The Patron’s “I”: Exploring Selfhood in Byzantine Dedicatory Epigrams

The Patrons I: Art, Selfhood, and the Later
Byzantine Dedicatory Epigram

By I v a n D r p i c
Western medievalists have long questioned the notion that in the Middle Ages,
as Jacob Burckhardt famously asserted in Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien
(1860), [m]an was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party,
family, or corporationonly through some general category.1 The sweeping tele-
ological narrative of the rebirth of the autonomous self-conscious individual in
the Renaissance, after its protracted medieval slumber, has been challenged by
more nuanced accounts of the various ways in which personal identity and self-
hood were constituted and expressed during the Middle Ages.2 In recent years,
following Alexander Kazhdans seminal, if contested, work on what he saw as a
1
Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, trans. S. G. C. Middlemore, 2 vols.
(New York: Harper, 1958), 1:143. For the impact of Burckhardts notion of the rise of the individual
in the Renaissance, see John J. Martin, Inventing Sincerity, Refashioning Prudence: The Discov-
ery of the Individual in Renaissance Europe, American Historical Review 102 (December 1997):
130942, esp. 130911 Egon Flaig, Uomo universale und agonales Selbst: Jacob Burckhardts zwei
historiographische Geburtsurkunden der Individualitat, in Die autonome Personeine europaische
Erfindung?, ed. Klaus-Peter Kopping, Michael Welker, and Reiner Wiehl (Munich: W. Fink, 2002),
95111.
2
See Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 10501200 (New York: Harper & Row,
1972) John F. Benton, Consciousness of Self and Perceptions of Individuality, in Renaissance and
Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1982), 26395 Caroline W. Bynum, Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Indi-
vidual?, in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1982), 82109; Jean-Claude Schmitt, La decouverte de lindividu: une fiction
historiographique?, in La fabrique, la figure et la feinte: Fictions et statut des fictions en psychologie,
ed. Paul Mengal and Francoise Parot (Paris: Vrin, 1989), 21336 Lee Patterson, On the Margin:
Postmodernism, Ironic History, and Medieval Studies, Speculum 65/1 (1990): 87108; Jan A. Aert-
sen and Andreas Speer, eds., Individuum und Individualitat im Mittelalter (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1996); Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Medieval Self-Fashioning: Authorship, Authority, and Autobiography
in Susos Exemplar, in The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval
Germany (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 23378 Horst Bredekamp, Das Mittelalter als Epoche der
Individualitat, in Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften: Berichte und Abhandlun-
gen 8 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000), 191240 Thomas E. A. Dale, The Individual, the Resurrected
Body, and Romanesque Portraiture: The Tomb of Rudolf von Schwaben in Merseburg, Speculum
77/3 (2002): 70743; Gert Melville and Markus Schurer, eds., Das Eigene und das Ganze: Zum Indi-
viduellen im mittelalterlichen Religiosentum (Munster: LIT Verlag, 2002); Eva Schlotheuber, Norm
und Innerlichkeit: Zur problematischen Suche nach den Anfangen der Individualitat, Zeitschrift fur
historische Forschung 31 (2004): 32958; Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Dominique Iogna-Prat,
eds., Lindividu au Moyen Age: Individuation et individualisation avant la modernite (Paris: Aubier,
2005); Barbara H. Rosenwein, Y avait-il un moi au haut Moyen Age?, Revue historique 307
(2005): 3152; Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle
Ages (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011). For a useful overview of the literature, see Walter Pohl, Intro-
duction: Ego Trouble?, in Ego Trouble: Authors and Their Identities in the Early Middle Ages, ed.
Richard Corradini et al. (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010),
921.
Speculum 89/4 (October 2014) doi:10.1017/S0038713414000785 895

