Michele Bacci

"It is common to think of Jesus of Nazareth's main physical characteristics as including long, wavy, blondish hair and a short beard. Yet the Holy Scriptures are silent about Christ's features, and his representations are hardly consistent in early Christian and medieval arts. The wearing of long hair, moreover, is explicitly condemned by St Paul as shameful and effeminate: therefore it is surprising that, notwithstanding the Apostle's authoritative judgement, the long-haired archetype came to be accepted, as late as the ninth century, as the standard iconography of the Son of God. In The Many Faces of Christ Michele Bacci examines the complex historical and cultural dynamics underlying the making and final successful establishment of Christ's image between late antiquity and the early Renaissance. Unlike earlier studies, the process is described against the background of ancient and biblical conceptions of beauty and the physical look as indicators of moral, ascetic or messianic qualities. It takes into account a broad spectrum of both iconographic and textual sources, and also looks at analogous processes in the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Taoist traditions. This book will be of interest not only to specialists of late antique, Byzantine and medieval studies, but to anybody interested in the historical figure of Jesus and its shifting, controversial conceptions over the course of history.
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The present paper explores the dissemination of the Western-inspired image of the Virgin of Mercy sheltering worshippers under her mantle in the arts of the Latin-ruled lands of the Eastern Mediterranean, namely Cyprus, Crete, and Rhodes, in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The church of Saint Peter of Vyšehrad played an important role in the sacred topography of Prague, as it happened to be shaped in the mid-14th century by Emperor Charles IV and his court: it was basically meant to work as a sort of local ersatz of the most eminent martyrial basilica in Rome, Saint Peter’s, and the Emperor made therefore all possible efforts to enhance its cultic importance, by obtaining special privileges for the regular canons officiating it and by providing it with important relics. Among the latter, the largely most important one was, strikingly enough, not a sacred memento transferred from Rome, as Charles made in a number of cases, yet a rather odd relic he had found almost by chance during his stay in Pisa in 1355: namely, a piece of the marble table decorating the altar worshipped in the church of San Piero a Grado, in the outskirts of the town, as the first one erected on Italian soil by Saint Peter himself before moving to Rome. The present article investigates the reason why Charles came to perceive this object as outstandingly important on cultic grounds. It lays emphasis on the ambiguous process by which the site-specific holiness of San Piero a Grado was shaped from the 12th century onward: what may originally have been a purely local and oral rumour gradually came to be accepted as a venerable tradition and the Pisan church made efforts to corroborate it with reference to authoritative textual sources and by means of an efficacious mise-en-scène, mirrored by the painted program made by the artist Deodato Orlandi around 1300. Charles’ somewhat unexpected encounter with the holy place contributed to its shift from a purely local shrine into a pilgrimage site of international renown, if only for a limited time.

The present paper investigates the ways in which Late Medieval pilgrims came to locate a number of holy sites associated with Saint Catherine's life and martyrdom in places other than her major shrine on Mount Sinai. Emphasis is laid especially on the interaction between the latter and the memorial places which started being worshipped in Alexandria, the Cypriot port-town of Famagusta, and the Franciscan Chapel of Saint Catherine close to the Nativity church in Bethlehem.

The article comments on one of the earliest representations of Saint Luke as a painter, displayed in a masterpiece of Bohemian 14th century book illumination, the Gospel book of Bishop John of Opava (1368). In this unique composition, the Evangelist is represented as a physician, a painter, and a man of letters. The text provides an interpretation of the image by hinting at contemporary images of poets and cultivated men.

This paper focuses on the ways in which the most important cult-image in Medieval Lucca, the so-called "Volto Santo" (holy face) came to be regarded by contemporary viewers as a true-to-life image of Christ, sculpted by the Pharisee Nicodemus. The paper emphasizes also the connection with the liturgical tradition of the Passio ymaginis feast on November 9 and its literary and ritual framework.

The present papers shows that, against the popular view of the Byzantine artist as a pious artisan subjected to the authority of the Church, a number of Byzantine craftsmen sympathized for and were involved in heterodox religious behaviours and heretic movements. The paper includes examples from late Antiquity until the Middle- and Late Byzantine periods.

