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Byzance et le monde extérieur

 | 
Michel Balard
, 
Élisabeth Malamut
, 
Jean-Michel Spieser
, 
et al.

Byzance entre Occident chrétien et monde musulman. Les données artistiques

Gothic Architecture and Sculpture in Latin Greece and Cyprus

Maria Georgopoulou

Texte intégral

1Our art historical training by definition teaches us to distinguish between styles and artistic periods. Any medievalist has a concrete idea as to what is the Gothic and what is the Byzantine style. These mental images are usually informed by typical, widespread forms that to a large degree comply with the generalizations offered by survey books. Taught to uncover the origins of forms and to fit their material into neat categories, art historians tend to define a period by one particular style and to attribute this style to a specific milieu inhabited by artists and patrons. In this essay I explore some cases where the clearcut distinction between different styles is problematic. In general terms, this essay is about the meaning of architectural forms as they cross territorial, ethnic, and religious boundaries. My focus is the area of the Eastern Mediterranean in the period following the crusades, especially the architecture of the Latin-held Byzantine territories known in the medieval sources as Romania.

INTRODUCTION

  • 1 See for instance the work of R. Traquair, Frankish Architecture in Greece, Journal of the Royal In (...)
  • 2 See for example A. Weyl Carr, Correlative Spaces: Art, Identity, and Appropriation in Lusignan Cyp (...)
  • 3 Specific references to their work will be found in the following notes.

2The period of Latin presence in the former Byzantine territories after the Fourth Crusade of 1204 is crucial for understanding the interaction of artistic languages and vocabularies, especially those of the Latins (Franks or Venetians) and the Greeks. In the last decades many of the older paradigms for interpreting this interaction (namely the issue of artistic influences) have been revised, enriching our perception of the possible ways in which the two cultures came in contact. Earlier scholarship was based on a very strict definition of artistic influence and was quite dogmatic in assessing the lesser quality of the Gothic style in Greece. To define this style scholars looked for distinctive Gothic features - usually the presence of a rib vault or architectural sculpture - which admittedly are not too numerous or impressive in the areas outside Cyprus.1 Without repeating the recent historiography that has been rehearsed so well by many,2 I will only mention here that recent studies which have focused on the painting of the Latin Morea, Lusignan Cyprus, and Venetian Crete - to name only the most significant of the areas of Latin-ruled ex-Byzantine territories -have shown that we can no longer speak of a binary opposition between East and West but we have to find more nuanced ways to explore the encounter of the two artistic traditions. Not surprisingly, similar interpretations have been forwarded by historians who study the make-up of the societies of Latin Greece, Crete and Cyprus; Benjamin Arbel’s work on Cyprus, David Jacoby’s studies on Greece, and Sally McKee’s work on Crete are the primary examples of this scholarship.3

  • 4 Among the most important studies I should state: C. Enlart, L’art gothique et la Renaissance en Ch (...)
  • 5 J. Charles-Gaffiot et al., eds., La France aux portes de l’Orient : Chypre xiie-xve siècle, Paris (...)
  • 6 This declaration follows a long list of scholars who, guided by nineteenth-century Romanticism, ha (...)
  • 7 Ch. Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture on Thirteenth-Century Byzantine Architecture, The (...)

3To return to art history: in the second half of the twentieth century numerous studies have concentrated on the visual arts of Latin Romania tracing the interrelation of different styles and the origins of various iconographies with an emphasis on the Byzantine artistic presence. This focus on painting seems to have responded to a need to explore the robust Byzantine painting tradition seen in the frescoes of numerous churches in Cyprus, the Peloponnese and Crete, and in portable icons that became important commodities for a dual Orthodox and Latin clientele. Architecture and monumental sculpture, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries projected in addition to the Byzantine architectural tradition a considerable Latin heritage, was actively researched by foreign archaeological schools and agencies in Greece and Cyprus during the earlier part of the twentieth century. In fact, since 1899 several authoritative studies on Frankish architecture have dominated the field arguing for the wholesale importation of forms directly from France or Italy.4 A telling example of the legacy of such scholarship can be found in the catalogue of the 1991 Parisian exhibition titled La France aux portes de l’Orient: Chypre xiie-xve siècle : Jean Leclant, Honorary Professor of the Collège de France and secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, opened the volume with the declaration that “parmi les chefs-d’oeuvre du patrimoine culturel de l’Europe, ceux de Chypre sont des mieux reconnus.”5 This statement and the title of the exhibition turn the Gothic monuments of Cyprus into markers of French presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.6 Recently several Greek scholars have modified the inquiries of past scholarship by exploring the relationship between Gothic and Byzantine forms and this is the framework within which my essay fits as well.7

  • 8 Among the large bibliography see R. Rey, L ‘art gothique du Midi de la France, Paris 1934; Fr. Rob (...)
  • 9 M. Durliat, L’art dans le royaume de Majorque : débuts de l’art gothique en Roussillon, en Cerdagn (...)
  • 10 J. Bony, French Gothic architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries, Berkeley 1983, p.312 and 433 - (...)

4My focus is the ecclesiastical architecture of Cyprus, the Peloponnese, and Crete in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with some forays into the fifteenth century for illustrative purposes. By looking at the region of Latin-held Romania as a whole I attempt to explore questions that transcend the boundaries of each administrative entity (Frankish Morea, Venetian Crete, and Lusignan Cyprus) and ultimately to place the architecture of this region within the broader discourse of European Gothic art. For this architecture can be at best seen as transitional between the earlier Romanesque style and the new Gothic manner. Obviously, as the Latin churches in the Eastern Mediterranean were built before the advent of the International Gothic style, they display much less flamboyant silhouettes than their later European counterparts. However, a date of construction in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century is but one justification for the formal appearance of these churches. The Eastern Mediterranean is not unique in showcasing this peculiar form of the Gothic. The polyvalence of Gothic forms has been primarily emphasized by scholars specializing in the architecture of European regions outside of the Ile-de-France. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Gothic style of southern Europe, especially in southern France, Italy and Catalonia, is simpler in form than the churches of the Ile-de-France: staying away from the skeletalization of the structure it avoided flying buttresses and sometimes vaulting altogether and insisted on the presence of the wall.8 As these churches look less ornate than their northern French counterparts, scholars have proposed that their form was due to monastic influences, the Cistercians in the twelfth century and the Mendicants in the thirteenth.9 An explanation that takes into account the different climatological conditions between north and south may work as well.10 I attempt to extend this inquiry regarding the multiple faces of the Gothic style to the Eastern Mediterranean in territories that, as a result of the crusades, were settled and/or colonized by Latin lords, French or Venetian. As we will see, the significance of the monastic orders has great resonance in the Levant as well.

5The remainder of my essay addresses the following points. I will first offer an overview of the monuments and their “Gothic” forms. A summary historiographical outline will follow. Next, I will consider the different status of architecture and painting in the Levant in order to place Byzantine (or Levantine) architecture of the thirteenth century within its proper cultural context and value. The fourth section explores architecture and monumental sculpture. Next, I attempt to identify the channels of the transmission of these forms across the Mediterranean basin - an issue closely related both to technical expertise and patronage. Finally, I investigate the degree to which these formal elements were assimilated by the - presumably foreign and to some degree inimical - local architectural environment. Overall, I seek to demonstrate how the close analysis of architectural features that are usually termed Gothic offers fertile ground for sharpening our definition of the Gothic style in the Levant, but also offers concrete evidence for the transference and meaning of Western forms and building techniques to the Latin East.

THE MONUMENTS

  • 11 P. Hetherington, Byzantine and Medieval Greece. Churches, castles, and art of the mainland and the (...)
  • 12 D. Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West, Byzantium and Europe. First International Byzantine C (...)

6Our first task is to circumscribe the data and define the parameters of this study. I will begin with a clarification: why should a study on Gothic architecture in Latin Romania focus on ecclesiastical as opposed to secular buildings? Arguably, with the exception of the Cypriot cathedrals of Nicosia and Famagusta, the most impressive Frankish structures in Greece and Cyprus are castles and fortifications. My essay focuses primarily on ecclesiastical architecture for practical and theoretical reasons. On the one hand, there is more concrete documentary, historical, and archaeological information on churches and monasteries than on castles and fortifications of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Indeed, the relationship of Byzantine and Frankish fortifications is still open to discussion.11 On the other hand, to date, it has been easier for scholars to accept the integration of foreign/imported forms into secular architecture than to understand the appearance of the same elements (mainly Gothic architectural and sculptural details) on Orthodox religious structures. The example of the ogee arch, uniformally considered as a hallmark of Western style, is instructive in this respect. Despite the fact that it was present in thirteenth-century ecclesiastical buildings in Constantinople (e.g. the parekklesion of Pammakaristos and the south parekklesion of the Chora monastery), Doula Mouriki has argued that the ogee arch would appear above all in secular buildings that had a Westerninzing appearance as the palace of the Despots in Mistra.12

  • 13 See for example A. Orlandos, καί τά σπίτια του Μυστρά, Αρχείον των Βυζαντινών μνημείων της Ελλάδος (...)

