On some peculiarities in the iconography of miniatures in the Lectionary of Trebizond

• Autores: Anna Zakharova
• Localización: Rivista di storia della miniatura, ISSN 1126-4772, Nº. 14, 2010, págs. 71-80
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • The tenth-century illuminated Greek Lectionary cod. Gr. 21 and 2la in the National Library of Russia, conventionally called “the Lectionary of Trebizond”, has been attributed by some scholars to Asia Minor. This attribution seemed to be supported by the fact that the manuscript was donated to Emperor Alexander II by the Metropolitan of Trebizond. The miniatures, very peculiar in their painting style, also display some rare iconographic features, which were cited to support the attribution of the Lectionary to Asia Minor, Trebizond or Cappadocia.

    In this article we attempt to examine the arguments of G. Millet and C.R. Morey, who were the main proponents of this hypothesis, and show that there are no grounds for such an attribution. In his fundamental research G. Millet sought to trace the genealogy for each significant subject in the iconography of the Gospels. In some cases he presupposed the existence of a special “eastern branch” of the iconographical tradition. Yet many works of art cited as the representatives of this branch had not been sufficiently studied in Millet’s day, including the Trebizond Lectionary and the wall-paintings of Cappadocian cave churches. Afier the work done by G. de Jerphanion, M. Restle, N. and M. Thierry, C. Jolivet-Levy and others, the local Cappadocian artistic and iconographic traditions are much better known, and it is obvious that Millet’s view of an “eastem branch” in the iconography of many Gospel subjects should be reconsidered. As for the Lectionary of Trebizond, Millet supposed it to be an eleventh-century copy of a seventh- or eight-century manuscript produced in Asia Minor. C.R. Morey scrutinized the iconography of every miniature in the Trebizond Lectionary. Although he dated the manuscript to the eighth century and also assigned it to Asia Minor, his analysis facilitates our work greatly. Only in five miniatures are there any motifs resembling the Cappadocian wall-paintings. These are the miniatures representing the Marriage at Cana, the Washing of the Feet, the Last Supper, the Entombment, and the Mission of the Apostles. In all cases except the last, it is easy to show that there is no direct connection between the Lectionary’s miniatures and the Cappadocian murals. One should rather speak of the survival of some rare ancient features in our manuscript, in some Cappadocian wall-paintings and in some other works of art of different origin. The particular iconography of the Mission of the Apostles in the Trebizond Lectionary has direct parallels in a few Cappadocian wall-paintings, although some of them are very close to the art of the capital; other parallels can be found in Constantinopolitan ivory carving. Thus, in this case too, the iconography of the scene gives no proof for the attribution of the Trebizond Lectionary to the eastem provinces.

    In our view, the Trebizond Lectionary was created in a high-ranking Constantinopolitan workshop and has no direct connection with local Cappadocian artistic traditions. The iconographic peculiarities of its miniatures can rather be explained by the influence of some early-Christian models which circulated in the artistic milieu of the capital around the middle of the tenth century and later.