ERMINIILE CA IZVOR ISTORIC

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1 ACADEMIA ROMÂNĂ FILIALA CLUJ-NAPOCA INSTITUTUL DE ISTORIE GEORGE BARIŢIU DIN CLUJ-NAPOCA Şcoala de studii universitare doctorale Aurel ROBU (arhidiacon Anastasie) ERMINIILE CA IZVOR ISTORIC TEZĂ DE DOCTORAT () Conducător ştiinţific: Prof. dr. Nicolae EDROIU, membru corespondent al Academiei Române CLUJ-NAPOCA, 2012

2 KEYWORDS: erminia (gre. ερμηνεία); Erminia Byzantine painting; treaty of painting; painting technology; books for painting; иконописный подлинник, Illustrated Hronograph; iconographic source; Menologion (gre. Μηνολογίων); mural painting; iconography; historical source. FOREWORD The present study entitled Erminia as a historical source develops a new idea not only in form and content but also by the issue addressed, its particular note being given by its main objective and its way of achievement. Without claiming to be an encyclopedic synthesis of the Painting Erminias a more ambitious and also very hard to achieve project the thesis aims, on the one hand, at enumerating exhaustively all the historical written resources, which, in extenso, may be called Erminias. On the other hand, the present study aims at underlining the potential internal and external factors which prove the existence of the Erminias as a historical source. Before presenting the collection of historical resources as a Catalogue of Erminias, the problem of the nomenclature and terminology used was reiterated and re-analyzed. A clear delimitation was made among the different meanings of the same word borrowed into Romanian ἑρμηνεία, and also a short presentation of the causes which generated the appearance of the different semantic terminology, which caused subjective confusion in the understanding, receiving and spreading of this important Greek word. At the end of the introductive chapter the most important works published were listed emphasizing the diverse meanings which Erminia can get either as a manuscript or/and as a written work. It is exactly this multiple meaning of the Erminia that was debated in the last part of the beginning chapter, where we explained its domains of understanding: lato and stricto sensu; these domains of understanding are taken as reference points for all the historical investigations we carried on for this scientific study. The thesis is structured into two parts, nine annexes and an Erminia project attached at the end of the work, consisting of drawings, sketches and text. The first part, designed as a catalogue of Erminias, has six chapters, each one of them reflecting a specific category of Erminias: The notebooks of models, Erminias, Podlinnics (rus. иконописный подлинник), Illustrated Hronographs, The Notebooks with models for iconographers and goldsmiths and The western painting treatises. The second part, called Erminia as a historical source, includes two chapters: Erminia as a historical source and The artistic origins of the mural painting from Moldavia during the 15 th and 1

3 16 th centuries (post quem Lujeni ante quem 1601/1606). The thesis ends with the sections Conclusions and Bibliography. The annexes of the thesis are structured in the following typological order: Annex I Contents; Annex II Case studies; Annex III Facsimiles; Annex IV Compared iconography; Annex V Illustrations; Annex VI Tables; Annex VII Images; Annex VIII The catalogue of the filigree; Annex IX Maps. At the end of these nine annexes is attached the case of the contemporary Erminia project (drawings and text). FIRST PART. THE CATALOGUE OF THE ERMINIAS CHAPTER I. THE NOTEBOOK OF MODELS A special category of Erminias are The notebook of models or Collections with models (albums or cases with models, sources, drafts, etc.). These types of works have an illustrative character, most of them being especially historical sources from Byzantine and post-byzantine period additional to epical and descriptive texts. The presence of some remnants even from the Antiquity proves beyond any doubt that they were the main means used in the practical and artistic activities of painters, drafters, architects and, in a contemporary terminology, plastic artists. This artistic genre or this ensemble of collections has four categories: 1. The ancient notebooks of models; 2. The Byzantium notebooks of models; 3. The Western notebooks of models; 4. The Post-Byzantine notebooks of models. There are two other classes of sources similar to these: 1. Podlinnicele; 2. The Notebooks with models for iconographers and goldsmiths. Based on the information published in the literature, from the first four categories of notebooks a total number of 49 were identified, out of which we did not investigate an ancient Greek fragment Pap. gr. Oxy 2331, from the Bodleian Library, Oxford due to the lack of documentary material. A statistic of these known and researched historical sources could be seen in the Caietele de modele Statistica chart. The ancient notebooks, as well as the Byzantine and post-byzantine notebooks, are fewer than the Western ones, the sum of the first three categories not reaching half of the latter category; but if we were to exclude the sources with profane models, they would be comparatively equal. From the ancient notebooks preserved till today, five are cited in the literature: 1. The fragment Pap. gr. Oxy 2331 from the Bodleian Library, Oxford; 2. The fragment from Paris (Suppl. gr. 1294); 3. The papyri collection P ; 4. The papyri collection P ; 5. The papyri collection P and

