Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta

: Founder’s model; The text deals with some terminological problems concerning the so-called founder’s model. Although it is commonly used to designate the depicted architecture in the hand of the church founder, the expression 'founder’s (ktetor’s) model' is often confusing and misleading. The main question is whether the Byzantine architects used actual model/maquettes for constructing their churches and if so, could these models/ maquettes have been used for the architecture depicted in founders’ portraits? In other worlds is the representation in the donor’s hand the image of a built church or its maquette, produced as a project model? The different aspects of the problem we analyzed - the legal, technical and symbolic functions of these representations support our assumption that the architectural design model/maquette did not serve as a specimen for representations of architecture on founder’s portraits. This specific type of architecture depicted was created after the building itself was completed.

: Frescoes in the Virgin Peribleptos Church referring to the origins of the archbishopric of Ohrid; In the year 1294/95, in the church of the Virgin Peribleptos in Ohrid, figures of the apostles Peter and Andrew were painted in the bottom register of wall paintings of the south wall, in front of the altar space (fig. 1), while those of St. Clement of Ohrid and St. Constantine Kabasilas appeared on the opposite, north wall (fig. 2). Their choice and placement on such a conspicuous location have already been the subject of interest of scholars who attempted to explain their iconography and unveil the reasons behind their appearance in this Ohrid church. The image of apostle Peter is related to the text of Mt. 16, 18 and this apostle is thus represented as carrying a church on his back while trampling on Hades who, at the same time, is being pierced by an angel bearing a lance. From above, Christ, shown in bust, addresses St. Peter with the gospel text written out in fresco above his image. This rare representation could be interpreted as an image referring to the founding of the church on earth by Christ. The gospel text which inspired it was one of the main arguments in the primacy doctrine of the Roman church. In Byzantium, on the other hand, the equality of all apostles was underlined, and Peter shared his place of honor with Paul and, at times, Andrew. This can explain the presence of the latter by Peter's side in the mentioned Ohrid church. On the opposite wall we find figures of saints who held in particular reverence in the Ohrid area, namely those of Clement and Constantine Kabasilas. St. Clement (whose relics were treasured in Ohrid) was a bishop in nearby Velika in the X century, and his cult developed shortly after his death. On the other hand, at the end of his lifetime Constantine Kabasilas, an archbishop of Ohrid from the middle of the XIII century, was very devoted to the emperor Michael VIII and that seems to have decisively contributed to the early development of his cult. We can basically except the opinion of those among the scholars who associated the images of the mentioned saints with Christ's founding of the church on earth and the spreading of Christianity among the Slavs. However, since the archbishopric of Ohrid had no direct apostolic origins, and since even St. Clement was actually its founder, the wall paintings of the Virgin Peribleptos should be viewed in a somewhat different light. It is well known that the Archbishopric was founded by emperor Basil II who, in the second sigillium (1020), associated it with the earlier existing Bulgarian archbishopric. However, in the XII century, if not already at an earlier date, the archbishopric of Ohrid began to be associated also with Justiniana Prima, the archbishopric founded by emperor Justinian in 535. The first to include it in his title was the archbishop of Ohrid John Komnenos, in 1157, and many of his successors followed his example. Formulas such as Bulgarian and Prima Justiniana which appear in their titles were of a legal and canonic nature and were used in defending the autocephalos rights of the Archbishopric from both the Roman and the Constantinopolitan church. This prompts us to explain the wall paintings of the eastern part of the naos of the Virgin Peribleptos as a result of intentions of the archbishops of Ohrid to underline the ties of their church with Justiniana Prima and the Bulgarian archbishopric. The image of the founding of the church upon St. Peter is not only a universal image of Christ's founding of the church on earth but also a reminder that the archbishopric of Ohrid was formed on the territory of ancient Illyricum which once belonged to Rome and was handed over as a result of an agreement between pope Vigilius and emperor Justinian for the purpose of founding the autocephalos church of Justiniana Prima. Supposedly, the independence and high rank of the archbishopric of Ohrid found justification in those facts. In his letter to patriarch Germanos II (from the 1220's), the archbishop of Ohrid Demetrios Chomatenos goes on to say that the emperor Justinian, in establishing the hierarchy of the most ancient and great patriarchal sees, called the pope of old Rome the first among priests, the patriarch of Constantinople the second and directly after him made mention of the see of the Bulgarian archbishopric, i.e. Ohrid. In the fresco decoration of the Virgin Peribleptos these references to the Roman and Constantinopolitan church were substituted by images of their founders, a common procedure in Byzantine iconography. Just as it did in Chomatenos's letter, the presence of the apostle Andrew was there to point out that the church of Ohrid belonged to the Orthodox world. The second argument upholding the ancient origins and independence of the church of Ohrid - reflected by both the title of its prelates and the wall paintings of the Peribleptos - is based on its ties with the ancient archbishopric of Bulgaria. That is why its archbishops strove to develop the cults of "Bulgarian" saints, primarily that of St. Clement. The text of his vita (XII century), ascribed to Theophylaktos of Ohrid, celebrates him as the most commendable missionary of the Bulgarian people, and in the Catalogue of Bulgarian archbishops (from the same century) he is mentioned in such a manner that one gets the impression that Clement was the first prelate of the territory of the future archbishopric of Ohrid. Such a calculated treatment of St. Clement was especially intensified in the XIII century, as attested in particular by his synaxarion vita and service, in which he is referred to as the thirteenth apostle. A similar phenomenon developed also in the decoration of the church of the Virgin Peribleptos in which Clement plays the role of the first prelate of Ohrid and the perpetuator of the activities of the apostles painted on the wall opposite his image. In order to express clearly and most thoroughly the idea of the origins and the nature of the Archbishopric, it was also necessary to include in this group an image of one archbishop of Ohrid and so the choice fell on Constantine Kabasilas, whose memory was still alive and who, moreover, was the only actually canonized archbishop of Ohrid. Finally, we should also inquire why this ideologically colored fresco decoration appeared in 1294/95 in the church of the Virgin Peribleptos. The theory of the supposed origins of the archbishopric of Ohrid greatly gained in importance in the course of the events related to the Union of Lyon. This time it was suitably used in an attempt to abolish the Serbian archbishopric and the Bulgarian (Trnovo) patriarchate, founded at a somewhat earlier date and for the most part on the one-time territory of the archbishopric of Ohrid. Such pretensions appeared openly in the charter issued by emperor Michael VIII to the archbishopric of Ohrid (1272) and in his memorandum to the pope, read at the Council of Lyon in 1274. Moreover, in 1282 the Serbian king Milutin conquered vast Byzantine territories so that certain administrative units of the archbishopric of Ohrid were not only dislocated within a different state but also became a part of a different, Serbian church. So while the Byzantine emperor attempted to recapture these territories by military force, the archbishop of Ohrid, Makarios, strove to demonstrate visually on the walls of the church of the Virgin Peribleptos the supposed origins of his archbishopric and thus also to claim its rights, through the images of the apostles Peter and Andrew and saints Clement and Constantine Kabasilas. Because of its political engagement, this painted decoration remained unique in medieval art and should thus find explanation in particular ideological and political motives.

