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Un-Orthodox imagery: voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
Extract
In the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript (BN, Vitr. 26–2) representations of Orthodox triumph over iconoclast heresy range from startlingly novel to seemingly incoherent. While previous studies have posited that the visual programme of the chronicle originates in Comnenian Constantinople, this article argues that the visual narrative is out of place in a climate of rigorous Comnenian Orthodoxy. The visual narrative actively restructures and revisions Byzantine history: iconoclast arch-villains such as John the Grammarian are assigned symbols of sanctity, Orthodox heroes such as patriarch Methodios and empress Theodora are obscured and misrepresented, and important events in the chronicle are turned into visual voids.
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- Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2009
Footnotes
*
I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, Maria Georgopoulou, for her constant encouragement and patient advice. I am very grateful to Leslie Brubaker, Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, Alice-Mary Talbot and Brian Boeck for consultations and comments on earlier versions of this article, and the two anonymous readers of the BMGS for their thoughtful suggestions. I would like to acknowledge the generous support of Yale University for research funding, Dumbarton Oaks for a Junior fellowship that facilitated writing, and DePaul University for funding photograph rights and reproduction.
References
1 André Grabar dated this manuscript to no earlier than the middle of the thirteenth century, but he believed that its Constantinopolitan model was executed c. 1100 (see Grabar, A. and Manoussacas, M., L’Illustration du manuscrit de Skylitzès de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Madrid (Venice 1979) 131, 172, 173)Google Scholar. Nigel Wilson hypothesized that the Madrid manuscript is a third-generation copy of the Constantinopolitan prototype ( Wilson, N., ‘The Madrid Scylitzes’, Scrittura e Civiltà 2 (1978) 216, 218)Google Scholar.
2 Wilson, ‘The Madrid Skylitzes’, 218; Grabar and Manoussacas, L’Illustration, 173.
3 The manuscript is written in Greek (see Laiou, A., ‘Prologue’, in Joannis Scylitzae Synopsis Historiarum: Codex Matritensis Graecus Vitr. 26-2 (Athens 2000) 13)Google Scholar. This publication is also a colour edition of the entire manuscript. The English translation by John Wortley will be used in this article: John Scylitzes, A Synopsis of Histories (811-1057 A.D): A Provisional Translation, trans. Wortley, J. (Winnipeg 2000)Google Scholar. For the most recent publication on the Madrid Skylitzes, see Tsamakda, V., The Illustrated Chronicle of loannes Skylitzes in Madrid (Leiden 2002)Google Scholar. The recent dissertation by Bente Bjornholt, ‘The use and portrayal of spectacle in the “Madrid Skylitzes” (Bibl. Nac. Vitr. 26–2)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis., Queen’s University of Belfast 2002), was not available to me for consultation.
4 An extensive introduction to the text and the critical edition was produced by Thurn, I., Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum (Berlin 1973) vii–xlvi Google Scholar.
5 Fonkich, B. L., ‘Paleograficheskaia zametka о Madridskoi rukopisi Skilitsy’, VV 42 (1981) 231-2Google Scholar; Wilson, ‘The Madrid Skylitzes’, 212; Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 11–4.
6 Since decades of stylistic analysis produced contradictory results and divergent dating, this study will not reconsider the question of style. Most recently, Tsamakda identified seven artists (see Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 373–9). For detailed discussions, see Estopañan, S. Cirac, Skyllitzes Matritensis. Reproducciones y miniaturas (Madrid/Barcelona 1965) 37–40 Google Scholar; Grabar, A., ‘Les illustrations de la chronique de Jean Skylitzès à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Madrid’, Cahiers Archéologiques 21 (1971) 191–211 Google Scholar.
7 Tsamakda also considered this manuscript to be a copy of a lost archetype (Tsamakda, ‘The miniatures of the Madrid Skylitzes’, in Joannis Scylitzae, 148–9). Other scholars who have described the manuscript as a copy of a lost Constantinopolitan original include Sebastian Cirac Estopañan, Nikolaos Oikonomides, Christopher Walter and Boris Fonkich.
