The Basilica of St Apollinaris in Classe

My thanks to a friend for sharing with us these pictures which he took during a recent visit to one of best preserved paleo-Christian churches in Italy, the basilica of St Apollinaris in Classe, the ancient port of the city Ravenna. (In antiquity, Classe was directly on the sea, and important center for both commerce and the navy, but due to the silting-up of the Adriatic coast, it is now more than 5½ miles inland.) From the mid-6th to mid-8th century, Ravenna was the seat of the Byzantine governors of Italy, known as the Exarchs of Ravenna; several Christian monuments survive from this period, including two churches dedicated to St Apollinaris, an early bishop of the city traditionally said to have been a disciple of St Peter. The one here in Classe is the older of these two, originally built by a bishop named Ursicinus, who ruled from 532-36, and destined to be the burial place for the city’s bishops.

The narthex was added to the original brick façade in the 9th century, contemporary with the bell-tower shown below.

As in many early Byzantine churches, there are two small sacristies, one on either side of the apse, called  “pastophoria”, a term which occurs in 1 Macc. 4, 38 and 57.

The circular bell-tower, which stands at over 124 feet, was also built in the 9th-century. Notice how the window space increases as it rises, which decreases the weight of each stage, making the structure seem even taller and lighter than it really is.  

The mosaic in the apse is one of the best preserved examples of early Byzantine work in Italy, dating to the same period as the founding of the church. St Apollinaris is represented in the lower middle, wearing a stole and with his hands raised in prayer. At the very top, Christ Himself is shown, as He is in many early Christian images, with six sheep to either side of Him, emerging from the holy cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. These represent the twelve Apostles, of course, and the representation of Apollinaris in similar company is probably intended to remind the viewer of his close connection to the Apostolic era, and therefore also of the antiquity of the see of Ravenna.

In the lower band are shown (left to right): the Archangel Michael and the Apostle Matthew; the Roman Emperor Constantine IV with the clergy of Ravenna; four bishops of Ravenna; Abel, Melchisedek and Abraham (in a single panel, a reference to the mention of them in the Supra quae propitio of the Canon); St Gabriel and another, unidentified Saint.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

An Icon of the Prophet Elijah

In the liturgical Calendar of the Byzantine Rite, and in the two Carmelite Orders, July 20th is the feast of the Prophet Elijah. The Eastern tradition keeps almost all of the Prophets as Saints, and honors them as such in the liturgy. Veneration of Saints of the Old Testament is hardly known to the West, however, and where it is observed in the Latin rites, it arose under Eastern influence. The Carmelites, who came into existence as an Order in the Holy Land, honor Elijah as their founder, and keep his day as one of their patronal feasts, along with that of his disciple Elisha, on June 14th.

Here is a very beautiful icon of Elijah in the desert, with six episodes of his life in the bands above and below the central panel. This was painted in Bulgaria in the first quarter of the 18th century by an unknown artist; the western influence on the style is quite obvious.

In the central band, Elijah looks toward the crow that brings him food after he, in obedience to the Lord, has gone out to live in the desert. (3 Kings 17, 6) On the banderole in his hand are written in Greek the words of 3 Kings 19, 10, “Great hath been my zeal for the Lord almighty; for the sons of Israel have abandoned Thy covenant, they have dug down Thy altars.” The first part of this is often used as a motto among the Carmelites.

In the upper band, Elijah speaks with the widow of Sarephta (3 Kings 17, 8-15), raises the son of another woman from the dead (17-24), and contends with the prophets of Baal. (18, 19-40)

In the lower band, he is comforted by the angel in the desert as he rests under the juniper tree (3 Kings 19, 1-8), parts the Jordan with his cloak, and is taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot. (4 Kings 2, 1-12) All of these episodes except the fourth one are read at Vespers of the prophet’s feast in the Byzantine Rite.

The Troparion of the Prophet Elijah The angel in the flesh, and foundation of the prophets, the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, the glorious Elijah sent down from on high grace upon Elisha to dispel infirmities and to cleanse lepers; wherefore, he poureth forth healings upon those who honor him.

The Kontakion O prophet, foreseer of the mighty works of our God, Elijah of great renown, who by thy voice didst restrain the raining clouds, entreat for us Him who alone is the Lover of mankind.