: From the horizontal to the vertical genealogical image of the Nemanjić dynasty; Sometime in the XIV century, towards the end of the second or beginning of the third decade, the 'horizontal genealogical image' of the Serbian rulers gave way to a new depiction of their genealogy. We find the earliest surviving Nemanjić family tree, painted in a vertically arranged composition in the narthex of Gračanica, followed by those in Peć, Dečani, Mateič and Studenica. The appearance of the new type of image presenting the Serbian dynastic genealogy was, on the one hand, due to the problems caused by the ever lengthening series of rulers' portraits. They led to the deformation of the thematic programmes and did not correspond to the dynamic spirit of 'Palaeologan renaissance' art. On the other hand, from the mid-XIII century there was a obvious intention to link the idea of a 'chosen people' and the genealogy of Christ with the Nemanjić dynasty. This process unfolded simultaneously in literature, royal charters and visual art. It was facilitated by the fact that presentations of Christ's genealogy - the Tree of Jesse - were introduced in the programmes of Serbian churches from the second half of the XIII century. A correspondence had already been established between the presentations of Christ's genealogy and the portraits of the Nemanjić family included in the broader thematic ensembles inspired by dynastic ideology, in Sopoćani and, subsequently, in Morača, Arilje and the King's Church in Studenica. Even in the description of the family tree of the Serbian dynasty itself, the notions of 'pious lineage', 'the holy root', 'the branch of good fruit', 'the blessed shoots' etc. were used in the written sources. In this way, a process gradually matured along the path towards creating a dynastic picture of the house of Nemanjić that was iconographically coordinated to the Tree of Jesse. However, the 'vertical' family tree of the Nemanjići was not a simple transposition of the 'horizontal genealogy' into the structure of the new iconographic scheme. It is possible to notice significant contextual differences between the two types of the Serbian dynastic picture, especially regarding the presentation of the rulers' wives or the rulers' daughters, or male relatives from the lateral branches. A number of questions that had earlier been of particular importance, such as the order of succession to the throne through the direct bloodline, became submerged in a multitude of new messages and slowly lost significance. The 'vertical' family tree of the Nemanjići focused far more on the proclamation of general dynastic messages. As a more developed and complex picture than the 'horizontal' genealogy, it was able to convey more carefully nuanced details about what effect dynastic history had on the awareness of the court. Apart from that, in contrast to the presentations of XIII century 'horizontal genealogies' that illustrated Nemanja and his direct successors as monks, the new type of dynastic picture quite clearly stressed the 'imperial' nature of the ruler's family. A similar change of meaning can also be noted in contemporaneous royal charters. One should view this interesting phenomenon through the prism of the increasingly tangible influences of Byzantine imperial ideology on Serbian dynastic thought. The distinct influence of Byzantine perceptions can also be recognized in the motive of the ruler's investiture being performed by God himself, depicted at the top of the Nemanjić family tree. Therefore, the new Serbian genealogical picture reflected much more clearly than its predecessor, the Byzantine teachings about power, which blended the 'dynastic principle' with dogma regarding the providential election of the ruler. In later monuments, where a composite family tree was depicted, linking the Nemanjić dynasty to the Byzantine and the Bulgarian royal families (Mateič, and perhaps even Studenica), the concept of the 'new Israel' was redefined in Serbian imperial ideology, according to the universalistic views adopted from Byzantium. Although all the essential iconographic details of dynastic genealogy in the form of the family tree were of Byzantine origin, no credible testimonies were found in scientific research that the theme itself was designed in artistic form in Byzantium. Hence, one cannot exclude the possibility that the Nemanjić family tree was an authentic, iconographic creation devised in Serbia. With the necessary caution, here, we should stress that the Serbian environment was quite singular because it had a long lasting and, moreover sacred dynasty. For that reason it was particularly absorbed in dynastic issues and the idea of 'a new chosen people'. That environment traveled the path to a 'vertical' dynastic picture slowly, following the evolutionary logic of its own culture and art.