8 Based on analysis of the organization and distribution of labour in the manuscript, Ihor Ševčenko suggested that ‘the Madrid Skylitzes is an original creation; “original” in the sense of having been made ad hoc, illustrations and all’ ( Ševčenko, I., ‘The Madrid manuscript of the chronicle of Skylitzes in the light of the new dating’, in Byzanz und der Westen: Studien zur Kunst des Europäischen Mittelalters (Wien 1984) 125, 126, 127)Google Scholar. For the most extensive argument for the ad hoc nature of the visual narrative, see Boeck, E., ‘The art of being Byzantine: history, structure and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Yale University 2003)Google Scholar; see also Parpulov’s, G. review of Tsamakda’s monograph in JÖB 56 (2006) 383-7Google Scholar.
9 Tsamakda, The illustrated Chronicle, 267-8.
10 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 22, 263, 265.
11 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 265.
12 Piltz, E., Byzantium in the Mirror: the Message of Skylitzes Matritensis and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Oxford 2005) 1 Google Scholar.
13 A likely scenario would have involved the designer selecting topics for illustration and marking places for future images in an unillustrated copy of the Skylitzes text. Simultaneously, a list of instructions for the artists would have been generated, which ranged from vague or generic in most cases (‘pursuit in battle,’ ‘seated imperial figure’) to very specific (clearly addressing main participants, aspects of setting, physical attributes and other details) in cases of topics that were of primary interest to the patron (see Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, Chapter 2).
14 I employ Hayden White’s definition of narrative: ‘[T]he narrative is not merely a neutral discursive form that may or may not be used to represent real events in their aspect as developmental processes but rather entail ontological and epistemic choices with distinct ideological and even specifically political implications’ ( White, H., The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, MD 1987) ix)Google Scholar.
15 I use the term ‘visual void’ in a similar manner to Wolfgang Kemp’s ‘blank’, referring to conscious omissions (see Kemp, W., ‘Death at work: a case study on constitutive blanks in nineteenth-century painting’, Representations 10 (1985) 110)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 I have dealt extensively with questions of copying in my dissertation and plan to address the subject in depth in a future article (see Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, 57–62, 225–36).
17 Uspenskii, F., Sinodik v nedeliu pravoslaviia: svodnyi tekst s prilozheniiami (Odessa 1893) 13 Google Scholar.
18 Lemerle, P., Byzantine Humanism, trans. Lindsay, H. and Moffatt, A. (Canberra 1986) 163-4Google Scholar. For an excellent discussion of the epithets applied to John the Grammarian by iconodule writers, see I. Ševčenko, , ‘Anti-iconoclastic poem in the Pantocrator psalter’, Cahiers Archéologiques 15 (1965) 47-8Google Scholar.
19 MPG 99, 1772C.
20 MPG 99, 1772 C.
21 Lemerle lists a number of these abusive terms, with discussion. See his Byzantine Humanism, 164, 156, 166.
22 Scholarship on the Marginal Psalters is extensive. For recent discussions and bibliography, see Corrigan, K., Visual Polemics in the Ninth-century Marginal Psalters (Cambridge 1992)Google Scholar; Barber, C., ed., Theodore Psalter: Electronic Facsimile (Champaign 2000)Google Scholar. For the Barberini Psalter, see Anderson, J., Canari, P. and Walter, C., The Barberini Psalter: Codex Vaticanus, Barberinianus Graecus 372 (Zurich 1989)Google Scholar; see also Der Nersessian, S., L’Illustration des psautiers grecs du Moyen âge: Londres, Add. 19.352 (Paris 1970), esp. 63–70 Google Scholar; Dufrenne, S., L’Illustration des psautiers grecs du Moyen âge: Pantocrator 61, Paris, grec. 20, British Museum 40731 (Paris 1966)Google Scholar; Cutler, A., ‘Liturgical strata in the Marginal Psalters’, DOP 34 (1980) 17–30 Google Scholar; Lowden, J., ‘Observations on the illustrated Byzantine Psalters’, Art Bulletin 70 (1988) 242-60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grabar, A., ‘Quelques notes sur les psautiers illustrés byzantins du IXe siècle’, Cahiers Archéologiques 15 (1965) 61–82 Google Scholar. The relationship among the eleventh-century psalters is complex and there is debate about the degree of conscious anti-iconoclast polemic they exhibit (see C. Barber, ‘Readings in the Theodore Psalter’, in Theodore Psalter, 14; see also Brubaker, L., ‘The Bristol Psalter’, in Entwistle, C. (ed.), Through a Glass Brightly: Studies in Byzantine and Mediaeval Art and Archaeology presented to David Buckton (Oxford 2003) 135)Google Scholar.