4 The Byzantine notebooks are relatively few. Their number is relative because there are many illuminated manuscripts which, in a large sense, could be included in the same category; for instance from the category of the Menologions according to L.M. EVSEEVA s research at least 18 more could be considered as sources of models. Nevertheless the most important notebooks are: 1. Theodoretus Manuscript known as Commento ai XII Profeti minori, is a theological work, decorated with miniatures and dated after Pasini to the 9 th century. 2. Joshua Roll. Presented as a roll, the Manuscript Joshua Roll is one of the few samples of miniature art from Constantinople from the last centuries of the first millennium. Kurt Weitzmann dates its completion during the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos ( ), himself an artist who did miniature art. 3. The Menologion of Basil II. Considered one of the most famous Byzantine manuscripts, this Menologion was commissioned by/for Emperor Basil II ( ). Specialists unanimously agree that the codex was made in Constantinople around The imperial Menologion. One of the Constantinople manuscripts made in the 11 th century, a masterpiece which includes hagiographic texts from the Church Synaxarion, accompanied with illustrations resembling those from the Menologion of Basil II. 5. The Menologion of Demetrius Palaeologus. The codex comes from the Byzantine Empire being made and decorated with miniatures in Thessalonica for Demetrius I Palaeologus, despot of Thessalonica during Today the Menologion is preserved in the Greek manuscripts at Oxford collection from The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, call number: MS. Gr. th. f. 1. The following part, the third, selectively analyses, thirteen notebooks with western models which have a theme related with the notebooks with iconographic Byzantine and post Byzantine models, that is: 1. The Manuscript from Vercelli; 2. The Psalter from Utrecht; 3. Prudentius s Illustrated Psychomachie; 4. The Manuscript from Einsiedeln; 5. The Manuscript from Liège ; 6. The Adémar de Chabannes Manuscript ; 7. The books of homilies from Monte Cassino (Cod. 98 şi 99); 8. The Sheet from Freiburg; 9. The model book from Wolfenbüttel ; 10. The Codex from Normandia ; 11.The Viennese Codex 507 ; 12. The Villard de Honnecourt s Notebook; 13. The Roll from Vercelli. The subchapter is preceded by a short introduction presenting the conclusions of renowned scientists (Otto DEMUS, Hugo BUCHTHAL, Kurt WEITZMANN, Sirarpie Der NERSESSIAN and Robert SCHELLER) about the origin of the notebooks with models and about the way they 3

5 were used by iconographers. The role of the historical sources as fundamental references for achieving some western works of mural and miniature art is underlined through some illustrations. Together with the 13 notebooks, three more sources are mentioned: The sheet with models from Vatican (Cod. Lat kept at the Apostolic Library from Vatican, Rome), The Page from Synaxarion December (Codex 553, f. 1, 16 th century, Yale University Library) and The Greek book of models (Add. Ms , 18 th century; British Museum). The fourth and last subchapter presents the six notebooks with post-byzantine models, as follows: 1. The Greek Gregorian Manuscript OI-58 from 1497, made at Iviron Monastery, Mount Athos, preserved at the National Library of Russia from Sankt Petersburg; 2. The Armenian book with models (The Manuscript no. 1434, made by Armenian calligraphers at Constantinople, could be found in 1968 in the library of the mékhitaristes fathers from Venice); 3. Anthivolon «Athos 1» (a fragment of a Case with models, 16 th century, Simonopetra Monastery, Athos). 4. Anthivolon «Athos 2» (a fragment of a Case with models, 16 th century, Dyonisiou Monastery, Athos); 5. Anthivolon «Athos 3» fragment of a Case with models, 17 th century, Dyonisiou Monastery, Athos); 6. Anthivolon «Athos 4» fragment of a Case with models, 17 th century, Dyonisiou Monastery, Athos). CHAPTER II. THE ERMINIAS At a systemic look, the concept of post-byzantine art refers everywhere in the scientific works to a literary spirituality which addressed during the end of 19 th century a phenomenon of the Christian art known as The Erminias. The phenomenon surfaced every time the evolution of Byzantine painting after the falling of Constantinople was brought into discussion. In the context of the decadent theological and artistic metamorphoses of the Eastern iconography from the 16 th century and developed especially in the 17 th century, the Erminias have been and are still seen as some normative interventions from the Church with the aim of regulating church painting art with its double significance: iconographic and technological. Despite this fact, the codification of the Erminias appears in the middle of the 9 th century, as a work elaborated in synergy by the imperial and church authorities and it is gradually developed in the monastic and laical environments until the 19 th century. This progress is emphasized by the existence of 90 Erminias known today, whose classification was made in the present catalogue in alphabetical order of the countries which detain such samples, and for each country after the chronological criterion of their 4

