Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Vol. 33 No. 1 (2009) 17–41 Un-Orthodox imagery: voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript* Elena Boeck DePaul University In the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript (BN, Vitr. 26–2) representations of Orthodox triumph over iconoclast heresy range from startlingly novel to seemingly incoherent. While previous studies have posited that the visual programme of the chronicle originates in Comnenian Constantinople, this article argues that the visual narrative is out of place in a climate of rigorous Comnenian Orthodoxy. The visual narrative actively restructures and revisions Byzantine history: iconoclast arch-villains such as John the Grammarian are assigned symbols of sanctity, Orthodox heroes such as patriarch Methodios and empress Theodora are obscured and misrepresented, and important events in the chronicle are turned into visual voids. Under the gaze of the empress and her courtiers, the Byzantine patriarch Methodios confronts a female accuser and exposes his groin area to prove irrefutably that he did not have sex with that woman. On another folio, a golden halo of sanctity graces the head of the anathematized heretic John the Grammarian. These are but two of several tantalizing images that illuminate the triumph of Orthodoxy in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript (BN, Vitr. 26–2), the only surviving mediaeval illustrated chronicle in Greek. In this manuscript, representations of Orthodox triumph over iconoclast heresy range from startlingly novel to seemingly incoherent. Could a Byzantine patron have approved of image after image in which the arch-villains of Byzantine history, Iconoclast emperors and patriarchs, are assigned symbols of sanctity, while Orthodox heroes are obscured and misrepresented? Previous studies have posited that the Madrid Skylitzes is a copy of an original produced either for Alexios I Komnenos or during his era, but they have never analyzed its * I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, Maria Georgopoulou, for her constant encouragement and patient advice. I am very grateful to Leslie Brubaker, Nancy Patterson Ševch enko, Alice-Mary Talbot and Brian Boeck for consultations and comments on earlier versions of this article, and the two anonymous readers of the BMGS for their thoughtful suggestions. I would like to acknowledge the generous support of Yale University for research funding, Dumbarton Oaks for a Junior fellowship that facilitated writing, and DePaul University for funding photograph rights and reproduction. © 2009 Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham DOI: 10.1179/174962509X384598 18 Elena Boeck un-orthodox imagery in the context of a vigorous and rigorous Comnenian Orthodoxy.1 The style of one artistic hand has been singled out as the determining factor for hypothesizing a Comnenian original.2 Rather than give style priority as the bearer of meaning, this study demonstrates that a visually un-orthodox, and religiously un-Orthodox, visual narrative makes a hypothetical Byzantine original produced for Alexios Komnenos a most unlikely scenario. The contested identity of the Madrid manuscript Since in its current condition the Madrid Skylitzes contains no explicit references to its original patron, date of production or provenance, scholars disagree on the central points of the manuscript’s identity. The text itself is a Byzantine chronicle composed some time before the end of the eleventh century by a high official at the court of Constantinople, known in historiography as Skylitzes.3 The chronicle, which covers Byzantine history from 811 to 1057, enjoyed great popularity as more than twenty manuscripts of the text survive.4 Scholars agree to attribute the manuscript’s paleography to southern Italy, but still debate issues of dating and the number of scribes involved.5 The manuscript displays a rare heterogeneity of artistic styles, usually referred to as ‘Byzantine’ and ‘Western’. There is no consensus on the number of artists that were involved.6 1 André Grabar dated this manuscript to no earlier than the middle of the thirteenth century, but he believed that its Constantinopolitan model was executed c.1100 (see A. Grabar and M. Manoussacas, L’Illustration du manuscrit de Skylitzès de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Madrid (Venice 1979) 131, 172, 173). Nigel Wilson hypothesized that the Madrid manuscript is a third-generation copy of the Constantinopolitan prototype (N. Wilson, ‘The Madrid Scylitzes’, Scrittura e Civiltà 2 (1978) 216, 218). 2 Wilson, ‘The Madrid Skylitzes’, 218; Grabar and Manoussacas , L’Illustration, 173. 3 The manuscript is written in Greek (see A. Laiou, ‘Prologue’, in Joannis Scylitzae Synopsis Historiarum: Codex Matritensis Graecus Vitr. 26–2 (Athens 2000) 13). This publication is also a colour edition of the entire manuscript. The English translation by John Wortley will be used in this article: John Scylitzes, A Synopsis of Histories (811–1057 A.D): A Provisional Translation, trans. J. Wortley (Winnipeg 2000). For the most recent publication on the Madrid Skylitzes, see V. Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle of Ioannes Skylitzes in Madrid (Leiden 2002). The recent dissertation by Bente Bjornholt, ‘The use and portrayal of spectacle in the “Madrid Skylitzes” (Bibl. Nac. Vitr. 26–2)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis., Queen’s University of Belfast 2002), was not available to me for consultation. 4 An extensive introduction to the text and the critical edition was produced by I. Thurn, Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum (Berlin 1973) vii–xlvi. 5 B. L. Fonkich, ‘Paleograficheskaia zametka o Madridskoi rukopisi Skilitsy’, VV 42 (1981) 231–2; Wilson, ‘The Madrid Skylitzes’, 212; Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 11–4. 6 Since decades of stylistic analysis produced contradictory results and divergent dating, this study will not reconsider the question of style. Most recently, Tsamakda identified seven artists (see Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 373–9). For detailed discussions, see S. Cirac Estopañan, Skyllitzes Matritensis. Reproducciones y miniaturas (Madrid/Barcelona 1965) 37–40; A. Grabar, ‘Les illustrations de la chronique de Jean Skylitzès à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Madrid’, Cahiers Archéologiques 21 (1971) 191–211. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 19 The origins of the visual programme represent the biggest bone of contention: the manuscript has alternately been upheld as a window into Byzantine reality, sidestepped as an ambiguous entity that defies easy categorization, or identified as an ad hoc Sicilian production. Most scholars who have written about this manuscript view it as a copy of a lost Constantinopolitan original and employ it to hypothesize the existence of a genre of Byzantine illuminated histories.7 I have elsewhere provided support for Ihor Ševcenko’s h conclusion that the visual programme is an ad hoc creation and readers who might wish to pursue the manuscript’s connections to Norman Sicily can do so there.8 Here I shall only advance arguments pertaining to the visual narrative’s putative Comnenian origins. Reconciling the manuscript with its hypothetical Constantinopolitan original has long prevailed over analyzing the vision of Byzantine history that the visual narrative projects. The recent comprehensive study of the manuscript by Vassiliki Tsamakda resurrected the hypothesis that the Madrid manuscript is a copy of a lost Byzantine original,9 and revived Kurt Weitzmann’s terminology: from discussion of ‘migrated miniatures’ to considerations of an imperial ‘archetype’.10 Tsamakda considered the visual programme to be a passive reflection of the chronicle: ‘The miniature cycle, seen as a whole, does not interpret the narration of Skylitzes.’11 In a 2005 publication that entirely ignores the controversies over the visual programme’s origins, Elisabeth Piltz described the images as ‘secular documentary pictures’ and characterized the manuscript as a ‘panorama of Byzantine events ... “videotaped” before our eyes’.12 In contrast, I argue that un-Orthodox imagery reflects active and deliberate choices made in the ad hoc production of the visual narrative.13 The illustrations transform the 7 Tsamakda also considered this manuscript to be a copy of a lost archetype (Tsamakda, ‘The miniatures of the Madrid Skylitzes’, in Joannis Scylitzae, 148–9). Other scholars who have described the manuscript as a copy of a lost Constantinopolitan original include Sebastian Cirac Estopañan, Nikolaos Oikonomides, Christopher Walter and Boris Fonkich. 8 Based on analysis of the organization and distribution of labour in the manuscript, Ihor Ševch enko suggested that ‘the Madrid Skylitzes is an original creation; “original” in the sense of having been made ad hoc, illustrations and all’ (I. Ševcenko, ‘The Madrid manuscript of the chronicle of Skylitzes in the light of the new dating’, h in Byzanz und der Westen: Studien zur Kunst des Europäischen Mittelalters (Wien 1984) 125, 126, 127). For the most extensive argument for the ad hoc nature of the visual narrative, see E. Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine: history, structure and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Yale University 2003); see also G. Parpulov’s review of Tsamakda’s monograph in JÖB 56 (2006) 383–7. 