7I will make a diversion here to illustrate my last point. The case of the palaces of Mistra in the Peloponnese is an excellent example of the same trend: being one of the few Byzantine sites where secular buildings have been preserved in abundance, the appearance of Gothic features in the shape of the windows, the decoration of the façades, or the elevation of the architecture has been recognized in the palace area as early as the 1930s when Anastasios Orlandos composed his seminal study of the site.13 These “foreign” elements were attributed to the original builders of the palaces, the Frankish kings of the Principality of Achaia and were thus attributed to the second quarter of the thirteenth century. After the battle of Pelagonia in 1259 the Franks surrendered to the Greeks the three strongholds of Mistra, Maina and Monemvasia, and the palaces were reused by the Byzantine rulers of Mistra. None of these presumably non-Byzantine features seems to have bothered the Greek royalty who took over the palaces. Since Mistra was one of the three seats of Byzantine power in the Morea in the thirteenth century, we can safely assume that its monuments served as markers of Byzantine presence vis-à-vis the Frankish princes of Achaia. One would expect then that a site as laden with political symbolism as the throne room at Mistra would look different than that of the Frankish overlords whose seat of government was located in Andravida. Nevertheless, we see that the throne room of Mistra prominently displayed its so-called “Gothic” features until 1460 when the Greeks turned the city over to the Ottoman Turks. We can therefore infer the following: first, that architectural forms did not necessarily carry a politically charged ideological meaning or alternatively, if they did carry such a meaning, it was not generated through the mental processes and correspondences that we would expect today; and second, that by the second half of the thirteenth century Gothic elements were not only relatively common on Byzantine structures but were also aesthetically pleasing to their Byzantine users. It is this shared aesthetics that is at the center of our inquiry.

8It seems then that the close contact between Latins and Greeks after the Fourth Crusade brought to the former Byzantine territories an array of Western forms that were used on Latin-sponsored monuments and also appealed to the Byzantines who used them on their buildings. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries military and ecclesiastical monuments connected to the Latins existed also in the crusader states in Palestine and Syria two areas that were not remote from the centers of Byzantine art making. Our task is to explore the impact that these Western forms had on Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture.

  • 14 R. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium, Princeton 1999, p. 208, 216.

9With the Latin churches of Cyprus being by far the most imposing Gothic structures in the Levant (a term designating the Eastern Mediterranean), the other Eastern Mediterranean territories ruled by the Latins also showcase a variety of ecclesiastical buildings, parish churches or monasteries that - to our art historical eyes at least - boldly advertise connections with the art of the Western church. By their richness and alterity these Western-influenced churches presumably relegated the subjugated local/Byzantine church to a lower position, thus reinforcing the political status quo. When the distinctive forms of these churches were transferred onto Byzantine structures, were they used as a decorative Gothic veneer as present scholarship wants us to believe? Were they a sign of allegiance to the Franks and their knightly, chivalric ideals? Or were they devoid of any political meaning and were solely related to fashion? The appearance of Western features in Constantinopolitan monuments of the thirteenth century is instructive: the already mentioned ogival arches (in the monasteries of Chora and Pammakaristos) and flying buttresses (in Hagia Sophia and Chora) are a case in point. Robert Ousterhout has argued that these elements had no structural purpose but were used for decorative reasons thus reinforcing the view that it was the aesthetic function that took precedence over the structural one.14 The appearance of a typical Gothic feature like a flying buttress on a non-Gothic building reminds us of the problems involved in defining the necessary Gothic characteristics of a particular building.

  • 15 As C. Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus, London 1987 (reprint of 1899), p. 6, points o (...)

10Let us attempt to present a generalized view of the churches under consideration. The Levantine Gothic churches are basilicas with one or three aisles without a transept (Figs. 1, 2). Often the side aisles develop into private chapels as we can still see in the extant churches’ ground plans and as we can read in archival documents preserved in the Venetian archives. As already stated above, these Eastern Mediterranean Gothic churches do not emphatically insist on a skeletal structure but display thick walls and windows with tracery that never attain the exuberance of their counterparts in the Ile-de-France. The plain chevet and vaulting of the churches in the Eastern Mediterranean tends to follow local or pan-Mediterranean patterns that distinguish them from northern French examples even in the case of the Cypriot cathedrals.15 Ogival arches and ribbed vaulting, two of the most characteristic elements of French Gothic cathedrals are not always present. Finally, some of the forms that we encounter in Greece and Cyprus seem to follow European models that are remote in time so that they look outdated.

  • 16 M. D. Willis, The Larnaca Tympanum, Κυπριακαί Σπουδαί 45, 1981, p. 15-28.
  • 17 For the surviving coats of arms see Gerola, Monumenti veneti nell’isola di Creta. 1, L’architettur (...)

11Whereas structurally the buildings may not follow the latest developments in Gothic architecture and reveal a conservative form between the Romanesque and the Gothic, their sculptural decoration securely places them within the realm of the Gothic. In fact, it was the embellishment of these relatively simple architectural forms with decorative, usually non-figural sculpture in the Gothic manner that became current in Greece and Cyprus. Crochet capitals, tracery, and other decorative carvings become markers of an affiliation with the Gothic (Figs. 3,4). A close look at the monuments therefore reveals the presence of skilled sculptors rather than architects well versed in the Gothic style. Architectural sculpture had its limits, however, and did not follow northern French prototypes: the façades of the churches are usually plain; only one historiated tympanum has survived from Larnaca in Cyprus.16 In Crete tympana that are thought to demonstrate Gothic influence typically displayed coats of arms (Fig. 5).17

Fig. 1 - Nicosia, cathedral Saint Sophia, plan (After Camille Enlart)

Fig. 2 - Candia (Herakleion), church of Saint Peter the Martyr, plan (After Giuseppe Gerola)

Fig. 3 - Andravida, Saint Sophia, capital
(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 48 © Chicago University Press)

Fig. 4 - Andravida, Saint Sophia, niche
(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 45 © Chicago University Press)

Fig. 5 - Mylopotamo, Hagios Georgios Kamariotis, west portal (After K. Gallas, K. Wessel, M. Borboudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta, Munich, Hirmer, 1983, fig. 36 © Photo Klaus Gallas)

  • 18 There exists a rich literature on the significance and outlook of the Gothic style outside the reg (...)
  • 19 Kitsiki-Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries (as in n. 7), XVI.
  • 20 The issue of eclecticism is raised also in the case of the Gothic style on Italian soil; cf. Dellw (...)

12No adequate name exists for this style: it is usually referred to as “regional” or “levantine Gothic.” In fact, were it not for its location, context, and above all its stark difference from centralized Byzantine churches, this style would hardly ever seem close enough to the cathedrals of Ile-de-France to be labelled Gothic - with the possible exception of three or four Cypriot examples.18 Beata Kitsiki-Panagopoulos has already warned us not to take these Gothic buildings as products of “a bastardized expression of Romanesque art or an impoverished version of the richer Gothic style.”19 She proposes that the simple basilicas of medieval Crete and the Peloponnese were an expression of a different aesthetic that created buildings closest in form to early Christian basilicas, the ruins of which must have been abundant in almost every city of Greece. Despite the attractiveness of this idea that engages the issue of local precedent, there is not enough material to back up the suggestion that local monuments of the past influenced the construction of Latin churches in the thirteenth century in the region. Furthermore, the similarities of the Levantine churches with those of southern France and Catalonia may point to different sorts of affinities between these regions. The style in which these churches were built appears to be eclectic and although their construction outside Cyprus is not richly documented, it seems that patronage may provide the key to identifying the forces shaping the architectural outlook of the regions under Latin rule.20

  • 21 See most recently Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West (as in n. 12); and Bouras, The Impact o (...)
  • 22 In an earlier article Ch. Bouras cautions the reader not to interpret the broken arch as an absolu (...)
  • 23 M. Vassilakis-Maurakakis, The Church of Virgin Gouverniotissa at Rotamies, Crete, Ph.D. dissertati (...)

