Markos Giannoulis theodoros metochites | Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (original) (raw)

Papers by Markos Giannoulis theodoros metochites

REALLEXIKON ZUR BYZANTINISCHEN KUNST, 2024

Philippi, REALLEXIKON ZUR BYZANTINISCHEN KUNST 55: The article offers an overview of the signific... more Philippi, REALLEXIKON ZUR BYZANTINISCHEN KUNST 55: The article offers an overview of the significant monuments of Philippi, with a particular emphasis on the Early Christian and Byzantine periods. It explores the city's development as a crucial fortress along the Egnatia route. Furthermore, the article highlights Philippi's role as a key site for Pauline pilgrimage, reflecting on its rich historical and religious heritage during these eras. Through a detailed examination of architectural and archaeological evidence, the article presents a comprehensive view of the city's transformation and enduring legacy in Christian and Byzantine history.
A. Lage u. Geschichte 1070.
B. Topographie 1073.
C. Denkmäler 1077. I. Basilika A 1077. II. Basi- lika B 1081. III. Basilika C 1085. IV. Basilika extra muros 1089. V. Oktogon 1090.

Preguntando se llega a Roma , 2023

What are the deferences between the heroes of classical antiquity and the saints of Christianity?... more What are the deferences between the heroes of classical antiquity and the saints of Christianity? This study attempts to identify fundamental aspects of the construction mechanism, medialisation and semantics between saints and heroes. Analysing the example of the patriarch Joseph, we can conclude that the classical qualities and virtues of the hero are passed on through the saints without interruption. Thus, Joseph is distinguished by a wide range of outstanding characteristics that helped him to achieve extraordinary achievements. These include: Wisdom, leadership and intellect, courage and bravery, piety and humility, compassion and a willingness to forgive. In addition to agonality, a further component of the heroic can be verified in Joseph: exceptional beauty. Ve qualities and complexity of Joseph's character are also the reason why some outstanding pictorial narratives – such as the Coton Genesis, the Vienna Genesis or the atrium-mosaics of San Marco in Venice – place more emphasis on this story. Finally, the study shows that the analysis of the hero- / saint-concept opens up a new path for recognizing typical value- systems in Byzantine culture.
Keywords: Joseph, heroes, saints, Genesis, reception of Antiquity

Cultures and Remembrances Virtual time travels to the encounters of people from the 13th to 20th centuries. The Cretan experience, 2020

The Amari valley, medieval Upper Syvritos, as seen from the top of Mt. Psiloritis looking southwe... more The Amari valley, medieval Upper Syvritos, as seen from the top of Mt. Psiloritis looking southwest. differentiation from the Roman church and their time-honoured rights vis-à-vis the Venetian administration. So as Cristoforo Buondelmonti was admiring the landscape at Meronas with its high mountains and the mansion on the hillside, the monk began to say: "When our most holy emperor, lord of all and of Constantinople, abandoned your schismatic and corrupt church to its delusions and consolidated us in the holy Orthodox faith, thanks to our venerable patriarch, to guard us against the snares of your men he sent us Kapetan Kallergis, who governed us with such love and devotion to our faith that to this very day his descendants are not regarded as humans, but as gods here below." Shortly afterwards, when Buondelmonti met his superior, the Orthodox head priest or bishop, the latter weighed his words and began to recount the story of the "Twelve noble youths", linking their arrival with Nikiforos Fokas and the Kallergis-Fokases, and thus with the period after Crete was retaken from the Arabs: "After the Lord Fokas had retaken the island for our emperor, the emperor's son came with twelve of the finest Greek nobles in Constantinople to rule over the island. To all of those lords he granted power and land. Then, after a somewhat lengthy interval had passed, exhausted from constant wars, they gathered here in these mountains. Those today still have the coats of arms and names of the old Roman (Byzantine) families..." Noble's mansion, probably from the 16th century, next to Panagia "Rodea" in the village of Rogdia, Malevizi. An earlier equivalent would have stood next to the Panagia at Meronas.

Cultures and Remembrances Virtual time travels to the encounters of people from the 13th to 20th centuries. The Cretan experience., 2021

All the main roads from the fertile areas around Rethymnon led to the Porta Guora, a hub for good... more All the main roads from the fertile areas around Rethymnon led to the Porta Guora, a hub for goods and people moving to and from the island's southern districts. (Fig. 1a, 1b). The town guard was charged with supervising the gate, which remained closed from dusk until dawn. Those passing through the Megali Porta (Grand Gate), as it is now known, were on the thoroughfare leading to the main square and the port. The gate stood roughly in the middle of the land wall protecting the town from the south-a fortification that was the brainchild of Michele Sanmichele, Venice's greatest military engineer, who was on Crete from 1538 to 1540. In the event, however, progress building the wall was so slow that the original plan had to be simplified. The bulk of work was completed many years later, by which time the position of town Rector was held by Giacomo Guoro (1566-1568), from whom the gate took its name.