6 appearance. The number of these Erminias, reported by countries, is illustrated in the Statistica Erminiilor chart. The present study, based on the work of our predecessors: A. PAPADOPOULOS- KERAMEUS, Vasile GRECU, Asen VASSILIEV, Atanas ŞARENKOV, Axinia DŽUROVA, Ivan BENTCHEV, Emmanuel MOUTAFOV, Milorad MEDIĆ and others, solves in an exhaustive manner the current problem of the Erminias, clearly specifying their existence and their number in countries such as Bulgaria, France, Greece, Israel and Romania. CHAPTER III. PODLINNICS Unlike the Greek descriptive Erminia, The Russian Podlinnic has an iconographic content structured according to the Church calendar, resembling that of the illustrated Menologion which it actually reproduces. As a consequence the greatest part of the illustrations from Podlinnics refers to the celebrations and Saints from the Church year in Constantinople and it repeats the specific characteristics of the Byzantine painting style. Although the oldest collection of Podlinnics is dated by the Russian specialists after 1551, their iconographic descriptive references reflect the older Byzantine tradition, from the Palaeologus dynasty. Chart: The statistic of the Podlinnics 1 item The determination of the existence and exact number of the Podlinnics in Russia is a very difficult task, being hindered by a large dispersal of the old Podlinnics albums, first, in private collections (18 th century) and then in centralized collections of the Soviet state, in cultural centers (libraries, museums, memorial houses). The situation is different in Romania and Mount Athos, their number being smaller as seen in the chart above in comparison with those from Russia. Among the most famous collections of Russian Podlinnics one can enumerate: The Podlinnic Siisk, The Podlinnic Stroganov, The Podlinnic Bolşakov, The Zagorsk Calendar, The Icon Calendar a la Vieille Russie, The Collection of Ivan and Feodor Kalikin Brothers, The Collection of prorises from The Library of the Academy of Sciences [rus. БАН ], A.M. Postnikov Collection, M. and I. Tiulin Collection and V.P. Gurianov Album. In Romania, we discovered a descriptive Podlinnic at the Central University Library Mihai Eminescu from Iaşi; it is the Slavic Manuscript No The three Athonite Podlinnics were discovered by the Bulgarian Scientist Asen VASSILIEV. According to him, a Podlinnic was found at the Zografu Monastery ( 217, unity / section 5