The present paper was presented at the conference "Images and Visions in Christian and Buddhist Cultures" held at the University of Tokyo on February 13, 2011. It explores several aspects of the interaction between images, holy sites and visions in Late Medieval Italy, with a special focus on the impact played by standard iconography on the visionaries' religious imagination.

Focusing on Andreas Ritzos' icon with the monogram IHS in Athens, this article offers insights about the role played by the monogram on Crete and points out that the particular solution shown in Ritzos' image is not in keeping with St. Bernardine's "icon" of the Holy Name of Jesus and indicates an association with the symbolism of the holy host.

The present paper deals with the mural decoration of the 14th century church of Agios Georgios Exorinos in Famagusta, Cyprus, traditionally considered to be a Nestorian-rite church. The remaining frescoes bear Syriac inscriptions and are characterized by a distinctive juxtaposition of Arab Christian, Byzantine Palaiologan, and Italianate Gothic features. They can be considered to be the work of different artists working between ca. 1300 and the last decades of the century for a community of either Maronite or Melkite Syrians connected with the Frankish family of the Gibelet, ancient lords of Jbail (Lebanon).

About the materiality of the rock of Golgotha, its architectural transfiguration in the Crusader period, and its perception as reproducible icon, which happened to be evoked even within the Holy Sepulchre itself, with the setting of the so-called "Second Golgotha" in the Armenian sector from the late 15th century onward.

This article discusses two different objects that point out the importance played by Byzantine or Byzantinizing images in the religious experience of early 13th century Italy. The first example is the icon of the Madonna di sotto gli organi worshipped in Pisa Cathedral: the analysis of its iconographic and stylistic features enables its identification as a work made in the Eastern Mediterranean, possibly Cyprus, at the beginning of the 13th century. The article points out the impact played by this object on contemporary maniera graeca in Pisa and evaluates in more general terms the role played by icons in fostering the involvement of painted panels made according to Byzantine patterns in both private and public piety. This is illustrated by the analysis of a previously unpublished work in the Villa Guinigi Museum in Lucca, which shows a free use of iconographic features borrowed from Eastern tradition.

The present article deals with the dynamics of interaction between the different religious denominations living in the Cypriot port town of Famagusta in the 14th and early 15th centuries, as they are witnessed by extant monuments and their pictorial ornaments.

On a number of late Medieval holy sites in the Eastern Mediterranean which were simultaneously visited and worshipped by different religious groups, such as Muslims and Christians, or Latins and Greeks. It includes informations about shrines in Anatolia and Cyprus, especially the tomb of Saint Catherine and the Madonna della Cava in Famagusta, and the church of the Holy Virgin at Hagia Napa.

