Byzantine Pilgrimage Art

Gary Vikan examines the portable artifacts of eastern Mediterranean pilgrimage from the 5th to the 7th century, presenting them in the context of contemporary pilgrim's texts & the archaeology of sacred sites.

In these studies Gary Vikan has opened new perspectives on the daily life and material culture of Late Antiquity - more specifically, on icons and relics, and on objects revealing of the world of pilgrimage, the early cult of saints, and marriage. He contextualizes these familiar categories of object in the patterns of belief and ritual extracted from contemporary texts and the objects themselves, in order to understand their meaning within the everyday lives of those by whom and for whom they were made. The studies give a nuanced delineation of the inherently ambiguous boundary between conventional religion and magic, noting repeatedly those instances wherein the two are invoked in the same breath (and by way of the same art object), toward the same end. From this historically constructed matrix of art, belief, and ritual, the author derives an anthropologically defined paradigm of charisma and pilgrimage (applied in one essay, as an intriguing parallel, to deconstructing the world of a contemporary secular "saint," Elvis Presley).

Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe discusses the cultural and artistic interaction between the Byzantine east and western Europe, from the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 to the flourishing of post-Byzantine artistic workshops on Venetian Crete during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the formation of icon collections in Renaissance Italy. The contributors examine the routes by which artistic interaction may have taken place, and explore the reception of Byzantine art in western Europe, analysing why artists and patrons were interested in ideas from the other side of the cultural and religious divide. In the first chapter, Lyn Rodley outlines the development of Byzantine art in the Palaiologan era and its relations with western culture. Hans Bloemsma then re-assesses the influence of Byzantine art on early Italian painting from the point of view of changing demands regarding religious images in Italy. In the first of two chapters on Venetian Crete, Angeliki Lymberopoulou evaluates the impact of the Venetian presence on the production of fresco decorations in regional Byzantine churches on the island. The next chapter, by Diana Newall, continues the exploration of Cretan art manufactured under the Venetians, shifting the focus to the bi-cultural society of the Cretan capital Candia and the rise of the post-Byzantine icon. Kim Woods then addresses the reception of Byzantine icons in western Europe in the late Middle Ages and their role as devotional objects in the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, Rembrandt Duits examines the status of Byzantine icons as collectors’ items in early Renaissance Italy. The inventories of the Medici family and other collectors reveal an appreciation for icons among Italian patrons, which suggests that received notions of Renaissance tastes may be in need of revision. The book thus offers new perspectives and insights and re-positions late and post-Byzantine art in a broader European cultural context.

Pilgrim Treasures from the Hermitage: Byzantium-Jerusalem presents the highlights from the splendid collection of pilgrims' souvenirs in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg: oil lamps and bronze crosses from the Early Byzantine period (fourth to seventh centuries), icons and reliquaries from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, and pilgrims' souvenirs in mother-of-pearl and fish-bone icons from the eighteen and nineteenth centuries.

Alice-Mary Talbot has profoundly influenced Byzantine Studies in America and Europe, focusing her scholarship upon the social context of Byzantine religious practices. As Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks and as editor of Dumbarton Oaks Papers, she touched the professional lives of senior and junior Byzantinists alike. This collection of twenty-five articles from scholars associated with her at various stages in her career compasses such varied disciplines as art history, social history, literature, epigraphy, numismatics and sigillography; contributions are grouped in three related sections: “Women,” “Icons and Images,” and finally “Texts, Practices, Spaces.” Illustrated with both b/w and color images, the volume is at once a varied and a coherent tribute to this extraordinary scholar. Contributors are Alexander Alexakis, Simon Bendall, Annemarie Weyl Carr, John Duffy, Stephanos Efthymiadis, Elizabeth A. Fisher, Jaroslav Folda, Sharon E. J. Gerstel, Michael Grünbart, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Angela Constantinides Hero, Michel Kaplan, Paul Magdalino, Henry Maguire, Maria Mavroudi, Stamatina McGrath, Cécile Morrisson, John Nesbitt, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Stratis Papaioannou, Manolis Patedakis, Brigitte Pitarakis, Claudia Rapp, Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, Brooke Shilling, Paul Stephenson and Denis Sullivan.