International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Anna Zakharova
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of History, Moscow, Russian Federation; 
[e-mail] 
Identification of Individual Images of Saints 
in the 11
th
Century Wall Paintings of St Sophia in Kiev
In this paper I would like to present a research began a few years ago together with Nadezhda 
Gerasimenko and the late Vladimir Sarabyanov. The aim of our research is the identification of the 
images of saints in the wall paintings of St Sophia in Kiev. The results of our systematic analysis 
of all surviving images and fragments (more than 800) will be presented in a catalogue still in 
preparation. In this communication I would like to share the main principles of our work. 
The best clue for the attribution of an image is the reading of an accompanying inscription, 
whenever any fragment or trace of it survives. Unfortunately, such cases are very few, due to the 
poor condition of many frescoes heavily washed during the mid-19
th
century restoration. Also the 
reading of mediaeval graffiti proves to be helpful. In many cases the saint’s name is reproduced in its 
Greek form, sometimes even imitating the vertical order of letters of the accompanying inscription 
now lost. Yet our main tool is the iconographic analysis and comparison to other images of saints in 
the art of the Middle Byzantine period. 
We consider it important to try to understand the general principles that guided the painters 
of St Sophia in the choice of individual saints. Distributing the images of saints according to their 
rank was already a common practice in Byzantine church decoration by the 11
th
century. Thus 
prophets and apostles were usually placed in the dome, saintly bishops in the altar, the martyrs in 
the middle, the holy monks and holy women in the western part of the church. Very often the saints 
were further divided into smaller groups according to their profession or the commemoration day. 
The patron saints of the donors or some local saints were often given a prominent position. As our 
research showed, the painters of St Sophia followed these general rules. Therefore an attribution of a 
single image may sometimes help to identify the whole group, especially when some popular groups 
of two, three, four or five saints are concerned. 
The building of St Sophia is very large and complex. There are numerous cross-shaped piers 
providing narrow vertical surfaces unsuitable for painting any other subject except for individual 
figures in several tiers. The central five-nave core is enveloped by inner and outer ambulatory and 
spacious galleries in the upper storey. The painters had to fill all these numerous compartments. 
These were probably perceived as separate spaces, as soon as images of some saints and groups 
of saints are repeated several times in different parts of the cathedral. In some compartments a 

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special meaning in the choice of saints may be detected making a sort of mini-program. The whole 
meaning of the iconographic program of St Sophia is thus built as a sum of these several blocks. 
The unprecedented multitude of the images of saints is a very important peculiarity of St Sophia’s 
appearance. One reason behind it was the great size and particular structure of the building. Yet the 
other more important reason was ideological: the newly baptized Rus had just become member of the 
Universal Church, and it is the multitude of saints that represented this idea in the best way. We hope 
that our attempts at the attribution of the images of saints will contribute to the correct understanding 
of the complex meaning of the iconographic program of this huge 11
th
century ensemble.