The Art Bulletin ISSN: 0004-3079 (Print) 1559-6478 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcab20 Iconoclasm’s Legacy: Interpreting the Trier Ivory Paroma Chatterjee To cite this article: Paroma Chatterjee (2018) Iconoclasm’s Legacy: Interpreting the Trier Ivory, The Art Bulletin, 100:3, 28-47, DOI: 10.1080/00043079.2018.1393322 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2018.1393322 Published online: 27 Sep 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 102 View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rcab20 Iconoclasm’s Legacy: Interpreting the Trier Ivory paroma chatterjee 1 Plaque, 10th century, ivory, 51/8 × 101/4 in. (13.1 × 26.1 cm). Treasury of Trier Cathedral, Trier, Germany (artwork in the public domain; photograph by Ann Münchow, provided by Hohe Domkirche, Trier) The bold relief and vivid details animating the piece known as the Trier ivory are matched by the insistent enigma of the subject matter they appear to depict (Fig. 1).1 To be sure, other objects in the same medium are equally puzzling to art historians: the luscious caskets of bone and ivory (ca. tenth century) replete with the images of beasts, putti, and human figures reveling in playful acts, exposing their buttocks, performing fellatio, or just standing by and watching have elicited a spate of analyses regarding the putative mythological sources from which they were, perhaps, adapted.2 The event portrayed on the Trier ivory is far more sedate in nature, but its obvious decorum and signs of Orthodoxy (the image of Christ on the far left, the imperial figures in the front, one of them wielding a giant cross) have likewise presented a conundrum. Even as scholars largely agree that the image represents the advent of a relic into a city, attention has focused overwhelmingly on the identity of the holy remains presumed to rest in the casket carried by the two clerics. Interpretations have ranged from the relics of Joseph and Zachariah to those of the Forty Martyrs, the wood of the True Cross, and, most enduringly, the right arm of Saint Stephen, believed to have been brought to Constantinople under the aegis of the Augusta Pulcheria in the fifth century.3 In keeping with this diverse cast, the identities of the imperial figures, the clerics, and the location of the event have also differed from study to study. Finally—and as a consequence of the above interpretations—determining the date when the piece was wrought has proven to be vexing in the extreme, the posited periods ranging from late antiquity to the tenth century.4 28 2 Emperor Justinian presenting a model of Hagia Sophia to the Theotokos and Christ, 10th century, mosaic. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (artwork in the public domain; photograph © Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY) In the hunt for the “correct” event and the trail of historical documents supporting or detracting from proving it as such, the image on the slab seems to have been somewhat eclipsed. Not that the Trier ivory has been denied sufficient scrutiny—quite the contrary. While a comprehensive technical description was done by Richard Delbrueck in the 1920s,5 Suzanne Spain in 1977 closely examined such details as the imperial headdress, the cross wielded by the empress, the physical features of the portrait of Christ, and the style of carving.6 In their foundational article a couple of years later, Kenneth Holum and Gary Vikan proffered a number of iconographic parallels of processions and images of spectators from the late antique and Byzantine repertoire to compare with the ivory.7 Likewise, Leslie Brubaker investigated the carving and iconography in order to determine the date of another, even more contentious event than that shown on our piece: the placing and subsequent removal of the icon of Christ on the Chalke gate of Constantinople (since the structure on the left is believed by some to refer to the Chalke),8 which several texts from the Byzantine era marked as the decisive act that sparked off iconoclasm in the eighth century.9 But none of these studies delves into the significance of representing relics, reliquaries, and the multiple and sometimes contradictory associations they evoked in the medieval era. All the arguments mentioned above view the representation on the ivory as fact, or as closely corresponding to it. “The Translation of Relics is, all in all, reported in a downto-earth, realistic, documentary fashion,” commented Spain in 1977.10 Holum and Vikan claimed that “the event portrayed is not ideal but historical.”11 Several decades later, it is still asserted that “a portrait of Christ adorned the Chalke gate when the Trier ivory was carved, and the date of the panel is therefore of some relevance to a discussion of the origin of the portrait on the Chalke,”12 thus attesting to the tenacious scholarly perception of the ivory’s historicity. Ironically, almost all the arguments pertaining to the supposed identities of the figures, the architecture, and the relics are persuasive in their own right. This only reflects the capaciousness of the image in accommodating any number of identities within the parameters of relic translation. It has even been suggested that the event depicted never occurred at all. John Wortley argued from a close and convincing reading of the historical documents that the arm of Saint Stephen was never brought to Constantinople, but that the episode became a powerful urban legend in the ninth century.13 Wortley’s contention is that the ivory was carved centuries later than the event it purports to illustrate precisely in order to grant an aura of authenticity to an incident that had not actually taken place—if, indeed, the image refers to the translation of Saint Stephen’s arm. If we accept this line of argument, then it is clear that Byzantine artists were eminently capable of rendering images of historical episodes they had not witnessed, and that even while genuflecting to a strand of documentary realism in picturing details of the surrounding urbanscape, they could have taken liberties with them, choosing to add, subtract, or obscure selective elements.14 The tenth-century mosaic on the south vestibule of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, demonstrates such a strategy. It features Emperors Constantine and Justinian flanking the Theotokos (Mother of God) and Christ, each presenting a model of the city and the church to the holy figures. The miniature version of Hagia Sophia held by Justinian (Fig. 2) concedes more to concerns with the direction in which imperial processions approached and entered the eponymous church rather than to the actual appearance of the building either in the sixth century, when Justinian rebuilt the church, or in the tenth, when the image is supposed to have been made. As Robert S. Nelson points out, this representation of Hagia Sophia is in keeping with medieval conventions rather than corresponding to the components of the real building.15 Moreover, in portraying a dominant dome and ambiguous lower sections, the image also fits nicely with the church as it was described in Procopius’s 29 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory rapturous account of that bulbous projection in the sixth century.16 In other words, although the church depicted in the mosaic is most probably Hagia Sophia, it cannot be regarded as a completely accurate rendition of that monument, particularly in terms of its lower sections. Even when the identity of a pictured site is relatively clear, its image may not conform to reality. Similarly, the structure on the ivory identified by certain scholars as the Chalke gate may or may not be the Chalke, and even if it is, the makers and/or patrons could have chosen to depict an image of Christ there whether or not such an image ever existed on the structure at the time. These previous studies have contributed valuable insights into the Trier ivory, yet their exhaustive hunt for imperial and architectural identities has obscured the substance of the image. A close look at its formal echoes and juxtapositions reveals that these fit remarkably well in the larger context of ninth- and early tenth-century Byzantium. Such a conclusion seconds the dates posited by Brubaker based on her study of the material evidence and Wortley’s contention regarding the documentary evidence.17 Although Holum responded to Wortley’s claim by pointing to the existence of a text that proved the historicity of the translation of Saint Stephen’s relics,18 that does not automatically imply that the image actually depicts that same historical event. Indeed, another text used by Holum and Vikan to explain the “atypical elements” of the image—and one that they assert “corresponds so closely with the iconography of the Trier ivory that it has a strong claim to be the event portrayed”19—is an excerpt that describes an event from late antiquity, but which is part of the chronicle of Theophanes, a work dated to the ninth century and displaying a strong interest in the image debates that unfolded in that era. All these points merit consideration if one is to weigh the evidence for the most convincing case made—and, as mentioned above, the cases made by other scholars are more or less as persuasive and internally consistent as Holum’s and Vikan’s. Finally, it is surely reasonable to argue that given the complete lack of immediate markers in the image, the question of identity that has so exercised current scholarship was perhaps not the primary consideration for the makers and viewers of the ivory. Therefore, whether the lunette at the far left signals the Chalke gate or not is largely irrelevant when we consider the fact that it shows an image of Christ, a holy icon, in almost perfect vertical alignment with the relics supposedly contained in the casket (Fig. 1). The axial juxtaposition of holy images with holy remains is provocative and underlines one of the central concerns of the debates that raged during iconoclasm in the eighth and ninth centuries regarding the definition and validity of icons and relics, and the kind of veneration those objects demanded.20 After the iconophile triumph in 843 CE, icons were granted a vital significance and posited as the indisputable signs of Orthodoxy. In certain scenarios icons even competed with relics for attention and validation.21 The ivory highlights this situation by marshaling other piquant oppositions, playing off relics and icons in suggestive patterns and even incorporating objects that do not fit easily