9 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 267–8. 10 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 22, 263, 265. 11 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 265. 12 E. Piltz, Byzantium in the Mirror: the Message of Skylitzes Matritensis and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Oxford 2005) 1. 13 A likely scenario would have involved the designer selecting topics for illustration and marking places for future images in an unillustrated copy of the Skylitzes text. Simultaneously, a list of instructions for the artists would have been generated, which ranged from vague or generic in most cases (‘pursuit in battle,’ ‘seated imperial figure’) to very specific (clearly addressing main participants, aspects of setting, physical attributes and other details) in cases of topics that were of primary interest to the patron (see Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, Chapter 2). 20 Elena Boeck text and become a distinct narrative.14 Visual sequences highlight subjects of particular interest to the patron of the visual programme and subjects that were deliberately marked for omission become visual voids.15 These conscious omissions are particularly important for understanding the origins of the visual narrative. Because these choices are embedded in the structure of the visual narrative, they can be analyzed regardless of whether or not the Madrid manuscript is a copy.16 By focusing on representations of the protagonists of the Orthodox struggle in the Madrid Skylitzes, this study reveals a ‘Byzantine’ artistic hand that not only ignores established Orthodox iconographies, but also diverges creatively from the text. John the Grammarian John the Grammarian provides a crucial case for testing whether the images of the Madrid Skylitzes conform to Byzantine ideology and iconography. In the Byzantine imagination, John the Grammarian was one of the most captivating, vivid and dark figures of the Iconoclast controversy. Yet this renowned, reviled and iconographically distinct character in Byzantine art does not sustain an Orthodox, or even typologically consistent, iconography in the visual narrative of the Madrid Skylitzes. At the design stage, John’s un-Orthodox story was not singled out as significant. Orthodox rhetoric established John as the very incarnation of evil. He has featured prominently in the writings of the clergy, in saints’ lives, and in chronicles: he was anathematized in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy,17 called ‘John the Transgressor’, 18 ‘knower of Satan19 and enemy of the church’,20 ‘equal of the “Hellenes”’, ‘Iannis the Magician’, ‘sorcerer patriarch’ and ‘impious’. Lemerle aptly calls this lore ‘the legendary traditions, which surround John the Lekanomantos with a sulphurous halo’.21 14 I employ Hayden White’s definition of narrative: ‘[T]he narrative is not merely a neutral discursive form that may or may not be used to represent real events in their aspect as developmental processes but rather entail ontological and epistemic choices with distinct ideological and even specifically political implications’ (H. White, The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, MD 1987) ix). 15 I use the term ‘visual void’ in a similar manner to Wolfgang Kemp’s ‘blank’, referring to conscious omissions (see W. Kemp, ‘Death at work: a case study on constitutive blanks in nineteenth-century painting’, Representations 10 (1985) 110). 16 I have dealt extensively with questions of copying in my dissertation and plan to address the subject in depth in a future article (see Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, 57–62, 225–36). 17 F. Uspenskii, Sinodik v nedeliu pravoslaviia: svodnyi tekst s prilozheniiami (Odessa 1893) 13. 18 P. Lemerle, Byzantine Humanism, trans. H. Lindsay and A. Moffatt (Canberra 1986) 163–4. For an excellent discussion of the epithets applied to John the Grammarian by iconodule writers, see I. Ševch enko, ‘Anti-iconoclastic poem in the Pantocrator psalter’, Cahiers Archéologiques 15 (1965) 47–8. 19 MPG 99, 1772C. 20 MPG 99, 1772 C. 21 Lemerle lists a number of these abusive terms, with discussion. See his Byzantine Humanism, 164, 156, 166. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 21 Images of a distinctly wicked John the Grammarian feature in some of the Marginal Psalters, demonstrating that Byzantine artists could unambiguously distinguish Orthodox heroes from heretics and saints from villains.22 The appearance of John in the marginal Psalters belongs to a very distinct iconographic type: his wild hair directly associates him with the devil.23 In the Barberini Psalter, on folio 89v, the haloed patriarch Nikephoros tramples the prostrated simoniac cleric with wild hair — John the Grammarian (inscribed ‘Jannes’).24 This representation of John accords with the Byzantine iconographic typology of heretics as noted by Christopher Walter: ‘Heretics ... are represented in Byzantine art not for themselves but in order to set in perspective the superiority, the triumph, or the privileges of the orthodox.’25 In several Skylitzes images, the heretic John the Grammarian metamorphoses from ‘an inferior person, a victim, a conquered enemy’26 into a centre-stage presence, both triumphant and Orthodox.27 In two consecutive representations, this vile heretic morphs into a haloed saint (fol. 47, fol. 47va)! John is represented as a gray-haired, bearded cleric who delivers a communication from a haloed emperor to a seated, turbaned Muslim on folio 47, and distributes gifts to additional turbaned figures on folio 47va (Figure 1). It is not the sulphurous halo of iniquity created by the Orthodox rhetoric, but a golden halo of sainthood that shines brightly around John’s head in these images. Can we imagine that the purported Constantinopolitan original would have committed such an ideological blunder not once, but twice? Not if we take seriously eleventh-century Orthodox claims 22 Scholarship on the Marginal Psalters is extensive. For recent discussions and bibliography, see K. Corrigan, Visual Polemics in the Ninth-century Marginal Psalters (Cambridge 1992); C. Barber, ed., Theodore Psalter: Electronic Facsimile (Champaign 2000). For the Barberini Psalter, see J. Anderson, P. Canart and C. Walter, The Barberini Psalter: Codex Vaticanus, Barberinianus Graecus 372 (Zurich 1989); see also S. Der Nersessian, L’Illustration des psautiers grecs du Moyen âge: Londres, Add. 19.352 (Paris 1970), esp. 63–70; S. Dufrenne, L’Illustration des psautiers grecs du Moyen âge: Pantocrator 61, Paris. grec. 20, British Museum 40731 (Paris 1966); A. Cutler, ‘Liturgical strata in the Marginal Psalters’, DOP 34 (1980) 17–30; J. Lowden, ‘Observations on the illustrated Byzantine Psalters’, Art Bulletin 70 (1988) 242–60; A. Grabar, ‘Quelques notes sur les psautiers illustrés byzantins du IXe siècle’, Cahiers Archéologiques 15 (1965) 61–82. The relationship among the eleventhcentury psalters is complex and there is debate about the degree of conscious anti-iconoclast polemic they exhibit (see C. Barber, ‘Readings in the Theodore Psalter’, in Theodore Psalter, 14; see also L. Brubaker, ‘The Bristol Psalter’, in C. Entwistle (ed.), Through a Glass Brightly: Studies in Byzantine and Mediaeval Art and Archaeology presented to David Buckton (Oxford 2003) 135). 23 See Ševcenko, ‘Anti-iconoclastic poem’, 41; Corrigan, Visual Polemics, 27–9; Walter, ‘Heretics in h Byzantine art’, Eastern Churches Review 3 (1970) 44–5. 24 For a description of this image, see Anderson et al., The Barberini Psalter, 89. Corrigan, discussing the prototype of the Barberini image in the Khludov Psalter, states: ‘[T]he Khludov image condemns John the Grammarian as a simoniac as well as an Iconoclast, an accusation that can be found in several sources of the period’ (Corrigan, Visual Polemics, 28). 25 Walter, ‘Heretics’, 48. 26 Walter’s words reflect the proper role of heretics in Byzantine imagery (Walter, ‘Heretics’, 48). 27 Although Tsamakda notes that John’s halo is ‘extraordinary’, she does not consider the issue any further (Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 90). 22 Elena Boeck Figure 1 Madrid Skylitzes, folio 47, © Biblioteca Nacional de España that heretics had recently revived the notion that ‘only Iconoclasts are orthodox and faithful’.28 The haphazard use of haloes throughout this section of the manuscript muddles the memory of Orthodox tribulations since even emperors portrayed as persecuting Orthodox saints are at times assigned haloes.29 It is remarkable that the visual narrative is oblivious to the characterization of John in the chronicle passage immediately adjacent to the first sainted image: ‘Loyal to the Emperor and of the same heresy as the Emperor, [John] was experienced in affairs of state and highly skilled in debating.’30 This disjunction between text and image is highly instructive: although the essence of the action presented in the text is clearly communicated in the image of John setting off on his embassy to the Saracens, the Orthodox cultural background of the text that insisted on John’s heretical nature is absent. This image is the first of a sequence of four images of the successful mission of 28 Euthymios Zigabenos, ‘Dogmatic panoply against the Bogomils,’ in Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, c.650–c.1450, trans. J. Hamilton and B. Hamilton (Manchester 1998) 188. 