Download PDF | Jelena Bogdanović, Ida Sinkević, Marina Mihaljević, Cedomila Marinkovic - Type and Archetype in Late Antique and Byzantine Art and Archite, Brill, 2023.
317 Pages
Acknowledgments
This book is the result of collegiate friendship and shared long-term interests in late antique and Byzantine art and architecture. Trained in various disciplines from art history to architectural engineering, we often have to deal with the inconsistency of the terminology we use when discussing various kinds of cross-cultural artistic accomplishments in the wider Mediterranean.
Type and Archetype in Late Antique and Byzantine Art and Architecture grew out of a panel discussion about typology and meanings of relevant terms. The panel was originally conceived in 2012 and presented within the communication session at the 23rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, held in Belgrade, Serbia, in August 2016. As often happens in academia, while some participants at the conference were not able to continue the pursuit of publication of our deliberations and findings due to family and professional obligations, other contributors became involved. Years later, at the moment when this book is approaching its publication, we would love to thank individuals and institutions that provided stalwart support.
Our first thanks go to the conference participants and contributors to this volume for their friendship, kindness, patience, collegiality, and expertise. We also thank the organizers of the Congress of Byzantine Studies, who gave us an opportunity to present the relevance of the topic of type and archetype to the wider scholarly audience. Additional thanks are due to the leadership of the College of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Vanderbilt University for logistic and financial support. Above all, we thank the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, John G. Geer; Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs and Finances, Kamal Saggi; Chair of Classical and Mediterranean Studies, William Caferro; Chair of History of Art and Architecture, Kevin Murphy; and administrative coordinator Julia Kamasz.
At Brill, we are immensely grateful to Sarah Blick and Laura D. Gelfand, editors of the series Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, Kate Hammond, acquisition editor, and Marcella Mulder, editor. We cannot ever be grateful enough for their time, focus, promptness, expertise, professionalism, cheer, and genuine support of this project. The expert guidance of the editorial team at Brill, strengthened by the erudite and constructive assessment by the anonymous reviewer, helped us refine and prepare the manuscript for publication. Copyediting and various stages of the book production were carried out by Joe Hannan, Marianne Noble, and Fem Eggers. For illustrative material we thank the Blago Fund, the Foundation of the Holy Monastery Hilandar, the Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nebojga Stankovi¢, Alexandar (Alex) Blum, Ivan Drpi¢, Joshua Schwartz, and Yehoshua Peleg. Our families supported this project with grace and love.
Jelena Bogdanovi¢, Ida Sinkevi¢, Marina Mihaljevi¢, and Cedomila Marinkovié September 2022.
Notes on Contributors
Anna Adashinskaya (PhD, Central European University, Budapest-Vienna) is a research fellow at the Oriental Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a postdoctoral member of the ERC project Art Historiographies in Central and Eastern Europe: An Inquiry from the Perspective of Entangled Histories. She completed her PhD in Medieval Studies with a dissertation on practices of ecclesiastic foundation, sponsorship, and patronage. Her main research interests concern monasticism in the Balkans and the interaction between Slavic Balkan States and Byzantium during the late medieval period.
Jelena Andelkovié Grasar
(PhD, University of Belgrade) is a senior research associate at the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade, Serbia. Her research interests are the history of art and visual culture in antiquity, late antiquity, early Christianity, and early Byzantium, as well as gender studies and women’s history within these periods. Her secondary field of interest is cultural heritage, its educational potential, management, presentation, interpretation and popularization. Andelkovi¢é GraSar is secretary of the editorial board of the journal Starinar. She was an associate in several EU-funded projects and manager in three: TRAME—Tracce di memoria (2020-2023) and CooLToUR-Millennials for cultural heritage (2022-2024) from the ERASMUS+ program and SHELeadrersVR (2022-2025) from the Creative Europe program. She has co-organized international conferences at Viminacium Archaeological Park, Serbia, the exhibition Jtinerarium Romanum Serbiae in Santiago de Chile, and was the president of the national organization committee of the Fifteenth Annual International Conference on Comparative Mythology—Sacred Ground: Place and Space in Mythology and Religion held in Belgrade and Viminacium. She is the author of the book Femina Antica Balcanica and numerous scholarly articles.