23 See Ševčenko, ‘Anti-iconoclastic poem’, 41; Corrigan, Visual Polemics, 27-9; Walter, , ‘Heretics in Byzantine art’, Eastern Churches Review 3 (1970) 44-5Google Scholar.
24 For a description of this image, see Anderson et al., The Barberini Psalter, 89. Corrigan, discussing the prototype of the Barberini image in the Khludov Psalter, states: ‘[T]he Khludov image condemns John the Grammarian as a simoniac as well as an Iconoclast, an accusation that can be found in several sources of the period’ (Corrigan, Visual Polemics, 28).
25 Walter, ‘Heretics’, 48.
26 Walter’s words reflect the proper role of heretics in Byzantine imagery (Walter, ‘Heretics’, 48).
27 Although Tsamakda notes that John’s halo is ‘extraordinary’, she does not consider the issue any further (Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 90).
28 Zigabenos, Euthymios, ‘Dogmatic panoply against the Bogomils,’ in Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, C.6S0-C.14S0, trans. Hamilton, J. and Hamilton, B. (Manchester 1998) 188 Google Scholar.
29 The use of haloes is inconsistent in the manuscript, but together with structural analysis it testifies that Orthodox concerns were of little importance at the design stage, not simply the execution stage. E.g., Theophilos is represented haloed on folios 49 va, 49 vb and 50 a, while persecuting Orthodox saints, including Lazaros.
30 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 34; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 56.90.
31 For a discussion of John’s mission, see Magdalino, P., ‘The road to Baghdad in the thought-world of ninth-century Byzantium’, in Brubaker, L. (ed.), Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive? (Aldershot 1998) 195–214 Google Scholar.
32 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 34–5; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 56–8, lines 86–48.
33 The images of John are iconographically inconsistent even within this sequence: the third image depicts a very tall and beardless younger man (fol. 47vb), while the final image simply represents a church. The continuous textual narrative of John’s embassy to the Saracens and its outcome breaks down in the visual narrative. This is a very different treatment of the narrative than, e.g., Leslie Brubaker’s discussion of ‘a recognizable narrative progression’ in the Sacra Parallela ( Brubaker, L., Vision and Meaning in Ninth-century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge 1999) 38)Google Scholar.
34 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 265; see, however, Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 58–9, 60–80.
35 For the changing attitudes to Theophilos in Byzantine texts of the late ninth-early tenth centuries, see A. Markopoulos, ‘The rehabilitation of the emperor Theophilos’, in Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive?, 37-49.
36 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49-50; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 84–5.
37 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 84–7.
38 My close examination of the manuscript in Madrid in 2001 suggests that the figure underwent at least three unsatisfactory stages of drawing.
39 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 88–92. This image is fol. 64vb. The composition precisely repeats a stock image of punishment from fol. 43va (a public punishment in front of the emperor).
40 The issue of idolatry is at the heart of the iconoclast debate and Byzantine articulation of image theory. For an excellent discussion of Byzantine conceptualization of idols, see Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 20–1, 27–8, 39.
41 In the Skylitzes illustration, John’s hair is well-groomed and the idol that he points to is being destroyed, as opposed to the Pantokrator image in which John prefers to worship a naked idol in opposition to David and Beseleel, who honour the Tabernacle. For an extensive discussion of the Pantokrator image, see Dufrenne, S., ‘Une illustration “historique”, inconnue, du Psautier du Mont-Athos, Pantocrator 61’, Cahiers Archéologiques 15 (1965) 83–95 Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of John in this image, see Walter, ‘Heretics’, 44–5; see also Piltz, Byzantium in the Mirror, 30–7.
42 The turbaned figure is represented as a conventional Saracen in the rendering of this artist. Walter briefly refers to this image in ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm in the Madrid Skylitzes’, in Pictures as Language: How the Byzantines exploited them (London 2000) 368–9.