29 The use of haloes is inconsistent in the manuscript, but together with structural analysis it testifies that Orthodox concerns were of little importance at the design stage, not simply the execution stage. E.g., Theophilos is represented haloed on folios 49 va, 49 vb and 50 a, while persecuting Orthodox saints, including Lazaros. 30 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 34; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 56.90. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 23 John to Syria.31 The images highlight John’s diplomatic triumph with a Muslim Syrian ruler, including a delivery of imperial gifts, making an indelible impression upon the Saracens with munificence and oratorical skills, and securing release of the Byzantine prisoners.32 The anathematized heretic of Orthodox discourse becomes a saint and a successful handler of Saracens in the visual narrative of the Madrid Skylitzes.33 If the images were simply designed to provide ‘an objective, visual parallel’ to the text as Tsamakda assumed, one would expect to find at least one image that reflects the subsequent long section of chronicle narrative devoted to the iconoclasm of John’s protégé emperor Theophilos.34 The text narrates how images of beasts were substituted for holy icons, sacred objects were abused in markets, holy men were driven from cities, and monks and bishops languished in jails or hid out in caves. Surprisingly, not a single one of these easily visualized and ideologically charged themes was included in the pictorial programme. Instead, the visual narrative gave priority to John’s diplomacy and even depicted the notorious iconoclast Theophilos with a halo (fol. 47).35 Whether this divergence is by mistake or design, it is un-Orthodox. Somewhat later in the manuscript, following the triumph of Orthodoxy, John reappears in a group of images on a single page opening devoted to the last surge of his unrepentant iconoclasm (fol. 64v–65r). The text recounts how John, who was confined in a monastery, ordered his deacon to deface icons in a church. As punishment for this deed, John was lashed. The chronicle then reminds the reader of his dark powers, flashing back to an incident in which John’s destruction of the three-headed statue in the Hippodrome caused the sorcerous annihilation of leaders of an invading foreign army.36 The three images are closely interconnected through the duplication of compositional elements: a repetitive architectural setting ties fol. 64va and fol. 64vb, while ladders, a gesturing, bearded cleric (John), and acts of destruction of images link fol. 64va and fol. 65 as pendant images. The positioning of the latter pair is most peculiar, since John’s attempt 31 For a discussion of John’s mission, see P. Magdalino, ‘The road to Baghdad in the thought-world of ninthcentury Byzantium’, in L. Brubaker (ed.), Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive? (Aldershot 1998) 195–214. 32 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 34–5; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 56–8, lines 86–48. 33 The images of John are iconographically inconsistent even within this sequence: the third image depicts a very tall and beardless younger man (fol. 47vb), while the final image simply represents a church. The continuous textual narrative of John’s embassy to the Saracens and its outcome breaks down in the visual narrative. This is a very different treatment of the narrative than, e.g., Leslie Brubaker’s discussion of ‘a recognizable narrative progression’ in the Sacra Parallela (L. Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge 1999) 38). 34 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 265; see, however, Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 58–9, 60–80. 35 For the changing attitudes to Theophilos in Byzantine texts of the late ninth-early tenth centuries, see A. Markopoulos, ‘The rehabilitation of the emperor Theophilos’, in Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive?, 37–49. 36 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49–50; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 84–5. 24 Elena Boeck upon an icon and his destruction of a pagan idol are deliberately juxtaposed. The tight compositional organization and iconographic consistency points to the planned nature of this page-opening. Some very curious aspects of narrative structure are embedded in each of the trio of images and in their interrelationship. John’s virulent anti-iconic stance, narrated in the text, is embodied on fol. 64va — John gives instructions to vandalize icons. In this instance, the image faithfully reflects the words of the chronicle: ‘As for the impious Jannes, he was shut up in some monastery and somewhere there he saw an icon set up; it showed Christ our God, the Mother of God and the Archangels. He ordered his personal deacon to climb up and put out the eyes of the sacred icons’ (Figure 2).37 The viewer beholds a bearded cleric, armed with the Gospels, pointing his finger up to the templon beam with four icons (two archangels flank the Virgin and Christ), a ladder reaching up to the left-most icon, and a much-redrawn figure doing John’s bidding by pointing a thin object at the Archangel’s eye. This figure became a particular challenge for the artist: the outline drawing for the icon-offender was reworked several times, and an adequate solution for his representation was not found.38 If the artist was not creating an ad hoc representation of an image-destroyer, why was it so challenging to execute? Figure 2 Madrid Skylitzes, folio 64va, © Biblioteca Nacional de España 37 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 84–7. 38 My close examination of the manuscript in Madrid in 2001 suggests that the figure underwent at least three unsatisfactory stages of drawing. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 25 The subsequent image depicts the lashing of a young, beardless half-naked man (the deacon?). Although he is supposed to be John in the text and is labeled as John by the rubricator, this is clearly not the bearded cleric of the previous or the following images.39 The images display a different narrative logic by punishing the minion instead of the mastermind. This transposition allows the heretical cleric (John) to escape justice in the visual narrative. The right side of this page-opening is graced with another of John’s legendary exploits in image-destruction. In this case, John directs an attack on a three-headed pagan statue that stood in the Hippodrome (fol. 65) (Figure 3). The image, a companion-piece to the defacing of an icon on fol. 64v, is fairly faithful to the text, reflecting the proper number of pagan heads and their synchronized destruction. While in Byzantium the Orthodox regularly visually associated their opponents with ‘idol worship’ (such as Paris. gr. 74, fol. 135v), it was the domain and characteristic trait of Orthodox saints to expel or destroy idols, such as St. Cornelius in the Menologion of Basil II (Vat. Gr. 1613, p. 125).40 Unlike the heretics of Byzantine iconography, including the wild-haired John the Grammarian who worships an idol in the ninth-century Pantokrator psalter (fol. 165r), in the Madrid Skylitzes, John, although lacking a halo, is represented destroying an idol.41 Although the text unswervingly labels John a heretic, portraying him as an intelligent but dangerous and ungodly man, in the images John reveals a polyvalent persona and multiple personalities: he is represented as a saint, an ambassador, a sorcerer and a Saracen. In his three individual appearances in the visual narrative, which are not connected to visual sequences, images of John are remarkable for their iconographic inconsistency: while on fol. 57b a dignified white-haired and bearded bishop (John) accedes to the patriarchal throne, on fol. 58a a younger man in secular garments (John in the text) practices dish-divination in front of an emperor, and on fol. 49va a beardless turbaned Saracen (John in the text) persecutes an Orthodox monk.42 Not a single visual clue indicates that the three protagonists are in fact the same person or connects them to 39 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 88–92. This image is fol. 64vb. The composition precisely repeats a stock image of punishment from fol. 43va (a public punishment in front of the emperor). 40 The issue of idolatry is at the heart of the iconoclast debate and Byzantine articulation of image theory. For an excellent discussion of Byzantine conceptualization of idols, see Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 20–1, 27–8, 39. 41 In the Skylitzes illustration, John’s hair is well-groomed and the idol that he points to is being destroyed, as opposed to the Pantokrator image in which John prefers to worship a naked idol in opposition to David and Beseleel, who honour the Tabernacle. For an extensive discussion of the Pantokrator image, see S. Dufrenne, ‘Une illustration “historique”, inconnue, du Psautier du Mont-Athos, Pantocrator 61’, Cahiers Archéologiques 15 (1965) 83–95. For a brief discussion of John in this image, see Walter, ‘Heretics’, 44–5; see also Piltz, Byzantium in the Mirror, 30–7. 42 The turbaned figure is represented as a conventional Saracen in the rendering of this artist. Walter briefly refers to this image in ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm in the Madrid Skylitzes’, in Pictures as Language: How the Byzantines exploited them (London 2000) 368–9. 