Download PDF | Angeliki Lymberopoulou, Rembrandt Duits - Hell in the Byzantine World. A History of Art and Religion in Venetian Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean.-Cambridge University Press (2020).
968 Pages
Hell in the Byzantine World
The imagery of Hell, the Christian account of the permanent destinations of the human soul after death, has fascinated people over the centuries since the emergence of the Christian faith. These landmark volumes provide the first large-scale investigation of this imagery found across the Byzantine and post-Byzantine world. Particular emphasis is placed on images from churches across Venetian Crete, which are comprehensively collected and published for the first time. Crete was at the centre of artistic production in the late Byzantine world and beyond, and its imagery was highly influential on traditions in other regions. The Cretan examples accompany rich comparative material from the wider Mediterranean - Cappadocia, Macedonia, the Peloponnese and Cyprus. The large amount of data presented in this publication highlights Hell’s emergence in monumental painting not as a concrete array of images, but as a diversified mirroring of social perceptions of sin.
ANGELIKI LYMBEROPOULOU is Senior Lecturer in Art History at The Open University. She is the author of The Church of the Archangel Michael at Kavalarian: Art and Society on FourteenthCentury Venetian-Dominated Crete (2006) and the editor of CrossCultural Interaction between Byzantium and the West 1204-1669: Whose Mediterranean is it Anyway? (2018) and, with Rembrandt Duits, of Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe (2013).
REMBRANDT DUITS is Deputy Curator of the Photographic Collection at the Warburg Institute and Editor of the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. He is the editor, with Angeliki Lymberopoulou, of Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe (2013).
Preface
In the summer of 2001, I visited my colleague, Prof. Dr Vasiliki Tsamakda, in Heidelberg, to discuss our collaboration in examining the representation of Hell in the monumental art of Venetian Crete (1211-1669). Our original aim was to research the relevant wall paintings in 14th- and 15th-century churches in the area of Selino, the south-western Cretan province, with the largest concentration of Byzantine churches on the island.
The Leverhulme International Networks presented us with the opportunity to expand the scope of the project by incorporating the whole of Crete as well as comparative material from the wider Mediterranean (Cyprus, Cappadocia and the Balkans). Hence, a more ambitious version of our original plan was born. We invited a team of subject experts (Rembrandt Duits, Charalambos Gasparis, Diana Newall, Athanasios Semoglou, Dionysios Stathakopoulos, Rainer Warland and Annemarie Weyl Carr) to explore the respective areas; we submitted a successful application to the Leverhulme Trust with the title ‘Damned in Hell in the Frescoes of Venetian-Dominated Crete (13th-17th Centuries)’; and we were successful in securing funding for three years, which was eventually extended to four. The project started on 1 October 2010 and officially ended on 30 September 2014.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Prof. Dr Vasiliki Tsamakda sadly opted not to contribute to this present publication; at the same time, two further colleagues, Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Panayotis S. Katsafados, joined us with a crucial contribution on Hell scenes from the Peloponnese.
During the course of the project, the Leverhulme ‘Hell’ Team organised workshops, conferences and field trips that allowed scholars to address issues of the representation of Hell in Early Modern Mediterranean societies. We had the opportunity of viewing and discussing wall paintings in situ and, as part of this process, we visited wonderful places, enjoyed gorgeous food, drink, weather, spectacular scenery and the humbling hospitality of the locals. To paraphrase team member Annemarie Weyl Carr, if the project were a lavish meal, this part would have been a mouthwatering dessert.’ We had the privilege of savouring every single tiny morsel.
Acknowledgements
The research project, which examined the representations of Hell on Venetian Crete and comparative material from the wider Mediterranean (Cyprus, Cappadocia, mainland Greece and the Italian west), would not have been possible without the generous funding and support of the Leverhulme Trust International Networks. We are indebted to the Leverhulme Trust for enabling us to materialise our project ‘Damned in Hell in the Frescoes of Venetian-Dominated Crete (13th-17th Centuries)’. Special thanks to Nicola Thorp, our direct contact with the Leverhulme Trust, for her help, patience and understanding in clarifying issues.
A number of colleagues in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, were also instrumental in achieving our goals in the project, providing us with ample help and guidance. We would like to thank in particular: Caitlin Adams, Sue Cocklin, David Flatman, Anne Ford, Paul Lawrence, Rose Mepham, Catherine Tuckwood, Susie West and John Wolffe.
We would also like to acknowledge and to express our thanks for the generous help we received to Antonis Katsigiannis, Ilias Mpeskenis, Georgios Mplatsiotis, Vicky Psaltaki, Nikoletta Pyrrou and the Municipal Library of Chania - in particular, to Areti Karveli and Theano Boraki.
The countless field trips on the island of Crete to locate and record the churches were true adventures combined with great pleasures: on the one hand, the team of four - Angeliki Lymberopoulou, Vasiliki Tsamakda, Rembrandt Duits and Diogenes Papadopoulos - tasted a slice of Indiana Jones, having to face bats, snakes, spiders and all sorts of creepy crawlies that had made many of the churches their loving home. On the other hand, the spectacular scenery of gorgeous Crete, the lovely food and wine (dinner was our only meal of the day, which we always felt that we had more than earned) and the genuine beauty of each and every church made us feel enormously privileged every time to have been the recipients of the Leverhulme Trust’s funding, which made all this possible.
It is really unfortunate that Vasiliki Tsamakda, due to personal reasons, decided not to participate in the publication of the project after the end of its research period; nevertheless, we are grateful for her enthusiasm and engagement during the course of it, as its co-manager.