Mitteilungen zur Spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 8, 2021

A wide range of data sources is used nowadays to support the complex process of archaeological re... more A wide range of data sources is used nowadays to support the complex process of archaeological research, such as satellite imagery, aerial photographs or geophysical prospections. Along with this indispensable computationally engaged research, another excellent tool in order to answer research questions about ancient cultures and their remains is proving to be pre-modern maps. In particular, this paper attempts to evaluate a hitherto unknown map, depicting the ancient Cretan city, Aptera. This cartographic work, produced during Crete was ruled by the Most Serene Republic of Venice, creates a unique opportunity for gaining insight into monuments and landscapes of one of the most fascinating archaeological sites of Eastern Mediterranean. It turns out that this unknown Aptera-map, now preserved at Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, constitutes a rare scientific archaeological record of a perspicacious engineer. The aim of this article is therefore twofold: firstly, to analyse this work as an elaborate work of art that could carry a range of symbolic messages, understanding furthermore the cultural context that was able to achieve such a high level of detail and accuracy. Secondly, based again on this reliable graphic source, to extract information for the lost or since-altered city’s buildings and infrastructure. This information might be helpful for future approaches to reconstruct more accurately significant historical landscape dynamics of this archaeological site.

Brill's Companions to the Byzantine World , 2017

Byzantine illustrated Manuscripts: The book of Genesis

Byzantinische Zeitschrift 113, 2020

What are the similarities and the differences of icons from the same workshop depicting the same ... more What are the similarities and the differences of icons from the same workshop depicting the same subject? An important portable icon with the representation of the Dormition of the Virgin, hitherto unknown, preserved today in the Art Collection of the University of Göttingen, helps answering this question. The study deals with the fascinating journey of this icon from Venetian-dominated Crete in the 15th century to Germany of the 18th century. Furthermore, this paper shows that the icon of Göttingen belongs to a group of a numerous icons that they all derive from the same icon-workshop of the renowned Cretan painters Andreas and Nikolaos Ritzos in Candia. Finally, it turned out that this icon was also the inspiration for Cretan painters of the 17th CE such as Emmanuel Lambardos and Viktor.

Books by Markos Giannoulis theodoros metochites

Mitteilungen zur Spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 8 . 2021 IMAGINVM ORBIS Bilderwelten zwischen Antike und Byzanz, 2021

IMAGINVM ORBIS Bilderwelten zwischen Antike und Byzanz

Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum JbAC, 2011

The aim of the present study has been to investigate the motif of the Fates (Moirae) in the visua... more The aim of the present study has been to investigate the motif of the Fates (Moirae) in the visual arts of late antiquity, and more specifically to analyze its transformation in early Christian and Byzantine art. Besides the analysis of the iconography, the question of the significance of the Moirae in larger figural compositions in which they appear has also been posed. The representation of the Fates has turned out to be an element of a complex visual language, through which specific concepts and statements were expressed. We have sought to reconstruct these continually shifting concepts and statements in their respective historical contexts, particularly in the era in which Christianity was officially recognized and subsequently elevated to the sole state religion. We have additionally considered borrowings from and references to the iconography of the Moirae in Christian art.
From late antiquity, on the other hand, only one image of the Moirae has been preserved from funerary art: the painting in the Arcosolium of Vibia, where the Fates are assimilated to the occupant’s conception of the afterlife, which expresses hope for the continued existence of the dead in a prosperous beyond. All other preserved images with the Moirae motif are found on works of secular art, of which the majority depict the birth of Achilles. It is also notable, that the upper classes of the late antiquity prefer an other context to demostrate their wealth and status; the artwork over this period confirm this change of the language of the self-representation, which – however – could be observed already in earlier centuries. The mortal aspect of the Moirae motif is almost completed suppressed in these works. Instead, the emphasis is placed on those roles of the goddesses that mark the image as that of an exceptional birth and that underscore the miraculous capabilities of the newborn. In these works it is above all the status and education of the patron that are emphasized, or indeed simply aesthetic standards of the late Roman aristocracy. Exemplary in this regard is a mosaic from Nea Paphos, in which the mythological birth and the typical idealizing visual formulae are so completely interwoven that the viewer could well have seen the family of the villa’s owner in the images of Peleus, Achilles, and Thetis.
We were furthermore able to ascertain that the Moirae motif lived on not only in mythological representations, but also in Christian art. Apparently artists could not dispense with the expressive force of the Moirae motif, even when they wished to represent the Birth of Christ or the story of Joseph, as for example on the triumphal arch of Santa Maria Maggiore and in the Vienna Genesis. In these cases it became important on the one hand to trace the borrowings of Christian art from the store of ancient motifs, as well as the transformation and reception of the Fates in the context of Christian subjects, and on the other hand to understand the significance of the complete context into which the Moirae motif was integrated.
It was finally possible to uncover the typological and allegorical references of two significant themes of early Christian and Byzantine art, namely the Annunciation and the births of holy figures. It became clear that the motif of Mary spinning purple wool at the Annunciation refers back to the form and the mean of the ancient Fates. The female visitors depicted in representations of the births of holy figures hark back to the same motif. It was demonstrated that, in the representations of the birth of David in the Dumbarton Oaks and Athens psalters, the visitors are to be understood as personifications of fate. However, the Moirae motif was significantly transformed in the other preserved works representing this subject matter, chiefly for theological reasons. It was indeed so radically altered that the viewer no longer recognizes the Fates in the figures beside the birthing mother, but rather only visitors or servants. The miniatures of these two psalters with the personifications of fate indicate the exceptional quality and the holiness of the newborn.
Finally the investigation permits to notice: The motif of the Fates was an adequate – often ideal – starting point to analyze and understand the meaning of many scenes of ancient and Byzantine art.