26 Elena Boeck Figure 3 Madrid Skylitzes, folio 65, © Biblioteca Nacional de España the haloed diplomat or iconoclast cleric discussed above. We can conclude that neither at the design stage nor at the painting stage was John conceptualized as an arch-heretic. Iconographic consistency, which is central to Byzantine image theory, is absent in the images of John the Grammarian of the Madrid Skylitzes.43 The visual narrative gave priority to certain plot-lines (such as diplomacy, divination, image-destruction) and omitted others (such as John’s sexual escapades with nuns in cavernous settings), but was unconcerned with the sustained legibility of John-the-heretic, or Orthodox condemnation of John and his protégé the tyrant Theophilos. The visual narrative is blind to the Orthodox vision of heretic John, and deaf to his names and epithets reiterated in the Skylitzes text and Orthodox rhetoric.44 John’s iconographies in the Madrid Skylitzes are 43 Brubaker (Vision and Meaning, 39) noted: ‘Since similitude between image and archetype was a major feature of iconophile theory, conscious use of traditional iconography deflected the possibility of any criticism that the image was deviating from its prototype.’ See also D. Mouriki, ‘The portraits of Theodore Studites in Byzantine art’, JÖB 20 (1971) 249–80; G. Dagron, ‘Holy images and likeness’, DOP 45 (1991) 33. 44 John’s accession to patriarchal power was represented as a stock image (fol. 57b) no different from accessions of Orthodox patriarchs. Nothing indicates impious proceedings, as might be expected in an Orthodox frame of reference, and in spite of the text suggesting that he ‘received the high-priesthood as a Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 27 also inconsistent, adhering neither to the text nor to the established iconography of John (the marginal Psalters) or the generic trampled heretic of the Byzantine iconography.45 Even style does not bridge the cultural divide, for it is notably the ‘Byzantine hands’ that present little familiarity with the Orthodox ideology.46 The restoration of Orthodoxy Although the Skylitzes images muddle the memory of the arch-iconoclast, perhaps the vision of history crystallizes with the ascendance of Orthodoxy. How are the triumph of Orthodoxy and its saintly heroes, the patriarch Methodios and the empress Theodora, celebrated? We quickly learn that the representations of St. Theodora and St. Methodios in the Madrid Skylitzes also do not correspond to Orthodox iconographic formulae or to Byzantine cultural expectations.47 Before examining the iconography of the two Orthodox heroes in the Madrid Skylitzes, we shall consider their ritualized public remembrance and visualization within the Orthodox milieu. Theodora and Methodios both became officially celebrated saints in the second half of the ninth century.48 Their Orthodox achievements are formally Continue reward for impiety and faithlessness’ (Wortley, John Scylitzes, 43; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 72.45–6). John’s multiple personalities are properly reflected in the captions that closely follow the text, and identify him as ‘Ioannes Synkellos’ in both representations of a saintly bishop. The Saracen on folio 49va is identified in the captions as ‘Jannes the Philosopher’ (in the text he is called ‘Jannes’ at this point). The John practicing dish-divination (fol. 58a) is now a figure in courtly attire, labeled by the captions as ‘Iannes Lekanomantes’, though the text still calls him ‘Jannes’ (see Wortley, John Scylitzes, 43; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 72.66–7). 45 For images of trampled heretics in various media, see Walter, L’Iconographie des conciles dans la tradition byzantine (Paris 1970). 46 Images of the iconoclast controversy in the Marginal Psalters would continue into the fourteenth century (see C. Havice, ‘The Hamilton Psalter in Berlin: Kupferstichkabinett 78.A.9’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Pennsylvania State University, 1978) 213–9). 47 Kazhdan and Maguire noted: ‘It was in physiognomic details, then, rather than in illusionistic modeling and perspective, that the “realism” of Byzantine portraiture resided for contemporary viewers’ (Kazhdan and Maguire, ‘Byzantine hagiographic texts’, 8; see also Brubaker, ‘Byzantine art in the ninth century, 23–3; A. Grabar, ‘Un calice byzantin aux images des patriarches de Constantinople’, Deltion ser. 4 (vol. 4) (1964–1965) 46). Since consistency of images of saints was to be expected, it is therefore surprising that Christopher Walter does not consider this issue for the images of the Madrid Skylitzes. 48 For a discussion of Methodios, see B. Zielke, ‘Methodios I (843–847)’, in R.-J. Lilie (ed.), Die Patriarchen der ikonoklastischen Zeit: Germanos I – Methodios I (715–847) (Frankfurt am Main 1999) 183–260; see also V. Grumel, ‘La politique religieuse du patriarche saint Méthode’, EO 34 (1935) 385–401. For Theodora, see A. P. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot, ‘Women and iconoclasm’, BZ 84–85, Heft 2 (1991–1992) 391–408; M. Vinson, ‘Life of St. Theodora the Empress’, in A.-M. Talbot (ed.), Byzantine Defenders of Images (Washington, DC 1998) 353–82; see also M. Vinson, ‘Gender and politics in the post-Iconoclastic period: the lives of Antony the Younger, the Empress Theodora, and the Patriarch Ignatios’, B 68 (1998) 469–515; M. Vinson, ‘The life of Theodora and the rhetoric of the Byzantine bride show’, JÖB 49 (1999) 31–60. 28 Elena Boeck commemorated in the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Theodora is memorialized in the Synaxarion of Constantinople on February 11:49 And this remembrance of the empress Theodora who brought about Orthodoxy. The blessed woman became the wife of emperor Theophilos the Iconoclast. She was not a heretic like her husband. That man banished the holy Methodios, patriarch of Constantinople, and appointed Ioannes the Lekanomantes the patriarch in his stead, and burned the holy icons. Even though she did not dare to venerate the holy icons openly, however she had them hidden in her bed-chamber, and during the night she stood praying and entreating God in order that he would have mercy towards the Orthodox. She gave birth to a son named Michael and brought him up in Orthodoxy. After the death of her husband, she directly brought back the holy Methodios, and they assembled the holy synod and anathematized the Iconoclasts, and deposed from the [patriarchal] throne Ioannes, and brought into churches the holy icons. Then she died leaving the empire to her son Michael.50 The text readily lends itself to oral recitation, the narrative is easy to follow and the message is clearly communicated. The passage succinctly narrates her tribulations and accomplishments, but emphasizes that the joint effort of Theodora and Methodios brought success in the struggle for Orthodoxy. In a single entry, the participants on both sides of the controversy are remembered and judged. Alexander Kazhdan and Alice-Mary Talbot noted: ‘Theodora is given a ... substantial entry [in the Synaxarion] in which her role in the restoration of the cult of images is duly emphasized.’51 Since the Synaxarion entry was read every year on the day of the saint, Theodora’s name and deeds were continuously publicly circulated and commemorated by the Orthodox. Outside the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript, depictions of Theodora are rare.52 The one extant Byzantine manuscript representation of Empress Theodora is preserved in the Menologion of the Emperor Basil II (Vat. Gr. 1613, p. 392) — a manuscript of impeccable Orthodox and imperial pedigree. Her iconic representation in the Menologion is that of 49 Vinson takes these commemorations as a sign of ‘the official rather than popular character of her cult. ...[S]he developed no popular following and nothing is known of her relics or any posthumous miracles’ (Vinson, ‘Life of St. Theodora the Empress’, 356). However, according to Alice-Mary Talbot, Theodora was a very well-known saint. A reliable indicator of a saint’s currency among the people would be his or her inclusion in the Synaxarion of Constantinople, which was read out to the congregation. This oral dissemination of the information about the given saint would have reached many more people than a full-length vita since the manuscript tradition for the Middle Byzantine saints is sparse. I am grateful to Dr Talbot for providing me with this information. 50 The translation is mine from Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae: Propylaeum ad Acta sanctorum Novembris, ed. H. Delehaye (Brussels 1902) 458–60; hereafter cited as Synax. Cp. 51 Kazhdan and Talbot, ‘Women and iconoclasm’, 393. 52 Martha Vinson cites three currently known images of Theodora: in the Menologion of Basil II, a fresco in the fourteenth century church of the Virgin Gouverniotissa (Crete) and the icon of the Feast of Orthodoxy (see Vinson, ‘Life of St. Theodora the Empress’, 356 n. 79). Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 29 Figure 4 Vat. Gr. 1613, p. 392, © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vaticano) an Orthodox, imperial saint: a standing, haloed empress, wearing a kite-shaped loros decorated with a large cross, and a crown surmounted by a cross,53 with her left hand she upholds a clipeated image of Christ54 (Figure 4). Theodora’s image distils the essential attributes of an empress and a saint directly associated with the triumph of Orthodoxy. The patriarch Methodios was also actively remembered in Orthodox texts and images. He is commemorated in the Synaxarion of Constantinople on June 14 as ‘our father among the saints, Methodios archbishop of Constantinople’ and as the person who definitively refuted the heresy of Iconoclasm.55 He is acclaimed in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy as ‘the true priest of God, champion and teacher of Orthodoxy’.56 Although 53 The costume of Theodora in the Menologion of Basil II recalls that of St. Helena. For the most recent discussion of the imperial loros, the costume of Sts. Constantine and Helena, see M. Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th centuries) (Leiden 2003) 25–7, 38–41; see also P. Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection, vol. 3, part 2: Basil I to Nicephorus III (867–1081) (Washington, DC 1973) 748, 125, plate LXII 1a.4. 54 Grabar briefly mentions this image in his L’Iconoclasme Byzantin. Le Dossier archéologique (Paris 1984) 229. 55 Synax. Cp., 749–50. My translation. 56 J. Gouillard, ‘Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie’,TM 2 (1967) 110–11. 30 Elena Boeck both Methodios and Theodora are venerated in the annual Orthodox commemoration, Methodios is a more prominent saint. All surviving images of Methodios display an established iconography that is consistent across media, time and space. Already his earliest images preserved in the mosaics of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (dated between later ninth–early tenth century),57 and miniatures in the ninth-century Sacra Parallela manuscript (Paris. gr. 923)58 reproduce the same iconography. Cyril Mango thus describes the mosaic located in the north tympanum: ‘This Patriarch is represented ... as an old man with gray beard and moustache. He wore a kind of hood tied in a bow under his chin, ornamented over the forehead with a red cross and four segmenta.’59 Mango explains Methodios’ headgear as the result of suffering inflicted upon him by Iconoclasts: This distinctive headgear is in reality a bandage. It is alleged that during the iconoclast persecution under the Emperor Theophilus, Methodius’ jaws were broken and his teeth pulled out; thus maimed, the future Patriarch was obliged to wear a bandage round his head.60 Images of Methodios created for the principal church of the Byzantine Empire shortly after the death of the patriarch already present a distinct, consistent visual identity and iconic representation that accentuated his physical suffering for Orthodoxy. The images of Methodios produced within the Byzantine/Orthodox cultural sphere incorporate the most distinct and recognizable feature of Methodios’ iconography: his bonnet/bandage (Figure 5). Frescoes of the saint survive in St. Kliment in Ohrid, dated 1294/1295, in a chapel of St. Euthymios of the church of St. Demetrios in Thessaloniki of h ca. 1303, in the Staro Nagoricino, and in Zi h a A thirteenth–fourteenth century manuscript image (Mt. Athos, Mon. Kutlumusi, 412, fol. 129r) depicts a half-length, medallion 57 Cyril Mango dates the mosaics in the north tympanum to the late ninth–early tenth centuries (C. Mango, Materials for the Study of the Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul (Washington, DC 1962) 57). Robin Cormack and Ernest Hawkins propose 870 as the date for the mosaic of the southwest rooms (see R. Cormack and E. J. W. Hawkins, ‘The mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul: the rooms above the southwest vestibule and ramp’, DOP 31 (1977) 245). I should note that Christopher Walter noticed the difference between the appearance of Methodios in the mosaics of Hagia Sophia and the Skylitzes. However, he did not analyse the implications of this observation (Walter, ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm’, 378). 58 I am grateful to Leslie Brubaker for bringing the Sacra Parallela images and the following bibliographical reference to my attention (J. Osborne, ‘A note on the date of the Sacra Parallela (Parisinus Graecus 923)’, B 51 (1981) 316–7). According to Osborne (p. 316), the artist of the Sacra Parallela represented on fols. 131v, 278v and 325r ‘the bishop ... with a close-fitting white hood that covers his head and ties beneath his chin’. 59 Mango, Materials for the Study, 52. The other mosaic ‘is preserved in the room over the southwest vestibule’ (Mango, Materials for the Study, 52). Daniele Stiernon includes the representations of Methodios in the Madrid manuscript in the list of his images as unproblematic (see Stiernon, ‘Metodio I’, in Bibliotheca Sanctorum 9 (1961–1970), col. 392). 60 Mango, Materials for the Study, 53. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 31 Figure 5 Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, St. Methodios. Drawing by Justin Magnuson (after Fossati). portrait of Methodios.61 Such stability of iconography is to be expected since, as noted by Alexander Kazhdan and Henry Maguire, ‘similarity to the archetype was a principle required by Byzantine aesthetics’.62 In the Madrid Skylitzes, visualizations of Theodora and Methodios are not bound by Orthodox iconographic traditions, ‘Byzantine aesthetics’, the established sanctity of the two protagonists or even the text of the chronicle. Unlike St. Theodora of the Menologion of Basil II, Theodora of the Madrid Skylitzes images often lacks a halo and is not central 61 The iconographic relationship between manuscript representations and monumental images of the same person is to be expected. See, e.g., the discussion of representations of the patriarch Nikephoros in the Hagia Sophia and the Khludov Psalter by Cormack and Hawkins, ‘The mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul,’ 225; see also Grabar, ‘Un calice byzantin’, 45–51; Grabar, L’Iconoclasme, 149. 62 A. Kazhdan and H. Maguire, ‘Byzantine hagiographical texts as sources on art’, DOP 45 (1991) 6. This principle had philosophical and theological underpinning (see Belting, Likeness and Presence, 153; see also G. Dagron, ‘Le culte des images dans le monde byzantin’, in J. Delumean (ed.), Histoire vécue du peuple chrétien (Toulouse 1979) 144–59). 32 Elena Boeck in the reinstatement of Orthodoxy (fol. 63 va):63 instead a haloed, generic patriarch (unnamed in the text and captions, presumably Methodios, but not conforming to his Orthodox iconography) approaches the enthroned imperial couple64 (Figure 6). The emperor motions to the patriarch, while the empress sits rigidly frontal and static.65 The chronicle text recounts the moment of restoration of Orthodoxy: [Theodora] directed that all those who were distinguished by intelligence and learning, members of Senate or Synod, were to assemble in the palace of Theoctistos to discuss and debate the question of orthodoxy. [fol. 63va] Everybody (so to speak) gathered there; a great number of speeches were made, a multiplicity of attestations from the holy scriptures was produced and the party of godliness carried the day. A decree went out for the immediate restoration of the sacred icons.66 The active Theodora of the chronicle and the Synaxarion is made passive in the image since she is neither accorded a halo nor assigned an active role in the proceedings. The distinct ideology of the visual narrative is displayed by the addition of the adult imperial male as an active protagonist.67 Even if this figure is intended to be Michael III, for whom Theodora was a regent, he is not mentioned in this portion of the text and was but a small child at the time.68 The marginalization of Theodora fits with the concerns of the visual narrative, which appear consistently to make active women of the chronicle text more passive or evil.69 Thus, in the officially commemorated key moment in her life 63 Theodora is represented privately venerating an icon once (fol. 45a). In the next image at the bottom of the page, both Theodora and her iconoclast husband Theophilos are represented with haloes. During the reign of Theophilos, she is at times represented with a halo (e.g., when conversing with holy men), but a number of these images alter the sex of the empress and represent an emperor instead. Walter briefly noted, without explaining, this gender confusion in ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm in the Madrid Scylitzes’, 373. Grabar, on the other hand, ignored the change of sex entirely, identifying the figure as a male (based on the text) (Grabar and Manoussacas, L’illustration, 44). 64 The patriarch wears a polystaurion. For a discussion of the polystaurion, see C. Walter, Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church (London 1982) 14–6. Tsamakda (The Illustrated Chronicle, 107 n. 3) disagrees that this is Methodios, while Grabar and Manoussacas considered this figure as a representation of Methodios (see Grabar and Manoussacas, L’illustration, 49). Had the established Byzantine iconography been used to represent the saint, there would be no doubts or questions about visual legibility of this figure. 65 For the sake of proper historical chronology, it should be noted that the emperor Michael was 3 years old when he succeeded to the throne (842–867), and Theodora served as the regent for 14 years (842–856). Her position as the primary ruler is reflected on her coins (see W. Wroth, Catalogue of the Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum, vol. 2 (London 1908) 429–30, pl. XLIX, #14, 15, 16; see also Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins, vol. 3, part 1, 454–7, 461–3). 66 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 83.50–6. 67 Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 71.19–27. 