We are fully aware that, despite the generous funding and our determination, this project would have never been accomplished had it not been for the kindness, help, hospitality and big-heartedness of the local people. Cretan people embraced us, guided us, served us coffee, water, food, sweets and (of course) Cretan raki, truly proving that the spirit of the ancient Greek god, Zeus, is still very much alive: according to ancient Greek mythology, the head god was raised on the Cretan mountain Ida and, ever since, has not only protected travellers but also demanded from the locals that they show them regal hospitality - something which they never ever fall short of. This pagan belief coexists in perfect harmony with Christian Orthodoxy. In fact, among our greatest benefactors were bishoprics and local priests. The extremely few exceptions that we met over the course of four years were just that - mere exceptions that verified the rule of extreme kindness and generosity of the proud inhabitants of this historic island.
The list of people which follows is a very small token of the immense gratitude we feel and we would like to express here towards all those who helped us. The list follows the four prefectures of Crete in the same way we have constructed the catalogue of the churches (from west to east: Chania, Rethymnon, Herakleion, Lassithi); within each prefecture the people are listed alphabetically, starting with the priests and followed by the laymen and women).
Prefecture of Chania
Club of retired Air Force Officers, for hosting and facilitating the second Leverhulme ‘Hell’ project workshop, which took place in Chania on 4 September 2011: Retired Air Force Officers’ Club, 8 Partheniou Kelaidi Street, Chania 73100, Crete; Mr Kampianakis, Antonios (president); Mr Kouratoras, Konstantinos (finance); Mr Lymperopoulos, Konstantinos (vice president); Mr Mpourdakis, Michael (catering); Mr Mountakis, Nikolaos (technical support); Mr Kampianakis, Nikoloas (technical support); Mr Mpouchlis, Michael (filming); and the whole of Greek Airforce base of Chania (115PM) for their support . Brother Roussos, Nikolaos (Monastery of the Franciscan Capuchins of Chania)
We, of course, also owe immense thanks and gratitude to institutions and individuals in places other than Crete, which are explicitly conveyed in the chapters devoted to those places. Last, but by no means least, special thanks to two young ladies, Anna-Ritsa Duits and Isabella Teodori, for being impeccable when their mothers were away on the Cretan field trips.
We are also immensely grateful to all the people who helped us put this publication together. Michael Sharp’s impeccable professionalism, outstanding understanding and help have been flawless on every step of the way and he could certainly claim that he acquired a substantial feel of what ‘Hell’ feels (let alone looks) like in the process. We would also like to thank Jane Burkowski, Hal Churchman, David Cox, Mathivathini Mareesan, Marianne Nield and Sarah Starkey.
Special thanks are due to Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Panayotis S. Katsafados, who joined the publication with a vital contribution on the material from the Peloponnese, which did not form part of the original proposal but has, nevertheless, enriched the project’s approach; to Eirini Panou, who proved to be a tireless and the most invaluable Research Assistant I have ever had the pleasure of working with; and to Mick McTiernan (various errands on Crete), Lea Viehweger (translation) and Andrew Watson (editorial).
The four Ephorates of Antiquities of Crete - Ephorate of Chania, Ephorate of Rethymnon, Ephorate of Herakleion and Ephorate of Lassithi - gave us permission to study, photograph and publish the Cretan Hell material. The paper trail and email communication of this process was long, and we would like to thank all the colleagues involved in ensuring the process; in particular, Dionysios Achtypis, Thanassis Mailis, Chrysa Mpourmpou and Eleni Papadopoulou (Chania), Nikoletta Pyrrou and Anastasia Tzigkounaki (Rethymnon), Vaso Sythiakaki (Herakleion), Marianna Katifori, Georgia Moschovi and Chrysoula Sofianou (Lassithi). We would also like to thank Mrs Gerousi and Mrs Vlazaki (Ministry of Greek Culture, Athens).
Furthermore, the Ephorates of Antiquities of Crete, along with the Ministry of Greek Culture, gave permission for the Cretan material to be presented in a database, which will be hosted by The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. Therefore, the final and last, but by no means least special thanks are reserved for Diana Newall, who was also the project’s facilitator and populated the database; and to Mathieu D’Aquin, the ‘father’ of the database, his labour of love, to whom we are immensely grateful for working with us in creating it.”
Editorial Policy
The Greek inscriptions which accompany many representations of Hell in the material included in this volume are provided in the following ways: verbatim as they appear on the wall paintings; with the correct Greek spelling (if different), following monotoniko unless rendered in Byzantine Greek, where it retains its original accents; with a transliteration in Latin script; and with a translation into English.* The Greek names that appear in the sources from the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV) have been transliterated to reflect as closely as possible their rendering in Greek. Moreover, in rendering the Greek names and place names mentioned in this volume the standard Anglicised forms have been used, where they exist (for example, Constantine instead of Konstantinos). In the remainder of the cases, following a trend that has been gaining acceptance recently, all names have been transcribed as literally as possible, avoiding the various Latinised versions (e.g. Komnenos instead of Comnenus). Obviously, in all publications cited in the footnotes and in the bibliography, the names have remained unchanged and appear as their authors intended. Maps indicating various locations mentioned over the course of this volume can be found at the beginning of each chapter examining the relevant geographic area (Cappadocia, the Peloponnese and Cyprus; all Cretan maps have been placed in vol. 2). In the Bibliography, for all Greek entries the single accent system (monotoniko) has been used, regardless of whether they predate its adoption in Modern Greek in 1982.
For indicating an era, Bc (Before Christ)/ap (Anno Domini) has been chosen rather than cz (Common Era), on the basis that the former reflect better the understanding of time of the people who commissioned and originally viewed the monumental works the volumes explore.
Introduction
ANGELIKI LYMBEROPOULOU AND EIRINI PANOU
EZevlxX toa otnv tdépta oou / Kal oryotpayousa ESa eivat o Tapddsioos / ki 1 KdAaon 680
(I spent my night at your doorstep / singing softly Paradise is here / and so is Hell).'
