International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

ART, DOGMA, LAWS, HAGIOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE
Conveners: 
Ioannis
Eliades
, 
Nikolaos D. Siomkos
Ioannis
Eliades
, 
The “Latin Chapel” of the Monastery of Saint John Lampadistis 
in Cyprus Greek, Latin or Something in between?
Nikolaos D. Siomkos
, 
La Crète à Chypre. La présence crétoise dans la production artistique chypriote
Charalampos
G. Chotzakoglou
, 
Cyprus under the Latin Rule (1192-1571): 
Modern Efforts to Present the Latin Era as a Period οf Peaceful Coexistence
Flora
Karagianni
, 
Latin Interventions in the Byzantine Architecture of Cyprus (1191-1570)
Nikitas
Hatzimihail
, 
Law in Latin Cyprus: The Assizes at the Crossroads
Jenny
Albani
, 
“Ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔρχεται” (Matthew 24: 44). 
An Icon of the Last Judgment from the Church of Virgin Faneromeni, Nicosia
Georgios
Markou
, 
Monasterium Sancti Pauli de Antiochis alias Veracis Crucis. 
The Monastery of Stavrovouni in Venetian Cyprus, 1489-1571

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Ioannis Eliades
Nicosia, Cyprus;
[e-mail]
The “Latin Chapel” of the Monastery of Saint John Lampadistis 
in Cyprus Greek, Latin or Something in between?
The “Latin Chapel” of the Monastery of Saint John Lampadistis in Kalopanagiotis village in 
Troodos mountains hosts one of the better preserved fresco chapels in the island dating back in the 
period of the Venetian rule.
This chapel is found next to the Saint John Lampadistis chapel, which has been constructed 
above the tomb of the Saint. Saint John’s monastery has been an important pilgrimage stopover on 
the way to the Monastery of Virgin Mary of Kykkos. It is a rectangular room without an apse and its 
walls host the iconographical cycle of the Akathist Hymn, the Stem of Jesse, Moses and the Burning 
Bush, Moses receiving the ten Commandments, the Hospitality of Abraham and busts of Saints. The 
frescoes have been executed in a Cypro-renaissance art and present the finest example of this art in 
the island: it is a spectacular pictorial set, which is adorned with the latest achievements in the arts, 
such as illusionistic configurations (virtual vaults in the ceiling and the window of the east wall that 
turns into a part of the scene painting) and decorative stripes with Italian motifs that fascinate with 
its rich alternation of colors. Renaissance values infiltrating the whole decoration. The ensemble 
is governed by good organization, balance and harmony. Renaissance buildings impress offering 
new expressive solutions, maintaining the autonomy of the individual scenes. The area indicated by 
architecture placed in perspective and landscape, which is rendered three dimensional and extend to 
the horizon, where mingle with the artistic attributable atmospheric sky. The harmony of the whole 
is achieved by good design, while contrasting perspectives equilibrate between the rich gradations 
of color and the excellent techniques in the use of color and execution of gilding. In sensationalist 
effort are included also the technical performance of the perspective, known as scorcio that the 
painters could not to know if they had not studied for a long time in Italy.
In this paper I will deal with the iconographical programme of this Chapel, the use of the 
Chapel during the period of the Latin rule of Cyprus and the forced coexistence between Greeks 
and Latins in the island of Cyprus, as mirrored by the iconography of this and other monuments of 
that period.

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