International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Ioanna Rapti
École pratique des hautes études, sciences religieuses, Paris, France;
[e-mail]
Art in 13
th
-Century Cilicia between the Mediterranean and Anatolia
This paper will address the place of the Armenian miniature painting from Cilicia within the 
changing world of the 13
th
century Mediterranean. For Byzantium, the 13
th
century has been short 
and divided by the landmark of 1261. For Cilicia, instead, it has been not only a long one but, for 
most of it, a time of increasing prestige and ambition. An important number of lavishly illuminated 
manuscripts, precisely dated, have been studied by Sirarpie Der Nersessian but still need to be 
integrated in the discourse on the artistic interactions in the 13
th
century. Armenian Cilicia is not a 
proper part of the fragmented Byzantine Empire but closely related to it, particularly to Cyprus and 
the empire of Nicea. Although Cilicia is not considered as a key political entity of the fragmented 
Byzantine territory, it may have played a key role in the elaboration, transmission and dissemination 
of artistic trends. Because of its proximity to the Latin states of the Levant and Cyprus, Cilicia is 
in permanent encounter with the West. However, rather than a recipient of influences, it should 
be better understood as a melting pot of trends and taste that elaborates a strong visual idiom of 
power and court culture. Illuminations may reflect monumental painting and material culture as 
suggested by a closer study of the decorated canon tables and several narrative compositions.
A few case studies of such elements will attempt to illuminate the response of Cilicia to 
the contemporary artistic developments in the Mediterranean and the silk-road. The ornament 
enables to distinguish traditional patterns and innovative motives that may mirror broader artistic 
developments in the industries of art or reveal networks of trade. Another point will focus of the 
breaking of extensive narrative cycles in the mid 13
th
c. miniature painting and their development 
in the later years. Both categories raise the question of subjects of motifs common throughout or 
around the fragmented empire in works distant in space but related by their appropriation of some 
Byzantine legacy and by their aspirations at the marches of the Byzantine world.

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