The Greek song tells of a lover’s despair, describing the doorstep of their beloved as at the same time the best and the worst place for them to be in this life. To convey the powerful feelings, the songwriter borrows the imagery of Paradise and Hell, the Christian account of the permanent post-mortem destinations of the human soul.” This imagery, still an important part of Western cultural and religious baggage today, has fascinated people over the centuries since the emergence of the Christian faith. This publication explores a significant part of that fascination, pertaining to the Christian place of eternal punishment for the souls of sinners: Hell.
The Greek word for Hell, KéAaon, literally means ‘punishment’ in ancient Greek.’ Christianity, relying on vivid passages gathered from various books of the Old Testament and the Gospels, portrays Hell as a nightmarish place where all the senses are subjected to brutal torments. Establishing belief in the existence of Hell served two main purposes: reinforcing the adherence to penal law by underlining that offenders, even if they were able to elude punishment in life, could never escape divine justice after death; and creating a powerful tool for conversion by threatening non-believers with eternal pain.*
In the Byzantine world, the earliest surviving examples of the visualisation of Hell date to the 10th century.” Its iconography developed further as time progressed, but, exceptionally for Byzantine art, without ever acquiring a standardised form. No single region played a definitive role in shaping its representation; instead, it appears to have evolved in an interaction between different places — a cultural cross-fertilisation characteristic for the Mediterranean basin, vividly portrayed as the cradle of European civilisation by Fernand Braudel.° The focus of this publication is the island right at the heart of the eastern half of the Mediterranean basin, Crete. Radiating outwards from Crete, it looks - mainly - at monumental renderings of Hell: those that are most likely to reflect the collective religious, social and moral concerns of a wider community (rather than those of individual donors, presented in artefacts in more private media, such as manuscript illumination, panel painting and ivory).
Crete has been placed at the core of this publication because of its vast and unique collection of surviving churches with wall paintings, and the richness of archival materials that can be brought to bear on them. The great majority of the medieval churches on Crete date from the phase when the island was a Venetian dominion (1211-1669), overlapping with the Palaiologan era in Byzantium and the early post-Byzantine period, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The founding father of the study of the wall paintings of Venetian Crete is the Venetian historian and archaeologist Giuseppe Gerola (1877-1938), who travelled around on Crete in the early 20th century and recorded sacred and secular monuments from the Venetian phase. His Herculean research is presented in four large volumes, published between 1905 and 1932,’ which to this day form the inevitable starting point for scholars who engage with the subject.®
The representation of Hell and the punishments of sinners was one of the two iconographic subjects that Gerola decided to address further in his volume two.” Despite Gerola’s interest, however, only incidental publications have been devoted to the subject since, dealing with isolated aspects or single representations, and no further survey has been attempted.'° The original list published by Gerola, slightly expanded later in GerolaLassithiotakis, formed the basis of a successful Leverhulme International Networks application that was submitted in 2010, to fund the research project into Byzantine representations of Hell of which the present double volume is the outcome.'’ Over the course of four years of painstaking field work (2010-14), further churches containing images of Hell were identified, and the expanded catalogue is presented in volume two of this publication.'* The resulting corpus of wall paintings is so large (107 churches) that it even lends itself to a modest application of statistics, for which humanities publications rarely offer enough material.
The importance of Venetian Crete in the early modern Mediterranean context has been highlighted by scholarship since the middle of the 20th century.'* The fact that the island with its dual population of native Greek Orthodox and immigrant Venetian colonists can be construed as a microcosm of our present multicultural society, demonstrating the interaction between groups of different ethnicity and with different religious beliefs, and the effects of this interaction on art, is a further incentive to make Crete the nexus of this study. Moreover, the richness of the surviving archival material related to Crete in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia and of other written sources pertaining to the island adds an extra layer to the research that is not available for other places. Thus, Crete offers what in Byzantine studies is a unique case study, combining a substantial amount of visual material with textual evidence that informs us about the religious and social concerns of the community that produced it.
The Cretan case study, however, cannot be investigated in splendid isolation. The first Byzantine representation of Hell, dating back to the 10th century, was probably located in Constantinople;"* the earliest known surviving representations can be found in Cappadocia (Chapter 5) and in northern Greece (Chapter 6). Crete itself, as a Venetian dominion, was exposed to artistic ideas from Italy (Chapter 4), and other Venetian dominions offer comparative material: the Peloponnese (Chapter 7), and Cyprus (Chapter 8). Taking into account these wider connections of Crete expands the case study into a broader overview of Hell in the Byzantine world.
Just as Cretan Hell attracted the attention of Giuseppe Gerola, so have other examples of Byzantine Hell caught the eye of famous persons. For example, the Greek poet and Nobel Prize winner (1963), George Seferis (1900-71), during a visit to Cyprus in 1954, commented on the punishment of a sinner he saw represented in a church: the Paravlakistis, the Farmer who Ploughs over the Boundary Line, a figure frequently encountered being gruesomely punished in late and post-Byzantine art.'? Hell in general is an eye-catching subject, and, as highlighted throughout the chapters in volume 1 of this publication,’® often deliberately placed in locations where its representation will catch the eye of the congregation.