43 Brubaker (Vision and Meaning, 39) noted: ‘Since similitude between image and archetype was a major feature of iconophile theory, conscious use of traditional iconography deflected the possibility of any criticism that the image was deviating from its prototype.’ See also Mouriki, D., ‘The portraits of Theodore Studites in Byzantine art’, JÖB 20 (1971) 249-80Google Scholar; Dagron, G., ‘Holy images and likeness’, DOP 45 (1991) 33 Google Scholar.
44 John’s accession to patriarchal power was represented as a stock image (fol. 57b) no different from accessions of Orthodox patriarchs. Nothing indicates impious proceedings, as might be expected in an Orthodox frame of reference, and in spite of the text suggesting that he ‘received the high-priesthood as a reward for impiety and faithlessness’ (Wortley, John Scylitzes, 43; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 72.45–6). John’s multiple personalities are properly reflected in the captions that closely follow the text, and identify him as ‘Ioannes Synkellos’ in both representations of a saintly bishop. The Saracen on folio 49va is identified in the captions as ‘Jannes the Philosopher’ (in the text he is called ‘Jannes’ at this point). The John practicing dish-divination (fol. 58a) is now a figure in courtly attire, labeled by the captions as ‘Iannes Lekanomantes’, though the text still calls him ‘Jannes’ (see Wortley, John Scylitzes, 43; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 72.66–7).
45 For images of trampled heretics in various media, see Walter, , L’Iconographie des conciles dans la tradition byzantine (Paris 1970)Google Scholar.
46 Images of the iconoclast controversy in the Marginal Psalters would continue into the fourteenth century (see Havice, C., ‘The Hamilton Psalter in Berlin: Kupferstichkabinett 78.A.9’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Pennsylvania State University, 1978) 213-9)Google Scholar.
47 Kazhdan and Maguire noted: ‘It was in physiognomic details, then, rather than in illusionistic modeling and perspective, that the “realism” of Byzantine portraiture resided for contemporary viewers’ (Kazhdan and Maguire, ‘Byzantine hagiographic texts’, 8; see also Brubaker, ‘Byzantine art in the ninth century, 23–3; Grabar, A., ‘Un calice byzantin aux images des patriarches de Constantinople’, Deltion ser. 4 (vol. 4) (1964-1965) 46)Google Scholar. Since consistency of images of saints was to be expected, it is therefore surprising that Christopher Walter does not consider this issue for the images of the Madrid Skylitzes.
48 For a discussion of Methodios, see Zielke, B., ‘Methodios I (843-847)’, in Lilie, R.-J. (ed.), Die Patriarchen der ikonoklastischen Zeit: Germanos I - Methodios I (715-847) (Frankfurt am Main 1999) 183–260 Google Scholar; see also Grumel, V., ‘La politique religieuse du patriarche saint Méthode’, EO 34 (1935) 385–401 Google Scholar. For Theodora, see Kazhdan, A. P. and Talbot, A.-M., ‘Women and iconoclasm’, BZ 84–85, Heft 2 (1991-1992) 391-408Google Scholar; Vinson, M., ‘Life of St. Theodora the Empress’, in Talbot, A.-M. (ed.), Byzantine Defenders of Images (Washington, DC 1998) 353-82Google Scholar; see also Vinson, M., ‘Gender and politics in the post-Iconoclastic period: the lives of Antony the Younger, the Empress Theodora, and the Patriarch Ignatios’, B 68 (1998) 469–515 Google Scholar; Vinson, M., ‘The life of Theodora and the rhetoric of the Byzantine bride show’, JÖB 49 (1999) 31–60 Google Scholar.
49 Vinson takes these commemorations as a sign of ‘the official rather than popular character of her cult. …[S]he developed no popular following and nothing is known of her relics or any posthumous miracles’ (Vinson, ‘Life of St. Theodora the Empress’, 356). However, according to Alice-Mary Talbot, Theodora was a very well-known saint. A reliable indicator of a saint’s currency among the people would be his or her inclusion in the Synaxarion of Constantinople, which was read out to the congregation. This oral dissemination of the information about the given saint would have reached many more people than a full-length vita since the manuscript tradition for the Middle Byzantine saints is sparse. I am grateful to Dr Talbot for providing me with this information.