13These observations lead us to another group of monuments in Latin Greece: the Greek churches, which presumably served the Orthodox community, that display Western features in their outlook. Several elements have been identified as markers of Gothic influence on these structures: ribbed vaulting, pointed arches and barrel vaults, elaborate sculptural decoration on the façades or the capitals, window tracery, and carved consoles.21 Despite the fact that certain of these elements seem to have appeared on Greek and Cypriot soil even before the Fourth Crusade, the presence of a broken arch has typically (and conveniently) signaled a post-1204 date.22 Following Camille Enlart, Ramsay Traquair, and Antoine Bon, scholars have taken the appearance of any of these features on a monument as an unmistakable sign of Western influence without questioning its provenance or possible infiltration into the local architectural idiom as may be the case with the numerous rural churches of Crete that are covered with a pointed barrel vault.23

STATE OF THE QUESTION

  • 24 Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus (as in n. 15), and Id., Quelques monuments d’archite (...)
  • 25 In Italy of course this juxtaposition involves the Romanesque style. In this respect it is instruc (...)

14Traditionally the art of Latin Greece and Cyprus has been interpreted as a colonial art, that is to say an art sponsored and executed by non-native people who ruled over a foreign territory. This has been the hallmark of nineteenth-century scholarship as exemplified by the studies of Camille Enlart.24 Such a definition promotes a polemical discourse between the two communities by stressing the alterity of the rulers and assuming that all monumental art is formally related to the overlords’ artistic pedigree. This binary thinking presents obvious problems as it juxtaposes the Gothic to an indigenous, Byzantine style.25

  • 26 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in t (...)
  • 27 M. Georgopoulou, Private Residences in Venetian Candia (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries), Thesau (...)

15Obviously, this reasoning lessens or negates the importance of indigenous art production and attempts to recognize the “hand” of a foreign master in all that is artistically worthwhile. As a consequence, artistic production is intertwined with a search for ethnic identities in relation to political ideologies. In this scenario there is no room for a fully developed local artistic school that would incorporate foreign and indigenous elements; master minds and techniques are imported from abroad and local masons trained (hastily?) on the spot by foreign masters. Nor is there a possibility to see a diachronic development so as to suggest that at some point this originally foreign style may have been assimilated into a local idiom. Rather, past scholarship implicitly suggests that imported masons and artists were to be used for any new “Gothic” monument built in territories where the presence of Latins lasted for centuries. Furthermore, the indigenous patron of means has no place within this framework, as all significant artistic products are presumably related to the foreign rulers. In the absence of documents that explicitly mention the use of local artisans and masons, it is hard to prove the existence of workshops that were ethnically mixed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as was earlier the case in the Levant according to the Geniza documents.26 The only concrete indication pointing to this direction comes from notarial documents. For example, in the Venetian city of Candia (modern Herakleion) in Crete, numerous contracts confirm what seems intuitively correct: the same masons would work on the construction of private homes regardless of the ethnicity of their patrons.27 In short, in our existing frame of mind there is little room for the conceptualization of a changing relationship between the imported art form and the region, nor is there space to accommodate the possible absorption of local forms and artists within the process of artistic creation. These are the very issues that form the core of my study.

  • 28 Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus, p. 33-45.
  • 29 Bon, La Morée franque (as in n. 4); and R. Traquair, Frankish Architecture in Greece, Journal of t (...)
  • 30 Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies (as in n. 7), passim. The magisterial work of Gerola(...)
  • 31 A. M. Romanini, L’architettura sacra, La Chiesa di Venezia tra Medioevo ed età moderna, ed. B. Via (...)

16Within the aforementioned colonial schema the following relationships have been postulated. Cyprus with its marvelous Gothic cathedrals, masterpieces of Byzantine painting, but also with ample archaeological evidence for pottery, glass, and metalware production should be seen in connection with the art of the Levant (i.e. the crusader states as well as the area of Sinai). For the impressive Gothic cathedrals of the island we seem to possess enough historical information to argue for a direct French connection, although, as I mentioned before, certain features as the roofs point to a Mediterranean artistic thread.28 For the Péloponnese, studies have shown the dependence of architecture (both military and ecclesiastical) on architectural models from France paired with the presence of a vivid local school of painting that thrived from the twelfth century on.29 Venetian Crete, because of the plethora of archival material, has had a more isolated yet very rich historiography. Moreover, because of the destruction of many of its pre-Renaissance monuments, the artistic production of Venetian Crete has resisted a secure identification with a particular Latin model, although obviously a Venetian connection can be intimated.30 The problem lies not only in the poor quality of the preserved monuments in Crete but also in the relatively non-descript form that the Gothic style acquired in Venice. Specialists of Venetian architecture have argued in fact that whereas in civil architecture there is a distinct Gothic Venetian style the discourse of religious architecture should be associated with the mendicant orders - a point to which we shall return later.31 Moreover, the architecture of Crete has stubbornly evaded connections and relations with the art of the Morea and Cyprus; I believe, however, that its reintegration into a broader paradigm of cultural interaction between East and West may provide useful results if not specific solutions. With its three main towns (Candia/Herakleion, Canea/Chania, and Retimo/Rethymnon) dominated by imposing Venetian fortifications and Gothic mendicant churches and its hinterland dotted with hundreds of churches built and painted in the Byzantine manner, the unique artistic profile of Crete is, above all, obvious in the ability of Cretan painters to produce distinct icons that appealed to a Latin and Greek audience on the island and beyond.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND BYZANTINE PAINTING

  • 32 A. Weyl Carr, A Palaiologan Funerary Icon from Gothic Cyprus, Πρακτικά του Τρίτου Διεθνούς Κυπρολο (...)
  • 33 The paintings must have dated to the thirteenth or fourteenth century; cf. V. François, Une Illust (...)
  • 34 Jacoby, La littérature française dans les États latins (as in n. 33), p. 638. The castle was refur (...)

17Indeed, looking at the surviving monuments, one may argue that painting and architecture had a different resonance and value within the cultures that produced and enjoyed them. Byzantine painting had achieved such a dominant role that Greeks and Latins alike regarded it as a superior art. This supposition is strengthened by the inticing proposal of Annemarie Weyl Carr that Palaiologan icons of an unusually elongated format adorned special niches in the fa§ade of St. Sophia, the Latin cathedral of Nicosia.32 By extension we may think that both Latin and Greek patrons of means would employ the same (Greek or Greek-trained) painters who would integrate Latin themes or iconographies in an otherwise overwhelmingly Byzantine environment. Of course, we have to be cautious regarding the survival of painting in the Latin-ruled Byzantine territories as there may have also existed non-Byzantine cycles decorating a variety of Latin structures. The intriguing account by the Italian notary Niccolò de Martoni who in 1395 saw a presumably Western painting cycle in the palace of the archbishop of Patras depicting the desctruction of Troy has led scholars to posit that this cycle was probably related to the Roman de Troie and possibly copied images from an illuminated French manuscript.33 According to the Greek version of the Chronicle of the Morea another history cycle illustrating “how the Franks conquered Syria” decorated the walls of the castle of Saint Omer in Thebes.34

  • 35 Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture, p. 247.
  • 36 The reaction of the Byzantines to any attempt on the part of the emperor to initiate a dialogue wi (...)
  • 37 Zuliani, Le strade italiane del gotico (as in n. 8).

18On the other hand, architecture as the public art par excellence seems to have carried a more nuanced cultural weight possibly because it had such complex ties with religious and consequently political symbolism as well.35 If we were to follow a colonial paradigm we could argue that the power and visibility of the public monument make it by definition a locus of stability and therefore a depository of (old) ideas echoing the mother city. In the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade the schism between the Eastern and Western churches was deeply felt so that religious affiliation would immediately evoke political connotations.36 Most recently Charalambos Bouras has noted the conservatism and ultimately the inferiority of Byzantine architecture in the thirteenth century by positing a system of binary opposition between Byzantine and Gothic architecture. On the onset of his article he defines the issue in this way: how did the Byzantines respond to the challenge of the huge cultural development that was named thirteenth-century Gothic architecture? Thus the Byzantines are unquestionably placed in the receiving end of the major architectural achievements of the West. Following the studies of Fulvio Zuliani on southern Italian Gothic I would like to suggest a more nuanced way of looking at the problem that modifies the view of a passive acceptance of forms by the indigenous culture. Zuliani argues that the independent nature of many sites in southern Italy allowed the infiltration only of figurative elements compatible with the choices of the local political culture.37 Since the Gothic style was “not homogeneous nor transmitted like a virus,” local elites had many choices. A similar approach in the study of Frankish/Gothic and Byzantine architecture would allow us to rethink the place of the indigenous people in the architectural process by according them a more significant role in shaping the architectural aesthetic for the region.

