Some Considerations on the Eleventh-Century Byzantine Wall Mosaics of Hosios Loukas and San Nicolò...

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THEELEVENTH-CENTURY BYZANTINE WALL

MOSAICS OF HOSIOS LOUKASAND SAN NICOLÒ DI LIDO*

Irina Andreescu-Treadgoldwith a note by Robert H. Brill

on the Chemical Analysis of the Glass Tesserae

The wall mosaics from Hosios Loukas in Phocis, Greece and from the now-de-stroyed decoration at the church of San Nicolò at the Lido of Venice both datefrom the eleventh century. To judge from the material evidence, both were madeby Byzantine artisans, working in Byzantine territory in the Greek monasteryand abroad in Venice.

Looking at the two monuments from an archeological point of view, and an-alyzing the very different evidence that is available to date from each monument,this article publishes for the first time numerous close-up images taken from scaf-foldings in Hosios Loukas and from the excavated rubble of San Nicolò.

By using a method practiced in assembling the unpublished Corpus for Wall Mosaics, the mosaics of Hosios Loukas are compared and contrasted with eachother and placed in the wider context of Byzantine patterns for portraits, orna-ments, and technical vocabulary in the eleventh century. The mosaics from SanNicolò are listed in the context of many different eleventh-century wall mosaics,all Byzantine imports, documented in the Venetian area: the three workshops inSanta Maria Assunta at Torcello and the two or three workshops still preservedin San Marco.

The article also reviews the reasons for the neglect of this type of technical evidence thus far.

* My heartfelt thanks to Makis Skiadaresis, who gave me as a gift the second choice (the“rejects”) of the photographic coverage taken by him during the field campaign which I direct-ed for Dumbarton Oaks in November 1976 at Hosios Loukas. My thanks as well to the GreekMinistry of Culture, which in 1976 gave me personal permission to survey with scaffoldingsthe mosaics at Hosios Loukas and in 2006 granted me permission to publish the images repro-duced below. In Venice, I wish to thank Maurizia De Min, then Superintendent at the Archeo-logical Superintendence for the Veneto, who in 2002 granted me permission to sample theglass tesserae from the excavation of the late Michele Tombolani at the church of San Nicolòdi Lido in Venice, for study and publication. Thanks for the graphics to Carla Duschka andCiprian Isac from Atelierul de grafica in Bucharest; for invaluable technical and other assistance,thanks to Gabriella Cialdella – cnr, Rome, as well as Natalia Toru and Calin Georgescu,Bucharest. Finally, I am particularly grateful to my distinguished co-author, Dr. Robert H. Brill,who, in the midst of preparing the much awaited third volume of his Chemical Analyses, un-expectedly agreed to analyze (for free) the tesserae from both sites (see Appendices i and ii)and to produce the preliminary report published below.

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The analysis of glass tesserae samples (thirty for each monument for a total ofsixty tesserae) offers a quantity of data from each monument that is unprecedent-ed (with the sole exception of Torcello’s west wall) and adds another buildingblock to a data bank of identified mosaic materials.

keywords: Byzantine mosaics, Hosios Loukas, San Nicolò di Lido, Venice, glass tesserae.

Les monographies bien documentées se préparentsur les échafaudages et devant la lanterne rouge.Gabriel Millet, 1903

Instead of depending upon colour prints based uponpainted copies of the originals, as was done byWilpert, autochrome photographic plates taken di-rectly from the original mosaics are here for the firsttime reproduced. … There is hardly any doubt thatthe next phase in the study of the History of Paintingwill be the thorough investigation of that factorwhich is the most important in a picture of mosaic be-sides the design and composition, i.e. the colour. Untilnow, this factor had to be neglected and dismissed aslargely subordinate, because satisfactory colour re-productions were not obtainable. But the day seemsnot far distant, when monochrome reproductions ofpictures of modern or other works of art will hardlybe accepted in serious works; and a coming genera-tion of art-historians may be puzzled to understandthe paradoxical prejudice still latent in our time,which treats colour as not the most significant qualityof a coloured work of art, but as an accident that canbe overlooked in scientific research work.Ernst Diez, 1931

[T]he rhetoric of the New Art History has tended todiscourage a close examination of the work of art it-self, such as might be prompted by an interest in qual-ity, attribution, or authenticity…. A return to a purelyobject-based art history risks charges of antiquarian-ism, elitism, connoisseurship, and obedience to theforces that profit from the commodification of art.Henry Maguire, 1992

hy are the most famous early and middle Byzantine mosaic ensem-bles still largely unpublished both as a whole and in detail, and thus,

despite their notoriety, poorly known in an age of unprecedented visual-W

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technological possibilities? Part of the answer is the lack of easy access tothe subject matter, the mosaics themselves. The wall mosaics are locatedhigh on domes, vaults and walls. The distance between viewer and mo-saics is considerable, sometimes many meters, which allows an overall impression of the subjects magnificently pictured – a built-in distance in-tended for the viewer by the creators of the decoration – but also frustratesefforts at detailed scrutiny by scholars intent on surveying them.

Basic tenets of research nonetheless require such a detailed survey, andthis was obvious already more than a hundred years ago to Gabriel Millet,the scholar whose revolutionary monograph on Daphni set the field ofwall mosaic studies on its modern course.1 Since Millet’s days, however,amazingly few scaffoldings have been used by scholars in the study of walldecorations. The wall mosaics of Hosios Loukas in Phocis have never beensurveyed, let alone published, in even as much detail as those of Daphni;despite sustained interest by historians in the churches and the monastery,this building and its mosaics are still far from exhausted as a source of in-formation for scholars.2

mosaics of hosios loukas and san nicolò di lido 117

1 Millet 1899.2 Two British architects, Robert Weir Schultz and Sidney Howard Barnsley (Schultz, Bar-

nsley 1901) published over a century ago the «drawings and measurements taken during twomonths of residence in the monastery» of Saint Luke of Styris in Phocis, while lamenting thatthere was no «permanent endowment […] in this country [Britain] for continued research inthe important sphere of Architectural Archeology, and that no substantial means are availablefor the publication of the collection of material […] The lack of such endowment both for re-search and for publication has prevented much valuable material from being made availablefor general study, and in this particular branch of Byzantine research, has not only shut up inthe oblivion of portfolios many interesting drawings and documents which would otherwisehave been the means of adding much to the general knowledge of the subject, but has alsoturned aside numerous enthusiastic young workers from this alluring pursuit into less attrac-tive paths. In other countries where more encouragement is given to such studies, the subjectof Byzantine Archeology is receiving increased attention from year to year, and we must restcontent with the knowledge that work, which might have been carried out under morefavoured conditions by British students, is being done by others who have every support andhelp given them, and with most excellent results.» Their fifty-nine plates, of which twelve wereprinted from watercolors and plates 43 to 55 reproduced wall mosaics alone (closeups and moregeneral views of various sections) are unequalled to this day for the plans and cross-sectionsof the monastery and have been much used in other publications in the course of the last cen-tury. Their Part iii, «The Iconography of the great Church,» speaks of the mosaics in general,«the Mosaics of the Narthex,» and «the Mosaics of the Interior of the Church,» illustrated withline drawings and a few photographs (figs. 36 to 43). The watercolors with the overall cross-sections of the church showing the mosaics’ distribution on the architecture have not yet beenreplaced by any photograph with a comparably encompassing angle. Their lament is particu-larly poignant today, more than a hundred years after their date of publication, since the caseit makes still applies. The next important publication of the mosaics was by Ernst Diez andOtto Demus, (Diez, Demus 1931). Their section on Hosios Loukas was illustrated with a large,unprecedented photographic coverage, 11 out of 15 color plates and 53 out of 136 black andwhite illustrations of the book’s total; four prints of the Hosios Loukas coverage were credited

Another part of the explanation has to do with the fact that in our days,in certain milieus, art theory has taken over the field of art history, to thedetriment of the study of the object and its history as artifact. This has ledto a by now generalized lack of training and expertise in the ‘technical’ def-inition of artifacts.1 Pre-Renaissance mosaics were never easy to make, noteven in their heyday, since they were always an elitist and expensive deco-ration that required workshop training of a long and tedious kind, not tomention enlightened patronage. The same is true of research on them,now that their ancient practice is no longer a living art. However, mosaic-decorated buildings are a highly satisfactory object of study for those whoapproach them from close quarters.

As for Hosios Loukas, despite its very central place in discussions ofmiddle Byzantine artistic achievement and the traditional linking of themosaics’ style with either the reigning Macedonian dynasty or the ‘monas-tic’ function of the church, not much direct, specific knowledge of the wallmosaics is in evidence among scholars.2 There is not even a comprehensive


to Millet (for his photographic collection, see Millet 1903), while the rest of the HosiosLoukas black and white photographs came from Hamann. The Diez and Demus plan of Ho-sios Loukas with the identification and distribution of the mosaic subjects is all but identicalto plate 34 («key plan for the iconography of the great church») in Schultz and Barnsley. Thefifteen color plates, however, were new (and taken by Diez and Demus themselves for the oc-casion). Acknowledging the outstanding quality of the Daphni publication, their book wasdedicated to Gabriel Millet.

1 In a College Art Association address (Walsh 1999), John Walsh, the then Director of theGetty Center, observed that «for the past twenty years or more» graduate training in art historyhas been developing some serious weaknesses. He defined the problem as «a lack of direct first-hand experience with, and study of, works of art in the original.» As he put it, «In most graduateprograms, students seldom learn anything about how works of art are engraved, or modeled,or painted, or how buildings are actually constructed. They aren’t required to explore the innerlogic of why objects come to look the way they do. […] Nor are they taught the discipline ofjudging the condition of things: the physical changes they have undergone, whether disfiguringor enhancing or merely misleading. Without these skills they can’t hope to develop satisfyingexplanations of how works of art or architecture actually evolved and worked on their audi-ences.» I find the following anecdote illuminating, though not directly related to the study ofwall mosaics. In a survey of Courtauld graduates taken in 1992 («Vox pop», published in «Apol-lo», no. 368, vol. cxxxvi, pp. 208-210), Sir Denis Mahon (attended 1934) remembered (p. 208):«You can talk about iconography, but that’s nothing to do with artistic perception. […] Panof-sky, one of the greatest iconographers of all time, once said to me, «You know, I really knownothing about works of art as works of art.» As far as he was concerned a good copy was almostas interesting as an original. However that’s not the case with some of us at all: what we’re in-terested in is the personality of the individual artist, which is quite a different thing».

2 While in this paper I do not intend to analyze the vast literature interpreting this decora-tion per se (such interpretations appear mostly in the wider context of works on Byzantinemosaics or painted decorations in general, where Hosios Loukas’ mosaics are often used forcomparison), I note with regret the weaknesses of the recent, more specific publications onthese mosaics by Efthalia Rentetzi (which happen to be the main – and almost the only –sources of the Wikipedia entry on Hosios Loukas).

set of illustrations in circulation, either in scholarly publications or evenon the Internet.1 While the study of smaller and more conveniently locat-ed artifacts such as illuminated manuscripts is flourishing, including nu-merous aspects of their workshops, the main barriers to a better docu-mentation of monumental decorations remain the difficulty of access tothe object of study and the lack of the archeological training needed tostudy them.