50 The translation is mine from Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolkanae: Propylaeum ad Acta sanctorum Novembris, ed. Delehaye, H. (Brussels 1902) 458-60Google Scholar; hereafter cited as Synax. Cp.
51 Kazhdan and Talbot, ‘Women and iconoclasm’, 393.
52 Martha Vinson cites three currently known images of Theodora: in the Menologion of Basil II, a fresco in the fourteenth century church of the Virgin Gouverniotissa (Crete) and the icon of the Feast of Orthodoxy (see Vinson, ‘Life of St. Theodora the Empress’, 356 n. 79).
53 The costume of Theodora in the Menologion of Basil II recalls that of St. Helena. For the most recent discussion of the imperial loros, the costume of Sts. Constantine and Helena, see Parani, M., Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (llth-15th centuries) (Leiden 2003) 25-7, 38-41Google Scholar; see also Grierson, P., Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, vol. 3, part 2: Basil I to Nicephorus III (867-1081) (Washington, DC 1973) 748, 125, plate LXII la.4Google Scholar.
54 Grabar briefly mentions this image in his L’lconoclasme Byzantin. Le Dossier archéologique (Paris 1984) 229.
55 Synax. Cp., 749–50. My translation.
56 Gouillard, J., ‘Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie’,TM 2 (1967) 110-11Google Scholar.
57 Cyril Mango dates the mosaics in the north tympanum to the late ninth-early tenth centuries ( Mango, C., Materials for the Study of the Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul (Washington, DC 1962) 57)Google Scholar. Robin Cormack and Ernest Hawkins propose 870 as the date for the mosaic of the southwest rooms (see Cormack, R. and Hawkins, E. J. W., ‘The mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul: the rooms above the southwest vestibule and ramp’, DOP 31 (1977) 245)Google Scholar. I should note that Christopher Walter noticed the difference between the appearance of Methodios in the mosaics of Hagia Sophia and the Skylitzes. However, he did not analyse the implications of this observation (Walter, ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm’, 378).
58 I am grateful to Leslie Brubaker for bringing the Sacra Parallela images and the following bibliographical reference to my attention ( Osborne, J., ‘A note on the date of the Sacra Parallela (Parisinus Graecus 923)’, B 51 (1981) 316-7)Google Scholar. According to Osborne (p. 316), the artist of the Sacra Parallela represented on fols. 131v, 278v and 325r ‘the bishop … with a close-fitting white hood that covers his head and ties beneath his chin’.
59 Mango, Materials for the Study, 52. The other mosaic ‘is preserved in the room over the southwest vestibule’ (Mango, Materials for the Study, 52). Daniele Stiernon includes the representations of Methodios in the Madrid manuscript in the list of his images as unproblematic (see Stiernon, , ‘Metodio I’, in Bibliotheca Sanctorum 9 (1961-1970), col. 392)Google Scholar.
60 Mango, Materials for the Study, 53.
61 The iconographic relationship between manuscript representations and monumental images of the same person is to be expected. See, e.g., the discussion of representations of the patriarch Nikephoros in the Hagia Sophia and the Khludov Psalter by Cormack and Hawkins, ‘The mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul,’ 225; see also Grabar, ‘Un calice byzantin’, 45–51; Grabar, L’Iconoclasme, 149.
62 Kazhdan, A. and Maguire, H., ‘Byzantine hagiographical texts as sources on art’, DOP 45 (1991) 6 Google Scholar. This principle had philosophical and theological underpinning (see Belting, Likeness and Presence, 153; see also Dagron, G., ‘Le culte des images dans le monde byzantin’, in Delumean, J. (ed.), Histoire vécue du peuple chrétien (Toulouse 1979) 144-59)Google Scholar.
63 Theodora is represented privately venerating an icon once (fol. 45a). In the next image at the bottom of the page, both Theodora and her iconoclast husband Theophilos are represented with haloes. During the reign of Theophilos, she is at times represented with a halo (e.g., when conversing with holy men), but a number of these images alter the sex of the empress and represent an emperor instead. Walter briefly noted, without explaining, this gender confusion in ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm in the Madrid Scylitzes’, 373. Grabar, on the other hand, ignored the change of sex entirely, identifying the figure as a male (based on the text) (Grabar and Manoussacas, L’illustration, 44).