19Indeed, on first sight, the Latins appear to have sponsored solely Gothic churches whereas the Greeks continued to build their small scale centrally planned or single nave timber-roofed basilicas. The imposing size and prominent placement of Gothic churches in the cities had more than an artistic impact on the landscape: these buildings became concrete signs of superiority of their Latin patrons in places that they considered vital for the preservation of their rule. We can assume that the concentration of large scale Latin churches and monasteries in urban areas should be taken as an indicator of the fact that the Latins who lived mainly in the cities built their churches and palaces there so as to broadcast their foreign presence and left the hinterland to the Greeks who built there according to their own proper taste. Nicosia and Famagusta in Cyprus, Herakleion and Chania in Crete, and Andravida in the Peloponnese illustrate this phenomenon amply (Figs. 6, 7, 8).

  • 38 B. Arbel, The Cypriot Nobility from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century: A New Interpretation, (...)
  • 39 See most recently S. McKee, Uncommon Dominion: Venetian Crete and the Myth of Ethnic Purity, Phila (...)
  • 40 K. Gallas, K. Wessel, M. Borboudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta, Munich 1983, p. 116-119.

20Rural monasteries, the most impressive of which is the abbey of Bellapais in Cyprus, or the aforementioned instance of Palaiologan-style icons that may have adorned the Gothic cathedral of Nicosia, challenge the logic of this inter-pretation to some extent, however, as they point to a more complex integration of Byzantine and Gothic elements. Moreover, concrete historical evidence from Cyprus broadens the base of the possible patrons of urban structures to include Latins and Greeks. Benjamin Arbel has proposed that after the middle of the fourteenth century there was no longer a clear-cut separation between the Latin elite and the Greek local population. In its place a new division was instituted, one between the urban and rural population regardless of ethnic origin.38 This proposal in fact rings true for Crete and the Morea as well where historical evidence points to a rapprochement between the two communities in the places where they came into direct contact, that is to say the cities.39 On the other hand, the Western elements appearing in the wall paintings of rural Orthodox churches of Crete, like images of St. Francis in the church of Panagia Kera in Kritsa, or Venetian glass vessels in numerous representations of the Last Supper suggest that the Latin tradition may have made a strong impression on the local rural population as well.40

  • 41 For the Virgin Phorbiotissa see Weyl Carr, Correlative Spaces (as in n. 2), p. 64-68, and for St. (...)

21Arguably, the erection of large churches demands larger funds than their painted decoration, so the choice of architects may be conditioned by the financial means of the donor. The grandeur of Gothic foundations seems to overshadow the small churches of the Orthodox but the frescoes in their interior tell a different story. Oftentimes, from the frescoes we can detect the presence of a Latin donor amidst Orthodox commissions (as in the church of the Virgin Phorbiotissa at Asinou, Cyprus), the appearance of a Western saint in an other-ways perfectly Byzantine iconographical program (as in the aforementioned church of Kritsa), or the simultaneous use of a church by both Latins and Greeks (as in the monastery of St. John Lambadistis in Cyprus).41 The pure art historical questions then are: what, if any, formal impact did Gothic architecture have on local architecture? What was the status of Byzantine architecture in the areas of Latin rule?

Fig. 6 - Famagusta, cathedral of Saint Nicholas, view
(Photo: Annemarie Weyl Carr)

Fig. 7 - Candia (Herakleion), Saint Peter the Martyr, view to apse
(Photo of the author)

Fig. 8 - Andravida, Saint Sophia, view to apse
(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece. Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 39 © Chicago University Press)

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE: ARTISTS AND PATRONS

  • 42 This is especially true in the chronicle of L. Makhairas, cf. Asdracha, Cypriot Culture during the (...)
  • 43 L. Safran, Exploring Artistic Links Between Epirus and Apulia in the Thirteenth Century: The Probl (...)
  • 44 Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West, p. 239.

22An implicit assumption in the above reasoning is that there were few local architects to whom the Westerners would entrust the construction of their monuments. This assumption is echoed by linguistic occurrences in Crete and Cyprus where the majority of terms referring to architecture are French and Italian even in Greek texts.42 We can thus surmise that, unlike the case of monumental painters who were predominantly local, there was a considerable transfer of Western architects, sculptors, and masons from the West to the East as it has also been assumed for the crusader states and the Despotate of Epirus for sculptors.43 An interesting case is also provided by the churches of Perivleptos and Pantanassa in Mistra. Both monuments display architectural sculptures that point to a Western patron or artist, a quite intriguing point if we consider the late date of the Pantanassa (1428). Consider for instance the existence of fleur-de-lys patterns or rampant lions on their exterior walls, both images associated with the Franks (Fig. 9).44

  • 45 Papageorgiou, Crusader Influence on the Byzantine Art in Cyprus (as in n. 7), p. 275, asserts that (...)
  • 46 Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West, p. 240. As mentioned above, the same cannot be said for (...)

23By extension, we have to assume that Greek architects or masons were either displaced or integrated into the dominant group by being employed in the construction campaigns of the large projects of Latin patrons. Athanasios Papageorgiou believes that local masons, impressed by the perfection of Gothic masonry as they saw it in the Latin churches of Cyprus, tried to reproduce it in the pointed vaults and arches of numerous rural Orthodox churches.45 Doula Mouriki interprets the abundant use of Western architectural and sculptural elements in Greek churches in the Peloponnesos (Vlachernai in Elis and Zaraka) as a sign of “a vigorous local tradition with local masons well trained and experienced in building in this manner.”46

  • 47 K. Gallas, Mittel- und spdtbyzantinische Sakralarchitektur der Insel Kreta, Berlin 1983, p. 216, a (...)
  • 48 Ibid., p. 81-82 and 90. This is a negligible number considering the hundreds of churches that were (...)
  • 49 A. van Gemert, The Cretan Poet Marines Falieros, Thesaurismata 14, 1977, p. 7-70 and also the pape (...)

24Although not explicitly, Klaus Gallas seems to posit the presence of Venetian masons and architects in Venetian Crete. In his dissertation on the architecture of the Byzantine churches of late medieval Crete he attributes all pointed barrel vault to Venetian influence but avoids to postulate the logistics of the endeavor: how many Western artists would have come to Crete and the processes by which they must have trained local masons.47 Yet, when pressed to identify buildings that can be called Venetian before the seventeenth century, he names only a few. Taking into account the large number of urban churches that no longer survive, we can assume that once Venetian architectural features were introduced into Crete it was local workmen who disseminated them throughout the island. With the exception of the major religious foundations of the cities (many of whom are no longer extant) - as for example Hagios Petros (Saint Peter the Martyr) of the Dominicans in Candia/Herakleion that was built in the mid-thirteenth century (Fig. 7) or the Franciscan monastery of St. Francis in Chania (Fig. 10)- there are very few Gothic churches in the countryside in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; Hagios Fanourios and the ribbed vaulted church of Timios Stauros in Monochoro are the most “Venetian” of them all.48 The situation here parallels beautifully Arnold van Gemerfs convincing scenario about the urban origin of Cretan literature of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries: it must have been the Latin foundations in the cities that worked as catalysts for the diffusion of Gothic elements in the countryside.49

Fig. 9 - Mistra, Peribleptos, fleur de lys
(Photo of the author)

Fig. 10 - Chania, Saint Francis, corbel and capitals
(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 88 © Chicago University Press)

Fig. 11 - Constantinople, Tekfur Saray façade
(Photo: Robert Ousterhout)

  • 50 S. Ćurčić, Articulation of Church Facades during the First Half of the Fourteenth Century, L’art b (...)

25Another feature that Gallas implicitly traces to a Venetian influence is the use of sculptural decorative details on the facades of Byzantine churches. When studying the pointed-arch tympana over entrances, the decorated apse windows filled with Gothic tracery, and the consoles and capitals at the springing of ribbed vaults, however, it is worth remembering that the thirteenth and four-teenth centuries also saw the proliferation of decorative elements on the facades of “purely” Byzantine buildings as this view of Tekfur Saray in Constantinople amply demonstrates (Fig. 11). Of course, Byzantine masons would have used for the most part tiles, courses of brick, stone, or ceramic pots and not sculpture as their main decorative pieces, but the point is that both Byzantine and Latin builders shared a common aesthetic principle.50 Thus, it could be argued that in places where skilled artisans had access to a rich(er) sculptural tradition they would opt for Western-looking details that reflect a widespread fashion which bridges Byzantine and Gothic elements.