Lately, a middle way seams to be emerging. Segments of the scholarlycommunity, some of them art historians tired of the cruder and more ster-ile aspects of politically correct interpretations of art theory, but them-selves lacking the necessary expertise in some relevant artistic areas, havebecome sponsors by proxy of technical studies, organizing thematic ses-sions or symposia, focusing on the production of artifacts in theory, andformulating directions for further research. Needless to say, these groupactivities, when they result once again in more theorizing, in no way elim-inate the need for real training in the field. One of the fields in which thenew theoreticians have become especially interested is the respectable andtime-honored one of glass studies, in which it is easy to confuse two differ-ent crafts: glass-making and mosaic-making with glass tesserae.

At the other end of the spectrum, many of those truly interested in theconcrete way artifacts are made are fakers, some of them successful (es-pecially those not yet detected), who are the natural but also the mostdangerous students of ancient crafts. And because of the lucrative aspectof their business, they prey on the deficiencies in connoisseurship of col-lectors and curators. In the field of late antique and middle Byzantinemosaic techniques, some have refined their methods to include almostperfect fakes made with original glass tesserae (though not yet with orig-inal setting grounds), which are thus undetectable by chemical analysis.Fortunately, not even the best mosaic fakers are yet grammar-perfectwhen composing mosaic panels. I plan to pursue this subject elsewhere: it


1 Traditionally, the best illustrations in color have been in coffee-table books, though therethe number of images, predominantly close-ups, is rather reduced. Good examples are the ear-ly and luxuriously produced volumes by A. Grabar and M. Chatzidakis (Grabar, Chatzida-kis 1959) and by N. Chatzidakis (Chatzidakis 1994), both on the Byzantine mosaics of Greece.However, the best guide, with a plan and list of subjects, as well as the most comprehensiveset of color illustrations of the church itself and its mosaics remains – if in a small format –the reprinted Lazarides (Lazarides 1978 – second edition). A good addition to the HosiosLoukas list for its illustrations was published in 1996 (Cutler, Spieser 1996). Though the Internet does display a certain number of images, especially some very good overall views,special mention should be made of that in which the main cupola, side vaults, and squinchesare all visible in the same shot. There are other good images reproduced, but most often theyare from the narthex, a more easily accessible location. No close-ups of high-placed mosaicscan be found on the Internet, of course, because they would require scaffoldings.

is not only worthy of attention but also very timely because unrecog-nized fake mosaics are now given pride of place in some of the world’smost prestigious institutions.1

The Present Discussion

This article centers on two specific mosaic-decorated complexes, bothmade by Byzantine craftsmen and both dated to the eleventh century byhistorical and archeological methods but in very different states of preser-vation. It is also linked with the presentation in this same volume of thescientific evidence of the chemical and physical composition of a randomand minute sample of tesserae.2 It is, especially, an attempt to look at thetwo mosaic ensembles from a better-documented point of view. The pres-entation of the wall mosaics of Hosios Loukas should best be done, ofcourse, in a monographic volume, which would bring up to date the stillbasic work of Schultz and Barnsley, not yet superseded.3 However, giventhe space available in an article, this is not the place to publish exhaustivedata, nor to discuss the abundant modern bibliography connected withthe church, its date, its founder, or its program.4 Instead this article will re-port on certain aspects of the mosaics, some of them previously unknownand others never discussed so far, besides correcting a few very materialmisconceptions. The mosaics of San Nicolò di Lido in Venice survive asfragments collected from excavated rubble. My considerations are basedon a random and spotty examination of some of these fragments.

Hosios Loukas

My own first-hand knowledge of the Hosios Loukas mosaics goes back toa field campaign (paid for by the then Center for Byzantine Studies atDumbarton Oaks) which I directed in October of 1976 (later the same year,I also directed another similar campaign at Daphni).5 Even though thephotographic campaign of 1976 collected the largest documentation to


1 For wall mosaic fakes in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the Berlin Mu-seum für Spätantike und Byzantinische Kunst, see Andreescu-Treadgold, Henderson2009, esp. note 11, pp. 399-400. See also Andreescu-Treadgold 2007, passim.

2 R. H. Brill, Chemical Analyses of some Glass Mosaic Tesserae from Hosions Loukas and SanNicolò di Lido, infra, pp. 171-192. 3 Schultz, Barnsley 1901.

4 A relatively recent and comprehensive review of research on the church as a whole canbe found in Oikonomides 1992. An excellent history of Hosios Loukas’ relics after their re-moval from the monastery has been presented by Enrico Morini (Morini 2004) on the occa-sion of their recent return from Venice to Greece.

5 Greek Ministry permissions for the Hosios Loukas mosaics: 1)Ypourgeion Politismou kaiEpistemon, 5 October 1976 nr. 740/51398 («For studying and photographing from scaffoldingsthe mosaics at Hosios Loukas»), and 2) Ypourgeion Politismou 1 Eforeia Byzantinon Arhaioti-ton, 30 June 2006 nr. 4182 («The publication of photographs»).

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date about both Greek mosaic ensembles, especially with regard to colorphotographs, the very restrictive conditions under which they were under-taken (due to a grudging response from several official quarters), and es-pecially the very short time allowed for work in the churches (from puttingup the scaffoldings to taking them down, a total of no more than ten daysbetween 15-31 October in Hosios Loukas and fifteen days before Christmasin Daphni), resulted in a somewhat less than ideal coverage.

Though a great many photographs were taken from these scaffoldings,1a number of subjects – especially overall views which did not require scaf-foldings – had to be sacrificed because of a lack of time and postponed fora better occasion. Still, nothing comparable to this 1976 coverage in colorand in close-up detail exists of the Hosios Loukas mosaics – not on the In-ternet, nor in any other archive. Nor has any other comprehensive studyfrom close quarters of the mosaics been undertaken since that time.

The main objective of our Greek campaigns of 1976 was to learn aboutByzantine wall mosaic making ‘at home’ (i. e., in Byzantine territory prop-er), and to compare the large body of wall mosaics still extant in the Vene-tian region against this standard. This comparison was especially useful forassessing the earlier Venetian mosaics, starting with the eleventh-centuryensembles at San Marco in Venice and Torcello. At the time (between 1975and 1979), these were the object of a large collection of data in Corpusform.2 Beyond the intrinsic value of these examples in Greece for thestudy of Byzantine wall mosaics, the specific question in connection withthe Venetian Corpus project was to determine how Byzantine the mosaicsin the north Adriatic area were when compared to the ones that had al-ways been part of Byzantium proper.

Unfortunately, in the more than thirty years since the 1976 field cam-paigns, no provisions were made at Dumbarton Oaks to copy the resultingtransparencies onto less fragile materials. Despite a distinguished slate ofsuccessive art historians entrusted over many years with advising the ad-ministrators of Dumbarton Oaks on scholarly art historical matters, todaythe transparencies from the wall mosaic campaigns are badly deteriorated.Even so, these images are very indicative when we examine repertoire,types, or specific workshop practices. Their scrutiny focuses on the kindsof materials used in the execution of the subjects, the identification based


1 The register compiled in 1977 by the Photographic Collection staff at Dumbarton Oaks(chiefly by Claudia Vess, who identified most of the photographs resulting from the FieldCampaign) lists for Hosios Loukas above 132 5" by 7" transparencies, 144 4" by 5" transparenciestaken by Makis Skiadaresis, and 321 2¼" by 2¼" slides, taken by myself.

2 Andreescu 1978; Idem 1981; Idem 2004; Idem 2005; Andreescu-Treadgold, Hender-son, Roe 2006.

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on the performance and idiosyncrasies of various members of the work-shop, the division of labor among the team members, and evidence oftheir ability to cope with commissioned iconographies and layouts on spe-cific buildings noticeable which differ from monument to monument.Such skills are especially in the more neutral, non-figurative subjects, e. g.the various interconnected decorative bands, when several ornamentalmotifs come together and combine more or less harmoniously in ways dic-tated by the interplay of the surfaces, particularly at corners.1

A Few Discoveries Made during the 1976 Campaign

To help the reader follow and identify the subjects in the church, I havedecided to use here the plan of the church with captions published morethan eighty years ago by Diez and Demus (Fig. 1),2 who had already usedthe original Schultz and Barnsley plan.3 Despite the Diez and Demusplan’s shortcomings (especially unidentified or misidentified scenes,some not indicated at all, probably because they were on top of each oth-er on the same vertical line), this is the most complete guide in manage-able form to help orient the reader in a largely unpublished complex.Though some more recent publications have benefited from excellentgraphic support (Fig. 2), their newly dream plan4 is not as detailed as theolder ones, nor do the authors attempt to correct some of the obviouserrors among the 1931 identifications (such as the presence of a non-exis-tent Annunciation mosaic in the north-east spandrel, a probable confusionwith the painted image of the scene recorded by Schultz and Barnsley, orthe missing Nativity in the south-east spandrel, to quote but the moreegregious examples); for the present, neither will I.

I will illustrate only two factual findings, both of which have to do withthe direct examination in 1976 of the mosaics from the scaffolding. Thefirst is the rediscovery that the Christ in the north transept’s cross-vault,one of four medallions which Demus saw and photographed, was not theghostlike figure he published (his pl. ii and my Fig. 3) but, once cleaned,as already documented by Stikas in a photograph,5 reverted to its original


1 Andreescu-Treadgold 1992; Idem 1997b.2 Diez, Demus 1931, p. 119, unnumbered. The more accurate plan in Lazarides 1978 could

not be reproduced here in a photograph, because its captions spread over several pages.3 Diez and Demus’s plan of Hosios Loukas with the identification and distribution of the

mosaic subjects is all but identical to plate 34 («key plan for the iconography of the greatchurch») in Schultz, Barnsley 1901; Lazarides 1978, in the Italian translation, has a discrep-ancy because his two editions: the original plan uses Greek letters while the translated captionsuse Latin letters when identifying the subjects; obviously, the two systems do not coincide.

4 Cutler, Spieser 1996, fig. 197, p. 244. 5 Stikas 1970, esp. pl. 70.

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state (Figs. 4a-b: Fig. 4a is photographed here from a some what distort-ing angle).1 The pattern of dirt accumulation, variously following the ma-

Fig. 1. Plan (after Diez, Demus 1931, plan w. captions).


1 Schultz and Barnsley (p. 54) had noticed already that the mosaics in the “North Philopa-tion or Lover Transept” which they considered “of very inferior composition and drawing”had been affected by “the smoke of … candles … more readly in the marble cubes of the fleshtints … This no doubt accounts for the particulary dark tones of the faces and hands at the pres-ent time”. From the same lower transept see also the head of archangel Gabriel (Fig. 12).

terials used for the flesh tones, had deceived Demus (who most likely didnot have access to a scaffolding on that occasion but was supported in his

Fig. 2. Bema, Pentecost, overall (after Cutler, Spieser 1996, fig. 213).


belief by the color plate of his pub-lication) into postulating an elabo-rate theory about Byzantine mosaictechniques and light patterns.1

Fig. 3. Naos, N transept cross-vault,Christ medallion

(after Diez, Demus 1931, pl. ii).

