International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Mati Meyer
Open University of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel; 
[e-mail]
Hiding in Plain Sight: 
The Second Coming and the Last Judgment in the Vatican Psalter, gr. 752
A central question in the study of the Second Coming and the Last Judgment and their 
portrayal in Byzantine art relates to the maturity phase of this iconography. It has been argued 
that the eschatological formula crystallized in a small number of works during the eleventh and 
twelfth century. Conspicuously absent from this scholar discourse are references to a series of 
images in an illuminated Psalter (Vatican City, Bibl. Apost. Vat., gr. 752), which can be regarded as 
an iconographic eschatological program on its own. The manuscript, dated to 1058/1059, may have 
been made in the scriptorium of the Studios Monastery in Constantinople. Bringing together those 
illustrations, which are virtually “hiding in plain sight,” I consider their relevance to the eleventh-
century formative stage of the Second Coming and the Last Judgment iconography and the possible 
reasons for their appearance in this particular Psalter.
The proposed paper argues that the exceptional program was shaped as an expression of a 
personal agenda aiming for eternal redemption, which would have made sense for both the unknown 
commissioner and recipient of the book. If the commissioner was a monastic or other ecclesiastical 
authority as Kalavrezou et al. conjectured (1993), he may have seen in the book, especially in the 
eschatological images, a didactic tool to caution the addressee, possibly an emperor, against his 
sinful behavior. Also, the eschatological cycle may reflect the widespread expectation and firm 
conviction of the Byzantines that the world would come to an end by the year 1000. The millennium 
apocalyptic conviction was shared by both religious circles and Byzantine emperors.

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