68 No iconic referent to the triumph of Orthodoxy is present in the image, nor, given the gravity of the proceedings, is the image constructed on the model of an Orthodox council. For representations of councils (including images in the Madrid Skylitzes), see Walter, L’Iconographie des conciles. 69 Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, 99–100. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 33 Figure 6 Madrid Skylitzes, folio 63va, © Biblioteca Nacional de España within the Orthodox narrative, the importance of Theodora is played down and denied active agency, despite her centrality in the Skylitzes text. The established Orthodox iconography of the patriarch Methodios is likewise ignored or disregarded in the visual narrative of the Madrid manuscript, despite the clear reference to the bodily injuries of St. Methodios in the Skylitzes text.70 The momentous triumph of Orthodoxy celebrated in the text is re-imagined as an iconless, mundane exchange between stock figures. 71 Miraculous intervention or misogynistic exposure? The ultimate triumph of Orthodoxy climaxes in a sexually explicit sequence with the Orthodox patriarch Methodios publicly exposing his lack of genitalia. The dense visual sequence gradually unfolds an allegation of an illicit affair leveled against the Patriarch by iconoclasts: the six images play out on two page-openings and expose the peculiar interests of the visual narrative that prioritizes sensational over saintly, and 70 Skylitzes stated: ‘[T]he Empress gave the church the sacred and godly Methodius as patriarch, who still bore in his flesh the marks of having been a confessor and martyr’ (Wortley, John Scylitzes, 49; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 84.77–8). 71 The ‘restoration of the sacred icons’ mentioned in the text is not clearly articulated by this image. The iconless restoration of icons in the visual narrative is somewhat puzzling since the artists ably represented icons in images when an icon is specifically mentioned in the text in incidents that involved concrete and physical interaction between an individual and an icon (painting, veneration, destruction, etc.). A number of these images have become popular in scholarship, such as fol. 44v, fol. 45a, and fol. 50b. 34 Elena Boeck misogynistic over miraculous. The chronicle, meanwhile, narrates the final triumph of Orthodoxy, the ultimate defeat of John the Grammarian, and highlights a miraculous saintly intervention.72 The visual intrigue commences on folio 65v with a poorly preserved image that includes two groups of three seated men flanking a standing female figure, clearly a recipient of their instructions. The text preceding the image informs the reader: [John and his supporters] pieced together a false accusation against Methodius in an attempt to bring that blameless man into disrepute and thus demoralize the multitude of the orthodox. They corrupted a woman with a large amount of gold and promises if she would fall in with their plans. ... They persuaded her to denounce the holy man before the Empress and the Emperor’s tutors, saying that he had consorted with her.73 The conspiracy narrated in the text is made transparent in the image with the privacy of the gathering conveyed by a continuous architectural backdrop. Furthermore, the woman is clearly established as both the central figure and an agent of others’ will. The subsequent image swiftly publicizes the intrigue, bringing the accusers and the accused face to face in the imperial presence. Although the empress is spatially distanced from the proceedings (she is framed by an architectural setting), imperial involvement is expressed by her gestures to the two groups: the patriarch, backed by the clergy, stands closer to the throne, while a lay group displays the ‘corrupted’ woman at its centre and forefront (fol. 66a). The chronicle sets up the confrontation: An awesome tribunal was immediately constituted, of laymen and clerics. The devout were in evidence, cast down in grief and sorrow — while the impious, far from absenting themselves, were there in force, thinking that the church of the orthodox was about to be plunged into unusual and severe disgrace. [fol. 66a]74 The visual arrangement of the opposing groups of laity and clergy clearly captures the physical standoff, but the ideological standoff that underpins the Orthodox struggle is absent from the image: though the iconographically consistent key participants are shared in both narratives — the empress, the patriarch and the accuser — the image does not mark the Orthodox with haloes. The climactic pinnacle of the patriarch’s public exposure comes next75 (fol. 66b) (Figure 7). The text informs the reader: Wishing to frustrate the hopes of the godless, to relieve the devout of the burden of shame and to ensure that he not be a stone of stumbling to the church, paying no 72 Also see Walter, ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm’, for a somewhat problematic discussion of Methodios. 73 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 86–7.51–7. 74 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87.57–60. 75 Visual continuity between the two images is created by their position on the same page, and the nearly identical placement of the empress in both images. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 35 Figure 7 Madrid Skylitzes, folio 66b, © Biblioteca Nacional de España attention to the crowd, he shook off his garments and this man who was worthy of all respect and honour exposed his private parts to the gaze of all the on-lookers. It was now revealed to everybody that [his genitals] were atrophied by some disease and totally incapable of performing their natural function. [fol. 66b]76 We may well wonder what is more remarkable in the relationship between text and image in this instance — that the patriarch, who lacks a halo, is represented having lifted his robes to reveal his groin area and prove that he was incapable of fathering a child (as a result of a miraculous castration that is subsequently discussed in the text) or that the designer of the visual narrative was so attentive to this particular episode. The extraordinary display of patriarchal nudity (he is represented lacking genitalia) should be evaluated in the broader context of both the manuscript and the surviving corpus of Byzantine art. What types of images feature nudity in this manuscript? Except for images of baptism, representations of partial and full nudity appear 24 times. Consistently, nudity is a shameful state imposed upon male outcasts such as prisoners, tortured enemies, criminals, demons and the murdered emperor Romanos Argyros.77 In a study of 76 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87.66–73. 77 Partial and full nudity appears in the following images of the manuscript (aside from the saintly patriarch): fol. 41 a, fol. 43 va, fol. 64vb, fol. 65, fol. 68 v, fol. 98 v, fol. 101 a, fol. 112b, fol. 129vb, fol. 130, fol. 131b, fol. 131c, fol. 134va, fol. 134 vb, fol. 135a, fol. 136c, fol. 169, fol. 172 vb, fol. 175, fol. 182, fol. 206 va, fol. 223, fol. 225va. 36 Elena Boeck the human figure in Byzantine art, June and David Winfield have observed: ‘The nude figure is not common in Byzantine works but it is retained where the narrative truth requires it.’78 Methodios’ exposure was at the heart of the story. Does the nudity of the saintly patriarch Methodios in this context signal shame or endurance in the face of adversity?79 It is not immediately heroic; however, unlike the other, passively nude figures, he actively exposes himself. The nudity of Methodios should be contextualized within the entire visual sequence — most notably the subsequent image and a visual void created by the designer of the visual narrative. On the next page-opening, the visual sequence advances to the resolution of the intrigue: the supporters of the now fully clothed patriarch embrace him and celebrate with animated gesticulation on fol. 66va, in close accordance with the text.80 At this point, the parallel structure between text and images in recounting central moments of the intrigue against the patriarch Methodios collapses and the two narratives diverge. The chronicle expounds at length the miraculous nature of Methodios’ emasculation, but the extraordinary miracle is omitted from the visual narrative: One of his closer friends came up to him and quietly questioned the Patriarch, wishing to know how it came about that his genitals were withered away. In reply, the latter explained the matter from the very beginning: I had been sent to the pope in Rome in connection with the proceedings which had been instituted against Nicephoros, the most holy patriarch. While I was staying there, I was harassed by the demon of fleshly-desire. Night and day it never stopped titillating me and inciting me to the desire for sexual congress. I was so inflamed that I knew it was nearly all over for me, so I entrusted myself to Peter, the chief apostle, begging him to relieve me of that fleshly appetite. By night, he [came and] stood beside me. He touched his right hand to my genitals and burned them, assuring me that henceforth I would no longer be troubled by the appetite for carnal delight. I awoke in considerable pain, and found myself in the condition which you have witnessed.81 78 J. Winfield and D. Winfield, Proportion and Structure of the Human Figure in Byzantine Wall-painting and Mosaic (Oxford 1982) 41, see also 42–7. For nudity in Byzantine art, see H. Maguire, ‘The profane aesthetic in Byzantine art and literature’, DOP 53 (1999) 200–3; see also B. Zeitler, ‘Ostentatio genitalium: displays of nudity in Byzantium’, in L. James (ed.), Desire and Denial in Byzantium (Aldershot 1999) 185–201. For the representation of partially nude pagan idols, see N. P. Ševcenko, The Life of Saint Nicholas in Byzantine h Art (Torino 1983) 132–3. Walter refers to ‘the calumny’ of the patriarch, but does not analyze the image or discuss the omission of St. Peter (see Walter, ‘Saints of Second Iconoclasm’, 376–7). 