: Fu-lin dances in medieval Chinese art - Byzantine or imaginary?; Chinese artists, active from the Tang dynasty to Northern Song dynasty, created famous paintings including Fu-lin musical and dancing scenes; as e. g. Yan Liben, Wu Daozi and Li Gonglin. The most of these works are unfortunately lost; thus, we have information only from written descriptions to reconstruct them. Some researchers identify Fu-lin with the Byzantines; others disagree with this interpretation. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study whether the musical and dance motifs that referred to Fu-lin and were used by the above mentioned Chinese artists and literati can be identified with Byzantine elements and their performers with Byzantines ones.

: Genre in the function of irony; The paper deals with the problem of genres and methodological digressions in the sixth book of Michael Psellos’ Chronographia, in the context of contemporary genre theories. Conventional opinions about author’s motives for composing digressions about genre and about the complex argument he leaves for interpretation of his own text will be questioned. The main thesis is that the genre-play within history - primarily the use of drama and encomium - has a role in depicting the ironic portrait of the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177015]

: Georgios Sphrantzes or how to become an archon in Byzantium in the XV century; The historical work by Georgios Sphrantzes, his Memoirs, illustrates, through information on his life and career, the way in which a person could enter the higher social circles in XV century Byzantium. Usually, these persons were referred to in sources as "archons" and some of them as the emperor’s "oikeioi", which involved a specific kind of personal and close relationship with the ruler and, in this case, a dynasty. Furthermore, "Sphrantzes" work provides data on some late Byzantine phenomena, for instance, not only the imperial "oikos", but those of the emperor’s brothers as well, and indicates the existence of the same hierarchy in the "ospitia" of the despotai.