The ‘Chronological Arrangement of Cretan Churches’ in volume 2 of this publication makes it clear that the bulk of the Cretan wall paintings are dated and/or datable to the 14th and 15th centuries, with incidental examples from the late 13th and early 16th centuries. The wider time frame of the works is that of the Venetian rule over Crete, which lasted from 1211 to 1669.'” The majority of the material discussed in the broader overview of Hell in the Byzantine world falls within these historical parameters, with some examples predating 1211, and none later than the 16th century.'®
It is important to note that, while the fall of Constantinople forms a caesura in the Byzantine world in general in the middle of the period in question, Crete as a Venetian dominion was the scene of a continuous political, economic, social and intellectual development, which allows us to disregard 1453 as the cut-off point that it was for Byzantine art in other regions.'” The development of Crete as a Venetian dominion was directly important for the Cretan wall paintings. Recent scholarship has shown that Venetian trade generated an economic boom across the island during the 14th and 15th centuries, which was translated, among other things, into the construction and decoration of village churches. The later 15th century saw a shift of the population from the rural regions to the main cities in the north, where more employment opportunities were present. Consequently, the countryside became depopulated, which in turn resulted in a dramatic drop in church construction and decoration. This second phase coincided with the rise of the production of icons on panel, with which Cretan postByzantine art is virtually synonymous.”
Regarding the medium of the Cretan wall paintings, no systematic technical research has been undertaken. This omission extends to the majority of monumental works included in this publication; in fact, as Ioanna Kakoulli, Michael Schilling and Joe Mazurek have noted, “... there has until very recently been surprisingly little such [technical] study of the vast corpus of surviving Byzantine wall paintings’.*’ For this reason, the works described here are systematically referred to as ‘wall paintings’ and/ or ‘murals’ rather than as ‘frescoes’. As far as the Cretan wall paintings are concerned, it is currently unclear whether they were executed in the proper al fresco technique, in a variant of al fresco, or a secco on the dried plaster. The durability of the scenes would suggest a variant of al fresco; many inscriptions on the paintings, however, have been (partially) erased, indicating that these were added a secco.””
In Byzantine art, Hell is generally shown as part of the Last Judgement. The reason to focus here on Hell rather than on the Last Judgement at large is threefold. In the first place, a significant percentage of Cretan churches includes representations of Hell outside of the context of the Last Judgement.” Secondly, Cretan representations of Hell are extraordinarily rich in showing individual sinners punished for transgressions that can be related to both literary sources (Chapter 1) and contemporary social life, including secular penal law (Chapter 2). Thirdly, the examination of the corpus of the material gathered in these two volumes makes it clear that, exceptionally, Byzantine images of Hell do not follow a well-defined iconographic pattern.** Byzantine art relied on reproducing images that did not deviate from established formulas (see Chapter 3), as the standardisation of cycles of the life of Christ, the Virgin and the saints demonstrates. Byzantine Hell seems to have escaped this rule; it could be argued that its ever-changing characteristics reflect the fact that while there is often just one way to be right, there are invariably many ways to be wrong.
Additionally, the images of Hell on Crete employ a visually aggressive and provocative language. The brutal punishments and, in certain cases, shocking nudity have been described by some scholars as ‘inappropriate’ for a church environment.” It should be noted that Byzantine art is no stranger to nudity; for example, the bare breasts of female saints are often visible in scenes of their martyrdom.”° Yet, Byzantine art generally avoids depicting male genitals explicitly, as is clearly manifested in the Baptism of Christ, where the naked Jesus standing in the river Jordan is depicted sexless.*” Such restrictions, however, did not apply to Cretan images of Hell.**
The endless variations in the images of Hell found across the Cretan churches examined in Chapters 1-4 of volume 1 and in the Catalogue in volume 2, and in the further comparative material examined in Chapters 5-8 of volume 1, make it difficult to maintain general theories that have been proposed about the Byzantine representation of Hell. It has been argued, for example, that Byzantine images of Hell present a segregation of punishments into individual and collective ones.”” Indeed, in its most complete form, the iconography of Hell as found on Crete makes a distinction between what in this volume are labelled Individual Sinners and Communal Punishments. The concept of the Individual Sinners was probably derived from the parable of the Rich Man and the Poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31); representations of the Rich Man suffering in Hell for refusing the Poor Lazarus scraps from his table are included in the majority of the examples examined in this publication. The repertoire of Individual Sinners was greatly expanded on Crete, comprising mostly representatives of various transgressions against the social, professional and religious order. Often, they are identified by the tools of their trade with which they have committed their sin, e.g. a plough for the Farmer who Ploughs over the Boundary Line, a millstone for the Cheating Miller, or a pair of scissors for the Cheating Tailor. As Dionysios Stathakopoulos argues in Chapter 1, these attributes were added for the benefit of a largely illiterate congregation, serving preaching purposes.°° The compartments of Communal Punishments, by contrast, show groups of anonymous heads, or even - strikingly - uninterrupted darkness.
Named individuals, however, are found only in what in this publication is identified as the Place of Hell Formed by the River of Fire; they are mostly heretics and a few ancient emperors infamous for persecuting Christians. The Individual Sinners are in fact representatives of collectives, and they are not true individuals identified by name.” Here, it is proposed (Chapter 3) that the representations of Hell on Crete in their most complete form show not a simple distinction between individuals and collectives, but a gradual descent into anonymity, mirroring, perhaps, the prevailing sense of hierarchy and order in the Orthodox Church.** The descent, highlighted further by a ‘vertical’ structure, as Athanasios Semoglou remarks in Chapter 6, is accompanied by, in first instance, more graphic punishments inflicted on the figures of the Individual Sinners,”* and finally, total degradation of the individual in the compartments of Communal Punishments, a variant of the notion of Hell becoming progressively worse the deeper one goes into it, also famously underpinning Dante Alighieri’s description of the Inferno with its nine circles.** It should be emphasised, moreover, that Hell as shown on Crete comes in many variations, often containing just one or two of the abovementioned components, and that systematic generalisations about its underlying ‘plan’ are impossible to make.”
