Words and artworks in the twelfth century and beyond.

388 Pages·2013·11.87 MB·English

by  Foteini Spingou

Words and artworks
in the twelfth century and beyond.
The thirteenth-century manuscript Marcianus gr. 524 and
the twelfth-century dedicatory epigrams on works of art.

Foteini Spingou
Keble College

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree
DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford

Michaelmas Term 2012
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Words and artworks in the twelfth century and beyond.
The thirteenth-century manuscript Marcianus gr. 524 and the twelfth-century dedicatory
epigrams on works of art.
Foteini Spingou, Keble College
DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages,
University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term 2012
Abstract
The thesis is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the manuscript
Marcianus graecus 524, the second looks at the Greek text of the dedicatory
epigrams on works of art from the same manuscript, and the third puts these texts
in their context. In the first part, the compilation of the manuscript is analysed. I
suggest that the manuscript was copied mainly by one individual scribe living in
Constantinople at the end of the thirteenth century. He copied the quires
individually, but at some point he put all these quires together, added new quires,
and compiled an anthology of poetry. The scribe’s connection to the Planudean
School and the Petra monastery in Constantinople is discussed. Although their
relationship remains inconclusive, the manuscript provides evidence regarding the
literary interests of late-thirteenth-century intellectuals. The second part contains
thirty-five unpublished dedicatory epigrams on works of art. New readings are
offered for the text of previously published epigrams. The third section analyses the
dedicatory epigrams on works of art in their context. The first chapter of this
section discusses the epigrams as Gebrauchstexte, i.e. texts with a practical use. The
difference between epigrams intended to be inscribed and epigrams intended to be
performed is highlighted. In the next chapter of this part, La poésie de l’objet, the
composition of the dedicatory epigrams is discussed. The conventional character of
the epigrams suggests that the poetics express the ritual aspect of the epigram. The
last chapter considers the texts from a more pragmatic angle. After a short
discussion of the objects on which the epigrams were written, the mechanisms of
the twelfth-century art market are presented based on evidence taken mainly from
the epigrams. At the end of this part, conclusions are drawn on the understanding
of these texts in the twelfth century.
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Long Abstract
MS Marcianus Graecus 524 is one of the most famous middle-Byzantine manuscripts
and contains prose and verse works from the middle Byzantine period. It is the
major source for the speeches of Arethas of Caesaria, one of the best manuscripts
for the Geoponica, a source for some of Michael Psellos’ works and, most importantly,
it includes a vast anthology of mainly Comnenian poetry. This thesis discusses
Marcianus Graecus 524 as a manuscript, as well as the anonymous twelfth-century
dedicatory epigrams on works of art that are included in the anthology. It was not
possible to work on the epigrams without trying to solve critical questions on the
manuscript and the compilation of the poetic anthology, as well as editing the
unpublished poems. The way the poetic anthology was formed shows its value as a
source. Thus, the thesis is divided into three distinct parts, which cover: (a) the
manuscript; (b) the text; and (c) the context.
In the first part, I discuss the manuscript and its new composition. The
results I present were collected during my two visits to Venice. The first available
description of the manuscript is by Antonio Maria Zanetti in 1740. Then, in 1911,
Spyridon Lambros published an extensive and detailed description of the contents
and published some of the anonymous poems. In 1985, Elpidio Mioni included a new
description in his catalogue of Greek manuscripts in the Biblioteca Marciana. The
most recent discussions are by Paolo Odorico and Charis Messis (2003) and Andreas
Rhoby (2010).
Thirty-one gatherings of Arabic paper (from the Middle East) comprise the
manuscript. The original binding is lost; it was re-bound in the sixteenth century,
but the modern binding dates from between 1736 and 1741. Twelve different units
can be found in the manuscript. These units can be distinguished on the basis of the
content, the writing style, the paper, the ink and the quire signatures. Lambros
argues that eight different scribes produced the manuscript, while Mioni observes
seven different hands. Odorico and Messis suggest five. My analysis of the script,
however, shows there to be just one main copyist, Scribe A, who copied up to 83.9%
of the text. Scribe A copied works on separate quires in different writing styles,
probably at different moments. In addition, a contemporary of Scribe A, Scribe B,
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copied just one quire and a fourteenth-century scribe added an anonymous treatise
on the ten categories at the very end of the manuscript.
The new identification of the hands shows the units as they have been
distinguished before as inadequate in presenting the way the manuscript came to
its present form. The main scribe of manuscript copied spare quires (‘production
units’) at different moments of his life (‘production moments’). At some point he put
them together and he added a quire copied by one of his contemporaries, as well as
some blank quires. The same scribe copied poetry on the blank quires and wherever
he had empty space on the written ones. This way he formed the Anthologia
Marciana, a collection of poetry dating from between 1050 and 1200.
However, in their present arrangement, the quires do not represent their
original order, which is shown by the contents and some of the codicological
features of the manuscript. The arrangement of the quires shows how Scribe A
worked. He first copied Theodore Balsamon’s collection of poems (ff. 89–94), then he
copied a part of Constantine Manasses’ Hodoiporikon (ff. 94v–96). Probably hoping to
find a better copy, he left the verso of the last page of the first quire bank. Then, he