: Gračanica and the cult of the Saintly Prince Lazar; The article explores a virtually unknown episode in the history of Gračanica Monastery, a late nineteenth-century restoration of the monastery church. The results of this undertaking were still visible during the conservation of the church conducted in the 1960s and early 1970s. At that time the nineteenth-century interventions were only partially recorded before some of them were removed and permanently lost. The nineteenth- century refurbishing of the frescoes in the main dome was signed by one Mihail Iourokosk Debrel and is dated 1898. More significant, now lost and hitherto unpublished, was the refurbishing probably by the same Mihail, of an arcosolium in the south wall of the church. This arcosolium, whose original function is unknown, was painted and inscribed with a lengthy inscription indicating that the remains of Prince Lazar (who died in the Battle of Kosovo, on June 15, 1389) was temporarily deposited in this tomb before being moved to the monastery of Vrdnik - Ravanica on Fruska Gora. While the content of the inscription is a total fabrication, its implications are nonetheless interesting in several ways. The mastermind behind the project was probably the Metropolitan of Ra{ka - Prizren, Dionisije, who died on Dec. 5, 1900. In accordance with his own wishes, he was buried in the very arcosolium identified as the ‘temporary burial place’ of Prince Lazar. The rising importance of the cult of the Saintly Prince Lazar around 1900 provides the background for this historical fabrication whose construction was actually made up of several disparate elements, each marked by a degree of historical accuracy in its own right thus collectively contributing to its general relevance.

: Gregory of Nazianzus's De rebus suis and the tradition of epic didactic poetry; Gregory's poem De rebus suis (Carm.2.1.1) is examined in this article from the point of view both of its content and of its literary and stylistic features. In content, the poem is personal and reflexive, and its central theme appears to be a crisis of faith that its author had experienced in his later years. In form, it has all the characteristics of the epic didactic genre: it is metaphrastic in nature (i.e., it turns prose material into verse form); it is written in the archaizing epic language; it makes use of the modified Homeric simile (the so-called multiple correspondence simile); and it carefully avoids the use of specific liturgical terms and expressions replacing them instead with various poetic paraphrases. The overall conceptual simplicity of the poem is generic too, and it may have been modeled on the earliest known representative of the genre, Hesiod's Works and Days. .

: H TOY θEOY ΔIA TΩN ARHONTΩN PROMHθEIA - Byzantine 15th century archontes and religious endowments; Constantinopolitan aristocracy of the XV century was, in the different ways and for the various reasons, attached to many of the city's monasteries and churches. The article is about two capital monasteries, St. John The Forerunner in Petra and Christ Philanthropos Soter, and the connection of the illustrious families of Lascaris Leontares and Asanes/Philanthropenos to them. Two epitaphs, composed by John Eugenikos for their ktetors, Demetrios Lascaris Leontares and Isaakios Asanes, shed more light on the matter. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu i br. 177015: Hrišćanska kultura na Balkanu u srednjem veku: Vizantijsko carstvo,Srbi i Bugari od 9. do 15. veka]

: Hatte Stefan I. von Serbien eine tochter namens Komnene?; This contribution examines the article “Stefan Nemanjić i njegov brat Sava u spisima Dimitrija Homatina” by Vlada Stanković (2012) critically. On the basis of Chomatenos files (nos. 1, 3, 10, 13 and 86), he tried to obtain new details about in what way and with what results political and ecclesiastical communication between Epiros and Serbia took place in the period 1215-1219/20. In the course of this, as this present study shows, he repeatedly reached rash, questionable or untenable conclusions. Also the question raised by him - with a critical intention - about the name of Stefan Nemanjić’s daughter is now once again discussed and finally decided in such a way as this was already done in the present author’s edition of Chomatenos: The name Komnene, by which she is designated in the only source on her person (files nos. 1 and 2), is her family name and thus not her first or baptismal name. The latter remains unknown.

: Helias and Blasius de Radoano, ragusan merchants in the second half of the fourteenth century; Based on unpublished and published documents from the State Archives in Dubrovnik (Ragusa), the article traces the lives of two important Ragusan merchants from the second half of the fourteenth century, Helias and Blasius de Radoano and their participation in the economic and political life of the city and in its international activity.

: Hierarchies or direct relation to god; In this paper it will be questioned that the hierarchies play an important role in Byzantine church decoration. There are only a few examples which probably could be interpretated as depictions of hierarchies. But even they are far from certain. Depictions of hierarchies came up during the first centuries of the Post-Byzantine times and occured quite often from then on. It is proposed that these Post-Byzantine examples derive from Western models. In general it remains to clarify whether or not Byzantine theology is dominated by hierarchical theories. It contradicts the idea of theosis to which e.g. the Pantocrator probably fits better than anything else.

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