into either category. The position of these objects along prominent axes signals that they were intended as antitheses, or meaningful oppositions, located strategically so as to evoke broader, abstract meanings. Antithesis, as Henry Maguire has shown, was a rhetorical strategy that informed a range of Byzantine imagery.22 With its juxtaposition of striking emotional and ontological contrasts, antithesis also served as a means of inducing reflection on urgent theological and philosophical issues, such as the dual nature of Christ.23 The ivory slab in Trier enlists antithesis to somewhat similar ends. The deliberate display of distinct personages and holy objects is designed to evoke the interrogation of concepts such as facture and veneration that attended the iconoclastic controversy, whose reverberations persisted well after the ninth century, when iconoclasm was officially put to an end.24 30 The Art Bulletin September 2018 In effect, the Trier ivory can be read as a potent statement on the role of images in Byzantine public ceremonial, where their display might be interpreted as a formidable juxtaposition of distinct categories of holiness (icons, relics, miraculous icons) or, alternatively, as an equally powerful contestation between each of those categories.25 It has been acknowledged that medieval religious processions and ceremonies could function in a variety of contradictory circumstances, featuring “The mixing of lay and ecclesiastical sponsorship, of media and tone, of sacred and profane action.”26 Scholarship has also focused on the importance of objects other than reliquaries and/or images of saints, which are usually presumed to be the symbolic centers of religious ceremonies. Richard Trexler, for instance, has explored the role of flags in shaping social spaces and the people beneath them in fourteenth-century Florence.27 In a similar vein, literature on the processions involving Sainte Foy has highlighted the diverse effects apparent in moving the statue out of its shrine into a space where it was open to a number of interpretations, depending on the audience present.28 The notion of a Turnerian communitas as a paradigm of unity and consensus in processions,29 and the idealized vision of such movements as “linearly ordered, solemn . . . to a known destination,”30 have been nuanced and deconstructed.31 Perhaps less readily recognized in art historical literature, and certainly in the scholarship on the Trier ivory, is the fact that contradictory or competitive components could be knowingly and/or unknowingly embedded within a procession. This idea, so compellingly formulated decades ago by the anthropologist Michael Sallnow, enables us to glimpse the underlying—and sometimes overt—strains: “the egalitarianism, nepotism and factionalism, brotherhood, competition and conflict” intrinsic to a seemingly unified movement.32 This holds true for the human participants involved in such ceremonies as well, for Byzantine history offers innumerable instances of the fierce competition, and even outright hostilities, between the emperor and the church and other factions in the public sphere. Indeed, iconoclasm may be (and has been) read as a consequence of the conflicting views regarding the extent of the powers invested in the entities of the emperor, the church, and holy objects.33 Their appearance all together in a ceremony involving the procession of relics, therefore, imbues the image on the Trier ivory with a tension that has gone unrecognized. Quite apart from the rivalries mentioned above, the entire process of translating relics involved a degree of uncertainty, no matter how scrupulous the arrangements made to welcome and house them. Contemporary accounts—particularly the vivid passages from saints’ lives rather than the brief and decorous notices in synaxaria (compilation of hagiographies to be read out in church)—proffer hints of such unpredictability when they describe the unexpected events that occurred along the way, owing to the whims of the relics in question. For example, it is recorded that when the remains of Saint Stephen the protomartyr were processed into Constantinople, they firmly refused to proceed to their destination as had been arranged.34 In the tenth century vita of Theodora of Thessalonike, we read that the saint’s relics split apart the marble slabs of her casket because of their wish to be transferred elsewhere.35 The celebrations that attended the journey of holy remains to a new resting place were not untinged with anxiety and disruption, given the relics’ temperamental nature. Reliquaries, too, could be difficult as subjects of viewing. These “powerful enclosures” are often, but not always, magnificent in their own right.36 They embody perfectly—and somewhat frustratingly—the dialectics of visibility and invisibility, being tantalizing pointers to their sacred contents even as they shroud and obscure them. An object “to be carried and manipulated, displayed and presented,”37 the reliquary is also a fiercely independent entity, an object of “continuing power” as long as it holds relics,38 and sometimes even when it does not. 31 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory The pictorial representation of such an object is, therefore, unavoidably entwined with issues of seeing and not seeing, signifier (the container) and the signified (the relics it contains), and the slippages that occur between these extremes. It will emerge that the intellectual legacy of iconoclasm and the contestations it entailed are reflected in the image portrayed on the Trier ivory. It should be mentioned here that the issues involved in that legacy exercised theologians and writers even in the centuries before iconoclasm erupted in full force. The letters, sermons, and treatises of individuals right from the early church fathers up to the ninth century and beyond contain assertive statements for and/or against images, their material versus spiritual values, the relative strength of relics versus icons, and the efficacy of symbols such as the cross.39 Thus, even if the ivory were to be given a date before the ninth century, that would not invalidate the subjects its imagery reflects, since these endured as topics of rumination throughout the existence of the Byzantine Empire. However, it should also be kept in mind that even if the piece were to date to the late antique era, it was probably still viewed in later centuries. It is not hard to imagine a sophisticated viewer picking up on the visual cues so insistently proffered by the ivory and associating them with the burning issues of the day, just as Patriarch Photios used an ostensibly straightforward image of the Theotokos in the apse of Hagia Sophia to weave a web of allusions to the power of holy icons, models of viewership, and optical theories, among other topics, in the ninth century.40 The power of the Trier ivory does not merely reside in its image of a relic being added to the imperial treasury. Instead, it resonates in the strong implication that the concerns regarding icons and relics were intrinsic to the rituals and processions surrounding the importation of any relic to a city. For if the image on the ivory has a basis in reality, then it implies that the real event—that is, the transfer of any relic—must have elicited similar and equally fraught questions. The characters on the slab, ranging as they do from an empress to clerics and individuals brought together in the semblance of a crowd, underscore the critical role of translation (and other) ceremonies in bringing these sophisticated and highly abstract questions to the public sphere in immediately visible and tangible modes. Therein lies the charisma of this particular image. TRANSLATION AND ANTITHESIS Two horses, or mules (the literature is undecided on exactly what they are), wheel a chariot bearing two clerics toward a church (Fig. 1).41 The clerics jointly carry a casket, leaning backward to give it pride of place. At the other end of the slab, four men are positioned in a curious manner on and around the church. One seems to be pulling himself up by grasping the edge of a window, whereas the other three are already on the roof. Significantly, at least two men in this group take no notice whatsoever of the approaching relics. Seated on top of the roof with their backs resolutely turned to the chariot, they draw attention to the church as an entity in its own right. The clerics place a hand each on their precious burden, but shy away from it as though they are at pains not to touch it more than they should. The men on the church observe no such proprieties as they kneel on, grasp, and embrace various parts of the building. The clerics’ physical attitude is appropriate to the burden they bear. Relics were seldom exposed to the touch of the faithful; even emperors and clergy were permitted access only on special days.42 Relics were also shielded from the gaze by being encased in containers with bejeweled surfaces that bespoke the value of their contents.43 Even when holy remains were displayed, they were usually protected by devices to prevent their theft or destruction, whether accidental or deliberate.44 In certain cases, the very importance 32 The Art Bulletin September 2018 of the relic rendered it almost completely invisible. Take the case of the holy Mandylion, the famous acheiropoietos, or image not made by human hands, which depicted the face of Christ and was considered a cross between a relic and an image. This precious object entered Constantinople with great pomp in 944 CE, and all but vanished from view once it entered the royal palace.45 The relics seen (or rather, not seen) on the ivory are, therefore, justly absent from sight. But the pictorial matrix in which the casket participates emphasizes quite another important and contentious issue: manufacture. If the contents of the casket are authentic, they must not have been made by human hands. Even if they constitute secondary relics, such as bits of clothing that came into contact with a holy being, they are not supposed to be tainted by human touch other than in their primary context of manufacture. These contents must be the very opposite of the scenario presented on the other end of the slab, in which a church is shown being touched—and perhaps still being constructed, the finishing touches added—by humans. The literal placing of hands on the building might seem a tad heavy-handed, but it hammers the point home: the church is a monument made by men for the use of other men (and women and children). It