Yannis Varalis

Silver and gold alloys have been widely applied in the making of precious objects during the byzantine and post byzantine eras. A major category is the "ecclesiastical silver", which was used in the celebration of the liturgy (chalices, disks, asterisks, blessing and benediction crosses, processional crosses, liturgical fans, wedding crowns etc.). This study focuses on post-byzantine ecclesiastical silver chalices, kept in parish churches and monasteries of Eastern Thessaly. They have been studied with non-destructive analysis technique (XRF) for the clarification of the role of gold (Au) in the Silver – Copper – Gold alloy. The main question answered in this work is whether gold (Au) was part of the compositional alloy or decorative and moreover if it was applied with amalgamation procedure (Au - Hg alloy). By using X-Ray fluorescence spectroscopy, mathematic procedures for data processing it is proved that in all cases gold was decorative and applied with fire gilding am...

Silver and gold alloys have been widely applied in the making of precious objects during the byzantine and post byzantine eras. A major category is the "ecclesiastical silver", which was used in the celebration of the liturgy (chalices, disks, asterisks, blessing and benediction crosses, processional crosses, liturgical fans, wedding crowns etc.). This study focuses on post-byzantine ecclesiastical silver chalices, kept in parish churches and monasteries of Eastern Thessaly. They have been studied with non-destructive analysis technique (XRF) for the clarification of the role of gold (Au) in the Silver-Copper-Gold alloy. The main question answered in this work is whether gold (Au) was part of the compositional alloy or decorative and moreover if it was applied with amalgamation procedure (Au-Hg alloy). By using X-Ray fluorescence spectroscopy, mathematic procedures for data processing it is proved that in all cases gold was decorative and applied with fire gilding amalgamation process. Thus, in this work, it is proved that "fire mercury process" was the primary procedure for gilding ecclesiastical silver in Eastern Thessaly in the post-byzantine period.

Yannis D. VARALIS: Characteristics of the religious architecture of Nicopolis: parallelisms and deviations

Five basilicas, dated from the end of the fifth to the early seventh centuries, are preserved in Nicopolis. The study of the architecture and of the liturgical structures of these churches from a new point of view may help to integrate the religious building characters of the city to the  ecclesiastical architecture of the prefecture of Eastern Illyricum.
Basilica Beta was the episcopal and Basilica Delta the cemetery church of Nicopolis at the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth centuries; they were completed only after the raids of the Vandals (474/475 A.D.), possibly at the time of emperor Anastasios. The Margarona Basilica Epsilon, dated also to the end of the fifth century, might have been a pilgrim church in the chora of Nicopolis, on a strategic point at the entrance of the Ambracic gulf. During the justinianic period the city seem to have flourished, especially after the earthquakes of 522; Basilica Alpha was erected and decorated by two succeeding bishops of the city, namely Dometios I and II; the original phase of Basilica Gamma can be detected as also contemporaneous. The liturgical structures of these churches are far from isolated and outstanding – they follow similar structures found in churches of Thessalonica dated to the mid-fifth century, as the episcopal basilica under the actual St. Sophia and the extra muros basilica of the 3rd of September street.
Two of the previously suggested characteristics of the religious architecture of Nicopolis may now be resituated in broader contexts and re-evaluated: the designation of the architectural type of four of the churches and the identification of the «diaconicon» prescribed by the Testamentum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi with the south-west annex of the Basilica Beta. Four of the Nicopolis churches cannot be listed among the «transept basilicas», since there was not any real transept on their roofing system; Basilicas Beta, Delta, Alpha and Epsilon seem to have had transverse rooms at either side of their eastern parts, possibly because they housed tombs or venerated relics at either side of their sanctuaries. The «diaconicon» of the Basilica Beta cannot be thought as an addition prescribed by the compiled text of the Testamentum, which was of Palestinian origin and of Ethiopian diffusion; it was a chapel added in a later, sixth-century phase and had nothing to do with the basilica itself

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