Maria Bormpoudaki

Current discourse on Latin imagery in rural Greek churches in Venetian Crete is usu- ally focused on images of St Francis. The explanations offered by scholars concerning his appearances in this context usually revolve around Francis’s perceived interconfes- sional appeal, but the introduction of another Latin saint from a different mendicant order into the monumental art of Byzantine character on Crete revises this picture significantly. The present article discusses images of Dominican saints found in Cretan churches of the Venetian period. With statutes promulgated in 1254 and 1256, the General Chapter of the Dominicans encouraged the veneration of Dominican saints through the dissemination of their images, and the representation of St Peter Martyr in his eponymous church in Candia clearly constitutes a visual testimony to this policy. At the same time, the portrait of St Peter Martyr in the Greek (Orthodox) church of St George in the village of Apostoloi in Pediada (in the wider Candia region) provides grounds for a discussion of cultural difference in Venetian Crete, as well as for the interaction between the Latin and Greek communities around the time of the revolt of St Titus. In my view, this representation, which is currently the only known example in a Greek church, should be re-examined in light of the prominent Venetian presence in the aforementioned region and the specificity of the local context.

In the church of Saint George Sfakiotis, built on the outskirts of the settlement Diavaide in the Perfecture of Heraklion in Crete, narrative interest is focused on the large painting with the mounted figures of the military saints George and Demetrios. Saint George is shown together with the young pillion rider, whereas the element of water on the lower part of the scene establishes a connection between the episode of the slave's release and a rarer variant according to which the liberator saint crosses the sea ('thalassoperatis', trans. he who crosses the sea). The iconographic and stylistic analysis of the representation of Saint George as well that of Saint Demetri-os at Diaviade reflects the artistic environment of the Eastern Mediterranean, possibly that of Cyprus, where images of equestrian military saints form part of the tradition of the island.

Τhe church of the Virgin of Meronas, which is in the uplands of the province of Amari in Rethymnon, has already been the sub- ject of academic research. The cleaning of the church’s wall paint- ings produced a series of studies which noted both the high quality of the paintings and the central role the church played in establishing the idealistic art of Constantinople on the island of Crete after the mid-14th century. This new art, which reflects the aristocratic tradi- tions of Constantinopolitan art, reappears in a series of monuments in upland areas belonging to the provinces of Kisamos, Selinos, Rethymnon, Mylopotamos, Agios Vasileios, all of them fiefs of the Kallergi family. The removal of the thick layer of plaster uncovered depictions which reveal both the liberal use of Palaiologean icono- graphic types and the iconographic links between the church in Meronas and key monuments for Palaiologean painting. At the same time, the reappearance of iconographic types in a number of build- ings in the Kallergi family fiefs confirms the central importance of the Cretan church in establishing and disseminating an idealistic tend in Constantinopolitan painting. A series of scenes linked to well- known monuments decorated with late Byzantine painting and rare
in Cretan art are, however, of especial interest. The most important of these is a scene from Christ’s childhood, the Enrolment for Taxa- tion, which appears in monumental art for the first time in the mosaic representing the Enrolment for Taxation in Chora monastery (1315), and reappears later in the church of Saint Nikolas in Curtea de Argeṣ́(1377–1383) and in the monastery of Kalenić in Serbia (1420). At the same time, the link with the art of the Byzantine capital is confirmed by another scene from the boyhood of Christ, Joseph’s Dream. Once again, the Meronas wall painting has iconographic links with mosaic depiction of the scene in question in the Chora monastery. In addition, the complexity of the impressive, badly worn Crucifixion, reveals a close iconographic kinship with the populous scenes of the same subject in the church of Agia Pelagia in Viannos (1360) and in the exonarthex of the Valsamonero monastery (after 1431), a relationship which stems from the use of the same icono- graphic models. The choice of the above scenes, uncommon during the late Byzantine period in the territories of what is now Greece, would point to a pioneering artist who knew the art of Constantinople and the era’s other major artistic centres at first hand.

T he article presents one group of Islamic vases in the Col- lection of the Byzantine and Christian Museum, which are dated to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The most impressive piece is the bowl inv. no. BXM 23450 (Figs 1 and 2), which was formerly in the possession of the Armenian collector Dikran Kelekian. Decorating the bottom of the bowl, on a coat of white slip, are rotating fish painted in white as if in relief. The bowl belongs to a category of ce- ramics of Sultanaban type, a name linked with the homony- mous city in Persia. Modern research attributes Sultanabad ware to workshops in Kashan, during the period of domina- tion of the Mongol Ilhanid rulers, who in the mid-thirteenth century conquered territories in Iran, Asia Minor and Iraq. The Iranian vases were traded in the markets of Egypt and Syria during the period of domination by Mamluk officials and had a considerable influence on local ceramic produc- tion, mainly of the first half of the fourteenth century, which was in vogue. The diffusion of the style of Iranian ceramics is exemplified by three sherds donated by Antonis Benakis to the Byzantine and Christian Museum, and which are possi- bly products of Egyptian workshops. They belong to the technique of painted pottery with deep blue and black deco- ration under a transparent glaze, in the Panel Style (with ra- diate panels on the bottom), and are dated in the fourteenth century (Figs 3 and 4).
In the period of the military oligarchy of Mamluk officials
(1250-1517), large quantities of ceramics with incised or sgraffito decoration, alluding to creations in metalwork, were produced in Egypt. Fragments of sgraffito vases have been found in abundance in excavations at Fustat, which are represented in the Byzantine Museum and are dated to the fourteenth century. Predominant in the decoration of Mam- luk sgraffito vases are inscriptions (Figs 6, 8, 9 and 10), fre- quently combined with emblems-coats of arms (Fig. 10), while pictorial decoration is rather restricted. It should be noted that in the insignia of high-rank and low-rank officials, as also in the inscriptions with honorary titles, the strict or- ganization of the Mamluk State and the court’s insistence on social order and hierarchy are expressed. In the fifteenth- century Egyptian workshops, production of sgraffito vases gradually waned and was finally abandoned, whereas, on the contrary, the production of ceramics with under-glaze deep blue or black painted designs continued, examples of which are preserved in the Museum (Figs 15 and 16). Vases with the signatures of the Egyptian potters Gazal (Figs 16-18) and possibly the well-known Gaibi are included in the Museum’s collection (Figs 19 and 20). Obvious in this group is the influence of Chinese porcelain painted in cobalt blue, of the Yuan (1279-1368) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties, which was imported to the Islamic world. Ceramics of this type en- joyed wide dissemination throughout the Mediterranean Basin.