copied Nicholas’ Kallikles collection of poems (ff. 97–103v) and he compiled a
collection of mainly anonymous poetry from the second half of the eleventh
century and the beginning of the twelfth (Sylloge A, ff. 103v–104v, 1–3v). The Semeioma
by Andronikos Protekdikos follows (ff. 3v–5), with the Katomyomachia by Theodore
Prodromos after that (ff. 5–8v). He re-copied three poems from the collection of
Theodore Balsamon (ff. 8v–9) and he continued by copying a poem on toothache (ff.
9–10v) and Constantine Stilbes’ poem on the great fire of 1197 (ff. 10v–18).
Subsequently, he compiled a collection of anonymous poetry dating from mainly
(but not exclusively) the twelfth century (Sylloge B, ff. 18–23v, 105–112v, 115v–120v,
33v–39v, 192v–193v, 45v–46v). Finally, he compiled a smaller collection of eleventh-
and twelfth-century poetry, where he re-copied some poems that he had previously
included in his manuscript, as well as new poems (Sylloge C, ff. 180–182v, 189v). The
three Syllogae consist of material that has been randomly collected from other
manuscripts and the scribe did not arrange his material using clear criteria.
Scribe A copied the manuscript using elements of fettaugenstill, which are
comparable to examples dating from around 1280 to 1290. On the basis of the
writing style and the contents it is possible to assume that he worked in
Constantinople. The scribe and the redactor of the anthology have many things in
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common and thus it is possible to suggest that it is one and the same person. I was
not able to ascertain the identity of Scribe A. There are some similarities with one of
the hands associated with the school of Planoudes, but the hands are not identical.
In the middle of the lower margin of f. 194 a small note is barely visible, which reads
!["]#$%. If my reading is correct then a connection with the famous monastery of
Petra is highly possible. Examples of hands dating to the period in question from the
bibliographical workshop of the same manuscript are not available. However, in the
early fourteenth-century list of commemorations from the same monastery, the
name of Manuel Angelos appears. Manuel Angelos copied Josephus’ Jewish-Roman
history. He is not our scribe, but the hand of annotator a in his manuscript is similar
to that of Scribe A. Nevertheless, it is not possible to prove that annotator a and
Scribe A are the same person, since only a small sample of annotator a’s
handwriting is available today.
Scribe A, living at the time of the ‘early Palaeologan Renaissance’, decided to
copy Comnenian poetry. Many collections were compiled at that time. Our scribe
might have collected this poetry either to serve as examples of good poetry for his
writings or in order to preserve what his ancestors produced before the disaster of
1204. Indeed, most of the manuscripts containing Comnenian literature date from
around that time (late thirteenth to early fourteenth century). Furthermore,
Comnenian buildings were heavily re-constructed at that time and Comnenian
institutions were revived. This cultural tendency quickly started to fade and almost
disappeared by the middle of the fourteenth century, as the terrible financial and
political situation of Byzantium was obvious to everyone.
The second part of the thesis comprises: (a) an edition of thirty-six dedicatory
epigrams on works of art which have not been published before; and (b) new
readings of the already-published epigrams. The epigrams appearing in their first
edited form are:
40. On an icon of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
41. On an icon of the Crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ adorned by Dryonites.
74. On an icon of the Crucifixion of Christ.
102. On the icon of St Anna when the empress was pregnant.
116. On an adorned icon of the Holy Mother of God.
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118/340. On a golden patelion which was made by the sebastos Kalamanos and given
to our holy emperor, on which various victories [of the emperor] against the
barbarians in Hungary were depicted.
119. On an icon of Sts Theodores and of St Theodore Gabras…
243. On the oyster carved in stone, which is in the Great Palace.
245. On a lamp hung before the icon of the Crucifixion of Christ by
protonobellisimos kyr Nicholas.
246. On the icon of Christ &'$()*'!#+, adorned by Basil, on the back of which he
himself was depicted.
256. Verses written on an icon of the Holy Resurrection of our Lord and true God
Jesus Christ, painted by our most holy patriarch of Jerusalem kyr John, who became
abbot of the monastery of St Diomedes, the so-called new Zion.
257. On an endyte of the holy altar given to the Stoudios monastery by the purple-
born lady Anna.
258. On an adorned icon of St Nicholas.
259. On the icon of monk Neophytos on which the most Holy Mother of God and St
Demetrios, who was supplicating our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, were (depicted).
265. On an icon of Saint, Apostle and Evangelist Luke.
269. On an adorned icon of St George.
277. On an adorned icon of St Nicholas.
278. On an icon of the Mother of God adorned by Skleros.
279. On the icon of the most Holy Mother of God adorned by Synaites.
281. On an icon of Chrysostomos.
282. On an enkolpion having Holy Stone from the tomb of Christ.
285. On the icons of Sts Theodores.
287. On the icon of the Mother of God, the All-Holy, our Lady.
291. On an icon of Christ given (to the monastery of St Paul) in Andrianoupolis.
292. On the icon of the Baptism of Christ given to the church of the Forerunner in
Jordan by the Basilikos.
307. On the trikandylon hung in the church of Beros.
308. On an icon of St Paul the confessor.
309. On an icon of St Stephen, the protomartyr.
355. On an adorned icon of the most Holy Mother of God.
356. On an icon of St Theodore offered by kyr John Servlias.
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358. On an icon of St John the Forerunner which has been adorned with gold by the
emperor.
368. On an icon of St Pant+leon.
391. On the miracle of the five loaves.
402. On an icon of crucified Christ, (offered) by the patriarch of Jerusalem, kyr
Ioannes.
403. On an icon of St Theodosios the Cenobiarch.
404. On an icon of St Saba
(Lambros’ numbers: 40, 41, 100, 113, 115/330, no. 119 is not included in Lambros,
216, 218, 229, 230, 231, 232, 241, 245, 249, 250, 251, 253, 254, 257, 259, 279, 280, 281,
316, 317, 329, 352, 363, 364, 365).