A 6th-Century Ivory Episcopal Throne

A friend of mine recently visited the Italian city of Ravenna, a port city on the Adriatic coast, about 50 miles directly east of Bologna. In the 5th century, this city became the capital of the waning western Roman Empire, and from the later 6th century to the middle of the 8th, was the seat of the Byzantine imperial governor of Italy, known as the exarch. Several of the city’s churches famously preserve important mosaics from this period.

Here are my friend’s photographs of an interesting monument of the same period, a throne decorated with carved ivory panels, which belonged to an archbishop of Ravenna named Maximian (499-556), who held the see for the last ten years of his life. The throne was made in the first half of the sixth century in either Constantinople or Alexandria. The panels on the back depict episodes from the life of Christ, and those on the side show episodes from the life of the patriarch Joseph; between them are panels with decorative vines interspersed with animals. This is now kept in the archepiscopal museum of Ravenna, and, of course, behind protective glass, which makes for less than ideal photography.

On the front panel beneath the seat are shown St John the Baptist and the four evangelists, with the name archbishop’s name in Greek, Maximianos, arranged in a monogram above St John. 

A detail of the decorative motif in the panel beneath.

Episodes from the life of Christ on the back.

The Annunciation

The dream of St Joseph, and the journey to Bethlehem.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Monument of Constantine the Great in New Rome

Three days ago, we marked the anniversary of the dedication of Constantinople in 330 AD as the “New Rome.” In the nearly 17 centuries that have passed since then, the city has undergone countless vicissitudes which have done tremendous damage to its monuments, and very little now remains from the days of Constantine himself. The most prominent and oldest surviving monument of his era is a large column which was built a few years before the dedication ceremony.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Dmitry A. Mottl, CC BY-SA 4.0

This was set up in a circular forum also named for him, which was part of the “Mese hodos – the middle way”, a great thoroughfare that ran through the new city from the imperial palace directly to a gate in the city walls. In the latter part of the 4th century, the emperor Theodosius would build another forum along the Mese, likewise decorated with a column dedicated to himself, but even taller; this was demolished at the end of the 15th century.

The column of Constantine is made of several drums of porphyry, an Egyptian stone which is extremely heavy and hard, difficult to work with and to transport, but much prized by the Romans, since its color was the color of royalty. It stands on a large pedestal which is now buried beneath the level of the surrounding piazza, to a depth of about 8 feet. When it was first constructed, it supported a statue of the emperor; this remained in place for almost eight centuries, until it was knocked over in 1106 by a storm, which also brought down the top three drums of the column itself. The total original height is estimated at about 50 meters or 164 feet, which would make it taller than either of the similar columns in Rome, those of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.

The monument was also damaged by two of the great fires that broke out in Constantinople in antiquity, one in 475, and another in 532, during the famous episode known as the Nika riots, in the wake of which much of the city had to be rebuilt. In 1779, it was blackened by another fire so notably that it came to be known as “the Burnt Pillar.” But well before then, the Ottomans had it reinforced by a cage of iron hoops to prevent it from collapsing, and the piazza in which it stands is now known as “Çemberlitaş”, Turkish for “hooped stone.”

Sometime after the original statue was brought down, the emperor Manuel Comnenos (1143-80) had it replaced with a Cross, which was removed by the Turks after the taking of the city in 1453. Later Byzantine sources report that the statue itself had held an orb in its hand with a piece of the True Cross in it, and that several other relics were kept in a shrine at the base, including the crosses of the two thieves crucified with Christ, which St Helena had found along with that of the Lord, and (rather more improbably) the baskets used at the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, Mary Magdalene’s alabaster jar, plus (more improbably still) the ax of Noah and the staff of Moses. Likewise, it was also said to include the Palladium, a statute which the Romans believed had been brought from Troy to Italy by Aeneas himself. This was kept in the temple of Vesta in the Forum, and served as a protective talisman for the city. Although it is perfectly possible that Constantine could have moved such an object from the old Rome to the new, it is not known if he actually did so.