A second issue that has been raised in the literature concerns the narrative ‘moments’ or ‘phases’ that are shown in Byzantine representations of Hell. If the Last Judgement were a puzzle, it would consist of four major pieces, informed by biblical passages: the Second Coming; the Resurrection of the Bodies; the Last Judgement; and the End of the World.*° ‘The Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven’ (Dan. 7:13) marks the beginning of the Second Coming — Aeutépa Mapouoia, the Greek inscription which invariably accompanies the iconography of the Last Judgement in Byzantine churches.” This is mostly visualised by means of the Empty Throne - the Hetoimasia.** Some Cretan examples include the detail of Christ descending from Heaven in a cloud (known in iconography as the ‘Adventus’).*’ The resurrection of the body is narrated at 1 Corinthians 15, and translated into the iconography of the Earth and the Sea Giving Up their Dead. Overall, the depiction of the Last Judgement is based on the more straightforward narrative of Matthew 25:34—45, and on the rather more convoluted one of Revelation 17-22; it standardly incorporates elements from the latter passage, such as the Weighing of the Souls (Rev. 20).*° Some Cretan representations of Paradise appear to render the exact moment either just before or just after Christ’s judgement has been cast.*?
Marcello Angheben has argued that various components of the Byzantine representation of Hell may also show stages before and after the final judgement of the souls.** This discussion is complicated by the fact that Orthodox theology does not have the concept of Purgatory, the convenient ‘waiting area’ between death and the Last Judgement that the Catholic Church introduced in their vision of the afterlife around the 12th century.** The question of what happens to the souls of Orthodox believers after their passing (whether, depending on their behaviour in life, they would receive a taste of what was to come after the Last Judgement,** and whether it is possible for the immaterial soul to be subjected to physical torments while awaiting the final judgement*”) was of course a subject of debate in Orthodox theology from the Church Fathers onwards, and especially around the time of the Council of Ferrara/Florence in 1437/8, the politically motivated attempt to reconcile the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.*® Modern scholarship has examined this debate in some detail.*”
Of course, it is doubtful that the inhabitants of remote villages on Crete would have been familiar with the finer points of this discussion. Even the village priests may not have been aware, and if they were, it is still unlikely that they would have attempted to instruct their congregations. The variation that is found among the representations of Hell on Crete suggests strongly that these images did not seek to convey a precise theology either. It is far more plausible that village priests would have used the terrifying visions of the divine punishment of sin as a simple deterrent, to instil the fear of God among their fellow villagers.
After all, of those subjected to the Last Judgement, only two parties could be certain of their final destination: the Good Thief and the Devil. According to Luke 23:43, the thief who was crucified to the right of Christ at Golgotha, and acknowledged Christ’s divinity, has Christ’s promise of residing with Him in Paradise, a detail often reflected in iconography by a male figure holding a cross inside the Garden of Paradise. John 16:11 relates how the Devil was judged by Christ’s death at the Cross; he was cast into the depths of Hades (Hell) (Rev. 20:2-3); and God has judged the fallen angels and has sent them to the Outer Darkness (2 Pet. 2:4).** The uncertainty of all others awaiting the Last Judgement must have been an effective teaching tool for priests, especially when they could point at vivid representations of the River of Fire, the punishment of Individual Sinners, and the ultimate degradation of the compartments of Communal Punishments.
It is difficult for a 21st-century audience, over-saturated with man-made visual stimuli, to comprehend how the late medieval viewers of representations of Hell would have interacted with such powerful images. As mentioned above, these images still have the ability to attract attention Giuseppe Gerola and George Seferis being but two famous examples of those who have come under their spell. The eye-level placement of the sadistic punishments of the individual sinners suggests that they were designed for maximum impact. It would have been impossible to avoid a confrontation with the humiliation, pain and suffering portrayed. As the rural churches are for the most part of moderate dimensions, the confined, dark spaces may perhaps even have added to the sense of discomfort they provoke.
It would be utopic to believe that we could ever achieve a complete understanding and reconstruction of past societies. Publications such as the present one, however, provide a multifaceted lens into the historical roots of our complicated present world. Combining a large amount of data with analysis by a range of different experts, they aim to fuel new research and contribute to the preservation of past evidence for future generations.
CK ok
To facilitate the examination of the topic and to highlight Hell’s emergence in monumental painting not as a concrete array of images, but as a diversified mirroring of social perceptions of sin, this volume is divided into two parts; Part I contains four chapters dealing with the core material from Crete, while Part II has four chapters that present material from the wider Mediterranean - Cappadocia, northern Greece (mainly the region of Macedonia), the Peloponnese and Cyprus.
Part I starts with a chapter by Dionysios Stathakopoulos, itself divided into two parts. In the first, he presents the textual sources that have had a seminal influence on the establishment of a visual vocabulary of transgressions that appear in depictions of Hell in monumental painting. He focuses on the development of ideas of punishment in the afterlife, tracing their origins from the Old and the New Testament to late Byzantine theology. Having identified initial depictions of punishments in ancient Greek, Egyptian and Roman texts, a continuity also highlighted by Rainer Warland (Part II, Chapter 5), Stathakopoulos considers the extent to which depictions of Hell in text and image interact with each other. He analyses the way in which images of Hell are based on apocalyptic texts such as the Apocalypse of Elijah (1st century ap), the Apocalypse of Esdras (2nd to 9th century), the Apocalypse of Paul (5th to 6th century), the Apocalypse of Peter (5th to 7th century), the Apocalypse of the Theotokos (9th to 11th century), and the Apocalypse of Anastasia (10th century). These apocryphal texts were popular in shaping ideas on punishment; however, they do not always assist our understanding of the iconography of Hell, as this also reflects the social preoccupations of the community that commissioned the cycle. Hence, Stathakopoulos, in the second part of his chapter, turns to Joseph Bryennios (born around 1350), who recorded a vivid depiction of his experiences during his appointment on Crete, in an attempt to look into the contemporary society that commissioned the Cretan Hell cycles.