  • 51 Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus, p. 82-130, 222-245.
  • 52 Y. Carbonell-Lamothe, Les monuments gothiques des Lusignan en Chypre, La France aux portes de l’Or (...)
  • 53 Ibid., p. 95-96.

26A different scenario must have been at play in Cyprus where the scale of the Gothic projects was immense. Here the main churches of Nicosia and Famagusta were conceived and executed as royal coronation cathedrals emulating their counterparts in France.51 Their ambitious scale and decoration along with historical records point to extensive construction campaigns with technical experts coming directly from the West. The technical details of the three most impressive foundations of the Lusignan kings (the cathedrals of Nicosia and Famagusta on the one hand, and the abbey of Bellapais on the other) show that the architects working on them had a quite sophisticated knowledge of important Gothic building techniques such as ribbed vaulting (as in the refectory of Bellapais) and strong buttressing which are primarily visible in the exterior of the monuments and allow for large windows in St. Sophia in Nicosia and tall stained glass windows in St. Nicholas in Famagusta.52 And yet the most unique part of the monuments is seen in the tracery of the windows that employs complicated geometric interlace; other sections of the monuments (the portal of St. Nicholas of the bedestan in Nicosia and St. Sophia) display complex foliage, masks and rinceaux. All of this points to the use of Western artists, as Camille Enlart has already proposed, especially from Ile-de-France, Champagne, Laon, and the south of France.53

  • 54 See A. Bon, Monuments d’art byzantin et d’art occidental dans le Péloponnèse au xiiie s., Χαριστήρ (...)
  • 55 E. Ivison, Latin Tomb Monuments in the Levant 1204 - ca. 1450, The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, (...)
  • 56 Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture, p. 247. In some instances it is quite hard to profer (...)

27In the case of Crete and the Morea where a quasi-feudal hierarchy replaced royal patronage, the dominant Gothic churches seem to belong to the new orders of the Mendicants. The chronology of the Gothic in the Morea has become clearer thanks to recent work revisiting the issue of the appearance of Gothic forms in Greece and proving that the church of Merbaka - once believed to have been the primary evidence for the presence of Gothic elements on Greek soil before 1204 - was not built in the twelfth century but was erected in the third quarter of the thirteenth century and had possible Dominican connections.54 Burial monuments studied most recently by Eric Ivison,55 as well as an overview of the sculpted “Gothic” decoration of local churches and glazed pottery embedded on their walls (the so-called bacini) point to a similar direction. Thus, most churches with Gothic features now can easily be pushed in date into the thirteenth century well after the coming of the Franks in the area, but it is still not certain what features should account for the identification of the Latin or Orthodox affiliation of an ecclesiastical structure. To solve the issue, Charalambos Bouras has recently proposed to take the height of the sanctuary barrier or templon screen as an indicator.56

  • 57 Ibid., p. 107-131.
  • 58 Although we can be certain about this in the thirteenth century colonies and the churches built in (...)

28Interestingly, in the Venetian colonies it seems that for the most part the cathedrals of the towns were not located in newly founded Gothic buildings but appropriated the pre-existing Byzantine cathedrals that had often been dedicated to the patron saint of the town or had long standing sacred associations with the site. Thus, in the Venetian towns of Crete, the sacred landscape of the Latin churches seems to have followed two distinct directions: the cathedral church that served the needs of the Latin population and was directly under the jurisdiction of the local Latin bishop was located in a reused Byzantine church whereas the new churches of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Crusaders, or Augustinians stood in large scale buildings built in the Gothic style of the Levant.57 The one other church which seems to have subscribed to the latter style in the Venetian colonies is the church of St. Mark that had been an ubiquitous feature in the quarters that the Venetians had acquired in Eastern post cities in the twelfth century: e.g. Acre, Tyre, Constantinople, and Beirut. Unlike the Byzantinizing basilica of San Marco in Venice, the churches of St. Mark built in the colonies were totally different in appearance: they were elongated basilicas displaying a Gothic stylistic pedigree similar to that of the Mendicant churches.58 This style displays a combination of round and ogive arches with a three-aisled basilical form, elegant ribbed vaults above the choir, crochet and vegetal capitals sculpted in a distinctly Gothic manner, and relatively plain façades with minor sculpted decoration that never attained the ornamentation of the full-blown Gothic façades of the Cypriot churches. The fact that there must have been at least one master artist/architect on board is beyond doubt, but the small number of surviving buildings do not allow us to establish a plausible sequence of construction or even to calculate the use of templates in the construction process.

  • 59 Bony, French Gothic architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries, p. 446-458.
  • 60 Trachtenberg, Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’. He argues that there were three levels of reception of the (...)
  • 61 H. C. Evans, Cilician Manuscript Illumination. The Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Centuries, (...)

29Thus, in contrast to the large-scale campaigns of the Lusignan in Cyprus, in the Morea and Crete the appearance and dissemination of the Gothic style may have been connected with the activities of the Mendicants as seems to have been the case in the south of France, England, Germany, and Spain in the thirteenth century.59 After all, mendicant architecture promoted the Gothic style as an international movement, one that had a direct correlation with a degree of spirituality.60 As a spiritual style the Gothic would be particularly well suited for Latin churches situated in the territories Beyond-the-Sea (the Outremer/Oltramare), where the spiritual superiority of the Western church had to be underscored along with its difference from the Eastern church. After all, one of the major functions of these churches was to provide a spiritual home to Latins living among “heretics,” far away from their homes and churches. It is much easier to establish the degree of influence that the art of the Mendicant friars and their churches had on manucripts, as there are certain iconographic motifs that one can isolate as in the case of Armenian Cilicia in the thirteenth century.61

Fig. 12 - Famagusta, Saint Gcorge of the Greeks, view to apse
(Photo: Annemarie Weyl Carr)

  • 62 Enlart, Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, p. 253-258.
  • 63 Georgopoulou, Private Residences in Venetian Candia, p. 100.
  • 64 S. Papadaki-Oakland, ∆υτικóτρoπες τoιχoγραφίες τoυ 14oυ αιώνα στην Ḳρήτη,. H άλλη óΨη µιάς αµάς αµ (...)

30The separation between the building practices of Greeks and Latins was far from complete, however. When, in the fourteenth century, the Greeks of Famagusta rebuilt their cathedral dedicated to St. George, they constructed it in the Gothic style, copying the grander Latin cathedral of the city, which the church faces (Fig. 12).62 Obviously, in this case the Gothic style did not carry major ideological connotations that offended the Orthodox patrons of the structure or its users. This example, unique among the remaining Greek churches in Latin-ruled Greek towns, reminds us that architectural choices need not necessarily follow political ideology and rhetoric. If we compare its plan, elevation, and general outlook with that of the adjacent Latin cathedral or the Latin church of Saints Peter and Paul of the same date (1360s), we are struck by the similarities. Even the Western custom of including tombs in the naos was reproduced in the Greek cathedral! Thus, the proposed break between the supposed Westernizing secular architecture (and the now-lost painting that decorated it) and the Byzantine-looking ecclesiastical structures of the Greeks should not be taken as a given. Unfortunately, no major Orthodox church has survived from thirteenth or fourteenth century Crete to offer us similar data, but there is reason to assume that in the cities building techniques were shared as the same masons worked on both Greek and Latin projects at least in the private sphere.63 There is only slight evidence for the existence of Westernizing features in the vaulting of St. Mary of the Angels, the Greek cathedral of Venetian Candia/Herakleion in Crete. The remnants of the church are now incorporated into the fabric of a shop where we can still see the profile of the pointed barrel vault. The evidence of the impact of the Gothic comes mainly from rural monuments where, as we saw, Gothic architectural elements are used in the exterior of Byzantine churches in the countryside of Crete and the Morea as embellishments of apse windows and entrance doors; similar sculptural embellishments appear in the interior of numerous churches in the springing of the vaults or in niches. Interestingly, these Gothic “intrusions” do not necessarily go hand in hand with Western references detected in the frescoes of the churches, e.g. the representation of St. Francis in four Orthodox churches of Crete or an array of Western iconographic borrowings displayed in other churches.64 Thus, if the appearance of a purely Western saint like St. Francis in an Orthodox church would point to a Latin patron or a mixed marriage where one of the two spouses followed at some time in his/her life the Latin rite, there is no reason to assume that the architectural references to the Gothic style require the presence of a Latin. The evidence points to the fact that these Gothic stones were not a sign of Latin allegiance but rather statements of status and prestige that the Greek patron felt necessary to broadcast in an Orthodox church. Since in all three regions Byzantine architecture remained quite traditional throughout the duration of Latin rule, it is safe to assume that the innovations came from an appropriation of limited Gothic forms in the structure of the Orthodox churches either as signs of emulating the large churches of the cities or as indication of a common aesthetic that developed in a climate of symbiosis between the two communities.