64 The patriarch wears a polystaurion. For a discussion of the polystaurion, see Walter, C., Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church (London 1982) 14-6Google Scholar. Tsamakda (The Illustrated Chronicle, 107 n. 3) disagrees that this is Methodios, while Grabar and Manoussacas considered this figure as a representation of Methodios (see Grabar and Manoussacas, L’illustration, 49). Had the established Byzantine iconography been used to represent the saint, there would be no doubts or questions about visual legibility of this figure.
65 For the sake of proper historical chronology, it should be noted that the emperor Michael was 3 years old when he succeeded to the throne (842–867), and Theodora served as the regent for 14 years (842–856). Her position as the primary ruler is reflected on her coins (see Wroth, W., Catalogue of the Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum, vol. 2 (London 1908) 429-30, pi. XLIX, #14, 15, 16Google Scholar; see also Grierson, , Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins, vol. 3, part 1, 454-7, 461-3)Google Scholar.
66 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 83.50–6.
67 Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 71.19-27.
68 No iconic referent to the triumph of Orthodoxy is present in the image, nor, given the gravity of the proceedings, is the image constructed on the model of an Orthodox council. For representations of councils (including images in the Madrid Skylitzes), see Walter, L’Iconographie des conciles.
69 Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, 99–100.
70 Skylkzes stated: ‘[T]he Empress gave the church the sacred and godly Methodius as patriarch, who still bore in his flesh the marks of having been a confessor and martyr’ (Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 84.77–8).
71 The ‘restoration of the sacred icons’ mentioned in the text is not clearly articulated by this image. The iconless restoration of icons in the visual narrative is somewhat puzzling since the artists ably represented icons in images when an icon is specifically mentioned in the text in incidents that involved concrete and physical interaction between an individual and an icon (painting, veneration, destruction, etc.). A number of these images have become popular in scholarship, such as fol. 44v, fol. 45a, and fol. 50b.
72 Also see Walter, ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm’, for a somewhat problematic discussion of Methodios.
73 Wortley, John Scylkzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 86–7.51–7.
74 Wortley, John Scylkzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87.57–60.
75 Visual continuity between the two images is created by their position on the same page, and the nearly identical placement of the empress in both images.
76 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87.66–73.
77 Partial and full nudity appears in the following images of the manuscript (aside from the saintly patriarch): fol. 41 a, fol. 43 va, fol. 64vb, fol. 65, fol. 68 v, fol. 98 v, fol. 101 a, fol. 112b, fol. 129vb, fol. 130, fol. 131b, fol. 131c, fol. 134va, fol. 134 vb, fol. 135a, fol. 136c, fol. 169, fol. 172 vb, fol. 175, fol. 182, fol. 206 va, fol. 223, fol. 225va.
78 Winfield, J. and Winfield, D., Proportion and Structure of the Human Figure in Byzantine Wall-painting and Mosaic (Oxford 1982) 41 Google Scholar, see also 42–7. For nudity in Byzantine art, see Maguire, H., ‘The profane aesthetic in Byzantine art and literature’, DOP 53 (1999) 200-3Google Scholar; see also Zeitler, B., ‘Ostentatio genitalium: displays of nudity in Byzantium’, in James, L. (ed.), Desire and Denial in Byzantium (Aldershot 1999) 185–201 Google Scholar. For the representation of partially nude pagan idols, see N. P.Ševčenko, , The Life of Saint Nicholas in Byzantine Art (Torino 1983) 132-3Google Scholar. Walter refers to ‘the calumny’ of the patriarch, but does not analyze the image or discuss the omission of St. Peter (see Walter, ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm’, 376–7).
79 For a discussion of saints, sex and nudity, see Kazhdan, A., ‘Byzantine hagiography and sex in the fifth to twelfth centuries’, DOP 44 (1990) 131-43Google Scholar; see also Talbot, A.-M., ‘Epigrams in context: metrical inscriptions on art and architecture of the Palaiologan era’, DOP 53 (1999) 87-8Google Scholar.