Jelena Bogdanovié (PhD, Princeton University) is Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University. She specializes in cross-cultural and religious themes in the architecture of the Balkans and Mediterranean. Among her authored and edited books are The Framing of Sacred Space: The Canopy and the Byzantine Church (2017), Icons of Space: Advances in Hierotopy (2021, paper edition 2023), Perceptions of the Body and Sacred Space in Late Antiquity and Byzantium (2018, paper edition 2020), Space of the Icon: Iconography and Hierotopy (2019, with Michele Bacci and Vladimir Sedov), Political Landscapes of Capital Cities (2016, with Jessica Christie and Eulogio Guzman), and On the Very Edge: Modernism and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia (1918-1941) (2014, with Lilien Robinson and Igor Marjanovic¢).
Cedomila Marinkovié
(PhD, University of Belgrade) is an independent researcher from Belgrade. Trained as an art and architectural historian, she specializes in Serbian medieval and Byzantine art. Marinkovicé has published several books including monographs Petar Oméikus (1998), Slika podignute crkve [Image of the completed church] (2007), Jews in Belgrade 1521-1942 (2020), and Synagogues in Vojvodina (2022). Among her publications are peer-reviewed articles: “Founder’s Model—Representation of a Maquette or the Church?” (2007), “A Live Craft: The Architectural Drawings on the Facade of the Church of the Holy Virgin Evergetis in Studenica (Serbia) and the Architectural Model from Cerven (Bulgaria)’ (2008), and “Principles of the Representation of the Founder’s Architecture in Serbian Medieval and Byzantine Art” (2013). Marinkovic’s second field of expertise is Jewish art. She is currently preparing for publication of her dissertation, “Constructing the Stage for Narrative: Representations of Architecture in the Sarajevo Haggadah and Illuminated Sephardic Haggadot of the 14th Century.” Marinkovié has received fellowships and grants from the University of Belgrade, the Italian Government, and Athens University, and was awarded the Zeni Lebl award for the best scientific work on a Jewish topic for her PhD thesis.
Marina Mihaljevié (PhD, Princeton University) is Assistant Professor of Art and Architectural History at the State University of Novi Pazar, Serbia. Her specialization is in the field of architectural exchange within the broader Byzantine sphere, especially in the regions of the Balkans and the Mediterranean. She is the author of several articles on Byzantine architecture, including “Religious Architecture” (2021), “Change in Byzantine Architecture” (2016) and “Ucayak: A Forgotten Byzantine Church” (2014).
Ljubomir Milanovi¢é (PhD, Rutgers University) is a research associate at the Institute for Byzantine Studies at the Serbian Academy for Sciences and Arts, Belgrade. Trained as an art historian, he specializes in late antique, early Christian, and medieval art with a focus on Byzantine and post-Byzantine production. Milanovi¢ is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, including “On the Threshold of Certainty: The Incredulity of Thomas in the Narthex of the Katholikon of the Hosios Loukas Monastery” (2013), “Cover Girl: Envisioning the Veil in the Work of Milena Pavlovié-Barilli” (2014), “Illuminating Touch: Post-Resurrection Scenes on the Diptych from the Hilandar Monastery” (2015), “The Path to Redemption: Reconsidering the Role of the Image of the Virgin above the Entrance to the Church of the Virgin Hodegetria” (2016), and “Delivering the Sacred: Representing Translatio on the Trier Ivory” (2018). Milanovi¢ is currently preparing for publication of his dissertation, “The Politics of Translatio: The Visual Representation of the Translation of Relics in the Early Christian and Medieval Period, The Case of St. Stephen.” He has received fellowships and grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ecole francaise de Rome, the Delaware Valley Medieval Association, and the Studenica Foundation.