is equally important to remember that churches often had relics inserted into their domes, walls, pillars, and columns.46 What we see on opposite ends of the slab, therefore, are two potential repositories of holy remains, each of which solicits questions regarding the crafting of such containers of the sacred. It is unusual, but not impossible, to find the depiction of manufacture in the repertoire of Byzantine art. Several Gospel books preface their contents with images of the Evangelists wielding their quills on empty or partially filled folios along with a lectern, a writing table, a holder of ink, and other paraphernalia associated with writing.47 Images of architectural construction are more difficult to locate. But one monumental example of the erection, if not of the making, of an object, with workers prominently shown handling it, is located in Constantinople itself. The obelisk of Theodosius, which stood in the Hippodrome, was originally made for Thutmose III of Egypt but was brought to Constantinople and put up in 390 BCE.48 The northeast face of the obelisk’s lower base bears images of the transfer of the object and its erection (Fig. 3). That the process was considered a wonder is underlined by inscriptions on the east and west faces that point to the mere thirtyodd days it took to set it up: a marvelous feat (Fig. 4). This suite of images and texts subtly inflects the other images on the block. Sorcha Carey puts it well: For while, on the upper part of the base, the sculpted relief figures of Theodosius and his entourage appear to look out on the spectacle of the Hippodrome, Theodosius, wreath in hand for the winner, the inscription on the lower base encourages the viewer to ignore the spectacle which so absorbs the figures above, and to revel instead in another spectacle, that of the raising of the obelisk. . . .49 Just as the Trier ivory presents an event in a public space with diverse foci of attention (see below), the base of the obelisk detracts attention from the supposed spectacle of the chariot races to divert it back to the erection of that massive object. The workmen are key to the miracle of the positioning of the obelisk. Indeed, in extant Byzantine texts that discuss the process of building, there is a decided emphasis on manual toil along with the customary flashes of divine inspiration granted to the patron. Take the Diegesis on Hagia Sophia included in the tenth-century Patria of Constantinople, a topographical guide to the founding of the city and its monuments. The author(s) attribute the accomplishment of various tasks to Emperor Justinian himself: he measures the site, lays the foundations of the great dome, builds the church of John the Forerunner, and furnishes 33 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory passages from the palace to the Great Church.50 Immediately following these activities, however, the Diegesis clarifies, There were a hundred master craftsmen, and each of them had a hundred men, so that all together there were ten thousand. Fifty masters with their crews were building the right-hand side, and the other fifty were likewise building the left-hand side, so that the work would proceed quickly, in competition and haste.51 3 The transportation and erection of the obelisk in Constantinople, obelisk of Theodosius I, base created ca. 390 CE, Istanbul (artwork in the public domain; photograph © Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY) 4 Inscription on the obelisk of Theodosius I, base created ca. 390 BCE, Istanbul (artwork in the public domain; photograph © Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY) Although of a fantastic tenor, the Diegesis still clearly underscores that the visions and dreams that guided Justinian in (re)building Hagia Sophia were brought to fruition by the labors of ordinary workmen—an element that the narrative need not have included at all, given its fabulous nature. Hands-on labor was clearly deemed a necessary component of the legend behind the building. In the debates that “raged fast and often furiously” in the eighth and part of the ninth centuries in Byzantium (and many of which had already been rehearsed in earlier centuries),52 one of the most pressing was the distinction between objects that were constructed, or manufactured by human hands, and those that were not. The second commandment in Exodus 20:4 that forbids the making of any “idol” or “likeness of anything which is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters which are under the earth,” and that further exhorts worshippers not to “venerate” or “adore” them, was at the root of the iconoclastic opposition to images.53 Since the icons of holy figures were almost always perceived to be the handiwork of humans, they could not be admitted into an economy of veneration, or so the iconoclasts said. As early as the fourth and fifth centuries, Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, condemned the “stupidity” of painters for having dared to portray the saints.54 As Charles Barber points out, iconoclastic texts of the eighth century such as the Inquiries of Emperor Constantine V and the Declaration of the iconoclast Council of Hiereia in 754 both fulminate against artists who make material images of holy beings.55 This fierce critique of manufacture also encompasses a critique of matter. The “artisan was at fault, not only for attempting to make a god from base matter but also for calling this made thing a god.”56 If the attitudes of the clerics and the men atop the church on the ivory signal the issues surrounding the validity of man-made objects and those that are not, the physical appearance of the casket and the church reinforce it. The casket shares a striking resemblance with the building placed at the other end of the slab. The gabled lid of the former echoes the gabled roof of the latter, and both are positioned at the same angle toward the viewer. One might easily interpret the church as a large reliquary itself, poised to receive the relics processing in from the left.57 Other images from the ninth century in Byzantium display the repetition of forms to underscore the differences between things that look similar. The 34 The Art Bulletin September 2018 5 Whitewashing an icon of Christ and the Crucifixion, from the Chludov Psalter, mid-9th century, tempera on vellum, 75/8 × 57/8 in. (19.5 × 15 cm). Historical Museum, Moscow, MS D. 129, fol. 67r (artwork in the public domain) Chludov Psalter is an outstanding instance in which the repeated depiction of Christ on the same folio serves to distinguish him as an icon and as a historical figure, depending on the larger context (Fig. 5).58 Such images inevitably raise questions regarding the ability of visual representation to mark the distinctions between different ontological entities within a single pictorial field. Despite—and perhaps because of—their superficial similarities, the differences between the building and the casket on the ivory are particularly noticeable. Whereas the church reveals details of tiles, windows, and doors, the casket is aggressively plain. Although it has been suggested that most Byzantine reliquaries had a relatively simple shape,59 we know that those associated with imperial or aristocratic patronage were sumptuous confections. They work hard to “represent the relic,” whether figuratively or otherwise, as Cynthia Hahn has put it.60 The Limburg Staurotheke, believed to have been commissioned by the eunuch Basil and enclosing an inscription naming Emperors Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos and Romanos II, is a lavish affair of enamel studded with a variety of gemstones, displaying the heavenly host of angels and seraphim along with Christ, the Theotokos, and an array of saints (Fig. 6).61 The casket on the Trier ivory does not adhere to the supposed realism of the event shown in this respect; the crowd and the imperial figures gathered to welcome the relic attest to its importance, yet its container is strikingly unornamented. Other much smaller surfaces on the ivory, such as the edges of the imperial garments and the imperial headdress, are decorated. Even relatively stark depictions of reliquaries in Byzantine art, such as those of Saint Anastasius the Persian martyr and of Saint John Chrysostom as pictured in the Menologion of Basil II, reveal attempts at ornamentation, the Persian martyr’s casket being relieved by a continuous scalloped edge, and the church father’s reliquary shut fast with a metal clasp that proffers a touch of sheen to the container. The casket on our ivory differs from these examples. Its steadfast plainness seems to signal the absence of human involvement in its manufacture beyond what was strictly necessary. Positioned between the casket and the church is yet another object that complicates the issue of manufacture: the giant cross held by the empress. Lightly caressing the corner of one window of the church, the cross is a pendant to the arm of the man that reaches for the window at the other end of the building. That an imperial figure should wield a cross is hardly surprising, as it was integral to the coronation and other royal ceremonies from as early as the fourth century. Moreover, Byzantine emperors had a monopoly on pieces of the True Cross on which Christ was believed to have been crucified. According to Lynn Jones, “the imperial court controlled distribution of these relics, and for much of the medieval period other cultures could obtain fragments of the cross only from Byzantium.”62 The problem, thus, lies in the very plethora of crosses fashioned for imperial use over the centuries, and the question of whether most or all or only a very few of them contained relics of the True Cross. For instance, Theodore Anagnostes from the sixth century records the existence of a jeweled cross closely associated with Constantine I that apparently contained a piece of the True Cross.63 However, the De cerimoniis, composed in the tenth century and alluding to materials from earlier years, mentions two crosses related to imperial ceremonial: one being the cross of 35 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory 6 Cover of the Limburg Staurotheke, reliquary for the wood of the True Cross, gilded silver, enamel, and jewels, 187/8 × 133/4 × 23/8 in. (48 × 35 × 6 cm). Cathedral of Limburg-an-der-Lahn, Germany (artwork in the public domain; photograph by Erich Lessing, provided by Art Resource, NY) Constantine housed in the palatine chapel of Saint Stephen, and the other a replica placed