A reconstruction of the column’s original appearance, from Die Baukunst Konstantinopels, by Cormelius Gurlitt, 1912: Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

An Apse Mosaic of the Early 9th Century

Here is an interesting thing I happened to stumble across today, a little oratory in the town of Germigny-des-Prés, about 76 miles directly south of Paris. It was built in 806 as part of a large palace complex by Theodulf (750/60 - 821), a Spaniard who served as bishop of the nearby city of Orléans for about 20 years, (798 ca. - 818), and was one of the leading literary figures of the Carolingian Renaissance. No other part of the palace survives; the oratory is of particular interest because it still preserves the original apsidal mosaic, which depicts two angels hovering over the Ark of the Covenant, the only example of a mosaic from its period still preserved in situ. There was a lot of cultural exchange between the court of Charlemagne and that of Byzantium, and the influence of Byzantine art is very evident here.

Unfortunately, very little remains of the mosaic work in the arches underneath the apse.

The oratory was originally built on a Greek-cross plan, but a nave was added to it on the west side in the later 15th or early 16th century, and then extended in the 19th, with the further addition of the bell-tower over the façade.

The floorplan and various cutaway views.

None of the decoration in the nave has been preserved either.

The baptismal font from the Romanesque period.

The Second Oldest Altarpiece of St Francis of Assisi

Last week, for the feast of St Francis of Assisi, I posted about the oldest known altarpiece of him, the work of an artist named Bonventura Berlinghieri, which is dated to 1235, only seven years after Francis’ canonization. As a follow-up, here is the second oldest such work, known as the Bardi altarpiece or panel, after the chapel where it has been kept since 1595 within the Franciscan order’s church in Florence, the basilica of the Holy Cross. For a long time, the artist’s name was unknown, and he was simply called the Master of the Bardi St Francis. It is now generally accepted as the work of a Florentine painter called Coppo di Marcovaldo, who lived from roughly 1225-76; about 10 other works of his survive, almost all in various parts of Tuscany, but only three are attributed to him with absolute certainty. The painting is dated to around 1245-50; if the attribution to Coppo is correct, that would mean he made it when he was about 20-25 years old. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Francesco Bini, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

The Saint appears in the middle, wearing the Franciscan habit, showing the stigmata as he gives a blessing, and holding a book. The border around him is populated with Franciscan friars. The inscription above his head reads, “Hunc exaudite perhibentem dogmata vitae. - Listen to this man who offers the teachings of life.” Although the body of St Francis is still artificially elongated in the manner of the Byzantine iconographic style which prevailed in Italy at the time, the proportions of the head, hands and feet are much better rendered than in Berlinghieri’s work.

The Bardi panel is similar in form to Berlinghieri’s, but more elaborate, with 20 stories from the Saint’s life, where the other has only six. Some of these are taken from Thomas of Celano’s biography, the first, written in 1228-9, very shortly after the canonization, and do not appear in the version by St Bonaventure which officially replaced it in 1266. They run counterclockwise from the upper left side. Here we see St Francis delivered from prison after being captured during a battle between Assisi and its perennial rival, nearby Perugia, and his renunciation of all his worldly possessions in the presence of his parents and of the bishop of Assisi.

Francis designs the habit of his followers (not yet an order in the proper sense) in the presence of the bishop of Assisi, and hears the words from the reading of the Gospel which will inspire the Franciscan rule and way of life. At the lower right, he removes his shoes as a symbol of his embrace of poverty.

Francis and his followers receive approval of the Rule from Pope Innocent III, and he makes the first Christmas creche.

Preaching to the birds, and to the Saracens in the presence of the Sultan.

Francis rescues a lamb which is grazing among goats, and exchanges his habit to rescue two lambs that are being taken to slaughter.

Francis receives the stigmata, and does public penance for improperly breaking a fast.

Francis teaches the lepers, holding one on his knee and washing the feet of another; he appears to Brother Monaldo during a general chapter of the order held at Arles in southern France, while St. Anthony is preaching.

The remaining panels (those on the right side) are to be read upwards from the bottom. During his funeral, as his soul ascends to heaven, Francis heals a girl with a twisted neck and several demoniacs.

Pope Gregory IX canonizes him; he prevents the wreck of a ship sailing out of Ancona on the Adriatic coast of Italy.