Fig. 4a. Naos, N transept cross-vault,Christ medallion,

Skiadaresis.


1 Diez, Demus 1931, pp. 89-90: «The mostinteresting colouristic phenomenon of themosaics in H. Lucas is the chiaroscuro treat-ment which is to be found on numerousmedallion-portraits (pl. ii). Such faces give,so to say, a negative picture with dark fleshcolour and light shadows. […] The fourmedallions which are set in the northerncross arch of the left transept, and thusare badly lighted, with Christ (pl. ii), thearchangels Gabriel, Michael and James Mi-nor, are rendered in reverse lights (fig. 18).[…] Thus we are confronted in H. Lucas bya chiaroscuro form of painting that in-evitably involves the problem of its origin –a question to which the only possible reply isthat it was developed during the Hellenisticperiod in Alexandria.» Later [Demus 1948, p.36], the same mosaics prompted the follow-

Fig. 4b. Naos, N transept cross-vault,medallion of Christ

(from Matthew Millinerd, Flickr).

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The second finding was the series of four additional medallions contain-ing busts of the Church Fathers, just above the two large niches in the be-ma where saints Athanasius on the south wall (Fig. 6) and Gregory theTheologian (now mostly destroyed) on the north wall face each other. Thesmaller-sized medallions, located left and right of a smaller niche (win-dow?) are likewise preserved only on the south wall of the bema: JohnChrysostom (Figs. 5 and 7) on the eastern side, and fragments of St.Nicholas’ medallion with his identifying inscription very visible (Fig. 8) onthe western side of the wall, above the larger niche containing St. Athana-sius. Almost all mosaics on the bema’s north wall are now destroyed: thesmaller medallions and the larger bust of Gregory the Theologian, thoughparts of the north niche’s framing ornaments survive (Fig. 5).1

By analogy with the series of larger-sized busts of the Church Fatherspreserved in the naos (two of which again represent John Chrysostom andNicholas, both located on the south side, in positions corresponding tothose they occupy in the bema, Fig. 1), it might be suggested that in thesection now missing on the upper north wall there were prelates inscribedin medallions, possibly the same saints Gregory the Wonderworker andBasil. The question remains as to what prompted the duplication of thesefigures. A possible (but so far unresearched) answer could be that sincetheir original location was entirely hidden from sight in the highest reach-es of the bema, perhaps for liturgical reasons, their impact on the congre-gation of monks needed reaffirmation in the central space of the naos.What is, however, certain is that the mosaic portraits are of very high qual-ity, and thus join a group of other similarly high-quality mosaics which willbe discussed below (Figs. 8, 9, 10, 11).


ing, slightly different but lengthy comment (excerpted here): «An icon of Christ on one ofthe secondary vaults (26), whose forms would have been swallowed up by the splendour ofthe surrounding golden ground lit by a neighboring window, was executed in a singular kindof modeling which, in spite of the almost blinding radiance around, brings out forcibly thevigorous relief of the face. This special kind of modeling recalls the inverted tonality of pho-tographic negatives: the face itself is comparatively dark, with greenish highlights which con-trast strongly with the reddish brown of the main features. […] Quite apart from its practicalvalue as clarifying the form, the inverted modeling of the [icon] produces a peculiar effectwhich, at least to the modern beholder, has something mysterious and even ‘magical’ (in themodern sense of the word) about it. […] A purely optical technique became a vehicle of ex-pression.»

1 These bema medallions and St. Gregory’s bust have been mentioned only in Schultz,Barnsley 1901, on the longitudinal cross-section facing south (pl. 40); they are so little knownthat they are not even mentioned in the text or the plan of Diez and Demus, despite the illus-tration of St. Athanasius and his placement on the plan. Neither do they appear in Lazarides1978.

Fig. 5. Bema and apse, partial overall,with medallion of St. John Chrysostom, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 6. Bema, S niche,St. Athanasius, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 7. Bema, S wall,medallion St. John Chrysostom,

Skiadaresis.


Fig. 8. Bema, medallion St. Nicholas,destroyed and full figure Gabriel/E arch S side, Skiadaresis.


A Look at the Mosaic Workshop

How was this very large decoration in fact produced? Once the iconogra-phy of the overall program was decided upon, and all the main represen-tations necessary for a liturgical building had been assigned their intendedplaces,1 the actual work of executing the mosaics must have involved arather large task force. Just how large the team was and how interconnect-ed the various artisans were within the mosaic team or teams can now only be deduced from the study of the mosaics themselves. Less easy todetermine would be the chronological frame of the execution, because,while archeological observations may suggest the sequence in which themosaics were set, this sequence cannot be dated in real time.2

Even a superficial look can distinguish several different ‘hands’ or ‘idio-syncratic manners’ represented in the various areas of the church. The ear-liest stages of the mosaic setting must have involved the cupola, whosemosaics are now lost. These were an important section of the decoration,both because of their privileged liturgical position and the sheer size ofthe vaulted space (for an analogous preserved decoration, see the cupolaat Daphni). The dome’s mosaics might have been executed together withthose of the upper arches and of some of the bema. From observationsmade of several cupola mosaic decorations and more specifically duringthe survey of the mosaics at San Vitale in Ravenna – another large archi-tectural space, though vaulted rather than domed – we can suggest thatthe scaffolding levels moved down from top to bottom, possibly at thesame time on all sides of the central space.3

Again judging from the evidence at San Vitale, the Hosios Loukas mainapse and the bema’s smaller cupola (Figs. 2 and 5) may have been donefirst: their mosaics have only a few connections with those in the naos.Even so, we can recognize similar ‘hands’ at work at about the same scaf-folding level across the church: in the weaker sections of the Pentecost mo-saics, represented by the secondary, smaller characters in the spandrels likethe Tongues and Nations, as well as in some of the three mosaics from theGreat Feasts (Nativity, Presentation in the Temple, and Baptism) preserved in

1 The iconography of the decoration is one of the better-studied aspects of the church,though, in the absence of a comprehensive presentation of all the mosaics, some of the approaches are rather generic. For an analysis focused on the devotional functions and the cor-responding program of some of the images, see Maguire in Kazhdan, Maguire 1991.

2 Nor can the analysis of medieval glass, a subject still in its infancy, offer any chronologicalmarkers beyond the widest bracket of several centuries; for criticism of scholars uninformedon the methods available on the subject, see Andreescu-Treadgold, Henderson 2009.

3 Andreescu-Treadgold 1992; Idem 1997b; also, Andreescu-Treadgold, Treadgold1997.


the large main spandrels. Some of the secondary figures here represent theweather end of the team’s performance. Signs of similar ‘topoi’ of the


Fig. 11. South lower transept, headof St. Panteleimon, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 12. North lower transept,medallion, head of

archangel Gabriel, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 9. E arch N side, head ofarchangel Michael, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 10. E arch S side, head ofarchangel Gabriel, Skiadaresis.

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craft show in the Tongues and Nations and in the three Magi or the shep-herds from the Nativity, as well as in the older-man type (used for apostlesin the bema cupola, Joseph in the Nativity and the Presentation in the Temple,and the personification of the river Jordan in the Baptism).

The Virgin and Child in the main conch (Figs. 2 and 5) and the heads inthe Deësis underneath testify to good craftsmanship but have uninspiredexpressions. However, the two similar but distinct archangels on thedome’s east arch, Michael, despite the destruction of most of his body(Fig. 9), and Gabriel (Figs. 8 and 10), are both in a class by themselves interms of their artistic quality, which is excellent. We should note (evenwithout going into a detailed analysis) that the archangels were executedby different mosaicists.1 We can also recognize the artist responsible forthe head of Gabriel in a similarly high-quality head, that of St. Pantelei-mon, located in a different area of the church on the east lunette of thesouth lower ‘transept’ (Fig. 11). These two heads share several similar idio-syncratic traits, as well as a perfect balance in their overall features.


1 Whether the missing apex of the arch contained the Hetoimasia or a medallion of ChristHimself, the latter suggested by Schultz, Barnsley and by Demus (in the caption to the plan inDiez, Demus 1931 reproduced here as fig. 1), the iconographic determination should take intoaccount the fact that in this case the archangels, dressed in loroi, are wearing court rather thanmilitary costume.

Fig. 13. North arch, St. George,Skiadaresis.

Fig. 14. West arch, St. Mercurius,Skiadaresis.

Along with the two archangels, several military saints have survived onthe intradoses of the other great arches. Originally, there were two stand-ing figures and one central medallion bust per arch (for their distribution,see Fig. 1). Some are of high quality, like St. Mercurius on the west arch(Fig. 14), or even of great originality of style, like George on the north arch(Fig. 13), who in terms of quality has no known stylistic ‘relatives’ amongthe still extant mosaics, though some of the angels in the southeastern andnorthwestern spandrel scenes of the Nativity and Baptism share the samematerials (Figs. 15 a, b, c and d). Others, like Theodore Tyro and Deme -trius on the south arch,1 are examples of mostly competent craftsmanship,while the soldier Procopius on the south side of the west arch, oppositeMercurius, ranks with the numerous examples of inferior performance ofthis workshop.

Comparisons can also be established between the ancillary angels in theNativity and the Baptism, all equal in importance but noticeably differentin their execution and their materials (Figs. 15 a-d). The large pendentiveshousing the angels and other more important figures display some ratherwooden exemplars. These alone cannot inform us about the possible char-acteristics of the workshops responsible for the mosaics’ now lost uppersections, especially when we contrast the less-achieved mosaics from theChristological scenes with the spectacular pair of archangels in the largeeast arch, and when we further bring into the picture the variety of man-ners illustrated by the military saints from the other large arches.

This is not the place to illustrate and analyze more possible groupings,which can be determined chiefly by means of the materials used in the ex-ecution of the military saints, angels, and participants in the spandrels’scenes. All these belong to different subjects and types but are physicallycontiguous in the church’s architecture and were probably executed fromthe same scaffolding levels. There are also instances of a division of laborwithin the workshop, with areas allotted to particular mosaicists; suchmeasurable allotments were the basis for the payments received by eachartisan.2

How should the mosaicists’ level of excellence be defined? The mo-saics of outstanding artistic quality, like the archangels near the sanctuaryarea, show great refinement in the shaping of anatomical characteristicsas they use one of the several identifiable formulae for heads. To cite afew universal rules of mosaic-making grammar, some of which we canidentify here, in these youthful, androgynous archangels, the faces are


1 The latter two are published in color in Chatzidakis 1994, figs. 69-70.2 For the identification of such divisions of labor in Torcello’s south chapel mosaic work-

shop, see Andreescu-Treadgold 1995.