The monastery of Our Lady of Saydnaya, located 22 km east of Damascus, still proves to be one of the most important cult-centres of present-day Syria; although it is inhabited and controlled by Christian (i.e. Greek Orthodox) nuns, its church, housing a very famous icon of the Virgin Mary, is daily visited also by a great many Muslim worshippers. Its renown dates back to the late 12th century, and for a long time it was an important goal for many pilgrims from both the Christian East and Western Europe, even if, unlike other Terrasanta holy places, it was not associated with any relic nor major episode of the Gospel, as well as it couldn’t boast of being founded by any important representative of Early Christian monasticism. Saydnaya’s reputation as a holy place was an immediate consequence of the holiness of its icon, which was credited to sanctify the entire space around it; not only the church and monastery complex, built on a pinnacle of rock, but also the village which extended below it were praised as places blessed by God, where vines and other plants were blooming, plenty of water was available, and only Christians were admitted to live: if any Muslims dared to settle there, they were expected to die within a year.
Saydnaya’s natural and social environment (i.e. luxuriant vegetation vs. sand and stone desert, Christian inhabitants vs. Muslims) played a distinctive role in the shaping of its sacred aura, since visitors had the impression that they were entering a kind of Eden or Eldorado, favoured by God’s grace. Its very center was the main church within the monastery walls, whose inner core was the sanctuary housing the holy icon. Although in its present state it seems to have been extensivily rebuilt and altered, we can get an idea of the church settings and furnishings from a great deal of written descriptions by Latin and Christian Arab pilgrims from the 12th through the 17th century, as well as from collections of miracles of the Virgin Mary in several languages (among them, Latin, Old French, Spanish, Arabic, and Ethiopian). Such sources provide us with a valuable bulk of information about the general layout and arrangement of the building, which were meant to convey the visitors’ gradual involvement into the sacred place by means of a sophisticated rite of approach to the holy icon.
First of all, the pilgrim had to ascend the hill of Saydnaya and enter the gate of the monastery walls, then he passed through a square and covered portico and approached the door of the church. The building, being rather large, had a basilican plan and consisted of a central nave and two lateral aisles, separated by six columns; after going the whole length of the nave, he had to stop next to the templon gate, before being allowed to go further. Some of the monks or nuns would have lead him or her into the bema, where they were requested to kneel down in front of the place were the icon was said to be housed. According to sources, the image, being covered with many veils, was kept inside a recess or niche secured with an iron grille and located on the eastern wall, just behind the altar; a miraculous oil, poured out of the Virgin’s surface, ran down the wall and filled up a marble basin located below it. At that exact moment, the monks or nuns put their arms through the grating and collected some of that miraculous oil, and started anointing the pilgrims’ foreheads. By such means, visitors were emotionally and physically involved into the sacredness of that shrine.
The icon enjoyed such an high reputation since it was credited to be made of human flesh. According to some local traditions, it was turned into flesh when a monk from Constantinople had refused to hand it over to the monastery abbess. The church doors had then closed by themselves and they didn’t open before the image was located in the niche behind the altar; subsequently, in order to express its wish to be held within that building by means of  a miraculous sign, the icon took the form of a soft skin, and from its surface came out a breast pouring out the miraculous oil. The holy icon was a real substitute for the Virgin Mary’s body and the whole sacred space around it was imbued with such bodily presence: the church walls were damped by its holy liquid, its doors protected it, it was inserted within its apse as a child in in the womb of his mother.
Admittedly, it was a quite odd location for an icon within an Eastern Christian church. Even if we know that holy icons of the Virgin Mary could be housed within the bema (among them, the ‘Panagia Kyrá’ in the Pharos Chapel of the Great Palace in Constantinople), such a setting is much more reminiscent of the arrangement of the sanctuary in Western churches, where painted images are usually associated with the altar. Painted recesses or niches housing painted panels and statues are also, though sporadically, witnessed since the 11th century; since some interesting examples may be recognized within Latin buildings in Outremer and Cyprus, we suspect that such a device may have been influenced by Crusader models. In any case, it is worth pointing out that such a setting, consciously replicating that of Saydnaya, has been singled out by scholars in some churches of the Eastern Mediterranean, such as the Panayia Chryseleousa at Lyso, Cyprus (as argued by Annemarie Weyl Carr). Other shrines, like the cave-church of Saydet-Naya at Kfar Chlaiman in Lebanon, may have been affected by a quite similar arrangement.
The replication of Saydnaya’s sacred space was a consequence of its wide reknown among pilgrims from both Eastern and Western Christianity. Reliquaries of the miraculous oil spread throughout Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. According to an hypothesis, the Madonna Damascena worshipped in Rhodes and later in Malta by the Military Order of the Hospitallers, may have been reminiscent of the cult-icon in Saydnaya. Moreover, one wonders if the dissemination of the iconographic type of the Galaktotrophousa may also have been stimulated by such a phaenonomenon, since the holy icon was usually identified as a nursing Vergin. An analysis of extant illustrations of the Miracle de la Vierge de Sardenai or Sardanek (as it was usually known to Old French visitors) within Western manuscripts of the Late Middle ages may be of great help to reconstruct the image’s iconography, as well as the cult practices it was involved in; in fact, instead of simply replicating its outward appearance, they usually represented its cult-context within the Syrian shrine. The story of the ‘embodied image’ of Saydnaya is also a source for the widespread legend of the “Saracen converted by the icon of the Virgin Mary”. According to it, a Muslim appropriated a Christian image and put it within a niche in the wall of its house; he respected and also worshipped it, but he was still unable to trust the dogma of Incarnation. By means of a miracle, the icon then turned into flesh, and the Saracen, being convinced, decided to become a Christian. Such a story replicates both the connection of the icon with a wall and the embodiment topos; it was probably stimulated by the fact that local Muslims used to venerate the Saydnaya icon, and, by doing so, caused Western pilgrims to be astonished and think of all that as a consequence of the special grace given by God to that holy place.