Cecilia Olovsdotter
(PhD, University of Gothenburg) is a classical archaeologist and art historian affiliated as senior research fellow to the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. She specializes in Roman and late antique art and architecture, with an emphasis on triumphal iconographies of commemorative and religious art. Among her publications are The Consular Image: An Iconological Study of the Consular Diptychs (2005), “Representing Consulship: On the Conception and Meanings of the Consular Diptychs” (2011), “To Illustrate the History of Art’ John Brampton Philpot’s Photographic Collection and the Study and Mediation of Late Antique Ivories in the Mid Nineteenth Century” (2016), and the edited volume Envisioning Worlds in Late Antique Art: New Perspectives on Abstraction and Symbolism in Late-Roman and Early-Byzantine Visual Culture (2019), including her own contribution “Architecture and the Spheres of the Universe in Late Antique Art.” She is currently finishing a monograph on Victoria and the cosmic conception of victory in the art of the Late Roman Empire.
Ida Sinkevié (PhD, Princeton University) is the Arthur J. ’55 and Barbara Rothkopf Professor of Art History at Lafayette College, in Easton, Pennsylvania. Her research is focused on Byzantine art and on the impact of medieval visual culture on later periods. Her publications include a number of articles, a book on the church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi in the Republic of North Macedonia, and an edited volume, Knights in Shining Armor: Myth and Reality 1450-1650 (2006).
Introduction
Jelena Bogdanovi¢, Ida Sinkevié, Marina Mihaljevié, and Cedomila Marinkovié
This book, Type and Archetype in Late Antique and Byzantine Art and Architecture, aims to renew interest in typology within late antique and Byzantine art and architectural history. In particular, it suggests paths for revising approaches to typology as a way of organizing our knowledge about visual and representational aspects of art and architecture in the Mediterranean region. Instead of aiming for a comprehensive treatment of historical developments of visual types and their diversity, the authors focus rather on selected examples of art and architecture that offer historical specificity and provide relevant frameworks for a more nuanced understanding of concepts of type and archetype in late antiquity and Byzantium as well as their relevance to typology as a scholarly method.
Art historians usually associate types with easily identifiable and visually recognizable artistic forms. In the medieval religious context, the most prevalent typological investigations of art forms start with textual references in the Bible, as, for example, in the work of the English monk and scholar Bede (c.673-735).! Biblical typology is framed by the relationship between the Old and New Testaments and is articulated already in the texts of the New Testament.
In such a construct, Old Testament prophetic narratives and forms are understood as types (tUmoc, plural toot) which, based on some kind of likeness, prefigure New Testament fulfillment in antitypes (avtituma): as when Adam is the type that prefigures Christ as antitype, or the human-made sanctuary is the antitype of the true heavens (cf. Romans 5:14; Hebrews 9:24). Such theological typology is highly suggestive of an analogue approach to contemporaneous religious visual arts and architecture.” Even if not specifically named as such, visual typology became one of the major principles of representation and referentiality in Judeo-Christian arts and has been particularly utilized in iconographical studies.?
The repetitive use of various visual types and their reproducibility solidify recognizable forms and confer familiar meanings that point beyond themselves to the ultimate source: the archetype (apyétumov).* The universality of such an approach builds upon the idea of type as a fixed expression of the all-encompassing action of God as the Creator. Yet, when detailed through historical, regional, and cultural frameworks and investigated through differing modes of creative expression, the typological method is complicated. Defining and clearly classifying types and then studying them in a systematic way proves to be inconsistent and quite complex.
In this volume, we reassess methodologies that address type and archetype, as its ultimate source, by contextualizing questions of typology within the scope of Judeo-Christian primary textual sources and evidence emerging from selected art and architectural examples in the Mediterranean region. Prevailing general definitions of type and typology distinguish between the two related concepts, whereby a type is a grouping (class) based on common features, while typology is the systematic classification of types according to their shared characteristics. The typological approach in studies of late antique and Byzantine visual arts and architecture predominantly stems from taxonomic classification of formal, representational features of art and architecture.
The methods of typological investigation are rooted in iconographical studies, interchangeably used for the visual arts and architecture. By looking at ‘typical’ visual elements we discuss various types of images and icons, through examination of their content, formal characteristics, inscriptions, placement, or historical styles. Some art historians focus on shared iconographic, representational, and above all visual features of various types of religious icons, as when discussing various classes of saints—amilitary saints, ascetic or monastic saints.” Yet, as scholars continually raise the question of likeness, Katherine Marsengill effectively argues that Byzantine icons were true portraits that conformed to religious prototypes (from ancient Greek npwtdtumov, meaning original, primitive form), rather than actually resembling the person portrayed.® These questions of likeness and mimetic qualities of types complicate the applicability of iconographical methods within the considerations of typology and its relevance within image theory.