CONCLUSION

  • 65 Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (as in n. 14), p. 11: “Byzantine religious architecture i (...)

31We ought to look at the peculiarities of Byzantine architectural practice in order to understand the processes of integration of Western elements into Byzantine architecture. If we accept Robert Ousterhout’s statement that Byzantine architecture was an easily adaptable, responsive architecture that was primarily interested in “the details of a building [which] were accorded greater significance and were thus given greater attention than the whole,”65 we may imagine that specific details in construction or decoration captured the attention of local patrons and architects who incorporated them in the Greek churches. Thus, the hybrid monuments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries acquire particular regional traits that were forged by and responded to the stimulus of Latin architecture imported to Greece and Cyprus. Rather than seeing a polemical or a subservient relationship between Gothic and Byzantine architecture, these Western details anchor the monuments in place and time. They localize them in the Latin-ruled Levant and speak to the power of fashion and common aesthetic shared by Latins and Greeks.

  • 66 In this respect it is interesting to bring to mind the letter of Pope Honorius to Blanche de Casti (...)

32Clearly in each region (Cyprus, the Peloponnese, or Crete) the need for Gothic churches was different, depending on the political, religious, and social situation. As if to boast their religious alterity, these Latin churches, when they were first built, were implanted in predominantly Orthodox cities (as had been the case in the Muslim cities in the crusader states in the twelfth century) and surely stood apart from older monumental landmarks. It is at this point in time that they must have carried a clear ideological meaning and a distinct religious message for their patrons and users.66 We may even go further to suggest that the formal appearance of these churches signified specific political and religious alliances among the Latin political and ecclesiastical hierarchies. After a few years or generations, however, the innovative character of the Gothic silhouette of the churches must have blended with the everyday built environment of each place so that these churches became fixtures devoid of the acute ideological connotations so dear to us art historians. The passage of time transformed these Gothic buildings from foreign, unfamiliar monuments to native trademarks. Now, these churches were part and parcel of the local landscape. As such, then others could imitate them in a process of appropriation of the prestige of the ruling class. This is how we should account for the impact that their style had on local building practices.

Notes

1 See for instance the work of R. Traquair, Frankish Architecture in Greece, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 31, no. 2, 1923, p. 33-34, who provides a list of Gothic features encountered in Greece. He finds few insignificant examples for most of these features: the basilical plan of the churches (presumably the presence of a transept and a chevet) and “a scrap of carving, a pointed arch, or a bay of rib vaulting.” Interestingly he arrives at the conclusion that “the Franks did not cling with any affection to the Latin Church, or that the Latin Church adapted its ritual to a more Orthodox model.”
Byzance et le monde exterieur, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2005 (Byzantina Sorbonensia, 21)

2 See for example A. Weyl Carr, Correlative Spaces: Art, Identity, and Appropriation in Lusignan Cyprus, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook. A Publication of Mediterranean, Slavic and Eastern Orthodox Studies 14/15, 1998-1999, esp. p. 61-64, and C. Asdracha, Cypriot Culture during the Lusignan Period: Acculturation and Ways of Resistance, Symmeikta 9, 1994 (= Mneme D. A. Zakythinou, ed. N. G. Moschonas), 1, p. 81-94, for a socio-historical view of the issue at hand.

3 Specific references to their work will be found in the following notes.

4 Among the most important studies I should state: C. Enlart, L’art gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre, Paris 1899; G. Gerola, Monumenti veneti nell’isola di Creta, 4 vols., Venice 1905-1932; and more recently A. Bon, La Morée franque. Recherches historiques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d’Achaïe (1205-1430), Paris 1969. The 1987 English translation of Enlart’s book and the reprint of Gerola’s study in the last decade show the high esteem in which the field still holds these monumental works.

5 J. Charles-Gaffiot et al., eds., La France aux portes de l’Orient : Chypre xiie-xve siècle, Paris 1991, p. 17.

6 This declaration follows a long list of scholars who, guided by nineteenth-century Romanticism, have argued that there is a close artistic relationship between the art of the Lusignan of Cyprus and that of Gothic France modified according to the climate and the resources. The most well known of these scholars are the historian Louis de Mas Latrie and the architectural historian Camille Enlart. Enlart insisted that structural limitations like the absence of wooden frames/skeletons reduced the height of the structures which then were adorned with a series of clochetons and gables to hide the monotony of the long walls; cf. Enlart, L’art gothique et la Renaissance (as in n. 4), p. 21. He found echoes of Notre-Dame of Paris in the chapel-less ambulatory of the cathedral of St. Sophia in Nicosia and similarities with Rheims in the proportions and grace of the façade, portals and primarily the chevet of the church of St. Nicholas in Famagusta.
In view of the fact that Cyprus is currently being considered for European Union membership, we could approximate the 1991 Paris exhibition with that of 1964 in Athens, titled Byzantine art, an European art, which was also mounted on the eve of discussions for the accession of Greece to the Common Market.

7 Ch. Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture on Thirteenth-Century Byzantine Architecture, The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. A. E. Laiou, R. P. Mottahedeh, Washington 2001, p. 247-262; M. Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies. Architecture and Urbanism, Cambridge-New York 2001 ; B. M. Kitsiki-Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece, Chicago 1979; and A. Papageorgiou, Crusader Influence on the Byzantine Art in Cyprus, Cyprus and the Crusades, Nicosia 1994, p. 275-294.

8 Among the large bibliography see R. Rey, L ‘art gothique du Midi de la France, Paris 1934; Fr. Robin, Midi gothique de Béziers à Avignon, Paris 1999; C. A. Bruzelius, Ad modum franciae: Charles of Anjou and Gothic Architecture in the Kingdom of Sicily, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50, no. 4, 1991, p. 402-420; Ead., Charles of Anjou and the French national style in Italy, Kunst im Reich Kaiser Friedrichs II. von Hohenstaufen. 2, Akten des zweiten Internationalen Kolloquiums zu Kunst und Geschichte der Stauferzeit, Munchen 1997, p. 146-153; H. Dellwing, L’architettura degli ordini mendicanti, Storia e cul-tura a Padova nell’età di Sant’Antonio : convegno internazionale di studi, l-4ottobre 1981, Padova 1982, p. 460-465; V. Pace, M. Bagnoli, eds., Il Gotico europeo in Italia, Naples 1994; M. Trachtenberg, Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’: Toward a Redefinition, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50, 1991, p. 22-37; F. Zuliani, Le strade italiane del gotico : appunti per una revisione storiografica, Hortus artium medievalium 4, 1998, p. 145-154.

9 M. Durliat, L’art dans le royaume de Majorque : débuts de l’art gothique en Roussillon, en Cerdagne et aux Baléares, Toulouse 1962, p. 121.

10 J. Bony, French Gothic architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries, Berkeley 1983, p.312 and 433 - 458.

11 P. Hetherington, Byzantine and Medieval Greece. Churches, castles, and art of the mainland and the Péloponnèse, London 1991, p. 12, 44, accuses the Greeks of not having learnt anything from the military architecture of the Latins. Hetherington dates all major building activities to the years after 1204 and tends to discount Byzantine fortifications that existed before the Fourth Crusade.

12 D. Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West, Byzantium and Europe. First International Byzantine Conference, Delphi 1987, p. 239. As this is an argument ex silentio it is hard to prove or disprove it. See also below.

13 See for example A. Orlandos, καί τά σπίτια του Μυστρά, Αρχείον των Βυζαντινών μνημείων της Ελλάδος 3, 1937, p. 42.

14 R. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium, Princeton 1999, p. 208, 216.

15 As C. Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus, London 1987 (reprint of 1899), p. 6, points out that the flat roofs which cover the major Cypriot Latin cathedrals were not unique to Cyprus but they were favored all over the Mediterranean like the cathedral of Palma in Majorca. On the cathedral of Palma see also Durliat, L’art dans le royaume de Majorque (as in n. 9), p. 150-167.
The relatively simple chevet may relate to the function of the extant churches. Except for the cathedrals of Nicosia and Famagusta, the rest of the churches that have survived in Greece and Cyprus are Cistercian or Mendicant foundations in which the most important feature would have been the nave and not the chevet; cf. Bony, French Gothic architecture (as in n. 10), p. 446; Dellwing, L’architettura degli ordini mendicanti (as in n. 8), p. 457-465; and Id., Studien zur Baukunst der Bettelorden im Veneto. Die Gotik der monumentalen Gewôlhehasiliken, Miinchen 1970.