Pilgrims bring offerings of candles to his tomb; he heals a man suffering from gout.

The Oldest Altarpiece of St Francis

St Francis of Assisi died late in the evening on October 3, 1226, at the age of about 44, and was canonized in July of 1228 by Pope Gregory IX. His order was almost from the start among the most important patrons of the arts, especially in its Italian heartlands of Umbria and Tuscany, and there is hardly a town of any size in those regions that does not (or did not formerly) boast some interesting and beautiful artwork made to honor their founder or one of their other Saints. I add the words “or did not formerly” because with the coming of the age of revolutions, and the suppression of so many churches of the religious orders, many of these works are now lost or removed to museums.

The church of St Francis in the little town of Pescia in Tuscany, about half-way between Lucca and Pistoia, had a medieval painting of the Saint, a work whose style was by the 17th century as utterly out of fashion as a painting could be. A local artist named Alessandro Bardelli (1583-1633) was therefore hired to make a new painting as a frame for it, which would display the original central image of Francis, but surrounded by a group of angels. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 4.0)

In the 19th century, when Bardelli’s work had in turn fallen out of fashion, a painter and art critic also from that area named Michele Ridolfi (1793-1854), removed the frame to reveal the complete original image. The Italian Wikipedia article about the painting says that the date (1235) and the signature of the artist, Bonaventura Berlinghieri (1210 ca. - 1287), around St Francis’ feet, were covered by the frame, but in the photograph above, they are clearly visible. If the article is correct, then either the painting was positioned differently within the frame, or the aperture has subsequently been enlarged. In any case, Berlinghieri’s work, made just 7 years after Francis’ canonization, turns out to be the oldest known painting of him and various episodes from his life. It is a work very much in the style of Byzantine icons, the style which prevailed in central Italy at the time, and which would be superseded largely under the impetus which the Franciscans themselves gave to the more naturalistic style of later artists like Cimabue and Giotto. (Click image to enlarge.)

St Francis is depicted in his habit of sackcloth and rope, holding the book of the Gospels, and with the stigmata clearly visible, although on his raised right hand it has faded. Six episodes from his life are depicted, running clockwise from the upper right: the founding of the Third Order; the healing of a crippled man; the healing of a possessed; the healing of a little girl with a bent neck; the preaching to the birds; the reception of the stigmata.

An Icon of the Prophet Elijah

In the liturgical Calendar of the Byzantine Rite, and in the two Carmelite Orders, July 20th is the feast of the Prophet Elijah. The Eastern tradition keeps almost all of the Prophets as Saints, and honors them as such in the liturgy. Veneration of Saints of the Old Testament is hardly known to the West, however, and where it is observed in the Latin rites, it arose under Eastern influence. The Carmelites, who came into existence as an Order in the Holy Land, honor Elijah as their founder, and keep his day as one of their patronal feasts, along with that of his disciple Elisha, on June 14th.

Here is an extraordinary icon of the Ascension of the Prophet Elijah, from the collection of the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens.

Painted by Theodore Poulakis in the second half of the 17th century, this icon comes from a church dedicated to St Elijah in Ano Korakiana on the island of Corfu; it was badly damaged after being stolen from the church and cut into pieces, but remains an impressive piece of work, and an interesting example of Western artistic influence on Byzantine sacred art. The central band is based on an engraving by Flemish artist Jan Wierix (see below); according to the Museum’s website, Flemish engravings were widely used as inspirations for icons in the Ionian islands from the 17th century on. It shows the Ascension of Elijah, with Elisha below his chariot receiving his mantle; on the left, Elisha shows the mantle to the “sons of the prophets” who had accompanied them to the Jordan, but not crossed over with them. (4 Kings 2)

The engraving by Jan Wierix, from the website of the British Museum.

In the lower right of the central band, the patron who commissioned the work, a priest and monk named Sophronios Faskomelosis, identified by the inscription in front of him, kneels in prayer; on the opposite side is the city of Jerusalem. In the other bands are shown other episodes from the life of Elijah; at the upper left are three episodes from 3 Kings 17, where he first appears in the Bible, conversing with the widow at Sarephta, receiving food from a raven, and raising the widow’s son from the dead. In the lower band, the prophet defeats and slaughters the prophets of the idol Baal (chapter 18), and destroys the soldiers of the wicked King Ahab sent to apprehend him. All of the episodes depicted in this icon are traditionally read at Vespers of the Prophet Elijah in the Byzantine Rite. The artist’s signature is given at the lower left.