79 For a discussion of saints, sex and nudity, see A. Kazhdan, ‘Byzantine hagiography and sex in the fifth to twelfth centuries’, DOP 44 (1990) 131–43; see also A.-M. Talbot, ‘Epigrams in context: metrical inscriptions on art and architecture of the Palaiologan era’, DOP 53 (1999) 87–8. 80 Preceding the image the text narrates: ‘This greatly dismayed those who rejoiced in iniquity and the false-accusers, but it filled the devout with gladness of heart and rejoicing. They rushed upon him with uncontainable glee, embracing and hugging him; they simply were unable to control their excessive joy.’ (Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87.73–6). 81 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 51; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 87–8.76–88. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 37 This lengthy account of St. Peter’s miraculous intervention that enhanced the status of Methodios, was transformed into a visual void. This omission eliminates the active, hands-on divine endorsement of the saintly and Orthodox patriarch, excises St. Peter from the visual narrative, and reveals a surprising lack of interest in a powerful miracle. The visual narrative spins the patriarchal display, twisting a virtuous affirmation of divinely sponsored victory into an ambiguous image. Because the miraculous emasculation of the patriarch Methodios was omitted from the visual narrative, his public display as a eunuch stands for the entire miracle.82 In this case, the visual evidence (his lack of a halo) correlates closely with the structural evidence (omission of the miracle). Methodios’ genitals reveal the deliberate and distinct orientation of the visual narrative: the bodily exposure alone was lifted out of its broader heroic Orthodox context articulated by the text. The conclusion of this visual sequence muffles the divinely sanctioned Orthodox triumph.83 The castigation of the female accuser concludes the visual sequence (fol. 67), giving priority to the corporal punishment of a treacherous woman over the triumph of the Orthodox party. In the chronicle, the coerced recanting by the false-accuser was but a small part of the extensive triumph of Orthodoxy and the punishment of the impious. The Skylitzes text closes the intrigue with the annual celebratory procession of the triumph of Orthodoxy in Constantinople: The false-accusers would have been handed over to be punished accordingly, but the Patriarch, imitating his own Lord, had the forbearance to request that the charges be staid. He asked that their only retribution and punishment should be that, each year, at the Feast of Orthodoxy, they should process with lights from the Church of the all-pure [Mother of God] at Blachernae to the divine Church of the Holy Wisdom and hear the anathema with their own ears; which custom was maintained as long as they lived.84 The topography of the ceremony in the Skylitzes text corresponds to its description in De Ceremoniis of Constantine Porphyrogennitos, who dedicated an entire chapter to the account of this feast.85 Porphyrogennitos named the patriarch Theophylact as a 82 It is possible that his status as a eunuch could have complicated the acknowledgement of his saintliness, even though, as Kathryn Ringrose noted: ‘God, through St. Peter, seems to have approved the crucial act [i.e., emasculation]!’ (K. M. Ringrose, The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium (Chicago, IL/London 2003) 125). For a discussion of eunuchs and sanctity, as well as recent bibliography on the subject, see Ringrose (The Perfect Servant, esp. 112–27). See also M. Mullett, ‘Theophylact of Ochrid’s In Defence of Eunuchs’, in S. Tougher (ed.), Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London 2002) 177–98. 83 It is not the only time when the divine involvement (expressed through saintly participation) is concealed by the selection process of the visual narrative (see Boeck, ‘The art of being Byzantine’, 204). 84 Wortley, John Scylitzes, 52; Skylitzes, ed. Thurn, 88.4–11. 85 A. Vogt, ed., Le livre des cérémonies, I (Paris 1935), Chapter 37 (28) 145–8; see also D. E. Afinogenov, ‘Povest o proshchenii imperatora Feofila’ i torzhestvo pravoslaviia (Moscow 2004) 63–77, 162–4. 38 Elena Boeck participant in the ceremony, thus confirming the active performance of the ritual in his own time.86 The visual narrative actively re-visions the text by converting the longestablished and continuously celebrated Feast of Orthodoxy into yet another visual void. It is very difficult to imagine that a Byzantine patron would deliberately omit from visual commemoration the historical origin of one of the more significant celebrations in the Byzantine liturgical calendar. The visual exclusion of an annual Constantinopolitan ritual indicates that it did not hold much meaning or interest for the patron of the visual programme of the Madrid Skylitzes. This example serves as yet another reminder that there is more to the visual narrative than what we see. Even if the facts that Iconoclasts are assigned symbols of sanctity and Orthodox heroes such as Methodios are deprived of their saintly attributes could be dismissed as careless mistakes, within the traditional framework there is no satisfactory explanation for the deliberate obscuration of the triumph of Orthodoxy in the visual narrative. A Comnenian commission? Is it possible that a vision of Byzantine history that so easily ignores Orthodox concerns and defies Orthodox conventions could be produced for imperial consumption during the age of Alexios I Komnenos? From the inception of his reign, Alexios I actively fashioned the image of a ‘defender of Orthodoxy’, thus shrewdly building and reinforcing his imperial legitimacy.87 During the period in which the Skylitzes prototype is presumed to have originated as an imperial commission, manifold heresies commanded special attention of the emperor. The history of Alexios penned by his daughter Anna Komnene insistently promoted the image of the emperor as the upholder of Orthodoxy. We learn that Alexios acquainted himself with the impious directly: he presided over the trial of John Italos in 1082,88 and unsuccessfully taught Neilos the wrong of his 86 Vogt, Le livre des cérémonies: commentaire, I, 162–4. 87 L. Clucas, The Trial of John Italos and the Crisis of Intellectual Values in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century (Munich 1981) 3. See also R. Browning, ‘Enlightenment and repression in Byzantium in the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, Past and Present 69 (1975) 14. For the many challenges and open questions in interpreting Alexios and his legacy, see M. Mullett, ‘Introduction: Alexios the enigma’, in M. Mullett and D. Smythe (eds), Alexios I Komnenos (Belfast 1996) 1–12; see also M. Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025–1204: a Political History (London 1984); P. Lemerle, Cinq études sur le XIe siècle byzantin (Paris 1977); F. Chalandon, Essai sur le règne d’Alexis Ier Comnène (1081–1118) (New York 1960). The frequency of anti-heretical trials is quite remarkable, as noted by Robert Browning in ‘Enlightenment and repression’, 19. Also see Jean Gouillard, ‘L’hérésie dans l’empire byzantin des origines au XIIe siècle’, TM 1 (1965) 299–324. For the broad consideration of heretics and heresies in the Alexiad, see D. Smythe, ‘Alexios I and the heretics: the account of Anna Komnene’s Alexiad’, in Alexios I Komnenos, 232–59. 88 Annae Comnenae Alexias, ed. D. R. Reinsch and A. Kambylis (Berlin/New York 2001); The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, trans. E. R. A. Sewter (Harmondsworth 1969); see also F. I. Uspenskii, ‘Deloproizvodstvo po obvineniiu Ioanna Itala v eresi’, Izvestia Russkago Archeologicheskago Instituta v Konstantinopole 2 (Odessa 1897) 30–66. For the extensive discussion, see Clucas, The Trial. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 39 ways.89 The emperor personally interrogated Bogomils and held long discussions with their leader Basil, whose speeches were secretly recorded. 90 Based on this evidence, Basil was burned at the stake and his followers jailed.91 The routing of the Bogomils was Alexios’ ‘final triumph’.92 The Comnenian triumphs of Orthodoxy were not confined to the punishment of heretics alone. Alexios positioned his achievements within the broader historical context of the Orthodox triumph over iconoclasts: the emperor patronized the revision and updating of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy,93 with condemnations of the newly crushed heresies incorporated into the revised Synodikon.94 The emperor also commissioned Euthymios Zigabenos to compile and publicize a didactic, Orthodox and encyclopedic work — the Dogmatic Panoply — characterized by Anna Komnene as ‘a list of all heresies, to deal with each separately and append in each case the refutation of it in the texts of the holy fathers’.95 Zigabenos deliberately linked the Comnenian present with the ninth-century past by connecting the Bogomils to the Iconoclasts: ‘[T]hey [the Bogomils] banish all pious emperors from the fold of Christians, and they say that only the Iconoclasts are orthodox and faithful, especially Copronymous.’96 Would it not be unthinkable in this polarized climate to portray iconoclasts with haloes and turn key moments of Orthodox triumph into visual voids? The acute interest of Alexios I in upholding and enforcing Orthodoxy is manifested not only in verbal, but also in visual rhetoric. Jeffrey Anderson has argued that the Barberini Psalter (Vat. Barb. Gr. 372) was produced for Alexios I in the context of another 89 Alexiad 10.1.1–5 (Sewter, 293–5). 