Fig. 15a. Naos, spandrel, Baptism,head of angel, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 15b. Naos, spandrel, Baptism,head of angel, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 15c. Naos, spandrel, Baptism,head of angel, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 15d. Naos, spandrel, Baptism,head of angel, Skiadaresis.

built up using especially small-sized and variously-shaped tesserae, whichare time-consuming details. The eyes are set with concentric rows ofglass, starting with a small dark center followed by colored, concentricrows to render the iris (rather than the time-saving large pupils madefrom just one large piece of black glass, gliced from a glass red, foundelsewhere in this decoration). The forehead weaves the rows of tesseraein accordance with the character’s age, the brow arches are built in astructure connecting with the nose as well, the nose casts a shadow, thecheeks are slightly asymmetric and the shadows around the faces aremade with tapering and interpenetrating rows of different materials(glass and stone) for plastic effect (Figs. 9-10). The shape of the mouthdisplays such details as slightly emphasized corners – a workshop practicethat goes back to Hellenistic times and survives or surfaces again in thebetter workshops of Roman, late antique, and medieval painters andsculptors alike.1 These technical characteristics are, of course, not suffi-cient in themselves to create a work of art, but they offer proof of a solidartistic education.

Fig. 16a. Narthex, Christ lunette, Skiadaresis.


1 An earlier discussion of some of these characteristics can be found in Andreescu 1972,pp. 191-192, when I compared the Virgin in the main apse at Torcello with the one in the Alexiuspanel in St. Sophia.

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An example of a well-qualified and remarkable, if not particularly pleas-ing, artisan can be found in the north lower transept (which includes thesupposedly ‘ghostly’ Christ of Figs. 3, 4a-b), here represented by the idio-syncratic medallion of the archangel Gabriel (Fig. 12). We can thus con-trast two different versions of the same labeled archangel, with the differ-ences stemming most likely from different artistic personalities andslightly different stylistic models.

In the narthex, the teams at work (possibly at the same time as thoseabove) are different from those considered so far, and also vary amongthemselves. There is no obvious overlapping or crossing over of mosaicistsworking in the two large niches (Figs. 21-22), on the contrary. Possibly stillanother, very gifted team executed the full figures of the Apostles in theintradoses of the arches (Figs. 26, 29-30), as well as the splendid bust ofChrist Pantocrator in the lunette above the entrance door (Figs. 16a-b). Aless-refined execution characterizes the scenes (Crucifixion, Anastasis, andTrue Cross) and portraits (some standing, others busts inscribed in medal-lions) in the other lunettes.

Of great informative value for any monumental ensemble is the analy-sis of its ornamental system revealing the interconnections between motifs. At Hosios Loukas, to the best of my knowledge, no such mappinghas been established, though some of the motifs used in the narthex

Fig. 16b. Narthex, Central bay Cross-vault, Alegius, Flickr.


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appear in the naos and even in the bema.1 Still to be studied are the criteriafor the distribution of the various ornaments in the repertoire throughoutthe entire present church. Nor has it yet been determined how differencesin quality of execution of the ornaments watch up within the team. Butsuch differences can be noticed.

As an example, let us compare various ‘corners’ in which several motifs contouring different architectural and compositional units (suchas straight walls, arches, cross- and barrel vaults) converge. Note firstthat despite their basic similarity and their symmetry on the plan (Fig.1, Diez, Demus plan), the cornices in the northwest cross-vault (Fig. 17aand Fig. 1/Diez, Demus plan #87-90) and the southwest cross-vault(Fig. 17b and Fig. 1/Diez, Demus plan #72-74 and 81) are composedwith slightly different motifs, geometric and floral. The main, largercontouring band, the same in both units, is a succession of light-coloredstepped pyramids inscribed against a ‘black’ half circle intercalated withsecondary floral motifs: the latter are a quatripetal flower divided in halfin the north vault (Figs. 17a and 18 a-d) and a tripetal, stylized bud combined with the outer, green contour of the semicircles in the southvault (Fig. 17b).

The secondary ornament is a band made with single, smaller steppeddiamonds connected at the corners along one axis (Figs. 17a-b). This bandserves as an underscoring motif, emphasizing the main, larger cornice.Used by itself, it follows the cross-vault’s ribs and sets off the triangularspaces in which the monks’ medallions are inscribed against the goldground. At the vault’s apex (where the diagonal bands should ideally con-verge seamlessly, though in this case they abut against a closed circularband with the same pattern), a medallion circumscribes an eight-pointedstar (in other cases of the middle Byzantine repertoire, the subject in themedallion could be a bust of Christ or a bejeweled chrismon). In the idealworkshop, the connexion of the circular and diagonal bands would havebeen calculated in such a way as to have the same unit – in this case thesmall stepped diamond – serve in both the medallion and the ribs, thusflowing in seamless fashion (a calculation evident, e. g., in Torcello’s southchapel); the task could have been accomplished without much effort giventhe execution’s direction from the apex downwards, but would have re-quired additional planning.

1 The unpublished dissertation of M. Kampouri-Vamvoukou on the subject (“Les motifsdécoratifs dans les mosaiques murales ou xie siècle”, Paris, 1983), discusses the motifs andtheir origin, but, in the copy available to me at the Bibliothèque Byzantine in Paris, their overall distribution was not illustrated; for a shorter published discussion, see Kampouri-Vamvoukou 1986.


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At the bottom end of the ornamental system, along the walls’ cornersat the springing of the several vaults (marked by a sculpted capital or aplain impost), these ornamental bands have to meet and merge into a nar-rower ribbon to end the field of mosaic. The way this closing is done, the‘solution’, differs even within the same unit from one corner to the other(see Fig. 17b and also Fig. 17a), as the following close-ups from the north-west vault (Fig. 17a) show. Figs. 18a and 18b, which continue each otheron the vertical, show the corner between #88 and #89 (Fig. 1/Diez, De-mus plan); Fig. 18c shows the corner between #89 and #90; and finally,Fig. 18d shows the corner between #87 and #88. Each of these cornersexemplifies a different solution at the junction, because they were execut-ed independently by different mosaicists, at work simultaneously. Usuallyphotographic surveys do not cover such details, because the coveragegives precedence to the meaningful figurative subjects. But, as in the de-tails of haute couture products, ‘cleaning-up’ solutions for merging twounits into one give us the real indicators of the overall level of a work-shop’s technical proficiency, beyond the performance of the main «Masterwho does the best heads».

Another favorite ornamental band at Hosios Loukas is based on succes-sive units of a rather plump, four-petal flower motif. This band can be usedby itself (as it is around the preserved Christological scenes in the naos) orin conjunction with other, subordinate ornamental cornices, in which caseit is mostly the outer band, framing several units of the narthex. The im-posing bust of Christ in the central east lunette (Figs. 16a-b) is an examplein which the solution at the end of the band has the flower unit expanding– here on one side only – so as to serve also as the starting point for thenext band, which frames the following lunette. In this particular example,the expanded corner flower is less well centered between lunettes than in other lunettes nearby; it is also followed by another smaller flower belowwhich weakens the layout’s concept. A better composition of this same motif appears e. g. around the Doubting of Thomas (Fig. 22) and else-where (Fig. 16b).

Even though the above remarks are based on a direct survey of the mosaics, they must remain only a preliminary and general assessment,both because of the limited space available for this article and because ofthe unprocessed state of the documentation that resulted from the fieldsurvey. These observations have not yet been processed in Corpus form,nor studied in depth and were never finalized as originally intended.

Repertories of Models for the ApostlesA typological analysis is the first step towards understanding from the in-side how the workshop at Hosios Loukas – or any other workshop – was


Fig. 17a. Naos, lower NW vault, Matthew Millinerd, Flickr.

Fig. 17b. Naos, lower SW vault, detail, Skiadaresis.


18a-b 18d

18c

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Figs. 18a, 18b, 18c and 18d. Naos, lower NW vault, ornament, closeups, Andreescu.


18a 18c

18b 18d

organized. Obviously, this is a task of monographic magnitude, and hereI can only discuss a few examples. But by highlighting their potential forclarifying the mosaicists’ participation in the entire enterprise, as individ-uals and as a team, these examples can show the typological range of theworkshop’s shared repertory and the differences in the execution of simi-lar subjects, parts of the same composition executed (as in the case of thearchangels and the military saints of the great arches) from the same scaf-folding, which was typically used simultaneously by two artisans workingback to back.

Among several possible options for the present discussion, the Apostlesat Hosios Loukas, singly and in group scenes, are a good choice for under-standing the variations in the mosaicists’ repertoire. As preserved today,the Apostles appear in the composition of the Pentecost (Figs. 2, 25, 27-28)in the dome of the bema and in the two large niches in the narthex, theWashing of the Feet (Fig. 21) in the north and the Doubting of Thomas (Figs.22-24) in the south. All twelve Apostles are also represented individually –eight as full figures on intradoses of arches (Fig. 26), and four in bust-length medallions at the top of those arches (Figs. 19-20) in the narthex (alayout already used on the great dome’s arches in the naos for the repre-sentation of the military saints). There is also some preserved but isolated

Fig. 19. Narthex, Mark, medallion,Skiadaresis.

Fig. 20. Narthex, James, medallion,Skiadaresis.


evidence of other representations of Apostles – for example, the medal-lion of Simon in the west cross-vault of the naos (where the other medal-lions are now destroyed).1 Another cycle of medallions with Apostles isrepresented in the frescoes of the crypt.

All individual representations are inscribed with each Apostle’s name.The series of portraits documents iconographic conventions already es-tablished (and therefore recognizable even in the absence of identifying in-scriptions): they are in line with the widely used Byzantine repertoire ofthe eleventh century. The Apostles’ representations as a group are consis-tent with the same types. But the individual portraits as well as the collec-tive scenes at Hosios Loukas differ from each other in idiosyncratic detailsfor each Apostle. Thus it can be safely assumed that they were executed bydifferent artisans, most likely members of a larger team.

The variations in the details, noticeable in the characterizations, have asmuch to do with how personalized the visual definitions for the Apostleshad become in the eleventh century as with the various models which cir-culated in the artisans’ repertories. There is, of course, also the individualartisan’s talent in executing the portraits from these models. At HosiosLoukas, the Pentecost portraits in the east dome may be artistically less im-pressive than the individual, full-figure ones in the narthex – the latter areof the highest quality among wall mosaics anywhere – but all the Apostlesare consistent throughout the church with respect to at least some of theirmost relevant, established iconographic details.

In the Pentecost (Fig. 2), Mark, fourth from the center counterclockwise,identified securely by his book, shares a somatic type with James the Less,third from center clockwise, and, to a degree, also with Joseph in the Na-tivity or the Presentation in the Temple. The figures’ similarities might pointto one mosaicist’s personal version of the type (they were executed prob-ably by the same artisan, though their inscriptions are by different mo-saicists). On the other hand, the resemblance between Mark (Fig. 19) andJames (Fig. 20), as seen in their inscribed portraits in the narthex, is due totheir established iconographic types, since they are clearly the work of dif-ferent mosaicists from the one(s) in the bema. Both Apostles (here repre-sented in bust-length medallions) are middle-aged and dark-haired and,once again, share the same somatic type, with minute differences. A medi-um-sized, round beard is used for both, but a more strongly parted hair-line, double-scalloped on the forehead, characterizes Mark, while James isshown with only one ‘dip’ on his forehead, a sort of rounded ‘widow’speak’ (the latter feature is a ‘topos’ of Byzantine male hairstyles, particu-

1 Diez, Demus 1931, fig. 36 (black and white).


Fig. 21. Narthex, north end, Washing of the Feet, (after Cutler, Spieser 1996).

