This study aims to share light upon the various iconographic functions that the images of the prophet Elijah undertook in the Moldavian wall painting at the end of the 15th century and in the first ...decades of the following one. A funeral function is registered in his depictions from nartheka at Lujeni, Rădăuți and Bălinești, paired in the latter two instances with the Anapeson. More frequently, Elijah stands alongside John the Baptist on the thresholds of the apse, alluding henceforth to the ‘Elijah redivivus’ theological thread. His relationship with Elisha, shown in the micro-cycle from Neamț and in the iconic portraits from Voroneț and Popăuți, opens eventually Elijah’s iconography towards the theme of spiritual filiation, enhancing the monastic character of the programmes involving their connection.
This study aims to bring forth two iconographic contexts whichrelate to the issue of the primacy of Rome. The first one dwells upon theevidence taken from Byzantium and the Balkans, while the second ...follows thisline of investigation into the Romanian Post-Byzantine heritage. The cult ofSaint Peter was strong enough in Byzantium as to prevent any refutation of hisprimacy, even during the harshest quarrels with Rome. This could explain thepresence of Roman Popes (most frequently of St. Sylvester) in the procession ofsaintly bishops depicted in Moldavian apses at the end of the 15th c. and in the16th c., but equally in Wallachian iconographic programs from the 16th and 17thc. This phenomenon might hint at a claim to the plenitude of the apostolictradition for the local Church, but also at a polemical anti-Latin discourse,which makes use of papal iconic portraits in contexts with strong ecclesiasticimprint.
Prompted by the frequent inclusion of the Five Martyrs of Sebasteia (also referred to as the Five Companions, or the Araurakan martyrs) in Moldavian wall paintings from the end of the 15th c. and the ...first decades of the 16th c., my study investigates the implication of this devotional practice. It maps the local evidence for their metaphrastic Passio as textual counterpart for the preserved visual corpus. I discuss the Moldavian iconographic contexts against the backdrop of Late Byzantium and the Balkans, marked by an agency of Mount Athos. I propose that the cult of St. Eustratius and his companions circulates to Moldavia through the mediation of a monastic devotional network, and that in the local context it gained an unparalleled military accent. This could be speculatively attributed to a hybridization with the cult of St. Eugenios of Trebizond, possibly venerated by the second wife of Stephen the Great, Maria of Mangup, a princess of Trapezuntine lineage.
This study aims to share light upon the various iconographic functions that the images of the prophet Elijah undertook in the Moldavian wall painting at the end of the 15th century and in the first ...decades of the following one. A funeral function is registered in his depictions from nartheka at Lujeni, Rădăuți and Bălinești, paired in the latter two instances with the Anapeson. More frequently, Elijah stands alongside John the Baptist on the thresholds of the apse, alluding henceforth to the ‘Elijah redivivus’ theological thread. His relationship with Elisha, shown in the micro-cycle from Neamț and in the iconic portraits from Voroneț and Popăuți, opens eventually Elijah’s iconography towards the theme of spiritual filiation, enhancing the monastic character of the programmes involving their connection.
This paper, informed by an inventory of the apse iconography in Moldavian monuments from the late 15th to the first half of the 16th century, draws attention to an overlooked element of the otherwise ...familiar iconographic system employed – with occasional nuances – within the Post-Byzantine tradition in the aftermath of the Alosis: the selection of themes to be displayed in the bay which links the apse to the naos. The arrangements encountered in monuments dating from (approx.) 1490 to 1535 put forward a variety of formulas which – although described in a sequence that deliberately emphasizes the similarities which came across – are nonetheless indicative of a broad and not necessarily fluent use of the late Byzantine tradition. It seems that the basic message conveyed by these iconographic boundaries aims at stressing the holiness of the sanctuary (involving a separation from the iconography of the naos, in the cases of Probota and Saint-Georges in Suceava) but also, in a manner which could be informed by the late Byzantine perception of the liturgy – as deduced from the writings of Nicolas Cabasilas and St. Simeon of Thessaloniki –, at joining together naos and apse, via ‘iconographic belts’ (most frequently the Passion cycle, which sets out from and ends up in the sanctuary). The abundance of theophanic themes invites one to consider this iconographic thresholds in relation with the receiving of Communion, administered on the solea which lies underneath.
This paper represents a continuation of the previous publication “The Musical Instruments in the Early Vernacular Translations of the Psalms. Collective Research” (Museikon, 3, 2019, p. 67-140), ...henceforth abbreviated as Musical Instruments… 2019. The study will be continued in the next issue of Museikon (5, 2021), covering more languages and furthering the discussions.
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