The Troparion of the Prophet Elijah The angel in the flesh, and foundation of the prophets, the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, the glorious Elijah sent down from on high grace upon Elisha to dispel infirmities and to cleanse lepers; wherefore, he poureth forth healings upon those who honor him.

The Kontakion O prophet, foreseer of the mighty works of our God, Elijah of great renown, who by thy voice didst restrain the raining clouds, entreat for us Him who alone is the Lover of mankind.

St Luke the Younger, and the Monastery of Hosios Loukas

In the Byzantine Rite, today is the feast of a Saint called Luke, a monk who lived in the 10th century, and is traditionally known by a variety of epithets: “the Younger”, to distinguish him from the Evangelist; “of Steiris” or “Steirion”, the place where he died and was buried; “of Hellas”, the Greek word for “Greece”; and “the Wonderworker” (Thaumaturgus), in part because he is one of the first Saints who miraculously levitated. He was born in 896, and died on this day in either 946 or 953.

A mosaic portrait of St Luke in the church of the monastery dedicated to him, which houses his relics, described further below. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

He was the third of seven children born to a couple named Stephan and Euphrosyne, who had fled from Saracen attacks on the island of Aegina, about 23 miles to the south-west of Athens, and settled in the central region of Thessaly. From an early age, Luke practiced the works of charity, giving away his clothes and food to the poor, and showed a strong inclination to the ascetic and devotional life. After his father’s death, he left home to seek a monastery to enter, but was captured by soldiers who mistook him for a runaway slave, and sent back home after being badly mistreated. Some time later, his mother allowed him to travel as far as Athens with two monks who were on pilgrimage from Rome to the Holy Land, and in that city, he entered a monastery. However, the abbot had a vision of his mother asking him to be sent back, and so he was.

As a dutiful son, Luke returned to his family, but only four months later, Euphrosyne accepted her son’s vocation, and allowed him to depart once again; he was then eighteen years old. He made his way to a mountain near Corinth, where he built himself a hermitage, and lived a life of great austerity, followed, as such lives as wont to be, by many miracles.

The 10th century was not a peaceful one in Greece’s history, and the disturbances of his times drove St Luke to move on several occasions. He eventually settled in the region of Boeotia, on the northern side of the Gulf of Corinth. On the slopes of Mt Helicon, at a place called Steiris, he founded a new hermitage, and in due course, as men came to live near him, this was formally established as a small monastery. He died seven years later after an illness of some months, during which he prophesied that Steiris would become the site of a great church and monastery, and a place of pilgrimage. The presence of his own relics there is one of the reasons why this prophecy came true, since he is one of the Saints whose tomb issues a stream of perfumed oil, along with such other Eastern luminaries and wonderworkers as Nicholas of Myra and Demetrius of Thessalonica.

The monastery has two churches right next to each other, which is not an unusual arrangement in the Byzantine world. The older and simpler one was founded in St Luke’s lifetime, and is the only church certainly known to have been built in the 10th century in mainland Greece. Next to it stands a much grander one called the Catholicon, a term which sometimes means the cathedral of a diocese, and sometimes, the largest or most important church within a monastic complex, as it does here. This was built in the early 11th century to house the Saint’s tomb, and is famous for the amount and quality of both fresco and mosaic work, contemporary to the original construction, which is preserved within it. There are a huge number of good quality photographs of it on Wikimedia Commons, from which I have made this small selection. 

The exterior of the rear of the two churches, the catholicon on the left, and the older church (originally dedicated to St Barbara, but now to the Virgin Mary) on the right.

by Andreas Messimeriss, CC BY-SA 4.0

The façade of the catholicon.

by Jean Housen, CC BY-SA 3.0

The tomb of St Luke in the crypt.

by Jean Housen, CC BY-SA 4.0

A fresco in the crypt of the burial of Christ, and the appearance of the angels to the woman at the empty tomb.

Public domain, anonymous.

Continue Reading this Article. . .