Fig. 22. Narthex, south end, Doubting of Thomas, Andreescu.


Fig. 23. Narthex, Doubting of Thomas, left side, Andreescu.

Fig. 24. Narthex, Doubting of Thomas, right side, Andreescu.


Fig. 28. Bema, Pentecost,Philip/Thomas, Skiadaresis.


Fig. 25. Bema, Pentecost,Luke, Skiadaresis. Fig. 26. Narthex, northernmost intrados,

head of Luke, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 27. Bema, Pentecost,Philip/Thomas, Skiadaresis.

larly favored in the narthex). Evenin the collective scenes like theDoubting of Thomas, Mark andJames can be told apart from theother Apostles as well as from eachother by these minute, distinctivedetails: Mark is on the viewer’s left(Figs. 22-23) and James is on theviewer’s right (Figs. 22 and 24). Inthe Washing of the Feet, only one of

Fig. 29. Narthex, southernmost intrados,full figure of Philip, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 30. Narthex, southernmost intrados,head of Philip, Skiadaresis.

Fig. 31. Narthex, Doubtingof Thomas, Philip, Andreescu.


them is fully visible, and it is probably Mark, the last Apostle at the right(Fig. 21).1

The types of the more archaic-looking Apostles’ series in the Pentecostare still recognizable as portraits, though for the Evangelists their idenfica-tion is confirmed by their book-attributes. And some of the Apostles canbe recognized even in almost entirely destroyed fragments. This is the casewith the Evangelist Luke, missing his lower face and most of his body (aswell as his distinctive attribute, the Gospel book). He preserves, however,his curly hair and his equally distinctive tonsure (Figs. 2 and 25), the traitthat identifies him without a doubt in the Pentecost series. This tonsure isabsent, however, from all his other representations at Hosios Loukas, thefrescoes in the crypt included, though his sparse goatee is always present(when the lower part of his face is preserved). The most accomplished por-trait of Luke in this church is the one on the northernmost intrados of thenarthex (Fig. 26).

In another case, an Apostle is recognizable by his youth, renderedthrough his beardlessness. The middle Byzantine apostolic series containstwo such portraits, interchangeable between them, of Thomas and Philip.In the scene of the Pentecost at Hosios Loukas (Fig. 2), the youths – as isusual – frame the series of the twelve disciples (which starts with Peter andPaul). Both Thomas and Philip are now mostly destroyed. Without any inscription, the fragmentary heads that are preserved (and are made by different mosaicists) (Figs. 27-28) could belong to either one. In fact, in allof Hosios Loukas’ mosaic decoration, the only clear uninscribed attribu-tion to one or the other young Apostle is in the scene of the Doubting ofThomas, and then only because the face of the scene’s protagonist,Thomas, has been destroyed, and thus the remaining youth must be Philip(Fig. 31): he is the one with a row of curls around his forehead. In the Wash-ing of the Feet, still another slightly different hairstyle is used for the promi-nently displayed young disciple seated on the bench next to Peter (Fig. 21):he is shown with smooth, straight hair and with the prominent lock in themiddle of his forehead. The other, inscribed representations of the mirror-like Thomas and Philip images are full-figure, and both appear in thesouthernmost intrados of the arch placed just above the niche with theDoubting of Thomas. Here we see Philip (Figs. 29-30). Despite sharing

1 In a different context, however, James, this time identified as ‘saint’ and ‘the Lord’s Broth-er’ (adelphotheos), rather than simply ‘saint’ as in the Apostles’ series, appears as an old manand a bishop (of Jerusalem), with a long, pointed white beard and shoulder-length white hair,holding a book; he is in the company of Christ and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, allrepresented in medallions on the four segments of the north transept’s cross-vault. For a well-illustrated (in color) discussion of the eleventh-century Mark-type in Venice and Trieste, seealso Andreescu-Treadgold 1997a, pp. 93-95 and figs. 3-4, 6-7.


straight (not curly) hair and the rounded widow’s peak/lock on their fore-head in all three cases, the Philip and Thomas of the intrados differ in de-tails of their hair, their eyes, and their ears from their images in both thePentecost series and the Washing of the Feet, not to mention the Philip withcurls from the Doubting of Thomas.

Despite the generally well-defined and recognizable types of mostApostles in Byzantine representations, starting already in the eleventh cen-tury, their characterizations are not equally clear in all series. Even inGreek cultural milieus, the occasional blunder is possible: in the case of aLast Judgment icon from St. Catherine on Sinai,1 the painter represents thevery distinctive Mark and Luke correctly as to their portraits but confusestheir names, inverting their identifying labels on the open books (Figs. 32and 33). Note on the same icon the beardless Thomas and Philip placed, asthey usually are, at the row’s ends. Out in the provinces (or possibly, in lessqualified workshops working far away from Byzantium), the personalizedtypes become more generic, losing many of their characteristic details. Inthe mosaic of the Communion of the Apostles from 1112, once in the apseof the church of the Archangel Michael in Kiev, the specific features of theparticipants are blurred, and their identification by scholars is occasionallyuncertain or even wrong.2

On a different occasion, a Byzantine mosaicist who worked abroad forLatin patrons and had to illustrate another, less familiar, canon of Apostlesswitched two of the types, possibly by mistake. At San Giusto in Trieste, atemplate is used for the representation of Bartholomew (identified by hisinscription) that has the same pose as the Evangelist Mark, the majestic tit-ular saint in the hemicycle of San Marco in Venice. The resemblance ex-tends to the arms, which are veiled and stretched out to hold the Gospel,an attribute of Mark, though in the case of the Trieste Bartholomew theoutstretched and veiled arm holds nothing.3

The simple conclusion is that, even while drawing from the same widerepertory of iconographical models, mosaicists had their own preferencesand competence in executing specific tasks (figurative or decorative). Dif-ferent variants in the execution of the same subject (or related and hierar-chically equal ones) coexisted not only within the same monument but often within the same space – i.e., the same scaffolding platform. In HosiosLoukas we have seen the archangels on the east great arch and the military

1 Its dating to the twelfth century suggested through stylistic and iconographic analogiesonly by George and Maria Soteriou, (1956-1958), fig. 151, pp. 130-131 has never been further scrutinized.

2 Lazareff 1966, figs. 4 (overall composite), 18-52 and drawing 1.3 Andreescu-Treadgold 1997a, pp. 91-95.


saints from the intradoses of the other great arches, made by different“hands:” they span in quality the whole range from mediocre to very

Fig. 33. Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, icon, detail.

Fig. 32. Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine, icon, detail.


achieved. The same conclusion follows from the examination at randomof the corners in the northwest cross-vault of the naos.

There is a lesson to be drawn here for modern and contemporaryscholars who have never familiarized themselves with the chief subjectmatter of art history (and not art theory) – the artifact itself. Portentoussystems and theories have been constructed at the desk in plain ignoranceof the hard-to-collect evidence. Because of the prestige of the scholarswho have engendered them, these theories have permeated and pollutedmuch of present scholarship, to the point where connoisseurship hasreached a low ebb.1

Over thirty years ago, Cyril Mango framed the problem nicely in a nowlargely forgotten review of Ernst Kitzinger’s The Art of Byzantium and theMedieval West, published in the Times Literary Supplement:

[Kitzinger] uses these visual qualities to construct a system of Platonic ideaswhose contact with reality is not particularly close. […] [H]e now introduces a[dichotomy] in the guise of artistic “modes”, i.e., distinct manners attached toparticular categories of subject-matter: thus a hellenistic “mode”, he thinks, is ap-propriate to secular subjects, but is also associated with scenes from the Old Tes-tament and the representation of angels, while the abstract “mode” is, paradoxi-cally, used for portraits of living persons. […]Kitzinger disregards the most remarkable portraits produced during this period,namely those of abbot Longinus and the deacon John in St. Catherine’smonastery on Mount Sinai, which are anything but abstract, and quotes insteada few examples from the Italian orbit, including that ghastly fake which is the por-trait of Pope John vii from Old St. Peter’s, in an attempt to show that livingdonors were sometimes represented in a more linear fashion even than saints. Hethen takes a leap to the gold coinage of Justinian II which on the obverse showstwo different types of Christ, the full bearded “Olympian” type and the “Orien-tal” type with a triangular face and curly hair. It is this second type that Kitzingerconnects with the portrait “mode.” He realizes that both types were meant to beportrayals of Christ, but somehow thinks that the “Olympian” variant was“keyed not so much to physiognomic externals as to a certain ethos,” while the“Oriental” variant was intended as a more exact likeness, which is why it looksmore abstract. Had he applied the same criteria to the portraits of Byzantine em-perors on the coinage of the period, he might have obtained even more startlingantinomies. […]The above remarks convey only a faint idea of the complexity of Kitzinger’s ar-gumentation, a complexity that is further aggravated by his tendency to qualifynearly every general statement he makes. I have no doubt that he has thoughtlong and hard about the problems of Byzantine art. It also seems to me that likemany professors who have never wielded a brush or a chisel, he is profoundly puz-


1 This is however a subject for another occasion.

zled by the artistic act, even one of the most ordinary character. If only it couldbe fitted into some dichotomy or antinomy, if it could be shown to exemplifysome mode within a style, all would be well. In the process, we learn a great dealabout Kitzinger’s mind and somewhat less about Byzantium.1

Kitzinger defended his use of the mode theory in a rejoinder:

That abstract and classicizing trends coexisted in Byzantine art of the seventhcentury is an undeniable fact; and certainly the concept of “modes” – one of themore fruitful concepts in modern art historical scholarship and one which hasbeen applied with considerable success to a variety of periods – is relevant here.Incidentally, the mosaic image of Pope John vii from Old St. Peter’s, dismissedby Professor Mango as a “ghastly fake,” is a perfectly legitimate representative ofthe portrait “mode.” Though the bust was totally remade, probably in the eigh-teenth century, the head, which is all that matters in this connection, is (or was,until an unfortunate restoration of quite recent date) substantially intact.2

Yet no evidence gathered directly from wall mosaics supports the ‘mode’theory. In fact, one clear example where the ‘modes’ became an impossibleobstacle to solving another seemingly mysterious problem of the patron-age and chronology of mosaic-making is represented by the mosaics of SanVitale at Ravenna. A study begun with first-hand examination of the mo-saics of the church at Ravenna in 1988 had to wait for completion for eightyears so that a scaffolding raised to restore them could be used to cover allthe walls in sequence and verify their materials in situ. This joint study of-fered an interpretation based entirely on the mosaics’ archeological analy-sis within their historical, recorded context, while also providing a criticalexamination of some of the theoretical literature on the subject.3

San Nicolò di Lido, Venice

The tesserae collected from the rubble of San Nicolò (Figs. 36-37 and Ap-pendices A and B) provided the evidence for the second part of this pres-entation. The monument no longer exists in its original form because itwas demolished almost entirely around 1629 but is well documented inchronicles and other written sources.4 Only the south nave was partly in-corporated in the new conventual building. The foundation of the originalcomplex occurred around 1053 and a large part of the walls was decoratedwith mosaic. The «figures in the [main] apse» identified as a Christ be-


1 Mango 1977, p. 381. 2 Kitzinger 1977, p. 561.3 Andreescu-Treadgold, Treadgold 1997.4 Guiotto 1947-1948; Tombolani 1983, with earlier bibliography; Fabbiani 1989 is a

published dissertation written under Wladimiro Dorigo. The latter incorporated the now destroyed pictorial decoration of the church into his analysis of Venetian medieval painting;Dorigo 2004, pp. 24-25.

tween two angels (an iconography reminiscent of Torcello’s south chapel)were accompanied by inscriptions in mosaic informing us about a bishopof the church of Olivolo, Domenico Contarini, homonymous relation ofor perhaps one and the same person as the builder of the church of SanMarco (in its present version, the latter is slightly later).