80 Preceding the image the text narrates: ‘This greatly dismayed those who rejoiced in iniquity and the false-accusers, but it filled the devout with gladness of heart and rejoicing. They rushed upon him with uncontainable glee, embracing and hugging him; they simply were unable to control their excessive joy.’ (Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87.73–6).
81 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87–8.76–88.
82 It is possible that his status as a eunuch could have complicated the acknowledgement of his saintliness, even though, as Kathryn Ringrose noted: ‘God, through St. Peter, seems to have approved the crucial act [i.e., emasculation]!’ ( Ringrose, K. M., The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium (Chicago, IL/London 2003) 125)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of eunuchs and sanctity, as well as recent bibliography on the subject, see Ringrose (The Perfect Servant, esp. 112–27). See also Mullett, M., ‘Theophylact of Ochrid’s In Defence of Eunuchs ’, in Tougher, S. (ed.), Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London 2002) 177-98Google Scholar.
83 It is not the only time when the divine involvement (expressed through saintly participation) is concealed by the selection process of the visual narrative (see Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, 204).
84 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 52; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 88.4–11.
85 Vogt, A., ed., Le livre des cérémonies, I (Paris 1935), Chapter 37 (28) 145-8Google Scholar; see also Afinogenov, D. E., ‘Povest o proshchenii imperatora Teofila’ i torzhestvo pravoslaviia (Moscow 2004) 63–77, 162-4Google Scholar.
86 Vogt, Le livre des cérémonies: commentaire, I, 162-4Google Scholar.
87 Clucas, L., The Trial of John halos and the Crisis of Intellectual Values in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century (Munich 1981) 3 Google Scholar. See also Browning, R., ‘Enlightenment and repression in Byzantium in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, Past and Present 69 (1975) 14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the many challenges and open questions in interpreting Alexios and his legacy, see Mullett, M., ‘Introduction: Alexios the enigma’, in Mullett, M. and Smythe, D. (eds), Alexios I Komnenos (Belfast 1996) 1–12 Google Scholar; see also Angold, M., The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204: a Political History (London 1984)Google Scholar; Lemerle, P., Cinq études sur le XIe siècle byzantin (Paris 1977)Google Scholar; Chalandon, F., Essai sur le règne d’Alexis 1er Comnène (1081-1118) (New York 1960)Google Scholar. The frequency of anti-heretical trials is quite remarkable, as noted by Robert Browning in ‘Enlightenment and repression’, 19. Also see Gouillard, Jean, ‘L’hérésie dans l’empire byzantin des origines au XIIe siècle’, TM 1 (1965) 299–324 Google Scholar. For the broad consideration of heretics and heresies in the Alexiad, see D. Smythe, ‘Alexios I and the heretics: the account of Anna Komnene’s Alexiad’, in Alexios I Komnenos, 232–59.
88 Annae Comnenae Alexias, ed. Reinsch, D. R. and Kambylis, A. (Berlin/New York 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, trans. Sewter, E. R. A. (Harmondsworth 1969)Google Scholar; see also Uspenskii, F. I., ‘Deloproizvodstvo po obvineniiu Ioanna Itala v eresi’, Izvestia Russkago Archeologicheskago Instituta v Konstantinopole 2 (Odessa 1897) 30–66 Google Scholar. For the extensive discussion, see Clucas, The Trial.
89 Alexiad 10.1.1–5 (Sewter, 293–5).
90 Alexiad 15.8.5–6 (Sewter, 498).
91 Alexiad 15.10.4 (Sewter, 504).
92 Alexiad 15.10.5 (Sewter, 504).
93 The Synodikon of Orthodoxy was aptly described by Clucas as ‘the official catalogue of condemned heresies and approved rulings of the Byzantine Church, beginning with the original anathemas read out against the vanquished Iconoclasts in 843’ (Clucas, The Trial, 2).
94 Moshin, V. A., ‘Serbskaia redaktsiia sinoda v nedeliu pravoslaviia. Analiz tekstov’, VV 16 (1959) 341-2Google Scholar; see also Gouillard, J., ‘Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie’, TM 2 (1967) 1–316 Google Scholar; Gouillard, J., ‘Nouveaux témoins du Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie’, AB 100 (1982) 459-62Google Scholar.