Similarly, by examining ‘typical’ floor plans, construction techniques, stylistic features, and functions of the buildings we study, we establish a variety of architectural types. While iconographical approaches used for studying typology in the visual arts are akin to those employed in architecture in considering shared representational and functional features of architectural examples, they are also diverging. In prevailing studies of late antique and Byzantine architecture, the type often encompasses the idea of a planning type—a distinct scheme of the building layout. This notion of architectural type includes general outline and its proportions as well as the division of inner spaces of a building by means of the masonry walls, masonry piers, or stone monoliths.
Accordingly, the basilica, one of the most common architectural types, can be described as an oblong building divided in its interior by longitudinal rows of columns placed symmetrically to the building major axis. The interior is comprised of elongated subspaces—the middle space, the nave, is wider than the lateral aisles. Because this type of building can accommodate large groups of people, it was used in antiquity for civic structures and then reappropriated for religious functions in late antiquity and medieval times. Among centrally planned buildings, in which at least two sides are of equal length and the main central space is symmetrical when bisected laterally and longitudinally, are those based on the circle, the square, and polygons, often hexagons and octagons. These centrally planned buildings were often used in late antiquity and Byzantium for funerary and commemorative structures, such as mausolea and martyria, as well as for baptisteries. An architectural planning type characteristic of Middle Byzantine church architecture that developed after the mid-gth century is the so-called cross-in-square. This architectural type represents the building with a centralized, usually square, naos preceding the tripartite sanctuary. The interior space of the naos is divided in nine equal portions by means of four vertical columns which support the church’s upper structure.
The categorization of buildings presented here points to their horizontal layout, but the ‘planning type’ unavoidably includes three-dimensional spatial characteristics. In the case of churches of the basilican type, it is supposed that the nave is not only wider but also higher than the lateral aisles. As a result, the light is introduced into the interior of the building by a tier of openings, the clerestory, placed in the masonry above the line of vertical supports between the lower lateral and higher central roofs. In centrally planned structures, the core space developed around its vertical axis is the major defining element in understanding the structure. If it lacks openings and windows, the dark interior would be suggestive of tomb architecture as used in pagan traditions. If the central open space is defined as light-filled by window openings, it would indicate an early Jewish or Christian building, because light is an attribute of God in these two monotheistic religions in the late antique Mediterranean. Likewise, the four interior columns of the more complex cross-in-square Byzantine churches carry the central dome. The dome is supported by pendentives (curved triangles) positioned between the barrel vaultings surmounting the four arms of the cross bays. The corner compartments are much lower and are frequently covered by domical or cross vaults. On the exterior, this system bears the recognizable pyramidal composition of the main architectural volumes, with the crowning dome above the central portion of the building, the four cross arms just below the dome drum, and the lowest peripheral corner compartments.’ In view of the close relationship between the ground plan and the structural, three-dimensional appearance of the building, the term ‘structural type, is more pertinent to the idea of type in late antique and Byzantine architecture and is practically interchangeable with the term ‘planning type’
In religious architecture, the naos most often defines the type, while the sanctuary and the narthex are secondary spaces in terms of architectural feasibility. Symmetry emerges as critical for architectural and structural ordering. For example, the tri-partite sanctuary of a distinctly Byzantine church has three separate spaces of the prothesis, altar space and diaconicon, of which the first two are actually required for the performance of liturgical rites. Likewise, the narthex, the exonarthex, and other auxiliary spaces can be understood more as additions rather than primary spaces in terms of defining the church type.
The advantages of utilizing typology as a major methodological device in the study of church buildings had been justified by the correlation between the changes in the predominant building types and the occurrence of new ones in accordance with the liturgical changes that had affected the Byzantine rite between the 7th and early 9th centuries.!° The changes in church architecture and the appearance of the novel planning types in the Middle Byzantine period has been seen as a result of the standardization of rite and related functional demands." This in effect means that the typology has been considered as concordant both with functional and chronological categories.!