Although the wall mosaics are no longer preserved in situ, after themodifications suffered by the building in the early seventeenth century,they have survived as parts of the rubble found in the excavations of theolder basilica. Excavated last by Michele Tombolani in 1982, the materialwas still being studied at the time of Tombolani’s death in 1989.1 The proj-ect envisaged by Tombolani for the materials’ publication was never ac-complished, but I remember the impression I had in his laboratory whenI looked at the fragments spread on the table. The work was unquestion-ably Byzantine, probably of the eleventh century and in the rubble I coulddetect fragments of the ‘quatrefoil’ ornament, the ubiquitous favorite cor-nice in the earliest Venetian mosaics, which in slightly different versions isfound at Hosios Loukas as well (Figs. 16a-b, 17a-b and 22).

The same impression of a technically proficient workshop, with small-cut tesserae and a large range of colored glass as well as a variety of stonetesserae, was confirmed by my further contacts (1996 and 2002), on theseoccasions only with a random representation of fragments determined bytheir location in storage (easy access on the shelf for a harried staff at theMuseo Archeologico in Venice). Because the materials have unfortunatelybeen stored in boxes ever since Tombolani’s death, and the samples pre-sented here (Figs. 36 and 37 and Appendices A and B) were chosen fromthe boxes closer on the shelf which happened to be from two locations la-beled «tomba a ridosso, muro a sacco» (Appendix A) and «abside centrale,II strato» (Appendix B), I am unable to give further documentation for anyassessment of the San Nicolò mosaic remains.2

What is left in these two boxes seems homogeneous in terms of mate-rials, and despite the lack of recognizable fragments – with the exceptionof a small flesh fragment (Fig. 36), the disk made of a central tessera anda row of silver (or gold?) glass around it, and some straight rows from an-other cornice, all on a ochre-red setting bed (Fig. 36) – the predominance


1 Tombolani 1983, coll. 347-348: «Riveste grande interesse il rinvenimento di numerosiframmenti di mosaici parietali; in uno strato di sabbia a livello delle fondazioni in corrispon-denza delle absidi e dell’ultima campata della navata centrale e della navata sinistra sono emer-si numerosissimi frammenti del mosaico in tessere, per lo più vitree policrome, che ne rivestivai rispettivi catini absidali. Molti i frammenti pertinenti a iscrizioni in tessere d’oro su fondo bluo in tessere nere su fondo oro; altri riproducono elementi di panneggi; altri infine, in tessereminute, sono riferibili ad incarnati di volti.»

2 Andreescu-Treadgold 1997a, pp. 90 and 102, n. 18.

of green glass in several shades indicates a relative abundance of vegeta-tion once represented on the walls. Dr. Brill’s analysis of the thirty glasssamples taken from the two locations confirms the Byzantine-like compo-sition of the Lido tesserae, which were made with the traditional natronand no vegetal ashes.1

Though the study of fragmentary remains can never match the useful-ness of the study of a whole representation of the original decoration,there is still valuable information to be extracted from these clumps oftesserae, once they are catalogued and better identified. Even in their pres-ent state, however, they are a clear example of Byzantine mosaic-making,which, to judge from the fragments’ technical execution, was importedwholesale, mosaicists and tesserae alike.2

Where Did the Mosaicists Get their Tesserae?

Very large numbers of both colored glass and stone tesserae were neces-sary for the mosaics, and they must have been available in some organizedfashion to the mosaicists in charge of setting them on the wall, in order forthem to produce a homogeneous, finished picture. As is usually the case,we must resort to information preserved in the later archives at Orvieto inorder to understand the pattern of the provenance of supplies, which in-volved assembling the stock materials necessary for the completion of thecommissioned surfaces.3 We are informed in the fourteenth-century Ital-ian documents of multiple sources for different colors of glass producedin sometimes distant places, and of how gathering them was organizedand paid and accounted for. It is obvious that the supplies for the wholecommission were stocked beforehand so that differences in color betweenmaterials would be minimized.

This conclusion from the Orvieto evidence should be combined with insitu evidence gathered mostly from Torcello (e. g. its south chapel) con-cerning the distribution of workloads, as well as the documented varia-tions among artisans in the course of executing their allotted, individualsections within the same large subject. Overall, the materials available toevery mosaicist were the same, but they could be used by each mosaicistin different proportions, as was the case in the vault of the Lamb in thesouth chapel.4 Occasionally, the choice of materials (and design) couldvary slightly for the same subject when its execution was divided amongdistinct mosaicists and several workloads.5 Another case, documented on


1 See below, Brill, pp. 81-102.2 For historical background see also Nicol 1988; Pertusi 1970a and 1970b; Id. 1978; Id. 1979.3 Harding 1989, passim.4 Andreescu-Treadgold 1995. 5 Andreescu 1984; Idem 1995.

Torcello’s west wall, is that of keeping in reserve less then perfectly-cuttesserae that had been discarded earlier, and using them last, when sup-plies were becoming scarcer.1 Most such variations are imperceptible tothe casual viewer, who sees the mosaic from floor level.

But in the case of Hosios Loukas, we are faced with some exceptions tothe assumptions about supplies expressed above. Different mosaics showdifferences both in style and in materials used, though they are totally in-tegrated in the general project of the commission. Because of such differ-ences, we can distinguish on closer scrutiny mosaic groups consisting ofseveral figures: one such group includes on the north arch one of the mil-itary saints still preserved in that area, Saint George (Fig. 13), and some ofthe angels from the Nativity and the Baptism in the large spandrels nearby(Figs. 15b-d and (Fig. 1/Diez, Demus plan). Except for George, whose sin-gular style, already noted above, shows artistic competence, the other fig-ures, mostly of angels in ancillary roles, are rather coarse: all of them,however, could have been made with somewhat different supplies, despitebeing integrated into the overall project. This difference in materials mayalso correspond to the area described by Schultz and Barnsley as “of veryinferior composition and drawing” in the “North Philopation or LowerTransept”2 on to the anomalous group of tesserae identified through thetechnical analysis among the thirty collected at random (see Pl. 1-5 in Brill,following in this volume),3 though only a new systematic sampling fromthe mosaics still in situ could settle the question of their connections definitively.4

A Byzantine Ornament from the Eleventh Centuryand a Venetian Variation from the Renaissance:

Hosios Loukas and San Marco

Among the ornaments that are part of the decorative repertoire used inthe Hosios Loukas wall mosaics, one motif which appears chiefly – butnot exclusively – in the narthex (Figs. 34a-b) can be compared with a sim-ilar though not identical motif executed in the early fifteenth century in


1 Andreescu-Treadgold, Henderson 2009.2 Schultz, Barnsley 1901, p. 54: see also note 1 p. 00, above.3 Brill, passim, and pl. 1-5.4 So far, no glass furnaces ascribable to the production of mosaic tesserae have been found

in any of the chief mosaic-decorated sites, and certainly not at Torcello. The glass furnace discovered in the 1960’s by the Polish archeologists excavating there – its date now revised bythe excavators to no earlier than the ninth century – has nothing to do with the church’s wallmosaics, not even in terms of its chronology. Years ago, the late Laskarina Bouras mentionedto me a rumor concerning the discovery of a glass furnace during the excavations and restora-tions at Hosios Loukas, but it was never recorded in the relevant literature.

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Fig. 34a. Narthex, ornament, close-up, Andreescu.

Fig. 34b. Narthex, ornament, drawing,Andreescu-Treadgold, 2008.

Fig. 35b. Venice, San Marco, Main apse,hemicycle, ornament at north end,

drawing, Andreescu-Treadgold, 2008.


Fig. 35a. Venice, San Marco, Main apse, hemicycle, ornament at north end,Andreescu-Treadgold, 1994.


Venice, possibly remade in 1509 (Figs. 35a-b). The motif at Hosios Loukasconsists of a band filled by a string of diamonds attached at their tips, withthe diamonds defined by a gridlike pattern made with two rows of goldtesserae. The resulting inner field is colored red, while the sides of thefield, triangles or half-diamonds, are colored blue or green (depending onthe section of the church). The diamonds and the triangles are filled withlinear, stylized gold palmettes and tendrils.1 In the narthex, the motifframes the intradoses of several large lunettes, especially those on the eastand west walls, which house the scenes of the Crucifixion and the Anastasis,and also the compositions with the True Cross and female saints (standingor as busts in medallions).

There are two variants of this diamond-based design, but they use con-tours and colors differently. One variant (Fig. 22), which frames only theDoubting of Thomas in the south conch of the narthex, is predominantlylight, set on a white background and alternating white and light blue dia-monds. The basic gridlike dividers are thick and at junctions, punctuatedby gold flowerettes. (In the opposite conch, Fig. 21, a different motif, aband of swastikas, frames the Washing of the Feet; the same band ofswastikas surrounds the niches with the busts of Saints Gregory andAthanasius in the bema, Fig. 2). The other diamond-based variant, of similar though striking design (Figs. 34a-b and 16b), uses darker, saturatedcolors of red, cobalt blue, or light green, and resembles in its palette someof the cloisonné enamels of the same period.

This evidence allows several considerations about the work of the mo-saicists in the narthex, but we should focus for now on the typological con-nection between the ornamental motif identified at Hosios Loukas andthe one closely related to it from a very different time and place. The lattermotif, though transposed in a mosaic executed several centuries later, isstill recognizable as medieval (Fig. 35b). The slightly different and some-what modified motif appears in Venice, in the mosaics of the main apse inSan Marco (Fig. 35a). It uses oblong, elliptical shapes connected throughtheir tips to form a chain similar to the one formed by the diamonds in Ho-sios Loukas; here the field of the ornamental band is also red against acobalt blue background, and inscribed with palmette-like scrolls in gold.

Though many of the hemicycle’s figurative mosaics are still original anddate from around 1100,2 the mosaics of the apse’s conch, as well as some

1 Kampouri-Vamvoukou 1986, in her analysis of decorative motifs in mosaic decorationsof the eleventh century, publishes a drawing and a photograph in black and white of this motif(Fig. 3 and pl. 78, 1). Elsewhere in Hosios Loukas, the same motif appears in the naos’ uppergalleries among the intradoses of the biforae. Other, related, stylized vegetal motifs are madeof gold and set against monochromatic backgrounds.