7 II. Б. 17), together with another one printed in Moscow (1869); the third one, dated 1867, is at the Panteleimon Monastery ( 147 / 1902). CHAPTER IV. ILLUSTRATED HRONOGRAPHS Other categories of historical sources similar to the Erminias are the illustrated hronographs. There are three of them and they appear only in Romania. The first is made by Hierarch Antim Ivireanul (1709) and offered to Constantin Brâncoveanu. Consequently, the manuscript is owned by various private people and, finally, enters into the possession of the Institute of Manuscripts of the National Library of Ukraine in the name of V.I. Vernadskogo. The second copy, as a roll, is made by Priest Flor (1760), the manuscript being kept at the Library of the Romanian Academy. The last illustrated hronograph made by C. Petrescu (1847) is exhibited at the Cernica Monastery, near Bucharest. CHAPTER V. THE NOTEBOOKS WITH MODELS FOR ICONOGRAPHERS AND GOLDSMITHS A complete research of the Erminias cannot exclude The Notebooks with drawings or The Notebooks with models of the icon painters and of workshop sketches made for practical reasons. The content of these Erminias, more illustrative and poorer in descriptive explanations, consists of reproductions of older paintings and illustrations from the manuscripts. Next to these graphical resources there are personal creations of the crafters (sketches, drafts, and anatomic studies), models chosen from engravings or cut-out engravings glued on blank pages or on the pages containing unimportant drawings from the Notebook of models. Even if these Notebooks with models differ in structure from the Erminias, however, through their graphic models, they illustrate and explain in images, some iconographic scenes described in the epical works of this type. In this way, as the related Russian Podlinnics, they complement the classic versions of the Byzantine and post Byzantine Erminias. Fourteen works of this kind were discovered in Bulgaria and seven in Romania, but one disappeared during the 1977 earthquake (The painter Grigorie s notebook). CHAPTER VI. THE WESTERN PAINTING TREATISES To this day, in the South-Eastern Europe, some Romanian and Bulgarian scientists wrote about these treatises: A. VASSILIEV (1976), A. ŞARENKOV (1992), E. MOUTAFOV (2001); Ştefan CRUDU (1962), Victor I. STOICHIŢĂ (1977) and Mihail MIHALCU (1984 şi 2009). Following a cross check analysis of the number of the albums 6

8 registered by the Bulgarian scientists, 46 samples were discovered, 16 of which are included in this catalogue. Although through their nature, they are related with the technological parts of Erminias, the content of these historical sources go often beyond the scope of the iconographic technology. Despite this fact, the Western painting albums may be considered, in extenso, pseudo scientific and narrative descriptive works, real Erminias. PART II. THE ERMINIA AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE CHAPTER I. THE ERMINIA AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE After a short classification of the Erminias, as potential historical sources, an analysis of the types of historical information drawn from the Erminias follows. Two categories of information are analyzed and discussed. The first class of information was gathered from the Holy Bible and from some published works: encyclopedias, technological treatises and western painting notebooks. The second includes three types of information discovered during the in situ research. Based on the internal and external critiques of the investigated manuscripts, the filigrees of Erminias, their subsequent notes and a case study were selected such as The forgiveness book from the manuscript 214 of Daniel (1674), preserved in the Library of the Greek Patriarchy from Jerusalem. CHAPTER II. THE ARTISTIC ORIGINS OF THE MURAL PAINTING FROM MOLDAVIA DURING THE 15 TH AND 16 TH CENTURIES (POST QUEM LUJENI ANTE QUEM 1601/1606) The chapter develops firstly the filiations of the mural painting during the 15 th - 16 th centuries, identifying some possible routes of circulation of sources and iconographical models from the Balkans to Moldavia. Secondly, four categories of historical sources are presented, sources which could have served, together with the literary ones, as Erminias for the mural painters from Moldavia during the 15 th -17 th centuries. These are: the illuminated manuscripts, wood icons, card embroideries and mural ensembles. FINAL CONCLUSIONS The results obtained during personal investigations and bibliographical research, allowed the examination of an impressive number of manuscripts (48 notebooks with models, 91 Erminias, 14 Podlinnics, 3 illustrated Hronographs, 20 Notebooks with models for iconographers and goldsmiths and 16 technological treatises a total of 192 sources) 7

9 and the completion of a sketch of a new Erminia clearly demonstrate that the proposed objective was indeed reached. The problem of the Erminias from Bulgaria, France, Greece, Israel, and Romania was clarified, identifying some hitherto unknown sources for the Romanian lands. Contributions were made to the complex problem of the Podlinnics and the Technological treatises from the East and the West, as well as to the Notebooks with models for iconographers and goldsmiths, six works of this type being identified and explored: two from Tryavna, Bulgaria, and four from Sibiu and Cluj-Napoca. These contributions sketch a vast synoptic picture of the encyclopedic phenomenon known as the Erminias, demonstrating that Erminia, regarded as a whole, is a historical source. As well, the present study proposed the introduction, among the auxiliary sciences of History, of a new historical discipline, related to biblical hermeneutics, called Erminology. This discipline would study the Erminias and those historical written and unwritten sources which have an explanatory character. Using the methods and the means offered by the auxiliary sciences of History, it could eventually provide a vast encyclopedia of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine arts, something that waits to be solved. Drd. Aurel ROBU (Archdeacon Anastasie) 1 August

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