International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Marta Teruzzi
, 
The Meaning of Byzantine Relics within the Florentine Cultural Context
Anthi A. Andronikou
Between Apulia and Cyprus:
 The Madonna della Madia
in Monopoli
Valentina Živković
, 
The Vow by Ivan Crnojević to the Virgin Mary in Loreto in the Shadow of Turkish Conquests
Chryssoula Ranoutsaki
, 
Das kretische Kloster Balsamonero im Strom kulturellen Austauschs 
zwischen Byzanz und dem Westen im Spätmittelalter

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Theodora Konstantellou
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece;
[e-mail]
Naxos in the Thirteenth Century: 
Visual Explorations of an Island’s Society and Devotion
At the beginning of the thirteenth century the island of Naxos became the centre of the 
Duchy of Naxos, established by the Venetian adventurer Marco Sanudo and his companions. The 
military conquest of the island was followed by other historical events, such as the operation of 
Byzantine navy against Naxos, and generated social, economic and topographical changes, such as 
the installation of a new ruling Latin and heterodox elite, and the transfer of the capital on the site 
of the main classical city. Yet the breadth and nature of these developments, as well as their impact 
on the island’s socio-cultural milieu, particularly on the artistic production, remain largely unclear, 
mainly due to the absence of written testimonies and the limited scholarly attention paid to the 
visual and inscriptional record from this period.
The picture can be reversed by an in–depth analysis of this available evidence and the decoding 
of its cultural and social meanings. This paper focuses on the painted decoration of the church of 
Panaghia at Archatos. Located approximately 7 km SE from the village of Kato Sagri, the church, a 
single-aisled domed church with two chapels, is set on the slope of a high hill, facing northward to 
a large valley. Built in the eleventh or twelfth century, it was partly reconstructed and extensively 
redecorated in 1285, according to one of the preserved dedicatory inscriptions. Laypeople, priests 
and their families were involved in the renovation of the church. 
Of the wall paintings of this phase, the pictorial program of the north chapel is of particular 
interest. The program includes, among other representations, the depiction of Saint John the Baptist 
ὁ 
ῥυγοδιώκτης
(lit. “he who repels the shivers”), Saint George Diasoritis
[ὁ σωτήρ
(“the savior”) in 
military apparel, and the prominent depiction of a bishop called Kyriakos, followed by the inscription 
ὁ ἱα
τήρ
τῶν
ῥευμάτων
(“the healer of the rheums”). The latter can be identified with the patriarch of 
Constantinople Kyriakos II (596-606), whose cult, however, is not well-attested, or the legendary 
bishop of Jerusalem Kyriakos, the Jew named Judas who helped Saint Helene to find the True Cross, 
according to the version of the legend of the Finding of the True Cross favored in the West. Kyriakos’ 
depiction next to Saint George provides us with additional evidence for the saint’s identification; it is 
possible that the priest, patron of the fresco, was acquainted with the Latin feast day of the bishop of 
Jerusalem Kyriakos on April 30 or May 4, both days close to the feast day of Saint George. Of more 
interest is the saints’ capacity to heal and relieve, as underlined by the inscriptions.
In this paper I discuss the cultural associations of these specific iconographic choices, as well 
as the rich inscriptional evidence of the church within the local and wider historical context. I 
raise the issue of patronage in the new historical setting and its relation to the visual adaptation to 
current theological ideas and legends, devotional cults and needs. This approach sheds new light on 
the complex reality and identity of the island and situates its artistic production within the wider 
cultural framework of the eastern Mediterranean world.

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