2 Demus 1984; Andreescu-Treadgold 1997a.


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patches in the hemicycle, date in their present form from 1506. They weremade by the mosaicist Piero di Zorzi, who signed his name and wrote thedate in mosaic. Piero had remade parts of the mosaic that had recentlybeen destroyed (they had been remade once before, after a devastating firein 1419 that had affected this area).1 It is generally agreed that this refectiondid not profoundly change the image of the Christ enthroned in the conch,and in fact some stylistic features of the medieval mosaic can still be rec-ognized in the folds of the garments.2

Not yet systematically published or even studied, the vast, omnipresentornamental repertoire of the wall mosaics in San Marco, which is especial-ly rich throughout the church’s east end, displays some of the original, me-dieval decorations side by side with later ones.3 In the apse, medieval andByzantine motifs survive in the original parts, but even remade mosaicscan preserve traces of the originals, modified but still recognizable. This isthe case with the outer, contouring band of the arch of the conch,4 whichdespite its several restorations takes us back to the original compositionfrom around 1100. The present composition at San Marco ( just visible atthe top of Fig. 35a), with vegetal, oblong medallions circumscribing pairsof birds, resembles, if on a much larger scale, the medieval ornamentalband preserved to this day in the mosaic of the north apse at Trieste’s SanGiusto. (Other elements in the two mosaics that resemble each other havelong been known in the scholarly literature, suggesting a possiblecrossover between the two mosaic workshops).5

Among the vertical ornamental mosaic strips flanking the hemicycle inSan Marco’s apse (Figs. 35a-b), there is a motif that, as already mentioned,brings to mind, even in its present modified appearance, the ornamentalband from Hosios Loukas discussed above. Especially noteworthy are thedesign and the colors. A zigzagging line of gold defines and sets off a stringof ellipses of medium blue color against a dark red ground on the sides.The gold vegetal ornament is a scroll-palmette, of the same type as the onein Hosios Loukas. Despite a Renaissance-like feeling, the motif is two-di-mensional and inspired by the earlier Byzantine ornament, which musthave been found still in place by Piero in 1509.

This example – and some other similarities to be found between ele-ments of the two mosaics – is not meant to suggest a direct, immediateconnection between the Venetian mosaics and the mosaics at Hosios

1 For the sequence of the post-medieval restorations of San Marco’s apse mosaics, see Merkel 1977, 1989 and 1994, especially Merkel 1989, pp. 241-242.

2 Demus 1984. 3 Andreescu-Treadgold 1997a, pp. 91, 102-103, notes 20-21.4 For a good – though not full – image of the apse, see Merkel 1989, fig. 329 at p. 237. An

inscription from 1726 mentions the mosaicist, Leopoldo dal Pozzo, (reproduced in Merkel1977, p. 664, pl. 17). 5 Campitelli 1958, esp. figs. 16-19.


Loukas. Nor do I suggest a similar, linear connection between the Greekmiddle Byzantine wall mosaics and those in the Venetian lagoon, from SanMarco, Torcello, or the Lido. The connection suggested is a generic one.The information we can gather from all these mosaics, whether they stillstand in a form close to the original one, were restored several times, orare available to us only in fragments excavated out of the rubble, is of thegreatest value in reconstructing and studying the many facets of the ear-liest Byzantine imports to Venice.1

Some Simple Conclusions

In spite of the limited size of the samples, and even certain doubts abouttheir specific provenance, the data published here allow some simple butimportant conclusions.

The first conclusion concerns the samples from Hosios Loukas, col-lected from the fall of tesserae throughout the church, and thereforewithout precise locations (cfr. Brill, in this volume, pl. 1-5 and my Ap-pendix 1). The fact that one group testifies to technical peculiarities intheir use of coloring materials, which can be associated with remote ar-eas of production such as Anatolia or Cyprus, supports the hypothesisthat non-Constantinopolitan artisans participated in the mosaic-makingprocess at Hosios Loukas. Let us remember also the visible differences inmaterials and execution noticed between the various areas in the bema,the naos, and the narthex, and even within these areas.

The second conclusion concerns the Venetian wall mosaics from SanNicolò di Lido, and it is that the sample tesserae analyzed from two loca-tions chosen at random (Figs. 36 and 37 and Appendices A and B) fall wellwithin the ‘normal’ range of Byzantine mosaics. This conclusion agreeswith a few observations based on a small number of mosaic clumps, thatthe fragments examined were made by Byzantine artisans, as demonstrat-ed by a high level of technical execution. Similar technical characteristicsare present in the Venetian lagoon (Torcello and the early San Marco mo-saics), especially for the workshops operating in the eleventh rather thanthe twelfth century.

As stated above, even though the above remarks are based on a directsurvey of the mosaics, they must remain a preliminary and general assess-ment, because of the article format of this publication, and also becauseof the state of the materials resulting from the field survey. These have notyet been processed in Corpus form, nor studied in depth. In addition, some


1 Andreescu-Treadgold, Henderson, Roe 2007; Andreescu-Treadgold, Hender-son 2009.

of the documentation taken at the time from the scaffolding at HosiosLoukas, or found in the excavation of San Nicolò, was incomplete and nev-er finally processed as intended.

As for the glass tesserae used in the wall mosaics, for the time being welack for both Hosios Loukas and San Nicolò sufficient statistics of glassanalysis to allow definitive conclusions about the glass technology whichunderpinned these enormous mosaic projects of the eleventh century.1 Al-though it would be quite possible to process the mosaics (both fragmen-tary and in situ) in Corpus form, and to extract from them a large volumeof evidence about the structure of workshops and the dynamics of mosaicmaking at all levels, today’s Zeitgeist and that of the last thirty years – whenthe Hosios Loukas campaign had to be terminated in a few days for noclear reason – have not been propitious for such undertakings.2

Bibliographic abbreviationsAndreescu 1972 = I. Andreescu, Torcello. i. Le Christ inconnu. ii. Anastasis et Ju-

gement dernier: têtes vraies, têtes fausses, «DOP», 26, 1972, pp. 183-223.Andreescu 1976 = I. Andreescu, Torcello. iii. La chronologie relative des mosaïques

pariétales, «DOP», 30, 1976, pp. 246-341.Andreescu 1978 = I. Andreescu, The Corpus for Wall Mosaics in the North Adriatic

Area, «BullAIEMA», 7, 1978, pp. 317-323.Andreescu 1981 = I. Andreescu, Les mosaïques de la lagune vénitienne aux environs

de 1100, in Actes du xve Congrès International des Études Byzantines: Athènes, Sep-tembre, 1976, Athens, 1981, pp. 15-30.

Andreescu 1984 = I. Andreescu, Torcello iv. Cappella Sud, mosaici: cronologia relativa, cronologia assoluta e analisi delle paste vitree, in IIICollIntMos, vol. i, pp.535-51.

Andreescu-Treadgold 1992 = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, The Mosaic Work-shop at San Vitale, in Mosaici a San Vitale e altri restauri, eds. A. M. Iannucci et al.,Ravenna, 1992, pp. 31-41 (with eight pp. corrigenda insert).


1 For the Corpus project started in 1975 – but never finished – by the Dumbarton Oaks Cen-ter for Byzantine Studies, see most recently Andreescu-Treadgold 2004; Idem 2005; andAndreescu-Treadgold, Henderson, Roe 2007. The latter study and the present article of-fer the beginning of a statistical picture for the eleventh century, to be completed with futureglass analyses from Trieste’s San Giusto and Ravenna’s Museo Arcivescovile, both mosaic dec-orations dating to the early twelfth century.

2 One unfortunate example of this state of affairs is H. Kessler’s survey of medieval artstudies in the series commissioned by the Art Bulletin in the 1980’s (Kessler 1988). While thesurvey goes into great detail about the state of the field at that time, the study of medieval wallmosaics is covered in one short, generic sentence. Few readers would be aware that the Corpusfor Wall Mosaics (sponsored by Dumbarton Oaks through the Instrumenta Studiorum programof the National Endowment for the Humanities) had been terminated shortly before withouta professional review, or that Kessler had advised the Director of Dumbarton Oaks on thatvery matter for several years.


Andreescu-Treadgold 1995 = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, Torcello v. Work-shop Methods of the Mosaicists in the South Chapel, «VeneziaA», 9, 1995, pp. 15-28.

Andreescu-Treadgold 1997a = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, I primi mosaicistia San Marco, in Storia dell’arte marciana. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi,Venezia, 11-14 ottobre 1994, R. Polacco ed., Venezia, 1997, pp. 87-104.

Andreescu-Treadgold 1997b = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, The Two originalMosaic Decorations of San Vitale, «Quaderni della Soprintendenza Archeologicadell’Emilia Romagna», 3, 1997, pp. 16-22 and 109-113.

Andreescu-Treadgold 2004 = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, Il ‘Corpus dei mosaici parietali nella zona nord Adriatica’ e la campionatura delle tessere vitree deliii registro della parete ovest a S. Maria Assunta di Torcello (i), in IXCollAISCOM,pp. 175-190.

Andreescu-Treadgold 2005 = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, Il Corpus dei mosaici parietali nella zona nord Adriatica e la campionatura delle tessere vitree dellaparete ovest a S. Maria Assunta di Torcello (ii): gli altri registri, in XCollAISCOM,pp. 617-636.

Andreescu-Treadgold 2007 = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, I mosaici antichi equelli ottocenteschi di San Michele in Africisco: lo studio filologico, in Africisio e l’etàgiustinianea a Ravenna, C. Spadoni and L. Kniffit eds., Cinisello Balsamo, 2007,pp. 113-119.

Andreescu-Treadgold, Henderson, Roe 2006 = I. Andreescu-Tread-gold, J. Henderson, M. Roe, Glass from the Mosaics on the West Wall of Torcel-lo’s Basilica, «ArteMedievale», ns iii, 1, 2006, pp. 87-140.

Andreescu-Treadgold, Henderson 2009 = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, J.Henderson, How does the glass of the wall mosaics at Torcello contribute to thestudy of trade in the 11th century? in M. Mango, 2009, pp. 393-417.

Andreescu-Treadgold, Treadgold 1997 = I. Andreescu-Treadgold, W.Treadgold, Procopius and the Imperial Panels of San Vitale, «ArtB», 79, 1997, pp.708-723.

Campitelli 1958 = M. Campitelli, Nota sul mosaico con i dodici Apostoli di SanGiusto a Trieste, «Arte veneta», 12, 1958, pp. 19-30.

Chatzidakis 1994 = N. Chatzidakis, Greek Art. Byzantine Mosaics, Athens, 1994.Cutler, Spieser 1996 = A. Cutler, J.-M. Spieser, Byzance médiévale, Paris, 1996.Demus 1948 = O. Demus, Byzantine Mosaic Decoration, London, 1948.Demus 1979 = O. Demus, Venetian Mosaics and Their Byzantine Sources. Report on

the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium of 1978, «dop», 33, 1979, pp. 337-343.Demus 1984 = O. Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, 2 vols. Text and 2

vols. Plates, Chicago-London, 1984.Diez, Demus 1931= E. Diez, O. Demus, Byzantine Mosaics in Greece, Cambridge,

Mass., 1931.Dorigo 2004 = W. Dorigo, Venezia, in La pittura nel Veneto, Le origini, ed. F. Flores

D’arcais, Milan, 2004, pp. 21-63.Fabbiani n.d. [1988?] = L. Fabbiani, La fondazione monastica di San Nicolò di Lido

(1053-1628), Venezia, n.d. [1988?].Grabar, Chatzidakis 1959 = A. Grabar, M. Chatzidakis, Greece, Byzantine

Mosaics, Paris, 1959.