16 M. D. Willis, The Larnaca Tympanum, Κυπριακαί Σπουδαί 45, 1981, p. 15-28.

17 For the surviving coats of arms see Gerola, Monumenti veneti nell’isola di Creta. 1, L’architettura e la sculptura, Venice 1908, p. 265-266. Sparsely decorated or plain tympana seem to be the case in the region of the Veneto.

18 There exists a rich literature on the significance and outlook of the Gothic style outside the region of the Ile-de-France especially for southern France and Italy. For Italy see among others Trachtenberg, Gothic/Italian’Gothic’ (as in n. 8); Bruzelius, Charles of Anjou (as in n. 8); and Pace, Il Gotico europeo in Italia (as in n. 8). For southern France see Rey. L’art gothique du Midi de la France (as in n. 8); Durliat, L’art dans le royaume de Majorque; Id., La naissance et l’essor du gothique méridional au xiiie siècle, Toulouse 1974 (Cahiers de Fanjeaux 9); and Robin, Midi Gothique (as in n. 8).

19 Kitsiki-Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries (as in n. 7), XVI.

20 The issue of eclecticism is raised also in the case of the Gothic style on Italian soil; cf. Dellwing, L’architettura degli ordini mendicanti, p. 465.

21 See most recently Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West (as in n. 12); and Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture (as in n. 7).

22 In an earlier article Ch. Bouras cautions the reader not to interpret the broken arch as an absolute sign of a date after 1204; cf. Ch. Bouras, Επανεξέταση του καθολικού της Ζωοδόχου Πηγής Δερβενοσάλεσι, Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας ser. 4, 17, 1993-1994, p. 32. Three churches (Hagia Moni in Nauplion of 1149, Taxiarches in Kalyvia, Karystos, and in the monastery of St. John the Theologian in Patmos) display broken arches that date before the Fourth Crusade.

23 M. Vassilakis-Maurakakis, The Church of Virgin Gouverniotissa at Rotamies, Crete, Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, London 1986, p. 110. The pointed barrel vault was systematically used in France by 1120-1130 that is to say before the full-blown arrival of the Gothic style; cf. H. and E. Du Ranquet, De l’emploi des arcs-doubleaux sous les berceaux romans, Bulletin monumental 98, 1939, p. 201.

24 Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus (as in n. 15), and Id., Quelques monuments d’architecture gothique en Grèce, Revue de l’art chrétien 8, 1897, p. 309-314.

25 In Italy of course this juxtaposition involves the Romanesque style. In this respect it is instructive to read the catalogue of the French exhibition Douzième exposition du Conseil de l’Europe. Musée du Louvre. L’Europe gothique xiie-xive siècle, Paris 1968, p. XLVIII-XLIX, where for the sake of the cultural unity of Europe the Gothic appears as an umbrella term that embraces all that happened in the thirteenth century. In the section “L’art gothique au sud des Alpes” written by C. Gnudi, the “problem” of the Italian art of the thirteenth century is explained away as Gothic because of its heritage. The proto-Renaissance of the thirteenth century would not have happened in Italian sculpture, for instance, had it not been for the creative force of the “civilisation gothique européenne,» meaning of course the art of the Ile-de-France.

26 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols., Berkeley 1967-1999, 1, p. 100.

27 M. Georgopoulou, Private Residences in Venetian Candia (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries), Thesaurismata 30, 2000, p. 95-126.

28 Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus, p. 33-45.

29 Bon, La Morée franque (as in n. 4); and R. Traquair, Frankish Architecture in Greece, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 31, pt. 1, 1923-1924, p. 33-48 and pt. 2, p. 73-86. For Bon it was the energizing force of the Frankish presence in the thirteenth century that fueled the later “renaissance” of three of the major Byzantine centers in the Péloponnèse: Mistra, Geraki, and Leontari; cf. also A. Ilieva, Frankish Morea: Socio-Cultural Interaction between the Franks and the Local Population, Athens 1991, p. 33.

30 Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies (as in n. 7), passim. The magisterial work of Gerola, / monumenti veneti nell’isola di Creta, with hundreds of invaluable photographs remains the standard work of reference on the topic.

31 A. M. Romanini, L’architettura sacra, La Chiesa di Venezia tra Medioevo ed età moderna, ed. B. Vian, G. Betto, Venice 1989, p. 219-220.

32 A. Weyl Carr, A Palaiologan Funerary Icon from Gothic Cyprus, Πρακτικά του Τρίτου Διεθνούς Κυπρολογικού Συνεδρίου, Nicosia 2001, p. 600.

33 The paintings must have dated to the thirteenth or fourteenth century; cf. V. François, Une Illustration des Romans courtois. La vaisselle de table chypriote sous l’occupation franque, Cahier du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 29, 1999, p. 66, and D. Jacoby, La littérature française dans les États latins de la Méditerranée orientale à l’époque des croisades, Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans l’Europe et l’Orient latin, Actes du IXe Congrès international de la Société Rencesvals pour l’étude des épopées romanes, Modena 1984, p. 635-636. For a fuller treatment of painting in the Peloponnese at this time see Sh. E. J. Gerstel, Art and Identity in the Medieval Morea, The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (as in n. 7), p. 263-285.

34 Jacoby, La littérature française dans les États latins (as in n. 33), p. 638. The castle was refurbished in 1258-1280 by Nicholas II of Saint Omer after he had married the princess Maria of Antioch. J. Longnon, l’Empire latin de Constantinople et la principauté de Morée, Paris 1949, p. 216, has suggested that the castle was inspired and decorated by an artist from Antioch, but Jacoby argues that it was a copy of the Continuation of the History of William of Tyre that inspired the decoration of the Theban castle.

35 Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture, p. 247.

36 The reaction of the Byzantines to any attempt on the part of the emperor to initiate a dialogue with the pope for the union of the churches starting with Michael VIII in 1274 is indicative of the deeply felt division between Latins and Greeks; cf. J. Geanakoplos, The Council of Lyons of 1274, in Id., Constantinople and the West: essays on the late Byzantine (Paleologan) and Italian Renaissances and the Byzantine and Roman Churches, Madison 1989.

37 Zuliani, Le strade italiane del gotico (as in n. 8).

38 B. Arbel, The Cypriot Nobility from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century: A New Interpretation, Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204, ed. B. Arbel, B. Hamilton, D. Jacoby (= Mediterranean Historical Review 4/1), London 1989, p. 175-197, esp. p. 176-177 and 188-190 (= Cyprus, the Franks and Venice, 13th-16th Centuries, Aldershot 2000, VI). It would seem that ethnic and social mobility was easier after the mid-fourteenth century when the original tensions between colonist and colonizer had become somewhat smoother. See also B. Arbel, Urban Assemblies and Town Councils in Frankish and Venetian Cyprus, Πρακτικά του Δευτέρου Διεθνούς Κυπρολογικού Συνεδρίου, Nicosia 1986, 2, p. 204 and 209, and Id., Cypriot Population under Venetian Rule (1473-1571): A Demographic Study, Μελέται και Υπομνήματα 1, Nicosia 1984, p. 196-221 (= Cyprus, the Franks and Venice, op. cit, IV and V), where he emphasized the difference in the political and social position of the inhabitants of the towns who regardless of ethnic origin were free and had access to various urban institutions such as guilds and communal bodies vis-à-vis that of the inhabitants of the countryside (serfs or free men) who were in one way or another bound to the land and had no access to all the urban privileges. This dichotomy seems to relate to the artistic evidence quite neatly. The issue of the declining numbers of the Frankish population has been stressed by W. R. Rudt de Collenberg, Le déclin de la société franque de Chypre entre 1350 et 1450, Κυπριακαί Σπουδαί 46, 1982, p. 71-83, as well as Asdracha, Cypriot Culture during the Lusignan Period (as in n. 2), p. 84-85.