Bryennios devoted a number of texts to the subject of the Last Judgement, which highlight the moral failing of the congregation as well as the lack of Orthodox bishops on the island. Thus, the unusual proliferation of Hell scenes on rural Crete may have been part of an attempt to maintain social and religious order at a time when the Church lacked executive power to enforce control, through fear of eternal punishment.
The implications of the dissolution of the Orthodox ecclesiastical hierarchy in Venetian Crete and the influence this had on the imagery of Hell are the core of Charalambos Gasparis’ assessment. He develops the material addressed in Stathakopoulos’ chapter. Gasparis offers an overview of the continuities and novelties in the political, administrative, economical and ecclesiastical realm that shaped a society that produced numerous images of Hell, as examined by Lymberopoulou in the following chapter. Shedding light especially on the ecclesiastical situation on the island, Gasparis provides a detailed analysis of the organisation of the local Orthodox Church, and acknowledges that the main problems the Venetian authorities had to address on Crete were firstly the control of the numerous Orthodox priests and secondly the involvement of a significant number of priests and monks in insurrections. These factors resulted in the institutionalisation of the office of the protopapas, who was responsible for all Orthodox priests, a prohibition against other Orthodox clergy entering the island and, in case they were successful, their expulsion from it. In their absence, ecclesiastical dignitaries and scholars such as Anthimos of Athens or Joseph Bryennios, as Stathakopoulos shows in his chapter, were sent to Crete by the Orthodox Patriarch to strengthen the Orthodox community and/or to prevent conversion to Catholicism. Gasparis observes that, despite the lack of an Orthodox ecclesiastical presence on Crete, the numerous churches that emerged or were decorated, especially during the 14th century, remained the main loci of Orthodox worship. The 14th century was a golden age for church renovation and construction, thanks to political stability after the turbulent 13th century and economic growth, which resulted in the adoption of the process of sponsorship. As a result, a large variety of images of Hell emerged on Crete, the study of which has become essential for our understanding of social norms as well as the enforcement of Venetian penal law and the survival of Byzantine law on the island. Thus, adopting Bryennios’ approach to the Hell scenes (as identified by Stathakopoulos), Gasparis sees the scenes of Hell as a reminder to worshippers that offences are equal to sins and sins demand punishment. Gasparis groups the offences depicted in the Cretan Orthodox churches into six categories:
1. ‘Universal’ crimes, which take place in both urban and rural contexts (e.g. murder, theft and robbery);
2. Offences committed by professionals active in either the city or the village (e.g. by millers, tailors, tavern keepers, and those who cheat at their scales);
3. Offences committed by professionals active mainly (but not solely) in the cities (e.g. by the usurer or the notary who falsified documents);
4. Transgressions relating to everyday life in both cities and villages (e.g. by adulterers, fornicators, perjurers etc.);
5. Offences relating exclusively to rural life (e.g. by farmers who plough and reap over the boundary line);
6. Transgressions relating to religious life and the observance of church tules (e.g. sleeping in on a Sunday), both in urban and rural contexts.
However, as Angeliki Lymberopoulou demonstrates in the following chapter, sharp distinctions between rural and urban sinners were not a primary concern in Cretan imagery of Hell; rather, they underline the dire consequences of committing crimes and offences of a religious, professional, social and moral nature.
Gasparis’ contribution concludes with a comparative analysis of offences, presented in both pictorial and textual form, as found in hitherto unpublished documents from the Venetian archives, where the social, economic and religious profile of the donors is also reflected. Gasparis correlates iconography to its social background and demonstrates how images can mirror aspects of the society that depicted Hell in their churches. These texts significantly enhance our understanding of the imagery of Hell in Venetian Crete, which in the following chapter by Angeliki Lymberopoulou are examined in 107 distinct examples from Cretan churches.
Angeliki Lymberopoulou identifies the basic characteristics of the imagery of Hell (the Place of Hell Formed by the River of Fire, Individual Sinners and Communal Punishments), but highlights the absence of iconographical standardisation. Since Hell signified divergence from the preaching of the Orthodox Church and highlighted to the faithful the consequences of sin, it was often formed according to the degree to which communities were affected by each transgression. To highlight the significance of repentance, individual sinners are often placed at eye level, creating a telling proximity between sinners and churchgoers, who are brutally reminded of the significance their own deeds could have in determining their final destination - Paradise or Hell. Hell, as an iconographical manual of social justice, largely dwells within communities, therefore it reflects not only the Church’s condemnation of wrongdoing, but also social indignation, as shown in the depiction of the thief Leontis at Sklavopoula, Church of the Virgin (cat. no. 35). Thanks to the freedom of association offered by depictions of Hell, societies created micro-Hells, where the faithful determined who would be sent to Hell, following social disgrace. Thus, it can be argued that Cretan imagery of Hell acts as the Church’s call for repentance from the faithful, encouraging social disapproval of those who transgress against penal and ethical law.
The association of religious texts with everyday professions in depictions of Hell has varied results. Texts provide a dogmatic basis for the depiction of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. At the same time, the professions depicted offer us a valuable insight into the economic structure of society and the role of women in a social structure where the male was dominant. It also highlights the fact that certain professions important for that society (e.g. shoemakers, coopers) are conspicuous by their absence from the sinners depicted in Hell. Lymberopoulou points out how the visual representation of the torments of sinners would have affected the faithful, emphasising the importance of living a Christian life.
Rembrandt Duits offers a different geographical setting for the study of the Cretan representations of Hell by focusing on the Western aspect of Italo-Byzantine cultural interaction. His chapter presents a new perspective on the origins of certain elements in the Cretan images of Hell, which he suggests may have been derived from Western art, ‘and Italian art in particular’. He draws on a representative sample of 25 per cent of all the Cretan wall paintings showing Hell that appear to deviate from preestablished Byzantine traditions. The geographical dispersion and chronological range of the sample mean that this iconographic divergence cannot, according to Duits, ‘be explained as the impact of a single Cretan master or a local “school”’. The author draws our attention to iconographic elements that suggest the interaction of Cretan and Italian artists, such as devils pulling souls with ropes or chains, frontally rendered processions of sinners, the double-headed Dragon of the Depths, the structure of Hell, and inscriptions that identify certain sinners. Through a comparative analysis of these iconographic deviations in Cretan renditions of Hell and Italian art, Duits identifies a creative interaction between the two.
