 495