A description of the sacred topography worked out by late Medieval Holy Land-pilgrims and seafarer along the searoutes between Venice and Palestine. This paper emphasizes the important role played by international voyagers in the selection, promotion and shaping of new holy sites in Dalmatia, Albania, Corfu, Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus.

This paper deals with the origins of icon veneration in Pisa in the 12th and 13th century and offers a new interpretation of the art-historical phenomenon known as the "maniera greca". Far from being just a matter of artistic taste, the "maniera greca" can be interpreted as the outcome of the local appropriation of icon-centered devotional patterns being widespread in Eastern Christianity and the Latin-ruled territories in Syria-Lebanon and the Holy Land.

This paper deals with the Medieval sources concerning the relics worshipped in the Pharos Chapel, the private church of the Basileus in the Imperial Palace of Constantinople. It especially focus on an hitherto neglected source by Leo Tuscus, a Pisan writer who made an accurate description of the church and witnessed the specific veneration for an image of the Mother of God "Oikokyra", perceived as supernatural defender of the Imperial House

According to an old, very widespread legend, an icon of the Saviour would have bled after being stabbed with a lance by the Jews of Beirut. The blood poured out by this icon was considered to be so worth worshipping, that it became widespread in Western Europe. Moreover, the story was yearly commemorated in Rome since at least the 10th century as a specific feast in honor of icons, being equivalent to the Byzantine Feast of Orthodoxy and known as the Feast of the Saviour on November 9. This paper investigates the origins and developments of this legends in texts and images from the 8th to the 15th century.

This paper investigates an hitherto neglected aspect of late Medieval devotion, which was connected with the peculiar expressions of piety of the seepeople. The coast lines of the late Medieval Mediterranean were dotted with a large number of shrines which corresponded to safe places and repairs along the navigation routes. A specific litany was worked out in order to invoke the appearance of such places on the horizon when the ships were lost in the sea. The reconstruction and publication of such a list allows us herewith to understand this very articulated, transnational and transconfessional cultic topography.

Giovanni Conti (d. 1332) was Archbishop of Nicosia and one of the major commissioners of artworks in Medieval Cyprus. The article deals with an embroidered textile now preserved in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Pisa, which according to an inscription was sent as a gift to Pisa Cathedral by Giovanni Conti in 1325. By means of a technical, iconographic, and stylistic analysis the article points out that this artwork is the only hitherto recognized representative of the famous Cypriot textiles known as "de opere Cyprensi"

* I wish to express my gratitude to Mr Robert Learmonth (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore), and to the Editors and Readers of this Journal, for their help in correcting the present text. My thanks are also due to my friends, teachers, and colleagues of the Scuola Normale Superiore, ...

In their exploration of the Mongol Empire during the 13th and 14th centuries, Western merchants and missionaries experienced for the first time the contact with peoples and cultural traditions which had been almost completely unknown in the times past. Unexpectedly, some features of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist use of religious images proved to look quite similar to Western practices and contributed to suggest a feeling of affinity between European and Far Eastern devotional habits. Such a feeling relied on at least three important issues: first of all, the widespread use of three-dimensional statues (instead of icons, as in the Christian East) caught the Westerners’ imagination; second, they were struck by the complex and highly developed iconographic code employed by the religions of the Far East; third, they understood that the “idolaters” of Asia shared the Christian conception of the sacred image as a reproduction of a much older archetype, being an authentic, original or even ‘acheiropoietic’ portrait of a divine personage.

This paper aims at raising and discussing the following questions: to what extent, if any, is the involvement of painted panels in individual prayer indebted to previous usages, rooted in the Byzantine and medieval past? To what extent, and on which grounds, did it come to be that in the Late Middle Ages and early modern era Byzantine or Byzantine-like images, were perceived as especially suitable for private devotions, and until when did this perception continue to play a role? Which cultural dynamics gave rise, from the fourteenth century onward, to the selective appropriation of morphological, iconographic, and stylistic features associated with both Byzantine and Italian traditions and to their combination in a number of works meant for private or domestic uses? And finally, would it be correct to think of devotional panels, especially those of mixed stylistic character made in Venice and Venetian- or Latin-ruled countries in the Aegean and the Levantine sea, as privileged sites of intercultural exchange?