In her work on the regional reception of Constantinopolitan 12th-century architecture, Mihaljevic elucidates the art historical constructs regarding the much debated transition from the old to the new types in Byzantine architecture.!3 She analyzes methodological approaches to the category of type in Middle Byzantine architecture, particularly the cross-in-square, which had been evaluated as an ‘ideal’ type, fully concomitant not only with the functional-ritual requirements but also with the other artistic and architectural aspects of wider religious meanings, including the interior decorative system and the exterior appearance of the church building.*
The fundamental change in the search for the ‘ideal’ church type that affected building planning between the 7th and gth centuries was in dramatic opposition to the later continuation of the Middle Byzantine planning formulas, especially the cross-in-square architectural type.!5 This example posits the transition from the basilica to the centrally planned churches as a fundamental problem in tracing the historical development of Byzantine architecture.
The long-standing evolutionist approach involved preserved monuments essentially being lined up and assigned a position in the sequence of the evolution of the ideal cross-in-square church type.!® The so-called cross-domed church type played a particularly important role in this methodological model, because it was recognized as a turning point in the transition from axial to centrally planned church types.!” In Byzantine architecture, the chronological series, based primarily upon the church planning type, regularly included the Constantinopolitan cross-domed churches today known as Giil and the Kalenderhane Camii, which were long considered to be transitional monuments in the period between the 7th and gth centuries. The archaeological discoveries in both edifices and the resulting redating of the churches to the 12th century finally revealed the full scope of misconceptions inherent in the linear, evolutionist approach in architectural typology.!* In his analysis of the sustained use of basilica plans and adaptations of the cross-in-square church type beyond Byzantine architecture in the territories of medieval Bulgaria, Serbia, Rus’, the Vento, and the Norman Kingdom of southern Italy, Mark Johnson additionally points to two major themes of hybridity of architectural types and relationships in architectural typology in religious and civic architecture.!9
It is not possible to distinguish the architectural type from the ground plan (planar design) as it is inherently tied to the consideration of structure and tectonic articulation, nor how the interior relates to the exterior of the building. The building plan, stripped of other relevant architectural evidence, often does not offer the possibility of recognizing the upper construction and distinguishing the structural type. Byzantine buildings quite regularly display an incongruity in plans and structural systems of their substructure and superstructure.”° Buildings known by their ground-level plans preserve only fragmentary evidence about the overall design, which can be interpreted in various ways.”! This is especially relevant for the distinction between massive structural walls and the linear supports, which in effect defines the difference in architectural types in Byzantine architecture.
The prevailing typological approach in architecture has been broadened and substituted by more nuanced approaches. A number of additional factors, such as regional developments, also change the appearance of linear narrative of late antique and Byzantine architecture.” For example, the questions of building scale and availability of construction materials can be connected with the origins, dissemination, and endurance of particular planning types.” Despite its historic grounding in the liturgical function of the church, the idea of type in ecclesiastical architecture demonstrates only loose connections, or even absolute disjunction, with the mimetic qualities and variety of functions of church buildings—parish churches, cemetery churches, private chapels, or monastic churches. Mihaljevi¢ emphasizes the flexibility of Byzantine masters in resolving the particular structural, functional, and formal demands of the architectural design of the church. She proposes that in the process of design the Byzantine architects operated with spatial compartments, segments of the church building, and treated them as three-dimensional spatial units—blocks—suitable for combining. Such a procedure in effect resulted in myriad, ever-changing design solutions in Byzantine churches.*
In her previous work on architectural taxonomy, Bogdanovié¢ also offers an alternative approach to the consideration of type in late antiquity and Byzantium. She suggests a more plastic and integrated approach that starts directly with the three-dimensional building type and an understanding of architecture beyond the function of shelter to include the concept of the space that a building frames. The plastic treatment of the interior space and the consideration of light and acoustics as architectural elements of design suggest a more integrated understanding of Byzantine architectural typology. Based on the analysis of hundreds of churches, she reveals the relationships between the three-dimensional module, the canopy, and the design of the Byzantine church, most often recognized for its dome.*° Instead of following the prevailing typologies used to explain church design (such as the cross-in-square church), this approach considers a generative but non-imitative system instead—the nine-square grid design spatially articulated by a three-dimensional module of a canopy, a four-columned structure with a domical roof.