in the chapel of the Virgin of Pharos. But the text is silent about whether either of these crosses contained relics or otherwise.64 The cross on the ivory slab therefore oscillates between its status as a symbol and a potential relic—as an object fashioned by human hands, possibly encasing another object that had primary contact with the body of Christ (and thereby functioning as a reliquary of sorts, like the one processing in from the left), and as an article bereft of any tactile proximity with the Savior, although it remains a potent reminder of his suffering and triumph over death. Moreover, at least one scholar argues for the possibility that the invisible relic is the True Cross restored to Jerusalem by Heraclius.65 If accepted (and, like most other arguments pertaining to the piece, this one is quite plausible on its own terms), such an interpretation further complicates the status of the cross in the empress’s hand. Is the latter the visible, handcrafted counterpart of the unseen relic, or its competitor by virtue of containing a piece of the True Cross? These questions are embedded in the very composition of the piece, no matter the identities ascribed to its players. A point little noted in studies of relic translations is the potential contest between different sacred objects that might result from the ceremonies intended to honor a relic—in the case of the ivory, between the gigantic cross and the smaller reliquary. Attesting to such a contest is the dispersed attention of the gathered crowds.66 Spain commented on this from the viewpoint of a contemporary person looking at the slab; the multiplicity of objects, people, buildings, and the sheer horror vacui of the ivory allows for far too many sites to focus the gaze on.67 Yet this observation evidently holds true for the viewers within the image as well. While the heads arrayed in the second row from the top all turn toward the relic on the left, as we descend to the foreground of the plaque there is a perceptible shift to the right. The worthies gathered around the imperial couple all look away from the relic, focusing attention on the empress and the cross, not to mention the men on the church, who do not look back at all. The depicted procession, just like its counterpart in the real world, contains multiple points of significance, each of which draws attention, sometimes to the disadvantage of the others. That the Byzantine court and clergy were sensitive to the intrinsic hierarchy of objects involved in such ceremonies is evident from the increasing value of the crosses venerated by the emperor on religious feast days when he processed to Hagia Sophia. Although this 36 The Art Bulletin September 2018 hierarchy does not automatically imply that spectator attention was calibrated accordingly, it still gives us a sense of the climactic moments those objects were intended to bring about and their relative importance in the overall program. De cerimoniis tells us that the emperor was expected to venerate large crosses en route between the palace and the church. Inside Hagia Sophia the emperor would accompany the patriarch to the right side of the sanctuary and venerate and cense a “holy, gilded crucifix” before moving on to an oratory, where he venerated yet another cross bearing the symbols of the Passion.68 John Cotsonis emphasizes the difference between the public nature of the aniconic crosses involved in this procession and the private view of the crucifix the emperor and patriarch would have had in the sanctuary, the figural portrayal of Christ being associated with the altar.69 Equally relevant, however, is the fact that the procession culminated with a cross bearing some of the most important relics in Christendom, right after the emperor’s encounter with the crucifix. Image and relics are thus positioned in a scheme such that the former gives way to the latter, thereby granting it a special significance. Yet another subtle but unmistakable contest the ivory sets up on its horizontal axis is that between the clerical and imperial powers displayed on it. The history of Byzantium is littered with accounts of conflicts between the emperor and the church, with the one or the other emerging victorious at different points, depending on a variety of factors. However, it was not just the person of the patriarch, or members of the clergy, that the ruling powers negotiated with and/or suppressed in the case of conflict: emperors also regarded holy icons as potential competitors, even threats, to the powers invested in their own persons. John Haldon remarks that “icons, more especially icon-worship, appeared to the iconoclast emperors as a direct cause of the decline in their own authority . . . and hence a threat to their unique position as mediators between God and his people.”70 Furthermore, Anthony Kaldellis argues that between the ninth and twelfth centuries in Byzantium, historians describing critical battles deliberately kept the Theotokos away from the theaters of war, as her presence would have detracted from imperial glory.71 The Theotokos’s personal presence was believed to have saved Constantinople during the Avar siege of 626 and the Russian siege of 860, but critically, during both of those sieges, the emperor was not in the capital. After the ninth century, the Theotokos’s presence “was restricted to relics and icons, which thereby became weapons in an arsenal wielded by the emperors. The shift from personal intervention to only iconic surrogates enabled the narrative to remain focused on the emperor.”72 Not surprisingly, imperial representatives were ever sensitive to the powers that ambitious family members, external rulers, and clerics might claim for themselves. But let us not forget—as Haldon and Kaldellis remind us—that the Byzantine throne was equally wary of images and relics, which could, and often did, assume autonomous powers to rival its own. As long as these sacred objects remained part of the imperial arsenal, to be used or discarded at the emperor’s will, they were kept in check. This is precisely the situation highlighted in Middle Byzantine historical accounts, despite (and perhaps because of ) the triumph of the icon after iconoclasm in the ninth century. In this light, the reliquary held by the clergy on the Trier ivory forms a compelling ensemble in its own right. The clerics are positioned on a higher plane than the imperial couple and are seated, while the latter stands on lower ground, waiting for the precious object to arrive. The emperor cedes center and height to none but Christ in Byzantine art. The ivory complicates the hierarchy of scale that usually favors the Byzantine ruler by placing the clerics in a position of relative dominance. This is a resounding sign of the delicate balance between church and emperor (and empress, too, for that matter) and the shifting scale of power accorded to either side, depending on the context. 37 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory Finally, it is important to consider the fact that the reliquary might have contained more than one relic. Just as the latter is invisible, so, too, is the interior structure of the casket, which might just be more complicated than its exterior simplicity suggests.73 We are told that when the Mandylion was brought to Constantinople, it was accompanied by a replica of the letter that Christ had sent to King Abgar.74 One imagines that the replica was not as highly esteemed as the image itself, but it is not clear from the sources that such a differentiation was made explicit in the ceremonies conducted to honor the objects.75 The Limburg Staurotheke, however, had room for several relics, each inserted into its own cavity within the body of the reliquary, even as they flanked and glorified the main relic—a piece of the True Cross—presiding at the center.76 Thus, given the fact that a variety of remains could cohabit in a single container, or that a container could have other, more precious boxes nestled inside it, one should not discard the possibility of an implicit contest being staged within the reliquary held by the clerics on our ivory. THE VERTICAL AXIS: ICONS AND RELICS If the horizontal axis visualizes relics, or potential relics, and the personages involved in their transfer and display, the vertical axis on the left problematizes the issue of manufacture by introducing icons, or images, into the equation. The reliquary falls ever so slightly out of alignment with the bust of Christ depicted in the lunette above and the relief panel showing three togaed figures affixed to the chariot below. The inclusion of images within an image foregrounds their role within the pictorial field and reflects the concomitant issues surrounding the act of visual representation in the period under discussion. Is the lunette with the image of Christ meant to signify the Chalke gate and its associations with iconoclasm, as some scholars believe it does? It could, and it could not. As pointed out earlier, the places and people pictured on the ivory can plausibly assume a variety of specific identities. To my mind, it is far more important to investigate the general associations of images with gates, or thresholds, than to assume that the structure is definitively the Chalke. In the late antique and medieval city, the area of the gate, sometimes signaled by means of a triumphal arch, was rich with literal and symbolic meaning.77 Gates in Constantinople were often adorned with texts and images. According to the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai, dated to the eighth and/or ninth centuries, the space of the Chalke—to give one example—contained the statues of Maximian, the entire house of Theodosius the Spaniard, the empress Pulcheria, the emperor Zeno, and his wife Ariadne, all located on pillars, while the gate itself displayed the statues of Justin I and his family, Tiberius, a gilded statue of the general Belisarius, and two philosophers, along with four Gorgon heads and the sign of the cross.78 Historical, mythological, and Christian figures and/or symbols were thus seamlessly displayed around and on the structure. There is no mention of the image of Christ that was supposedly taken down by Emperor Leo III as his inaugural act of iconoclasm in the 720s, although we read in the tenth-century Patria, “The statue of Maurice and his wife and children at the Chalke stands above the icon of Jesus Christ represented as God and man, for they were put up by him.”79 As Simon Malmberg observes, the incidents connected to the Chalke