90 Alexiad 15.8.5–6 (Sewter, 498). 91 Alexiad 15.10.4 (Sewter, 504). 92 Alexiad 15.10.5 (Sewter, 504). 93 The Synodikon of Orthodoxy was aptly described by Clucas as ‘the official catalogue of condemned heresies and approved rulings of the Byzantine Church, beginning with the original anathemas read out against the vanquished Iconoclasts in 843’ (Clucas, The Trial, 2). 94 V. A. Moshin, ‘Serbskaia redaktsiia sinoda v nedeliu pravoslaviia. Analiz tekstov’, VV 16 (1959) 341–2; see also J. Gouillard, ‘Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie’, TM 2 (1967) 1–316; J. Gouillard, ‘Nouveaux témoins du Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie’, AB 100 (1982) 459–62. 95 Alexiad 15.9.1 (Sewter, 500). The Dogmatic Panoply is the only securely established manuscript commission of Alexios I. This book indisputably held a place of importance in the imperial library, as attested by two surviving copies: both include a frontispiece miniature of the emperor presenting the book to Christ, thus signaling the imperial and divine approval of the work. The two surviving copies are Vat. Gr. 666 and Moscow Hist. Mus. Synodal Gr. 387. For a more detailed discussion of these manuscripts and the identity of the imperial figure, see I. Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts (Leiden 1976) 122–9; P. Magdalino and R. Nelson, ‘The emperor in Byzantine art of the twelfth century’, BF 8 (1982) 149–51; see also L. Rodley, ‘The art and architecture of Alexios I Komnenos’, in Alexios I Komnenos, 344, and the discussion of the Barberini Psalter below. 96 Zigabenos, ‘Dogmatic panoply against the Bogomils’, 188. On Zigabenos, see M. Jugie, ‘La vie et les oeuvres d’Euthyme Zigabène’, EO 15 (1912) 215–25. 40 Elena Boeck confrontation with heresy,97 but this time the emperor was charged with iconoclasm by the bishop Leo of Chalcedon in a long-running controversy lasting from 1081 to 1095.98 During grave fiscal crises ‘sacred objects no longer in use’99 were appropriated into the imperial treasury in 1081/1082, 1087 and 1091,100 but Leo viewed the despoliation of the religious images as a form of iconoclasm.101 Anderson asserts the propagandistic nature of the commission of the Barberini Psalter as ‘an affirmation of the Emperor’s orthodox position on the worship of images’.102 This hypothesis is tempting, since the Barberini Psalter revives the ninth century ‘visual polemics’103 between the Orthodox and iconoclasts.104 Given the unswervingly Orthodox interests and patterns of patronage of Alexios I in repeatedly linking Comnenian and ninth-century Orthodoxies, we should expect similarly celebratory displays of Orthodoxy and its heroes in the Skylitzes history if we are to put credence in the genesis of this manuscript from a Constantinopolitan imperial prototype c.1100. Instead, we are confronted with a visual narrative that casually assigns iconoclasts haloes, denies the Orthodox markings of sanctity and fails to distinguish the miraculous 97 J. Anderson, ‘The date and purpose of the Barberini Psalter’, Cahiers Archéologiques 31 (1983) 35–67. This attribution was first proposed by E. De Wald in ‘The Comnenian portraits in the Barberini Psalter’, Hesperia 13 (1944) 78–86. The bibliography on this subject is thoroughly covered by Anderson in ‘The date and purpose’. On folio 5 of the Barberini Psalter, an imperial family is represented with the young successor placed centrally between his parents. This miniature makes this an unambiguously imperial manuscript (as either a commission or a gift). For problems of imperial representation, see I. Spatharakis, ‘Portrait falsifications in Byzantine illuminated manuscripts’, in Studies in Byzantine Manuscript Illumination and Iconography (London 1996) 45–8; see also Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’. 98 P. Stephanou, ‘Le procès de Léon de Chalcédoine’, OCP 9 (1943) 7. For an excellent analysis of the events, see Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 56–9. 99 Alexiad 5.2.3 (Sewter, 158). 100 Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 56–7. For in-depth analysis of the events, see P. Stephanou, ‘Le procès de Léon de Chalcédoine’, 5–64; see also V. Grumel, ‘Les documents athonites concernant l’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine’, Studi e Testi 123 (1946) 116–35. 101 For a recent discussion, see A. Weyl Carr, ‘Leo of Chalcedon and the icons’, in C. Moss and K. Kiefer (eds), Byzantine East, Latin West: Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton, NJ 1995) 579–84; see also J. Meyendorff, ‘Leo of Chalcedon’, in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 2: 1214–15; Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 57; V. Grumel, ‘L’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine: Le décret ou “semeioma” d’Alexis I Comnène (1086)’, EO 39 (1940) 333–41; P. Gautier, ‘Le synode de Blachernes (fin 1094). Étude prosopographique’, REB 29 (1971) 213–84; P. Stephanou, ‘La doctine de Léon de Chalcédoine et de ses adversaires sur les images’, OCP 12 (1946) 177–99. 102 Anderson, ‘The date and purpose’, 59. 103 ‘Visual polemics’ is part of the title of the book by Corrigan, Visual Polemics in the Ninth-century Byzantine Psalters. 104 The Barberini Psalter contains five images pertaining directly to the iconoclast controversy, which makes this manuscript stand out among the body of the surviving Marginal Psalters (see Anderson et al., The Barberini Psalter, 15; see also Brubaker, ‘The Bristol Psalter’, 127–41). For discussion of the Khludov and Barberini images, see Walter, ‘Christological themes in the Byzantine Marginal Psalters from the ninth to the eleventh century’, REB 44 (1986) 284–5. Voids and visual narrative in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript 41 from the mundane. The very conceptualization and structure of the visual narrative are out of place in the context of rigorous Comnenian Orthodoxy. It is extremely unlikely that the visual programme of the Skylitzes, which is blind to iconoclasm as a burning issue for both imperial and church leaders in the time of Alexios Komnenos, could have been produced at the Byzantine court. The Madrid Skylitzes appears tone deaf to the amazing chorus of contemporary voices testifying to the heavy weight of Orthodoxy in cultural circles close to the Comnenian court. It would be inconceivable for a manuscript destined for the eyes of an Orthodox emperor to present such a clouded and distorted vision of Orthodox history. Future studies will need to explain and account for the manuscript’s ideological distance from the triumphant visions of Orthodoxy prevalent in Byzantium. Both the visual and structural evidence discussed here make a Sicilian origin of the visual programme more likely, especially when considered in tandem with stylistic diversity, paleography and misrepresentations of Byzantine landmarks such as Hagia Sophia. Conclusion This study has demonstrated that the Madrid Skylitzes exhibits no evidence of acquaintance with the established Byzantine iconography for Orthodox heroes and Iconoclast villains. While in terms of training it is possible to identify artistic hands as ‘Byzantine’, beyond matters of style and stock poses there is little overlap with wellattested Byzantine ritual remembrance and iconographic representations of the triumph of Orthodoxy. By not differentiating the virtuous from the villains, the visual narrative displays a detached and distant view of Byzantine religious history. The manuscript’s un-orthodox treatment of Orthodox themes underscores the complex structure of the visual narrative. Only by ignoring narrative sequences, visual voids and structural inconsistencies can one conclude that ‘the selection of passages for illustration does not exhibit a concrete preference for specific contents’.105 The visual narrative actively restructures and revisions Byzantine history. The devious, dangerous, larger-thanlife John the Grammarian of the chronicle and Orthodox imagination shatters into unrelated scattered fragments in the visual narrative of the Madrid manuscript. Patriarch Methodios does not resemble Methodios and the central event of his ascendancy over the iconoclasts, his miraculous emasculation, is casually omitted. The decision to discard Orthodox triumphs, downgrade Orthodox heroes and disregard miraculous divine interventions is embedded in the very structure of the visual narrative. This ‘translucent mirror of a past era’106 turns out in fact to be a distorting mirror.107 105 Tsamakda, The Illustrated Chronicle, 264. 106 Piltz, Byzantium in the Mirror, ii. 107 ‘Distorting mirror’ refers to Mango’s famous ‘Byzantine literature as a distorting mirror: an inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 21 May 1974’ (Oxford 1975).