Misunderstanding Mistra, Part Four

Constantine riding to his coronation at Mistra. However, given
what we know about his father and brothers, he is
likely to have been short and light-haired, if not blond, and
galloping on the hillside of Mistra would have been inadvisable.

Continuing with Tito Papamastorakis' article (see below) on Mistra, this is what he has to say about the so-called coronation of Constantine Palaiologos. (The Classic Comics images are from the article..)

If you recall the interior of Ag. Demetrios, the little Mistra cathedral, you may remember that some of the frescos have been sliced off for the addition of galleries above.  This has been explained, and by people who should know better, as having been done for Constantine's coronation.  For one thing, look at the timing. John died on October 31.  It was nearly a month before the emissaries from Constantinople could get a boat for the Morea.  Constantine was made emperor on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany.  When was anyone going to have time to slice off the top of Ag. Demetrios, build up new walls, and put on a new roof?

An inscription in Ag. Demetrios attributes the rebuilding to Matthaios, Metropolitan of Lakedaimon.  He is known to have been Metropolitan in 1427-29, and Methodios was Metorpolitan as 1439.  That timing is fairly suggestive, too, but it has not stopped people who should know better from claiming that Matthaios crowned Constantine.

We have clear contemporary statements that Constantine was never crowned.  Papamastorakis lists Doukas, Ioannis Eugenikos, Ioannis Dokeianos (all three men who would have known him personally), and the Short Chronicles as specifically saying so, calling him ἀστεφῆ (without a crown) and ἄστεπτο (uncrowned).  One Short Chronicle (and Pseudo-Sphrantzes) do say he was crowned, and this is the preferred version, used in Runciman (much cited because he wrote in English), Zakythinos, and Classic Comics. 

There is something uncomfortable about the preference for the Classic Comics version of history and a non-existent crowning -- this is the nationalistic version, the chauvinistic version of Mistra as the sophisticated.  It is perhaps psychological  compensation for the enthusiasm with which Constantine's death in 1453 is lamented.

Constantine crowned in Ag. Demetrios, standing on the stone
put into that position in the 19th century.




Tito Papamastorakis, "Myzithras of the Byzantines / Mistra to Byzantinists,"
in T. Kiousopoulou Οἱ Βυζαντίνες Πόλεις (8ος-15ος Αιωνας). Rethymon 2012: 277- 296.  I am glad to make a copy of this available if needed.

Misunderstanding Mistra, Part Three

Angel, Pantanassa, Mistra.

I have, for some time, been offended by the omission of Cleofe's name from an inscription in the Pantanassa copied by Michel Fourmont in 1730. The inscription mentions Lord Neilos as Metropolitan of Lakedaimon and the Patriarch Lord Dionysos, and then says:

ἐπὶ βασιλείας τῶν εὐσεβεστάτων / βασιλειῶν ἡμῶν κῦρ Θεοδώρου Παλαιολόγου τοῦ πορφυρογενήτου / κατα μηνα σεπτεμβριους του 6937 ‒ "in the reign of our most devout rulers, Lord Theodoros Palaiologos in September 1428." 

To mention "our rulers" and then give only one name suggested that Fourmont had copied carelessly. But this inscription has been the foundation of the conviction that the Pantanassa can be dated to 1428.

A recent article by the wonderful art historian, Tito Papamastorakis (citation below) addresses problems of this inscription, as well as a number of other Mistra issues, and I am lifting from him for this entry.    It was already known that Neilos and Dionysos did not co-exist in the same year, as an inscription from Gortynia has a Matthaios as Metropolitan in 1427-28.  Papamastorakis translates εὐσεβεστάτων βασιλειων as "pious emperors" and believes John VIII and Maria of Trebizond should be named, as well as Theodoros and Cleofe.  But various contemporary writings from Mistra refer to the Despot as βασιλειος and his wife as βασιλισσα, so I don't worry about John and Maria.

Papamastorakis went hunting in the Mistra museum storerooms and found a slab of marble with an early Christian cross on one side, and on the surviving border the part of the inscription that mentions Lord Neilos.

 τῆς ἀγιωτάτης μ(ητ)ροπόλεως Λακεδαιμονίας

Papamastorakis finds that the mixing of Σ with C for sigma, and also the Ω indicate a late date for the inscription, after the 16th century and before 1730.  This altar inscription is, then, a fake, and the date of 1428 is quite useless for dating either the founding of the Pantanassa or its paintings.

Still, I wonder -- were there so many travellers in the 17th century that it was thought worthwhile to forge an altar?  Might the monks have been trying to recreate an altar they thought they knew something about?  Or was the creation of the altar intended to support the Pantanassa's side in an argument between monasteries over authority?

Nevertheless, the Pantanassa angel above is a small miracle.

 

            Tito Papamastorakis, "Myzithras of the Byzantines / Mistra to Byzantinists," in T. Kiousopoulou> Οἱ Βυζαντίνες Πόλεις (8ος-15ος Αιωνας). Rethymon 2012: 277- 296.  I am glad to make a copy of this available if needed.