The third part aims to put one hundred and eighteen twelfth-century
dedicatory epigrams on works of art in their context. All the epigrams that are
examined come from Syllogae B and C and they are anonymous. In this part, I adopt
the principles of New Historicism and Archaeo-historicism, looking at this text
using a sociological lens to place the donors mentioned in the epigrams on different
levels and depicting their relationships in a social-network diagram (software:
VennMaker). The levels are defined on the basis of their ‘distance’ from the
emperor. The rest of this part looks at these texts from three different angles: (a)
how the epigrams were used; (b) the literary characteristics of the dedicatory
epigrams on works of art; and (c) the connection of the texts to the actual objects.
Given that the epigrams in the Anthologia Marciana have been copied from
manuscripts, their original context has been lost for good. They were not meant to
simply stay on paper, but rather to be used. The main text and titles (although not
all titles are in agreement with the main texts) can help us to retrieve their
intended original function and the occasion on which the epigram was first used.
Epigrams were meant to be either inscribed (inscriptional) or performed
(performative). Although some criteria for suggesting an inscriptional use of an
epigram have been proposed by earlier scholarship, they cannot ensure that an
epigram finally became a verse inscription. An epigram could have been written in a
linear way or divided into smaller parts, with each part matching a depiction.
Inscriptional epigrams also raise the question of literacy. A viewer – given that the
inscription was accessible to him/her – needed to have a certain level of literacy in
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order to read and understand an epigram. Given that the viewer was able to
understand it, an inscriptional epigram can simply be a votive inscription, it can
justify the occasion of the dedication, it can put into words the meaning of the
pictorial composition, annotating the depiction and indicating to the viewer how
they should approach the image, it can become a ‘speech bubble’ enlivening the
image, and, finally, it can be an elaborate possessor’s note, expressing the wishes
and hopes of the donor. Even if the viewer was unable to understand an inscription,
its very existence adds lustre to the work of art and to the status of the offering,
possibly also figuring God or a saint as the ‘eternal reader’ of the donor’s
supplication.
Epigrams could have been performed at the moment of the donation, sent as
letters together with the donation, or even performed in a literary circle. Some
criteria for distinguishing performative epigrams are: (1) the content of the
epigram; (2) the length of the epigram in comparison with similar objects; and (3)
the occasion itself.
Epigrams could have been written on sacred objects or buildings (votive
epigrams) or on secular objects (secular dedicatory epigrams). Both votive and
secular dedicatory epigrams follow similar conventions for their composition. They
have similar parts and specific ways that they present a donor, also using a specific
vocabulary. After a statistical analysis, it has been concluded that the level of the
donor actually affects the conventional character of the epigram. If the donor of an
epigram comes from the higher echelons of society, it is more likely that the
epigram will be less conventional. Furthermore, I link the conventional character of
the dedicatory epigrams with their ceremonial significance, underlining the
similarities between an inscriptional or performative epigram and a ceremony or a
ritual.
Epigrams can sometimes help us to retrieve information on the appearance
of the object. Unfortunately, the information they provide is never detailed enough
to ensure a faithful reconstruction. Although it is difficult to comment on the
physical appearance of the objects, it is possible to comment on the mechanisms for
their production. Thus, my discussion of what I term the ‘art market’ looks
systematically at the most important factors affecting the production of an object.
The term ‘art market’ is doubtless anachronistic, and is used with caution, but it is
legitimised by the two basic components of supply and demand. The decisive role
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that the ‘producers’ (artists, donors, and poets) play places them at the centre of
their market. This role and the relationships between them are examined.
Furthermore, an object was shaped according to the aesthetic values of its time. The
ecclesiastical framework was also important because of the prominent role of the
Church. The political framework was especially important when it comes to objects
depicting or being offered to the emperor. Finances are also critical for the
production of an object: the cost of an object and its importance as an asset after
being donated are my main concerns. Finally, adding an epigram to an object meant
that the symbolic value of the object was increased.
In the appendices, a new detailed description of the manuscript can be
found, as well as supporting material for the first part of the thesis.
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Acknowledgements
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