39 See most recently S. McKee, Uncommon Dominion: Venetian Crete and the Myth of Ethnic Purity, Philadelphia 2000.

40 K. Gallas, K. Wessel, M. Borboudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta, Munich 1983, p. 116-119.

41 For the Virgin Phorbiotissa see Weyl Carr, Correlative Spaces (as in n. 2), p. 64-68, and for St. John Lambadistis see A. and J. A. Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus. Treasures of Byzantine Art, London 1985, p. 306-317.

42 This is especially true in the chronicle of L. Makhairas, cf. Asdracha, Cypriot Culture during the Lusignan Period, p. 92. In Crete some of the words for building materials seem to have Greek roots; cf. Georgopoulou, Private Residences in Venetian Candia (as in n. 27), p. 110.

43 L. Safran, Exploring Artistic Links Between Epirus and Apulia in the Thirteenth Century: The Problem of Sculpture and Wall Painting, Proceedings of the International Symposium “The Despotate of Epirus”, Arta 1992, p. 455-474.

44 Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West, p. 239.

45 Papageorgiou, Crusader Influence on the Byzantine Art in Cyprus (as in n. 7), p. 275, asserts that although cross and cross-ribbed vaulting was known in Byzantine churches in Constantinople and Greece, it came to Cyprus after the arrival of the Lusignan.

46 Mouriki, Palaiologan Mistra and the West, p. 240. As mentioned above, the same cannot be said for painting where we see a predominantly Byzantine tradition with the inclusion of few Western iconographie elements all possibly coming from Constantinople. D. Mouriki postulated the existence of a now-lost secular painting style that embraced Western models. This style rich in Gothic features is attested in the Job manuscript from Mistra (Paris, B.N. gr. 135) that was copied by the scribe Manuel Tzykandyles in 1362.

47 K. Gallas, Mittel- und spdtbyzantinische Sakralarchitektur der Insel Kreta, Berlin 1983, p. 216, also attributes the use of bacini (pots) on the Western façade of the fifteenth or sixteenth-century church of Panagia Eleousa in Kitharida to a sign of Venetian influence.

48 Ibid., p. 81-82 and 90. This is a negligible number considering the hundreds of churches that were built in Crete in this period. These monuments beg to be related to known prominent Cretan families who had reasons to emulate the architecture of the cities.

49 A. van Gemert, The Cretan Poet Marines Falieros, Thesaurismata 14, 1977, p. 7-70 and also the paper that A. Van Gemert, gave in the last International Conference of Cretan Studies titled Η τέχνη και η αστική λογοτεχνία της Κρήτης της περιόδου 1370-1440 [The art and urban literature of Crete in the period 1370-1440]. I would like to thank Professor van Gemert for sharing with me the typescript of this important paper where he tries to establish connections between Creto-Venetian literati and the church architecture associated with their rural landholdings.

50 S. Ćurčić, Articulation of Church Facades during the First Half of the Fourteenth Century, L’art byzantin au xive siècle. Symposium de Gracanica, Belgrade 1978, p. 17-27.

51 Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus, p. 82-130, 222-245.

52 Y. Carbonell-Lamothe, Les monuments gothiques des Lusignan en Chypre, La France aux portes de l’Orient (as in n. 5), p. 93, notes the similarities of the design of these monuments with European cathedrals of the 13th and 14th centuries while their exterior appearance has similarities with Seljuk and Byzantine monuments.

53 Ibid., p. 95-96.

54 See A. Bon, Monuments d’art byzantin et d’art occidental dans le Péloponnèse au xiiie s., Χαριστήριον εις Αναστάσιον Κ. Ορλάνδον, Athens 1966, p. 92-93; Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture, p. 250-251; G. Nikolakopoulos, Céramiques encastrées d’anciennes églises de Grèce, Faenza 67, 1981 p. 166-178; G. D. R. Sanders, An Assemblage of Frankish Pottery at Corinth, Hesperia 56, 1987, p. 169; and Id., Three Peloponnesian Churches and their Importance for the Chronology of Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Century Pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean, Recherches sur la céramique byzantine, ed. V. Déroche, J.-M. Spieser, Athens-Paris 1989 (Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique. Supplément 18), p. 189-194. I would also like to thank Ms. Mary Lee Coulson for kindly sharing with me unpublished material from her dissertation which is central to my discussion of the Latin architecture in the Péloponnèse.

55 E. Ivison, Latin Tomb Monuments in the Levant 1204 - ca. 1450, The Archaeology of Medieval Greece, ed. P. Lock, G. D. R. Sanders, Exeter 1996 (Oxbow Monograph 59), p. 91-106.

56 Bouras, The Impact of Frankish Architecture, p. 247. In some instances it is quite hard to profer an absolute opinion on the doctrinal affiliation of a church as occasionaly a church was used by members of both the Eastern and Western rite. The evidence comes from frescoes of a mixed character in both Crete and Cyprus as well as historical archival material from Crete in later centuries, which tells us that certain churches could change hands. See Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies, p. 187-190.

57 Ibid., p. 107-131.

58 Although we can be certain about this in the thirteenth century colonies and the churches built in the Holy Land, we have for the moment no way of knowing the appearance of the Venetian churches of Constantinople; cf. M. Georgopoulou, The Significance and Meaning of the Gothic in the Eastern Mediterranean (forthcoming).

59 Bony, French Gothic architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries, p. 446-458.

60 Trachtenberg, Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’. He argues that there were three levels of reception of the Gothic in Italy: fashion (mainly in superficial ways as a façade in civic monuments), modernity, and spirituality.

61 H. C. Evans, Cilician Manuscript Illumination. The Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Centuries, Treasures in Heaven. Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Th. F. Mathews, R. S. Wieck, Princeton 1994, p. 74 and 79.

62 Enlart, Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, p. 253-258.

63 Georgopoulou, Private Residences in Venetian Candia, p. 100.

64 S. Papadaki-Oakland, ∆υτικóτρoπες τoιχoγραφίες τoυ 14oυ αιώνα στην Ḳρήτη,. H άλλη óΨη µιάς αµάς αµφίδρoµης σχέσης, Euphrosynon, 2, Athens 1992, p. 491-516.

65 Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (as in n. 14), p. 11: “Byzantine religious architecture is above all, a responsive architecture, easily adapted to the special necessities of location, function, and decoration, and this responsiveness often led to new formulations.» On p. 38 the author speaks of the ekphraseis and argues that creativity on a small scale, involving only certain parts of a building, might have led to new formulations on a larger scale, and might even have altered the way the building was envisioned.

66 In this respect it is interesting to bring to mind the letter of Pope Honorius to Blanche de Castile, wife of Louis VIII, of May 20, 1224: in the Empire of Romania there had been created a “quasi nova Francia,” cf. Ilieva, Frankish Morea (as in n. 29), p. 42.

Table des illustrations

Légende Fig. 1 - Nicosia, cathedral Saint Sophia, plan (After Camille Enlart)
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Légende Fig. 2 - Candia (Herakleion), church of Saint Peter the Martyr, plan (After Giuseppe Gerola)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 124k
Légende Fig. 3 - Andravida, Saint Sophia, capital(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 48 © Chicago University Press)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 197k
Légende Fig. 4 - Andravida, Saint Sophia, niche(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 45 © Chicago University Press)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 212k
Légende Fig. 5 - Mylopotamo, Hagios Georgios Kamariotis, west portal (After K. Gallas, K. Wessel, M. Borboudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta, Munich, Hirmer, 1983, fig. 36 © Photo Klaus Gallas)
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Fichier image/jpeg, 132k
Légende Fig. 6 - Famagusta, cathedral of Saint Nicholas, view(Photo: Annemarie Weyl Carr)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-6.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 650k
Légende Fig. 7 - Candia (Herakleion), Saint Peter the Martyr, view to apse(Photo of the author)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-7.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 669k
Légende Fig. 8 - Andravida, Saint Sophia, view to apse(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece. Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 39 © Chicago University Press)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-8.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 237k
Légende Fig. 9 - Mistra, Peribleptos, fleur de lys(Photo of the author)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-9.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 284k
Légende Fig. 10 - Chania, Saint Francis, corbel and capitals(B. Kitsiki Panagopoulos, Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1979, PI. 88 © Chicago University Press)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-10.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 159k
Légende Fig. 11 - Constantinople, Tekfur Saray façade(Photo: Robert Ousterhout)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-11.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 244k
Légende Fig. 12 - Famagusta, Saint Gcorge of the Greeks, view to apse(Photo: Annemarie Weyl Carr)
URL http://books.openedition.org/psorbonne/docannexe/image/1870/img-12.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 386k

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