Today recognized as cross-domed, cross-in-square, or domed-octagon churches, these various building types associated with Byzantine architecture were all achieved by utilizing the opportunities of the nine-square grid diagram.”6 The use of the canopied building module allowed for flexibility of design and applications in various types of buildings, civic or religious, and for various types of church, whether they were basilicas or more centralized in plan. Such an approach also challenges the linear evolutionist narrative of Byzantine architecture that positions the period between the 7th and gth centuries as a major historical threshold for the transition from longitudinal to more centralized planning of churches.
The experimentations with the domical bay as a building module are highlights of 6th-century Byzantine architecture, as a point of mature transition from late antique precedents.?’ The paradigmatic canopied bay opened up possibilities for technical and creative innovations, including the sophisticated application of geometry and optics in architectural design beyond the Constantinopolitan Hagia Sophia. The square-based domical bay of the Chalke (Bronze) Gate is an exemplar of these experimentations. Emperor Justinian’s historian Procopius described the Chalke Gate, once the main vestibule of the Great Palace, in his invaluable text Buildings.2® The central structural part of the Chalke Gate was a canopy-like structure with a dome on pendentives, a key feature of Byzantine churches in 6th-century Constantinople. Procopius’s description of the interior decoration of the Chalke Gate also summarizes the major aesthetic principles of 6th-century architectural design, which were also used and attested on a larger scale for numerous Byzantine church edifices. All interior floors and vertical walls, up to the string course, were covered with marble revetments, while arches and vaults were covered with mosaics.
Of the more than 20 churches and shrines Emperor Justinian rebuilt or built in Constantinople, as mentioned by Procopius in his text, all three of the buildings which are still standing, Hagia Sophia, Hagia Eirene, and Ss. Sergios and Bakkos, have a domed canopy as the central structural unit.2° These structures are well lit and acoustically sound. The interior decoration of these buildings includes delicate architectural sculpture, marble carvings, golden mosaics, and monumental inscriptions with historical and religious content. These elements of architectural design and decoration, even if not always all used comprehensively, would remain aspirational criteria for numerous other Byzantine accomplishments.
Bogdanovié argues that the canopy was a guiding idea for architectural design, which unified its material and non-material aspects, and that such an approach supersedes the current typology used in Byzantine studies. The main argument here is that diagrammatic reasoning is also typological and specific for architectural theory.°° At the same time, the recognizable design principles articulated in Byzantine architecture over a thousand years of its existence, rather than geographical or chronological distinctions, characterize certain accomplishments as late antique and Byzantine.
Again, as in the studies of visual arts, scholars occasionally delve into the mechanisms of articulation and ultimate sources of architectural types beyond somewhat generic, metaphoric, and metonymic references to the Heavenly Jerusalem or biblical architecture mentioned in texts. By using iconographical methodology, the architectural historian Richard Krautheimer linked an architectural structure, studied as a ‘type’ or a ‘copy, to its original, or architectural, prototype.*! His initial analysis employed three major criteria—floor plan, execution, and dedication of the building—which he derived from selected medieval texts that discuss religious architecture and from actual architectural examples.?? To test his thesis, for the major prototype of medieval religious architecture he chose the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, because as the most iconic building of medieval Christian world it was frequently ‘copied. He examined architectural reproductions of the Holy Sepulchre in western European churches and baptisteries; two different types of buildings based on their function. Krautheimer concluded that medieval architects did not intend to imitate the likeness of the prototype, but to reproduce it “typice and figuraliter [by type and symbolically—translation ours] as a memento of a venerated site and simultaneously as a symbol of promised salvation,” while maintaining “the relation between pattern and symbolical meaning ... as being determined by a network of reciprocal half-distinct connotations.’33 As with recent studies focusing on the visual arts that question the concept of likeness,34 further analysis of the mechanisms for the transmission of the architectural form and meaning of the Holy Sepulchre in Byzantium confirms that the emphasis was not on the mimetic qualities nor on the reproduction of a likeness of the Holy Sepulchre. The prototype for Byzantine religious architecture is not the Holy Sepulchre, but rather the visionary architecture of several biblical constructs—the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and the Temple, as well as the Heavenly Jerusalem—while the ultimate archetype is divine beauty, toward which humans reach by using various material and non-material aspects of their creations.®°