From K.P. Kavafis, Ithaka (transl. E. Keeley / P. Sherrard)

As I set out on my DPhil journey, I was hoping indeed for a voyage full of adventure
and discovery. And this is exactly what it was. The voyage – thankfully – did not last
long, just 2 years and 3 months, and I was able to surpass all the practical difficulties
I encountered (which had little to do with my soul) thanks to all the people who
contributed so much to my research. First and foremost, I must thank my
-%*."/#'$+/ supervisor Prof. Marc Lauxtermann, who shaped me as researcher.
Many drafts and hours of discussion are the main things which have marked our
relationship as teacher–student and colleagues over the last four and a half years.
I never felt alone in this journey. There were always people to help me and
question my arguments. Dr Georgi Parpulov and Dr James Howard-Johnston were
the first to question my skills as an art historian and social historian respectively.
Mr Nigel Wilson and Prof. Marilena Maniaci questioned my aptitude as
paleographer and codicologist. Prof. Elizabeth Jeffreys and Prof. Wolfram
Hörandner, as the examiners of the thesis, questioned my entire final text. I am
deeply indebted to them all for their help, advice and patience. Many more people
contributed in one way or another over the last few years, and without their help
this thesis would have been quite different: Prof. Michael Jeffreys, Prof. Averil
Cameron, Dr Stratis Papaioannou, Dr Cathrine Holmes, Dr Niki Tsironis, Dr Ida Toth,
Dr Anne McCabe, Dr Marina Bazzani, Dr Euthymios Rizos, Mr Andrew Honey, Mrs
Maria Pasparaki, Dr Karolina Retali, Miss Miranda Williams and Miss Kirsty Stewart.