that arose during and after iconoclasm only attest to the importance of that structure—and of gates, in general—as a focal point for imperial activity with the potential for developing into charged, polemical spaces.80 The other important gates of the city, namely the Golden Gates located in the Constantinian and Theodosian walls, were also decked with statues and, in the case of the latter, carried an inscription.81 Given the significance of gates, it is not surprising that one of the most enduring anecdotes to attach itself to the structure concerned the gift, namely a letter, sent by Jesus 38 The Art Bulletin September 2018 Christ to Abgar, king of Edessa, which was recorded by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (ca. 340–260 CE).82 By the fourth century, the Latin pilgrim Egeria could claim that Christ’s letter was used to ward off sieges by being read aloud at the gates of Edessa.83 Procopios tells us in the sixth century that the letter was inscribed on the Edessene gates, a practice that was evidently believed to be effective even at other sites, following a logic of holy contagion whereby the text protecting one city was believed to propagate its apotropaic powers when transferred to another.84 By the second half of the sixth century, however, accounts described the existence of a relic, or an image, that Christ had apparently sent Abgar along with the letter. This object, known as the Mandylion, was a renowned acheiropoietos, which was brought to Constantinople in the tenth century, as mentioned above.85 The Mandylion is often depicted at the threshold of the nave and the sanctuary in Byzantine churches, signifying a transitional area that leads to the most sacred space of the building.86 Although most extant examples are later than the Trier ivory, such a practice was probably not unheard of even in the ninth century and before. Records indicate that from as early as the fifth century, images of popular saints adorned the porches of workshops, thus reflecting the efficacy believed to adhere to images placed at thresholds.87 Images of the Mother of God were placed on the city walls of Constantinople, and sacred objects were paraded around them at times of stress.88 It might not be far-fetched, therefore, to forge an association between the famed acheiropoieta of Christ that had been paraded on the walls during sieges and the bust of Christ on our ivory, presiding as it does over a transitional space through which the chariot enters. Although by no means a certainty, the mere possibility of such an image introduces an implicit hierarchy of relics into the composition and sharpens the overt commentary on manufacture evident on the horizontal axis. Is an object not made by human hands, or an image of miraculous manufacture, or an image that performs miracles, superior to a relic? These were important questions for Byzantine thinkers, theologians, and, not least, some emperors, in the eighth and ninth centuries, and also prior to that. The struggles for and against holy images during iconoclasm necessarily involved outlining a hierarchy of objects that were deemed sacred and, therefore, could be posited as the legitimate targets of veneration. The arch iconoclast Emperor Constantine V regarded the bread and wine of the Eucharist the supreme symbols of the faith, going so far as to deem them the only true “icons” or images of Orthodoxy.89 For the iconophiles, the arguments in favor of ordinary handmade (or man-made) images rested in part on the case made for images not made by human hands, thereby endowing the latter with a particular significance.90 It is not just in the treatises written and rewritten for and against iconoclasm that we find a rich body of material regarding icons, relics, acheiropoieta, and their role in validating images. This sort of rumination is evident in saints’ lives from the tenth century and beyond as well, attesting to a wider audience for these subjects, and to a certain creativity and liveliness in deliberately mixing the categories of the objects mentioned above. For instance, the vita of Theodora of Thessalonike, composed at the very end of the ninth century, recounts a miracle resulting in the creation of an icon that behaves like a relic, but which is explicitly handmade, or cheiropoietos, thus adding yet another difficulty into a set of issues that were complicated enough.91 And what of the togaed figures rendered on the side panel of the chariot, which is aligned with the bust of Christ above? Some scholars have attempted to read them as Christianizing allegories or symbols associated with the relics in the casket.92 Again, it might be more fruitful to take them at face value as images inserted within an image rather than to attempt interpretations based on putative identities. The chariot itself has been described as an “imperial wagon,” with Holum and Vikan claiming that the three figures evoke the 39 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory 7 Basil II being crowned and handed implements by angels, from the Psalter of Basil II, 956–1025 CE, 12 × 115/8 in. (30.5 × 29.5 cm). Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, MS gr. Z 17, fol. 3r (artwork in the public domain; photograph by Erich Lessing, provided by Art Resource, NY) imperial Prachtwagen, although precisely how the carved trio goes about supporting such an association is not spelled out.93 Marjorie Nice Boyer points out that the vehicle shown on the Trier ivory has “that height so much admired in fourth-century Rome, which enabled the rider to tower above the throng.”94 The clerics certainly tower over their counterparts, all the better to display their casket. But Christ occupies a higher position still. Even if some sculpted heads are placed higher than his, their numbers, for all their individuality, render them the indicators of a crowd assembled to welcome the relic.95 The clerics are second in height, and finally comes the imperial retinue, with the empress shown as the shortest, if also the closest in proximity to the viewer. The relief figures on the chariot assume the role of supporting images in this scheme, literally bearing the weight of the figures above them. At the same time, they testify to the vitality of images that had no particular Christian significance in public ceremonial. This was certainly the case in Constantinople. The cityscape, studded as it was with churches and monasteries, was also a veritable open-air museum of ancient statues.96 Literary sources throughout the Byzantine era detail the dizzying variety of gods, heroes, and beasts from ancient mythology that stood in various attitudes in the public squares, the baths, the Hippodrome, all along the Mese (the main ceremonial path of the city), and on top of and around gates.97 Several of these were made of bronze, others of precious stone and marble. Herakles, Athena, and Helen of Troy were accompanied by the statues of famous individuals from the past, such as the giant portrayal of the historian Theophanes of Mytilene. Since these characters definitely populated the areas around the Great Palace (even the Chalke, as we have seen, depicted both Christian and non-Christian figures), it would have been difficult for most processions to avoid their presence, at least up until the early thirteenth century, when they had not yet been destroyed by the Crusaders. To give just one example, the procession marking the Feast of the Annunciation included the Forum of Constantine, with its extensive collection of ancient statues, including one of Athena Promachos,98 as a critical site.99 This is a point worth keeping in mind, as it inflects the usual reconstruction and description of medieval religious processions in Constantinople and other cities. These ceremonies were not monolithically Christian affairs in terms of objects, people, and landscape. That the classical past was ever-present for the citizens, even amid the most Christian of celebrations, is an often-ignored fact. The procession of Reims Cathedral on the Feast of Saint Mark deliberately incorporated the pagan sites of the city as well its Christian shrines.100 In Rome, the only city other than Constantinople to have retained an extensive classical landscape (and which the latter was explicitly modeled after), the various routes taken by papal processions were described in one text (written by a canon, no less) almost exclusively in terms of the classical statues and monuments they passed rather than the churches.101 The Trier 40 The Art Bulletin September 2018 8 Translation of the reliquary of Saint John Chrysostom, from the Menologion of Basil II, 976– 1025 CE, page 143/8 × 111/8 in. (36.4 × 28.4 cm). Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. gr. 1613, fol. 61r (artwork in the public domain) ivory’s togaed figures on the chariot thus take their place within this constellation of non-Christian objects that so often commanded the awe of medieval citizens and tourists alike. Finally, a word about the animals pulling the chariot. Just because they seem to be heading toward the church does not guarantee that that is the final destination of the relics. The legend of the translation of Saint Stephen’s remains (the mainstay of Holum and Vikan’s argument) includes a critical episode on the abrupt refusal of the mules carrying the relics to proceed on their journey to the imperial palace where they were supposed to rest. Apparently obeying a higher power, the mules stood fast where they were, and a church had to be built on the spot (the Constant[in]ianae) to house the saint.102 Back in the fourth century, another embarrassing incident had occurred when Emperor Valens ordered that the head of Saint John the Baptist be removed from Cilicia and brought to Constantinople; a short distance from the capital, the mules stopped and would not budge, and the relic had to be housed in a small village near Chalcedon. Valens’s successor, Theodosius, also moved the relic, but only to the Hebdomon, a suburb of Constantinople, where a church was built specifically for it.103 These episodes reflect the capricious autonomy of relics in choosing their sites of residence and the corresponding worries that could arise from their sudden decisions. The issue of distance, so apparent on the ivory slab, is an understudied phenomenon in Byzantine art and requires a few comments here. Images emphasizing legitimacy always take care to bridge the gap between the entities involved. Think of the resplendent figure of Basil II in full armor that graces the Psalter