The type and extremely relevant archetype in late antique and Byzantine contexts have proved to be critical concepts for understanding the mechanisms of artistic creativity. However, they are largely undertheorized, and discussions of them remain wrapped in inconsistent terminology. Should we therefore abandon typological studies? And if so, what would be an alternative? Or should we revise current typological approaches, which privilege and single out the concept of type at the expense of other inseparably related and relevant concepts, above all, that of archetype? And if so, how should we then consider typology? These are the main questions we raise in our investigations, to ultimately suggest that typological approaches remain extremely useful in studies of art and architecture but that innovative methodologies beyond iconographical studies that rely heavily on formal and visual likeness are needed. In order to propose scholarly approaches to understanding of type and its ultimate source, the archetype, we turn to the definitions and use of these concepts in late antique and medieval contexts in the Mediterranean and investigate their referentiality.3° We reconsider the relevance of intellectual theoretical discourse on type and archetype, whereby the selected case studies test the applicability of proposed hypotheses.
Late antique and Byzantine theologians and philosophers discussed type and archetype extensively. Starting with (Pseudo-)Dionysius the Areopagite, self-identified student of the apostle Paul and an enigmatic intellectual,?” the concepts of type (t70¢, model or pattern) and archetype (dpyetunov, the original type from which the physical replicas are made) were recurringly used in religious texts.3® As in Platonic tradition, within late antique and Byzantine culture the type and archetype provide sophisticated tools for understanding both idea (ef8o¢, idx) and form (cixwv, cxApua, Udp@worc) in art and architecture on multiple levels.?9 Yet while related, the two notions are often different and even opposing, though not necessarily mutually exclusive. What we find is that the discourse articulated by members of the intellectual elite living in the late antique and medieval Mediterranean permits a more nuanced approach to their artistic and architectural expression.
The use of case studies in this volume needs clarification. The authors are fully aware that the selected case studies presented here cannot be utilized to extract universally shared collective forms in order to suggest historical trajectories, and that neither can they be used without question as self-contained entities that confirm comprehensively all conceptual aspects of typology. Here, we mostly use case studies to understand individual examples of a type within a given category and to provide insight into historical, geographical, and cultural specificities of typology in the visual arts and architecture.
In particular, in this volume on type and archetype in visual arts and architecture in late antiquity and Byzantium, the interrelations between the material and non-material, the representational and conceptual are probed further. There are two major goals. One is to investigate typology as a scholarly tool used in visual arts and architecture, including whether and to what extent the criteria used to approach typology can be interchangeably used in these two artistic domains. The other is to provide a more nuanced comprehension of type and its ultimate source, the archetype, set against the cultural and intellectual values that come from within late antique and Byzantine medieval realms.
By focusing on selected examples of art and architecture from the late antique and medieval Balkans and the wider Mediterranean, we consider intellectual thought on type and archetype but start from the objects themselves and seek their ultimate archetypes. The notion of type and archetype is related to objects of various physical scales, from recognizable visual elements in icons, to architectural features of individual buildings (chapels, churches, palaces), and to distinct aspects of built and natural environments. By juxtaposing well-known and new material about icons and iconic imagery, religious and civic structures, including churches built in late antiquity and Byzantium, the book aims to initiate debate on methodological approaches that include typology within Byzantine and Byzantine-related architecture, art, and archaeology. In the process, we additionally clarify the use of relevant terminology associated with typological methodologies within the field of late antique and Byzantine studies. Therefore, type and its derivative terms, such as archetype, prototype, antitype, and stereotype, are all discussed. A particular emphasis is placed on human scale and nonverbal communicative features employed in the conceptual and actual designs of studied examples. Ultimately, enriched by the theoretical framework that stems from within late antique and Byzantine culture itself, this book aims to contribute to the research and methodologies used in the broader field of Mediterranean studies and to contribute to image theory and theory of architecture.
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