Regarding the first detail, the author locates at Selli, Saint John the Evangelist (cat. no. 70) devils pulling souls by means of ropes or chains, as also found in Western art from the 12th century onwards, in Giotto’s Last Judgement in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua (1306), and in the parekklesion of the Chora Monastery (terminus ante quem, 1321). Moreover, the frontally rendered processions of sinners at the Church of Christ the Saviour, Potamies (cat. no. 90) and at Kritsa, Saint John the Baptist (cat. no. 99) appear to correspond to the mosaic in the Baptistery in Florence (late 13th century); they use a form of foreshortening not normally found in Byzantine art. As to the Dragon of the Depths, eight Cretan murals show the dragon with two symmetrically placed heads, instead of in its regular guise, with the head and upper body of a dragon and the tail of a fish (cat. nos 6, 47, 75, 80, 96, 98, 99, 107); the double-headed dragons are related to Western representations.
Duits indicates that one of the trends in Western art for depicting the internal structure of Hell is that of “Chaotic Hell’. Seven Cretan murals, dispersed across three prefectures (Chania, Herakleion and Lassithi), show sinners randomly placed in a single space (cat. nos 6, 10, 20, 21, 79, 82, 99). From the lack of stylistic similarities between these seven images, Duits concludes that it ‘would have required seven different artists to come up with the same idea independently in different places at different times’. Thus, the author suggests that the seven different versions of the same theme may be the result of the direct or indirect influence of a Western model, which Cretan painters adapted to suit Byzantine norms.
Duits points out that the interaction between the two sets of inhabitants on Venetian Crete had a linguistic impact, as evident from the term o Coupdépns (usurer’), which is effectively a Greek rendition of the Latin usurarius. In essence, Duits’s chapter extends the scope of ByzantineWestern interaction and demonstrates that Cretan painters may have drawn on Western art to enrich the visual vocabulary of their representations of Hell.
Duits’s chapter concludes the first part of the volume, which deals with the rich and diverse Cretan material. Part II considers representations of Hell from the wider Mediterranean. It opens with a chapter by Rainer Warland, who examines Cappadocia, a region that greatly influenced the evolution of the iconography of Hell. It is here that the earliest surviving examples of Hell in Byzantine monumental art are to be found. The author discusses the iconographical and textual background to the iconography of Hell in the sepulchral churches of Cappadocia, which date from between 900 and the 13th century. He examines the relationship of the theme of Hell to written and pictorial sources and how its various characteristics developed over time; the depiction of Hell was constantly evolving as new elements were added. He argues that Cappadocia’s geographical position, history and transcultural exchanges resulted in a multi-ethnic society and a varied treatment of the theme. As in the chapters by Stathakopoulos, Gasparis and Lymberopoulou that consider Crete, Warland shows that the social function of depictions of Hell in Cappadocia was primarily to promote social norms and maintain ecclesiastical order. Moreover, the author draws attention to an additional function of iconography, that of offering a sense of personal vindication to all who observed Christian ethics and did not identify themselves with the sinners depicted.
Warland suggests that ancient Greek, Hellenistic and Roman iconographical motifs influenced Cappadocian representations of Hell. It is also in Cappadocia that the author locates early examples of Hell scenes found near the church entrance, seen also in the later Cretan examples examined by Lymberopoulou in Part 1 (Chapter 3). Starting with the earliest dated example, the Yilanli Kilise (around ap 900), the author identifies the basic elements of Hell imagery, such as creatures of Hell, women tortured by snakes, and compartments of Communal Punishments. Piirenli Seki Kilise, dated to the 10th century, offers the oldest example of collective punishments targeting men and women separately. Another important period for the development of Hell imagery in Cappadocia is the 13th century, when churches included iconographic innovations that became common in subsequent Last Judgement scenes, such as single-framed Hell scenes, emphasis on the ministries of angels, and the identification of the Scales of Justice in inscriptions. Overall, Warland’s contribution lies in the presentation of the origins of the iconographical elements in the monumental Hell imagery as part of the Last Judgement.
The role of sponsorship and its influence on the iconographical depiction of Hell in Byzantine (Greek) Macedonia is examined by Athanasios Semoglou. The author argues that donors affect the use and character of the monument chosen as their burial place. Like other contributors in this volume, Semoglou vividly demonstrates the connection between the iconography of Hell and the hopes of the faithful for eternal life. The author suggests that depictions of Hell do not illustrate the consequences of the Last Judgement, but rather the moment before saints and sinners were sent to Heaven or Hell, something that Lymberopoulou suggests applies also to certain Cretan examples. In turn, this was a strong motivation for donors to commission images of the Last Judgement.
Semoglou recognises differences in the precautionary function of the scenes between the early and the middle Byzantine periods in the degree to which they depict the dispensing of justice and the punishment of the unworthy. The author asserts that during the middle Byzantine period two major changes occurred that led to the articulation of the dipole between sin/punishment and virtue/reward, the first being the consolidation of the Last Judgement in the narthex and the second its vertical alignment (the latter noted in the structure of Cretan Hell by Lymberopoulou).