95 Alexiad 15.9.1 (Sewter, 500). The Dogmatic Panoply is the only securely established manuscript commission of Alexios I. This book indisputably held a place of importance in the imperial library, as attested by two surviving copies: both include a frontispiece miniature of the emperor presenting the book to Christ, thus signaling the imperial and divine approval of the work. The two surviving copies are Vat. Gr. 666 and Moscow Hist. Mus. Synodal Gr. 387. For a more detailed discussion of these manuscripts and the identity of the imperial figure, see Spatharakis, I., The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts (Leiden 1976) 122-9Google Scholar; Magdalino, P. and Nelson, R., ‘The emperor in Byzantine art of the twelfth century’, BF 8 (1982) 149-51Google Scholar; see also L. Rodley, ‘The art and architecture of Alexios I Komnenos’, in Alexios I Komnenos, 344, and the discussion of the Barberini Psalter below.
96 Zigabenos, ‘Dogmatic panoply against the Bogomils’, 188. On Zigabenos, see Jugie, M., ‘La vie et les oeuvres d’Euthyme Zigabène’, EO 15 (1912) 215-25Google Scholar.
97 Anderson, J., ‘The date and purpose of the Barberini Psalter’, Cahiers Archéologiques 31 (1983) 35–67 Google Scholar. This attribution was first proposed by De Wald, E. in ‘The Comnenian portraits in the Barberini Psalter’, Hesperia 13 (1944) 78–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The bibliography on this subject is thoroughly covered by Anderson in ‘The date and purpose’. On folio 5 of the Barberini Psalter, an imperial family is represented with the young successor placed centrally between his parents. This miniature makes this an unambiguously imperial manuscript (as either a commission or a gift). For problems of imperial representation, see Spatharakis, I., ‘Portrait falsifications in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts’, in Studies in Byzantine Manuscript Illumination and Iconography (London 1996) 45-8Google Scholar; see also Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’.
98 Stephanou, P., ‘Le procès de Léon de Chalcédoine’, OCP 9 (1943) 7 Google Scholar. For an excellent analysis of the events, see Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 56–9.
99 Alexiad 5.2.3 (Sewter, 158).
100 Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 56–7. For in-depth analysis of the events, see P. Stephanou, ‘Le procès de Léon de Chalcédoine’, 5-64; see also Grumel, V., ‘Les documents athonites concernant l’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine’, Studi e Testi 123 (1946) 116-35Google Scholar.
101 For a recent discussion, see Carr, A. Weyl, ‘Leo of Chalcedon and the icons’, in Moss, C. and Kiefer, K. (eds), Byzantine East, Latin West: Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton, NJ 1995) 579-84Google Scholar; see also Meyendorff, J., ‘Leo of Chalcedon’, in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 2: 1214-15Google Scholar; Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 57; Grumel, V., ‘L’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine: Le décret ou “semeioma” d’Alexis I Comnène (1086)’, EO 39 (1940) 333-41Google Scholar; Gautier, P., ‘Le synode de Blachernes (fin 1094). Étude prosopographique’, REB 29 (1971) 213-84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stephanou, P., ‘La doctine de Léon de Chalcédoine et de ses adversaires sur les images’, OCP 12 (1946) 177-99Google Scholar.
102 Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 59.
103 ‘Visual polemics’ is part of the title of the book by Corrigan, Visual Polemics in the Ninth-century Byzantine Psalters.
104 The Barberini Psalter contains five images pertaining directly to the iconoclast controversy, which makes this manuscript stand out among the body of the surviving Marginal Psalters (see Anderson et al., The Barberini Psalter, 15; see also Brubaker, ‘The Bristol Psalter’, 127–41). For discussion of the Khludov and Barberini images, see Walter, , ‘Christological themes in the Byzantine Marginal Psalters from the ninth to the eleventh century’, REB 44 (1986) 284-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
105 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 264.
106 Piltz, Byzantium in the Mirror, ii.
107 ‘Distorting mirror’ refers to Mango’s famous ‘Byzantine literature as a distorting mirror: an inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 21 May 1974’ (Oxford 1975).