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San Michele in

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Guiotto 1947-1948 = M. Guiotto, L’antica chiesa di S. Nicolò di Lido di Venezia,«AttiIstVeneto» cvi, 1947-1948, pp. 175-193.

Harding 1989 = C. Harding, The Production of Medieval Mosaics. The Orvieto Evidence, «DOP», 43, 1989, pp. 73-102.

Kampouri-Vamvoukou 1986 = M. Kampouri-Vamvoukou, Paratereseis stontropo diamorfoses ton diakosmetikon thematon sta mesovyzantina psefidota in Ame-tos, Festschrift für Manolis Andronikos, Salonika, 1986, pp. 363-383.

Kazhdan, Maguire 1991 = A. Kazhdan, H. Maguire, Byzantine HagiographicalTexts as Sources on Art, «DOP», 45, 1991, pp. 1-22.

Kessler 1988 = H. L. Kessler, On the State of Medieval Art History, «ArtB», 70,1988, pp. 179-83.

Kitzinger 1976 = E. Kitzinger, The Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West, ed.E. Kleinbauer, Indiana University Press, 1976. Kitzinger 1977 = E. Kitzinger,The Art of Byzantium, «Times Literary Supplement», May 6, 1977.

Lazarev 1966 = V. Lazarev, Michajlovskie mozaiki, Moscow, 1966.Lazarides 1978 = P. Lazarides, Hossios Loukas, 2 ed., Milan, 1978.Maguire 1992 = H. Maguire, Byzantine Art History in the Second Half of the Twen-

tieth Century, in Byzantium. A World Civilization, eds. A.E. Laiou and H.Maguire, Washington D.C., 1992, pp. 119-155.

Mango 1997 = C. Mango, reviewing The Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West,ed. E. Kleinbauer, Indiana University Press, 1976, Artifacts in the abstract, «TimesLiterary Supplement», March 25, 1977, p. 381.

Mango 2009 = M. Mango, ed., Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries. The Archaeologyof Local, Regional and International Excange. Papers of the Thirty-eighth SpringSymposium of Byzantine Studies. St. John’s College. University of Oxford, March2004, Ashgate, 2009.

Merkel 1977 = E. Merkel, Problemi sui restauri dei mosaici marciani nel Quattro-cento e nel Cinquecento in Venezia centro di mediazione tra Oriente e Occidente (secolixv-xvi). Aspetti e problemi, ed. H. G. Beck et al., 2, Florence, 1977, pp. 657-670.

Merkel 1989 = E. Merkel, Mosaici e pittura a Venezia in La pittura nel Veneto. IlQuattrocento, i, ed. M. Lucco, Milan, 1989, pp. 223-246.

Merkel 1994 = E. Merkel, I mosaici del Cinquecento veneziano, (i) «Saggi e memo-rie di storia dell’arte», 19, 1994, pp. 75-140.

Millet 1899 = G. Millet, Le monastère de Daphni. Histoire, architecture, mosaïques,Paris, 1899.

Millet 1903 = G. Millet, La collection chrétienne et byzantine des Hautes Études,Paris, 1903.

Morini 2004 = E. Morini, Le reliquie veneziane di San Luca Evangelista in San LucaEvangelista testimone della fede che unisce, in Atti del Congresso internazionale,Padova, 16-23 Ottobre 2000 («Fonti e ricerche di storia ecclesiastica padovana,xxx»), vol. iii, F. G. B. Trolese ed., Padova, 2004, pp. 379-420.

Nicol 1988 = D. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice. A study in diplomatic and cultural relations, Cambridge, 1988.

Oikonomides 1992 = N. Oikonomides, The First Century of the Monastery of Hosios Loukas, «DOP», 46, 1992, pp. 245-255.

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Pertusi 1970a = A. Pertusi, L’Impero Bizantino e l’evolvere dei suoi interessi nell’AltoAdriatico, in Storia della civiltà veneziana, ed. V. Branca, i, Firenze, 1979, pp. 51-69 (reprinted from Le origini di Venezia, Firenze, 1964).

Pertusi 1970b = A. Pertusi, Venezia e Bisanzio nel secolo xi, in Storia della civiltàveneziana, ed. V. Branca, i, Firenze, 1979, pp. 175-198 (reprinted from La Veneziadel Mille, Firenze, 1965).

Pertusi 1978 = A. Pertusi, Ai confini tra religione e politica; la contesa per le reliquiedi san Nicola tra Bari, Venezia e Genova, «Quaderni medievali», 1978, pp. 6-56.

Pertusi 1979 = A. Pertusi, Venezia e Bisanzio: 1000-1204, «DOP», 33, 1979, pp. 1-22.Schultz, Barnsley 1901 = R. W. Schultz, S. H. Barnsley, The Monastery of St.

Luke of Stiris in Phocis, London, 1901.Soteriou, 1956-1958 = G. Soteriou, M. Soteriou, Icones du Mont Sinai, 2 vols.

Athens, 1956-1958.Stikas 1970 = E. Stikas, To Oikodomikon Chronikon tes Mones Hosiou Louka Phoki-

dos, Athens, 1970.Storia di Venezia, 1992 = Storia di Venezia, i, Origini - Età Ducale, eds. L. Cracco-Rug-

gini et al., Roma, 1992.Tombolani 1993 = M.Tombolani, Venezia: scavo nell’area della antica chiesa di San

Nicolò del Lido, «AN», liv, 1983, coll. 346-348.Walsh 1999 = J. Walsh, Eight Theses for Art Historians and Museums, «CAA News:

Newsletter of the College Art Association», 24.2, 19-99.


Appendix 1. Sampling Hosios Loukas, Phocis

provenance: random, not specifiedsurvey date: November 1976Sent Corning Museum of Glass: May 15, 2004

sample # description Brill, infra, Plates 1-5

Analized HL1 Green, forest, medium. 1, 7873Analized HL2 Green, forest, medium. 1, 7874Analized HL3 Green, light. 1, 7868Analized HL4 Green, emerald, medium. 1, 7869Analized HL5 Green, emerald, medium. 1, 7870Analized HL6 Green, emerald, medium. 1, 7871Analized HL7 Olive (w. purple tinge). 2, 7863Analized HL8 Olive (w. purple tinge). 2, 7864Analized HL9 Olive (w. purple tinge), medium. 2, 7865Analized HL10 Olive (w. purple tinge). 2, 7866Analized HL11 Olive (w. purple tinge). 2, 7867Analized HL12 Olive (w. purple tinge). 2, 7872Analized HL13 Blue, dark. 3, 7875Analized HL14 Blue, dark. 3, 7876Analized HL15 Blue cobalt, medium. 3, 7877Analized HL16 Blue cobalt, medium. 3, 7878Analized HL17 Blue cobalt, medium. 3, 7879Analized HL18 Blue cobalt, medium. 3, 7880Analized HL19 Blue cobalt, lighter. 3, 7881Analized HL20 Red, dark, glossy. 4, 7885Analized HL21 Red, dark, glossy. 4, 7886Analized HL22 Red, streaked w. black, glossy. 4, 7887Analized HL23 Red, medium, glossy. 4, 7888Analized HL24 Red, medium, glossy. 4, 7889Analized HL25 Purple, dark, glossy. 4, 7882Analized HL26 Purple, medium. 4, 7883Analized HL27 Purple, dark, glossy. 4, 7884Analized HL28 Gold, light greenish-yellow, transparent. 5, 7860Analized HL29 Gold, light greenish-yellow, transparent. 5, 7861Analized HL30 Gold, bottle green, transparent. 5, 7862

Fig. 36. Venice-Lido, S. Nicolò, group A, Andreescu.



Appendix A. Sampling Ve, Lido, S. Nicolò

provenance: “Tomba a ridosso; muro a sacco”excavated: Sept 1982sampled: ve, Museo Archeologico 19 Dec. 2002Sent Corning Museum of Glass: 30 Oct 2004

sample # description print nr. dscn

Analized VE,SN19 Red, medium. (Brill, 7920) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN20 Yellowish-green, light. 1341-1353Analized VE,SN21 Cobalt blue, medium. (Brill, 7916) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN22 Bottle green, translucent. (Brill, 7910) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN23 Green, emerald, medium. (Brill, 7909) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN24 Gold (?), green (“black”), translucent.

(Brill, 7906) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN25 Gold, light yellow (“pagliarino”), tiny.

(Brill, 7903) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN26 Gold, amber light/medium, tiny.

(Brill, 7902) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN27 Blue (?), irridescent. 1341-1353Analized VE,SN28 28-29-30: cluster of identical TT,

green w streaks. 1341-1353Analized VE,SN29 Cont-d: light and medium green strata. 1341-1353Analized VE,SN30 (see #28 and #29) cluster shows sinopie. 1341-1353Analized VE,SN31 Cobalt blue (one T in lime bed w. sinopie). 1341-1353Analized VE,SN32 Gold, light amber. (Brill, 7904) 1341-1353Analized VE,SN33 Green, emerald, longish, tiny T. 1341-1353Analized VE,SN34 Olive, medium, tiny: STONE

(from face/flesh). 1341-1353

Fig. 37. Venice-Lido, S. Nicolò, group B Andreescu.



Appendix B. Sampling Ve, Lido, S. Nicolò

provenance: “Abside centrale, iiº strato”excavated: Sept 1982sampled: ve, Museo Archeologico 19 Dec. 2002Sent Corning Museum of Glass: 30 Oct. 2004

sample # description print nr. dscn

Analized VE,SN1 Green / blue (?). (Brill, 7912) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN2 Red, medium [same as 17-18].

(Brill, 7919) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN3 Yellowish-green, medium, transparent.

(Brill, 7907) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN4 Gold, bottle green. (Brill, 7905) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN5 Olive, medium. (Brill, 7917) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN6 Gold, almost white [pagliarino], small.

(Brill, 7900) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN7 Blue cobalt, medium. (Brill, 7913) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN8 Green w. some streaks. (Brill, 7911) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN9 Red, dark [maroon]. (Brill, 7918) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN10 Turquoise, small. (Brill, 7908) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN11 Blue, dark w. red spots. (Brill, 7914) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN12 Gold, light green, opaque (cluster

w. sinopie). 1354-1362Analized VE,SN13 Gold,”black” (same cluster as # 12). 1354-1362Analized VE,SN14 Blue, medium, dull. (Brill, 7915) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN15 Blue, darker [splinter]. 1354-1362Analized VE,SN16 Gold, light yellow [pagliarino].

(Brill, 7901) 1354-1362Analized VE,SN17 Red, medium (cluster w. lime plaster). 1354-1362Analized VE,SN18 Ditto, cluster includes blue cobalt,

medium 1354-1362

Some Considerations on the Eleventh-Century Byzantine Wall Mosaics of Hosios Loukas and San Nicolò...

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