of the eponymous emperor (Fig. 7). The crown extended by Christ sits firmly on his head, placed there by an angel, while the lance is placed directly within his grasp by another winged being so as to leave no doubt that Basil II is the intended recipient of those honors. Similarly, the ivory piece portraying an emperor (usually identified as Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos) leaves no gap between Christ’s hand and the crown that sits on the imperial head. In contrast, the images of processed reliquaries almost invariably leave spatial voids between the object and its destination. One might argue that this is only logical; after all, the point of a visualized procession is to show movement toward a site. But this pragmatist approach should be tempered by the fact that the objects in question—reliquaries and relics—were known to be special entities. No wonder that in the Menologion of Basil II, the image of the reliquary of John Chrysostom being processed in also includes an imperial figure, waiting by the church at the far right, who bows almost as low as the men carrying the casket (Fig. 8). This gesture of imperial submission and attendance is resounding testimony to the fact that imperial commands could, and were, overruled by the demands of limbs, heads, and dead bodies; that workmen often needed to be dispatched on the spur of the moment to construct a dwelling despite other provisions having been made. The very nature of relics thus imbues the distance on the Trier ivory between the church and the reliquary, as yet unspanned, with a palpable tension. The emperor and empress wait, as does the crowd. They watch the progress of the chariot which, one hopes, will halt at the predetermined site. Whether it is also the predestined site remains to be seen. 41 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory LARGER QUESTIONS 9 A Byzantine emperor and attendants, 6th century, mosaic. Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Scala/ Art Resource, NY) 10 A Byzantine empress and attendants, 6th century, mosaic. Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy (artwork in the public domain; photograph provided by Scala/ Art Resource, NY) When depicted in even the most extravagant Byzantine manuscripts, the translation of relics normally gives center stage to the holy remains. Yet the Trier ivory is not alone in displaying a relatively full panoply of characters and objects along with the reliquary. Monumental images of processions include precisely the kinds of details that promote the dispersal of vision and attention as found on the ivory. The imperial figures with their retinues facing each other across the walls at San Vitale, Ravenna, are cases in point (Figs. 9, 10).104 A royal couple, usually identified as Justinian and Theodora, despite the absence of inscriptions naming them, carries Eucharistic gifts to the apse. But the giant shield with the Chi-Rho inscribed on it, the bejeweled cross, the Gospel book (Fig. 9), and the small but unmistakable images of the Magi on the hem of the empress’s robe (Fig. 10) all affirm their own importance within the overall image, as does the presence of the clergy and the prominently labeled figure of Maximianus, who holds the cross and, one might argue, vies for attention with the emperor himself (Fig. 9). Moreover, the fountain, set right by the door that presumably leads the empress to the apse, is a fitting testament to the kinds of sculpted monuments that enlivened the cityscape of Constantinople and, as argued above, were an inevitable part of religious spectacle. Although dated to the thirteenth century and therefore probably later than the ivory, the fresco of the Tuesday miracle of the Hodegetria icon in Arta, Greece, is yet another example of the multiple foci that could exist within a procession. The fresco shows large groups of men and women gazing at the icon presiding in their midst. Some lean out of the galleries of a palace in the background to catch a glimpse. In the immediate foreground is a set of market scenes in which characters walk, drink, and converse, displaying a singular disregard for the activities occurring behind them.105 These figures are active, their limbs stretched in various directions, in stark contrast to the pious containment of the spectators further back, who contemplate the icon with rapt attention. Even the performance of a miracle and a procession do not distract them from the business of chatter and drink that animates the foreground. This is not to claim that the Hodegetria and its miracles were not regarded as important. Rather, it is a blatant reminder of the fact that the very variety of elements harnessed in public ceremonials could result in the distribution of attention to sites other than those considered as central or normative. If the ivory slab were part of a casket, as has been argued by some scholars, then the nature of the object would have required that attention be given to the other panels as well, particularly if these displayed the story behind the relics. As one component in a larger ensemble, our panel would have worked in concert with its counterparts, showing and then effacing itself as the other panels are examined, or when the casket is opened.106 Since the other panels are missing, one can only speculate on the nature of the imagery they contained. Still, we know a certain amount about the expectations that attended the opening of a casket of relics. Sweet scents could emanate, or rays of light, attesting to the miraculous nature of the remains. In certain cases, sacred oil could gush out from strategic cavities in the reliquary.107 Sometimes, of course, nothing happened at all. But this by no means invalidated the power of the relic, nor the charged act of lifting or sliding off a lid covering what was deemed to be both immeasurably humble and ineffably precious. EPILOGUE: THE EVIDENCE OF THE OBJECT The central issues of Byzantine iconoclasm were formulated through recuperating and (re)interpreting the theological terms on which Orthodox Christianity rested.108 Visual reflections of the controversy are not as copious as the reams of words that its debates produced. 42 The Art Bulletin September 2018 11 The Triumph of Orthodoxy, icon on wood with gold leaf, painted in egg tempera, ca. 1400, 153/8 × 121/4 × 21/8 in. (39 × 31 × 5.3 cm). British Museum, London (artwork in the public domain; photograph © The Trustees of the British Museum, provided by Art Resource, NY) We have the blatant pictorial propaganda of the ninth-century marginal psalters, among which the image of the iconoclasts whitewashing the icon of Christ in the Chludov Psalter is a renowned example (Fig. 5).109 The icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, now located in the British Museum in London, provides another overt statement of triumphalism, featuring the main protagonists who brought about the restoration of icon worship (Fig. 11).110 However, images that reflect the contentious terms of the conflict itself and its varying, complex stances on the validity of images and relics, on facture and authenticity, and on words and images are relatively less abundant, and also less studied as such in the literature on Byzantine art. This is not the fault of the latter, which is perfectly capable of sophisticated self-reflection, as various recent studies show.111 But the whiff of realism that permeates some Byzantine images has seduced art historians into attempting to pin them down to a date, a place, a ritual, an emperor, or an empress, depending on the cast of characters involved. Yet these very images can equally refer to subjects that are not overtly mimetic, in the sense of corresponding to an external reality. One instance is the eleventh-century mosaic of Christ washing the feet of his disciples located in the narthex of the church of the Theotokos at Nea Moni, Greece. William Tronzo offered a mimetic reading of the image, interpreting it as the representation of a ritual outlined in an eleventh-century priest’s prayer book, a ritual believed to have been performed in proximity to the mosaic itself.112 Barber, however, argued that the image was not merely an iteration of that ritual; in tandem with an accompanying inscription, it persuasively outlined the relational economy between words, images, and worship, thus offering a meditation on some of the key points underpinning the iconoclastic controversy.113 The possibility of seemingly realistic images participating in a discourse on their own status as visual representations and their ontological and epistemological foundations is completely persuasive when we look to the painstaking theoretical formulations articulated by generations of iconophiles and iconoclasts, going back to the earliest centuries of Byzantium. As we have seen, it is precisely the plausibility of the depiction of ceremonial on the Trier ivory that has elicited a torrent of scholarship focused on the question of identity and the reconstruction of a putative historical event. Like the Nea Moni mosaic, however, the ivory also delineates aspects of the upheavals that shook and shaped Byzantine image theory in the eighth and ninth centuries, the seeds of which were already planted in the fourth and fifth centuries, and which continued in a mellower, but no less rigorous mode in subsequent centuries as well.114 To read it, and other images like it, as merely and transparently mimetic renditions is to do them an injustice. That, quite simply, is my argument. paroma chatterjee is associate professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her interests focus on Byzantine icons, relics, Constantinople, and the Mediterranean world. She is currently writing a book on Byzantine sculpture [Department of the History of Art, 855 S. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1357, paroma@umich.edu]. 44 The Art Bulletin September 2018 NOTES I wish to thank Sally Bjork at the Visual Resources Collection of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for giving generously of her time. I am also grateful to Rita Heyen for her swift response to my queries. Last but not least, I am indebted to Anna Juliar at The Art Bulletin for her patience and support. 1. Literature on the Trier ivory is vast. Some of the landmark studies are W. F. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters, 3rd ed. (Mainz: Verlag des römisch-germanischen Zentralmuseums, 1976), 95–96; Klaus Wessel, “Studien zur oströmischen Elfenbeinskulpturen,” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universität Griefswald 3 (1953–54): 12–15; Suzanne Spain, “The Translation of Relics Ivory, Trier,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31 (1977): 281–304; Kenneth Holum and Gary Vikan, “The Trier Ivory, Adventus Ceremonial, and the Relics of St. Stephen,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 33 (1979): 115–33; W. Weber, “Die Reliquienprozession auf der Elfenbeintafel des Trierer Domschatzes und das kaiserliche Hofzeremoniell,” Trierer Zeitschrift 42 (1979): 135–79; John Wortley, “The Trier Ivory Reconsidered,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 21 (1980): 381–94; L. J. Wilson, “The Trier Procession Ivory: A New Interpretation,” Byzantion 54 (1984): 602–14; Paul Speck, “Weitere Überlegungen und Untersuchungen über die Ursprünge der Byzantinischen Renaissance, mit einem Nachtrag: Der Trierer Elfenbein und anderer Unklarheiten,” Varia (Bonn) 2 (1987): 253–83; and Leslie Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate, the Construction of the Past, and the Trier Ivory,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 23, no. 1 (1999): 258–85. 2. For literature on Byzantine ivories in general, see Adolph Goldschmidt and Kurt Weitzmann, Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen des X–XIII Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1930–34); Kurt Weitzmann, Byzantine Book Illumination and Ivories (London: Variorum Reprints, 1980); idem, Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art (repr., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 169–77; Anthony Cutler, The Craft of Ivory: Sources, Techniques and Uses in the Mediterranean World: A.D. 200–1400 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1985); idem, The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory, and Society in Byzantium (9th–11th Centuries) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); idem, Late Antique and Byzantine Ivory Carving (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 1988); idem, “On Byzantine Boxes,” Journal of the Walters Art Museum 42–43 (1984–85): 32–47; Henry Maguire, “Other Icons: The Classical Nude in Byzantine Bone and Ivory Carvings,” Journal of the Walters Art Museum 62 (2004): 9–20; Paroma Chatterjee, “Vision, Transformation, and the Veroli Casket,” Oxford Art Journal 36, no. 3 (2013): 325–44; and Henry Maguire, “Ivories as Pilgrimage Art: A New Frame for the ‘Frame Group,’” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 63 (2009): 117–46. Euphemiakirche am Hippodrom,” Millennium 11 (2014): 261–87. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for The Art Bulletin for directing me to this article. 5. R. Delbrueck, Die Consulardiptychen und verwandte Denkmäler, vol. 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1929), 261–70. 6. Spain, “The Translation of Relics,” 283. 7. Holum and Vikan, “The Trier Ivory,” 120–25. 8. Ibid., 125; Weber, “Die Reliquienprozession,” 136; and Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate,” 271. 9. Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate,” 273–76. 10. Spain, “The Translation of Relics,” 287. 11. Holum and Vikan, “The Trier Ivory,” 126. 12. Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate,” 273, also reproduced in Leslie Brubaker and John F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680–850: A History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 133. 13. Wortley, “The Trier Ivory Reconsidered,” 381–94. 14. Interestingly, this point is made in Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate,” 271n44, in which it is stated that “no Byzantine representation aimed at archaeological accuracy: The Trier portrait may be a ‘shorthand’ reference . . . or it may indicate that the iconography was changed over time.” Despite the admission that Byzantine images were not always accurate portrayals of reality, the argument still posits the structure as the Chalke. 15. Robert S. Nelson, Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950: Holy Wisdom, Modern Monument (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 10. 16. Ibid. 17. Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate,” 273–76. 18. See Kenneth Holum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 104n116. 19. Holum and Vikan, “The Trier Ivory,” 127. 20. The scholarship on iconoclasm is vast. The following are some of the most recent titles: Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); idem, Contesting the Logic of Painting: Art and Understanding in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era; and Jaś Elsner, “Iconoclasm as Discourse: From Antiquity to Byzantium,” Art Bulletin 94, no. 3 (2012): 368–94. 21. Paroma Chatterjee, The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 30–66. 22. Henry Maguire, Art and Eloquence in Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 53–83. 3. These diverse interpretations are listed and discussed in Wortley, “The Trier Ivory Reconsidered,” 393. 23. Ibid., 54. 4. See the comments and summing up in Brubaker, “The Chalke Gate,” 273–76. A recent article dates the ivory to the eighth century. See P. Niewöhner, “Historisch-topographische Überlegungen zum Trierer Prozessionselfenbein, dem Christusbild an der Chalke, Kaiserin Irenes Triumph im Bilderstreit und der 25. This point has been made in the context of early Christianity in Jaś Elsner, “Piety and Passion: Contest and Consensus in the Audiences for Early Christian Pilgrimage,” in Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods, ed. Elsner and Ian Rutherford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 411–34. 24. Barber, Contesting the Logic of Painting. 26. See the essays by Kathleen Ashley, “Introduction: The Moving Subjects of Processional Performance,” 21, and C. Clifford Flanigan, “The Moving Subject: Medieval Liturgical Processions from a Semiotic and Cultural Perspective,” 36, both in Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Ashley and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2001). 27. Richard Trexler, “Follow the Flag: The Ciompi Revolt Seen from the Streets,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 46 (1984): 357–92. 28. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Sainte Foy on the Loose, or, The Possibilities of Processions,” in Ashley and Hüsken, Moving Subjects, 53–67. 29. See the influential formulation of communitas in Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (repr., New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). 30. Roy Grimes, “Procession,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, vol. 12 (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 1. 31. The rebuttal to the Turnerian idea of communitas is most effectively formulated in Michael J. Sallnow, “Communitas Reconsidered: The Sociology of Andean Pilgrimage,” Man 16, no. 2 (1981): 163–82. See also the essays collected in John Eade and Sallnow, eds., Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (London: Routledge, 1991). 32. Sallnow, “Communitas Reconsidered,” 176, in which he describes the pilgrimages of the Quechua-speaking Indians of Peru as a “complex mosaic of egalitarianism, nepotism, and factionalism, of brotherhood, competition, and conflict.” 33. John F. Haldon, “Some Remarks on the Background to the Iconoclastic Controversy,” Byzantinoslavica 38 (1977): 182–83. 34. Paul Magdalino, “Aristocratic Oikoi in the Tenth and Eleventh Regions of Constantinople,” in Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed. Nevra Necipoğlu (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 62. 35. See the Life of St. Theodora of Thessalonike, trans. AliceMary Talbot, in Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Talbot (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996), 219. 36. Cynthia Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” Numen 57 (2010): 286. 37. Ibid., 290. 38. Ibid. 39. See Barber, Figure and Likeness, 17–19, 40–42; and Elsner, “Iconoclasm as Discourse,” which argues that the issues exercising the Byzantine iconoclasts had been around for centuries, but were properly theorized under the conditions of Byzantine iconoclasm; and the primary sources collected and translated in Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986). 40. Photios, Homily XVII, in The Homilies of Photius Patriarch of Constantinople, trans. and ed. Cyril Mango, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), 290ff. 45 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory 41. Spain, “The Translation of Relics,” 282, refers to them as horses, whereas Holum and Vikan, “The Trier Ivory,” 121, make a case for them being mules. 42. See the comments in Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” 305. See also the expanded study of reliquaries in Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012); and Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout, “‘Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them’: Relics and the Byzantine Church Building (9th–15th Centuries),” in Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2015), 153–72. 43. Marinis and Ousterhout, “‘Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot,’” 155. 44. Ibid., 157, which describes the measures taken to prevent adoring mobs from looting relics, particularly body parts. 45. Herbert L. Kessler, “Configuring the Invisible by Copying the Holy Face,” in Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 77. 46. Natalia Teteriatnikov, “Relics in Walls, Pillars and Columns of Byzantine Churches,” in Eastern Christian Relics / Vostochnochristianskie Relikvii, ed. Alexei Lidov (Moscow: Progress-Tradition, 2003), 77–92. 47. See the study by Robert S. Nelson, Iconography of Preface and Miniature in the Byzantine Gospel Book (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980). For a recent study on the connotations of writing, see Bissera V. Pentcheva, “Visual Textuality: The ‘Logos’ as Pregnant Body and Building,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 45 (Spring 2004): 225–38. 48. See the remarks on this and other obelisks in Sarah Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 85–89. 49. Sorcha Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 87–88. 50. Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria, trans. Albrecht Berger (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 238–41. 51. Ibid. 52. John Wortley, “Icons and Relics: A Comparison,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 43 (2002–3): 162. 53. See Barber’s discussion of the second commandment in Figure and Likeness, 54–58. 54. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 41. 55. Barber, Figure and Likeness, 55. 56. Ibid. 57. See Marinis and Ousterhout, “‘Grant Us to Share a Place and Lot,’” 163, in which they comment on the fact that the fifth-century chapel in which the Virgin’s maphorion was kept in the Blachernai was referred to as “soros,” or, literally, “reliquary.” This idea was most likely not carried over in the later medieval period, with a few exceptions, but the visual association is so explicit on the Trier ivory that it might have resonated with a contemporary viewer. 58. Kathleen Corrigan, Visual Polemics in the Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 20–23, 130–31. See also Christopher Walter, “Christological Themes in the Byzantine Marginal Psalters from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century,” Revue des Études Byzantines 44 (1986): 269–87. 59. Hahn, Strange Beauty, 224. 60. Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” 289. 61. On the Limburg Staurotheke, see Holger A. Klein, “Die Limburger Staurothek und der Kreuzkult in Jerusalem und Konstantinopel,” in Im Zeichen des Kreuzes: Die Limburger Staurothek und ihre Geschichte, ed. August Heuser and Matthias T. Kloft (Regensburg: Verlag Schnell & Steiner, 2009), 13–30; Brad Hostetler, “The Limburg Staurotheke: A Reassessment,” Athanor 30 (2012): 7–13; Bissera V. Pentcheva, “Containers of Power: Eunuchs and Reliquaries in Byzantium,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 51 (2007): 108–20; and Nancy P. Ševčenko, “The Limburg Staurotheke and Its Relics,” in Thymiama ste mneme tes Laskarinas Mpura, ed. R. Andreade (Athens: Museio Mpenake, 1994), 289–94. 62. Lynn Jones, “Perceptions of Byzantium: Radegund of Poitiers and Relics of the True Cross,” in Byzantine Images and Their Afterlives: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr, ed. Jones (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 106; and Holger A. Klein, “Sacred Relics and Imperial Ceremonies at the Great Palace of Constantinople,” Visualisierungen von Herrschaft, BYZAS 5 (2006): 89–91. 63. Theodoros Anagnostes, Kirchengeschichte, ed. Günther Christian Hansen (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1971), 13. 64. See John A. Cotsonis, Byzantine Figural Processional Crosses (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 8. 65. Spain, “The Translation of Relics,” 294. 75. Ibid., where it is mentioned that both the letter and the image were placed in the same casket (likened to the Ark of the Covenant) and that both were also placed on the altar. 76. See n. 61 above. 77. Simon Malmberg, “Triumphal Arches and Gates of Piety at Constantinople, Ravenna and Rome,” in Using Images in Late Antiquity, ed. Stine Birk, Troels Myrup Kristensen, and Birte Poulsen (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2014), 150–89. 78. Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, trans. and ed. with a commentary by Averil Cameron and Judith Herrin (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 32, 33, 77–78, 80. 79. See the comments of Malmberg, “Triumphal Arches,” 155. 80. Ibid., 155. 81. Ibid., 156–57. 82. The letter and image (see below at n. 85) of Edessa have been extensively studied. The following are a few important works: Ernst von Dobschütz, Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur Christlichen Legende, 3 vols. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899); Averil Cameron, “The History of the Image of Edessa: ‘The Telling of a Story,’” in Okeanos: Essays Presented to Ihor Sevcenko on His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Cyril A. Mango and Omeljan Pritsak, with Uliana M. Pasicznyk, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (Cambridge, MA: Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, 1983), 80–94; idem, “The Mandylion and Byzantine Iconoclasm,” in The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation, ed. Herbert L. Kessler and Gerhard Wolf (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1998), 33–54; Hans J. W. Drijvers, “The Image of Edessa in the Syriac Tradition,” in Kessler and Wolf, The Holy Face, 13–31; Lidov, “Holy Face, Holy Script, Holy Gate,” 195–212; and Mark Guscin, The Tradition of the Image of Edessa (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2016). 66. Holum and Vikan, “The Trier Ivory,” 122, claim that the empress, “By virtue of both her gesture and position before the church, . . . alone is the focus of movement and attention,” but the visual evidence belies this. 83. Lidov, “Holy Face, Holy Script, Holy Gate,” 195–96. 67. Spain, “The Translation of Relics,” 287. 86. See Nicole Thierry, “Deux notes à propos du Mandylion,” Zograf 11 (1980): 16–19; Melita Emmanuel, “The Holy Mandylion in the Iconographic Programmes of the Churches at Mystra,” in Eastern Christian Relics, ed. Alexei Lidov (Moscow: Progress-Tradition, 2003), 291–98; Alexei Lidov, “The Mandylion over the Gate: A Mental Pilgrimage to the Holy City of Edessa,” in Routes of Faith in the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. Evangelia Chatzetryphonos (Thessalonike: European Center of Byzantine and PostByzantine Monuments, 2007), 179–92; and idem, “Holy Face, Holy Script, Holy Gate,” 195–212. 68. Cotsonis, Byzantine Figural Processional Crosses, 10–11. 69. Ibid., 11. 70. Haldon, “Some Remarks,” 182–83. 71. Anthony Kaldellis, “The Military Use of the Icon of the Theotokos and Its Moral Logic in the Historians of the Ninth–Twelfth Centuries,” Estudios Bizantinos: Revista de la Sociedad Espanola de Bizantinistica 1 (2013): 56–75. 72. Ibid., 61. 73. Holger A. Klein, “Materiality and the Sacred: Byzantine Reliquaries and the Rhetoric of Enshrinement,” in Hahn and Klein, Saints and Sacred Matter, 239. 74. See the discussion in Alexei Lidov, “Holy Face, Holy Script, Holy Gate: Revealing the Edessa Paradigm in Christian Imagery,” in Intorno al Sacro Volto: Genova, Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo (secoli XI–XIV), ed. Anna Rosa Calderoni Masetti, Colette Dufour Bozzo, and Gerhard Wolf (Venice: Marsilio, 2007), 198, which refers to the letter as a “supporting relic.” 46 The Art Bulletin September 2018 84. Ibid., 196. 85. Ibid., 195–96. 87. See the extract in Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 41. 88. See the discussion in Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 41. 89. Barber, Figure and Likeness, 46. 90. Cameron, “The Mandylion and Byzantine Iconoclasm,” 43; and Kessler, “Configuring the Invisible,” 77. 91. Chatterjee, The Living Icon, 41. 92. See the comments of Holum and Vikan, “The Trier Ivory,” 121, who do not subscribe to this view. 93. Ibid. 94. Marjorie Nice Boyer, “The Humble Profile of the Regal Chariot in Medieval Miniatures,” Gesta 29, no. 1 (1990): 28. 95. Spain, “The Translation of Relics,” 287, remarks on the individuality of the faces on the ivory. 96. The scholarship on the pagan statuary and monuments of Constantinople is vast. Some important works are Cameron and Herrin, Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century; Helena Saradi-Mendelovici, “Christian Attitudes towards Pagan Monuments and Their Legacy in Later Byzantine Centuries,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 47–61; Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople; Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria; and Anthony Kaldellis, “The Forum of Constantine in Constantinople: What Do We Know about Its Original Architecture and Adornment?,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 56 (2016): 714–39. 97. See Cameron and Herrin, Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century; and Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria. 110. See Dimitra Kotoula, “The British Museum Triumph of Orthodoxy,” in Byzantine Orthodoxies: Papers from the Thirty-Sixth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, ed. Andrew Louth and Augustine Casidy (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 126–27. 111. See Charles Barber, “From Transformation to Desire: Art and Worship after Byzantine Iconoclasm,” Art Bulletin 75 (1993): 7–16; Glenn Peers, Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004); Bissera V. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010); and Chatterjee, The Living Icon, to name a few examples. 112. William Tronzo, “Mimesis in Byzantium: Notes toward a History of the Function of the Image,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 25 (1994): 61–76. 113. Charles Barber, “Mimesis and Memory in the Narthex Mosaics of Nea Moni, Chios,” Art History 24, no. 3 (2001): 323–37. 114. Barber, Contesting the Logic of Painting. 98. Kaldellis, “The Forum of Constantine,” 736. 99. Albrecht Berger, “Imperial and Ecclesiastical Processions in Constantinople,” in Necipoğlu, Byzantine Constantinople, 79–80. 100. Anne W. Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut: Context and Meaning in His Musical Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 11–15. 101. Chris Wickham, Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900–1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 340. 102. Magdalino, “Aristocratic Oikoi,” 62. 103. Klein, “Sacred Relics,” 83. 104. Scholarship on the Ravenna mosaics is vast. The following are a few recent titles: Deborah M. Deliyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 236–50; Sarah Bassett, “Style and Meaning in the Imperial Panels at San Vitale,” Artibus et Historiae 29 (2008): 49–57; and Charles Barber, “The Imperial Panels at San Vitale: A Reconsideration,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 14 (1990): 19–43. 105. See the description and analysis of the scene in Alexei Lidov, “The Flying Hodegetria: The Miraculous Icon as Bearer of Sacred Space,” in The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Erik Thunø and Gerhard Wolf (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2004), 279. 106. See the astute remarks about the metaphorics of interiority and outer surface that caskets engage in, albeit in an erotic context, in Michael Camille, The Medieval Art of Love: Objects and Subjects of Desire (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998), 65. Some of Camille’s observations apply remarkably well to reliquaries, too. 107. To cite one example, see the Life of St. Theodora of Thessalonike, 201, 204–5. 108. Elsner, “Iconoclasm as Discourse,” esp. 385–86. 109. See the discussions in Corrigan, Visual Polemics, 30–32, 46–47. 47 iconoclasm’s legacy: interpreting the trier ivory