An example of the new formulation of Hell imagery and the influence of sponsorship on its iconography is, according to the author, seen in the parable of the Rich Man and the Poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The earliest example of this tendency is found in the Church of Saint Stephen in Kastoria, dated to the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century. In a sinful woman tormented by snakes, with her back turned on the Rich Man, Semoglou recognises a female donor who identifies herself with the repentant Rich Man and thus requests a place in Heaven. Similarly, in the Church of Saint Athanasios of Mouzaki (1383/4) and in the parekklesion of the Chora Monastery (1321) we also find a wealthy sinner identified with the founder of the church, who hopes that this act of sponsorship will redeem his sins. The last two examples, according to Semoglou, have as common denominator the proximity of the donors’ tomb to the scene of the parable of the Rich Man, expressing the patrons’ wish to be granted a place in Paradise.
Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Panayotis S. Katsafados explore the iconography of Hell in churches in the Peloponnese produced between the 12th and the 14th centuries. Having as their starting point churches in large settlements in Mystras and Chrysapha, the authors present different approaches to Hell within the damnation/reward duality. In particular, Gerstel and Katsafados argue that the Brontocheion Monastery emphasises salvation rather than damnation, as Semoglou finds in the Church of Saint Stephen in Kastoria, and Warland much earlier, in the Yilanli Kilise. In Panagia Chrysaphitissa, the role of the donor in shaping the iconography is shown in the way Paradise is placed on the side where the tomb of the founder is located. It is worth noting that in these examples, Hell is given a specific chronological setting. In other words, damnation has not yet occurred; both the righteous and the sinners are awaiting Christ’s final judgement, which the donors hope will grant them entry into Paradise.
Gerstel and Katsafados move their examination of Hell images to the Mani peninsula, arguing that the churches in this region show a change in emphasis by focusing on transgressions relating to village life. This is seen in the depiction of certain sinners, such as makers of poison or casters of spells. While these specific sinners are also included in certain Cretan examples, as Lymberopoulou notes, they are not a common feature of representations of Hell. They probably reflect local concerns about magic being practised against members of the community. Hence, the sins depicted in images of Hell act as a mirror for the social values of the time, just as Lymberopoulou argues for Venetian Crete.
Annemarie Weyl Carr’s chapter concludes the Mediterranean itinerary of volume 1 by examining the depiction of Hell on Cyprus, an island which historically had a close connection with Crete. She examines the iconographic development of Cypriot Hell in twenty-two depictions of the Last Judgement, which she divides into three chronological clusters.
The initial group of images dates from between the 12th and the mid14th century. In the Church of Saint Nicholas tis Stegis (12th century), two groups are awaiting the judgement that will consign them either to Paradise or to Hell; nothing, however, indicates what that judgement will be. No attempt is made to illustrate Hell as a specific place. A shift in the punishment/reward approach is made in the Church of Panagia Phorbiotissa (1332/3), where according to Weyl Carr the presence of identified sinners demonstrates that punishment is taking place; Hell is not vague any more but a state of being, a process. In the Phorbiotissa, sinful clergy, both Latin and Orthodox (as attested also in a number of Cretan examples), are placed in Hell.
The innovation in churches from the second group, dating from between the mid-14th and the late 15th century, is according to the author the clear differentiation between redemption and condemnation expressed by the concentration of Hell on a single surface (as also seen in Cappadocia) that faces scenes from the Christological cycle. Hence, the author suggests that in the Church of the Holy Cross in Kouka (15th century) Hell is transformed from a state of being into a place.
It is in the third and final chronological cluster of churches, dating from between the late 15th and the 16th century, that Weyl Carr sees a major shift in the idea of Hell as a defined space. Thus, in the Church of Christ Antiphonitis (c. 1500) in particular, Hell is uniquely depicted as a bellshaped enclosure, while in the Church of Stavros tou Agiasmati (16th century) the fiery angel is shown attacking the Lord of Darkness within his realm.
As far as the dichotomy between damnation and reward is concerned, the churches on Cyprus show that this was irrelevant to the portrayal of Hell as a specific place. The congregation would have been aware of damnation and retribution, as many examples in the previous chapters in this volume prove. Nevertheless, the contribution of the Cypriot churches to the imagery of Hell shows a growing tendency to attribute spatial qualities to Hell. Perhaps the Church wished to make damnation more concrete by identifying Hell with constructions that the faithful could recognise from their everyday life. The innovation of picturing Hell as a specific location proves what Lymberopoulou has already noted — that images of Hell are far from standardised and are thus open to free association. Alteration and/or additions in iconography are crucial, because in them lies the contribution of the society, which depicted in the mural its own perception of Hell, and the hope that, if not in this life, then certainly in the next, the good will be rewarded and the bad will be punished in an ugly manner; the afterlife of Orthodox Christianity has no grey zones.
The eight studies underline the richness of the Cretan material that has been placed at the centre of this publication. Overall, the most significant aspect of Hell imagery that emerges from this set of studies lies in the dichotomy between condemnation and reward. One element that each contribution highlights equally is the significance of Hell for Christian congregations as a place of eternal punishment for all earthly transgressions — professional, moral and religious. Hell was perceived both from the perspective of the faithful and of the sinner, two groups which are not distinguished from each other. Sinners are Christians who have lost their way and are reminded to return to the Church where they belong. Visually, this call is almost always made in the narthex, where, having heard the Word of God in the liturgy, Hell invites the congregation to remain true to their faith and lead their lives according to Christian norms. Still, in the ultimate moment of their Judgement, Christ awaits their acknowledgement of their errors, so that they can be forgiven. As an instrument in the hands of the Church, Hell is a demand for immediate repentance, where forgiveness will open the gates of Paradise only for those who are tormented by remorse. For the rest, images of Hell do not simply define their sins, but also the consequences of their free choice of Evil over Good. In the end, the study of Hell imagery contributes significantly to our understanding of how societies illustrated aspects of collective memory, since it identifies sin not only as the result of an individual’s moral failing but as a factor that is disruptive of communal cohesion.
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