896 Byzantine Dedicatory Epigram
new sense of the individual in the Byzantine culture of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries,3 Byzantinists have joined the debate and begun to explore the issues
of identity, subjectivity, and individuality. Thus Byzantine selves and their for-
mations and representations have been examined in several contexts, including
autobiography, rhetoric and letter writing, and the liturgy.4 This essay seeks to
contribute to this project by looking at the largely neglected evidence of Byzantine
dedicatory epigrams and the devotional artifacts they accompany.
In Byzantine usage, the term epigramma denotes either a verse inscription writ-
ten on an object or a poem attached to a piece of literature.5 Most often composed
in the dodecasyllable, the medieval equivalent of the classical iambic trimeter,6
3
Alexander P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh
and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
4
For autobiography, see Michael Angold, The Autobiographical Impulse in Byzantium, Dum-
barton Oaks Papers 52 (1998): 22557 Michael Angold, Autobiography & Identity: The Case of the
Later Byzantine Empire, Byzantinoslavica 60 (1999): 3659; Martin Hinterberger, Autobiographi-
sche Traditionen in Byzanz (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1999) Martin Hinterberger, Autobiography and Hagiography in Byzantium, Symbolae Osloenses
75 (2000): 13964 Charis Messis, La memoire du je souffrant: Construire et ecrire la memoire
personnelle dans les recits de captivite, in Lecriture de la memoire: La litterarite de lhistoriographie,
ed. Paolo Odorico, Panagiotis A. Agapitos, and Martin Hinterberger (Paris: Centre detudes byzan-
tines, neo-helleniques et sud-est europeennes, Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, 2006),
10746. For rhetoric and letter writing, see Eustratios N. Papaioannou, Michael Psellos Rhetori-
cal Gender, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 24 (2000): 13346 Eustratios N. Papaioannou,
Michael Psellos: Rhetoric and the Self in Byzantine Epistolography, in Lepistolographie et la poesie
epigrammatique: Projets actuels et questions de methodologie. Actes de la 16e table ronde organisee
par Wolfram Horandner et Michael Grunbart dans le cadre du XXe Congres international des etudes
byzantines, College de FranceSorbonne, Paris, 1925 aout 2001 (Paris: Centre detudes byzan-
tines, neo-helleniques et sud-est europeennes, Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, 2003),
7583; Alexander Riehle, Epistolography as Autobiography: Remarks on the Letter-Collections of
Nikephoros Choumnos, Parekbolai 2 (2012): 122; Stratis Papaioannou, Michael Psellos: Rhetoric
and Authorship in Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). For the liturgy, see
Georgia Frank, Dialogue and Deliberation: The Sensory Self in the Hymns of Romanos the Melodist,
in Religion and the Self in Antiquity, ed. David Brakke, Michael L. Satlow, and Steven Weitzman
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 16379; Derek Krueger, Romanos the Melodist and
the Christian Self in Early Byzantium, in Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzan-
tine Studies: London, 2126 August, 2006, vol. 1, Plenary Papers, ed. Elizabeth Jeffreys (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2006), 25574; Antonia Giannouli, Die Tranen der Zerknirschung: Zur katanyktischen
Kirchendichtung als Heilsmittel, in Doux remede . . . : Poesie et poetique a Byzance, ed. Paolo
Odorico, Panagiotis A. Agapitos, and Martin Hinterberger (Paris: Centre detudes byzantines, neo-
helleniques et sud-est europeennes, Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, 2009), 14155. See also
the essays collected in Christine Angelidi, ed., Byzantium Matures: Choices, Sensitivities, and Modes
of Expression (Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries) (Athens: Institouto Byzantinon Ereunon, 2004); and
Guillaume Saint-Guillain and Dionysios Stathakopoulos, eds., Liquid & Multiple: Individuals & Iden-
tities in the Thirteenth-Century Aegean (Paris: Association des amis du Centre dhistoire et civilisation
de Byzance, 2012). Several of the essays in Brakke et al., eds., Religion and the Self in Antiquity, deal
with the early Byzantine material.
5
See Marc D. Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres: Texts and Contexts
(Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003), 2634, 13132; Andreas
Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Fresken und Mosaiken (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 3745.
6
On the dodecasyllable, see Paul Maas, Der byzantinische Zwolfsilber, Byzantinische Zeitschrift
12 (1903): 278323 Wolfram Horandner, Beobachtungen zur Literarasthetik der Byzantiner: Einige
Speculum 89/4 (October 2014)

Byzantine Dedicatory Epigram 897
Byzantine epigrams could appear on a variety of artifacts and edifices, from church
buildings and tombs to icons, ecclesiastical textiles, pieces of jewelry, and even
seals. While hundreds of these poems can still be seen in situ, the majority of
Byzantine epigrams have come down to us only through manuscript anthologies,
divorced from their original context. Dedicatory verse inscriptions composed to
commemorate acts of piety and munificence constitute an important category
within the epigrammatic genre. The significance of these poetic compositions is
manifold, but for the purpose at hand it should be emphasized that they provide a
critical resource for exploring the nexus of artistic patronage and self-presentation
in Byzantium. In this essay, I shall focus on the evidence of dedicatory epigrams
from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, the period to which, for the sake of con-
venience, I refer as Later Byzantium. The aim of the essay is to examine how
these texts in their symbiotic relationship with images and objects construct, stage,
and perform an identity for the patron. The term patron is here used to denote
the initiator of art making in the broadest sense and thus covers a range of activi-
ties and roles, which Byzantine sources variously identify by designations such as
kthvtwr (founder but also possessor), dothvr (donor), oJ teuvxa~ (maker or
producer), and so forth.7 In what follows, I will be concerned primarily with
acts of religious donation and the realm of personal piety. It is in this realm, I will
argue, that one can identify an important locus of Byzantine self-fashioning.
In the first part of the essay, I will introduce the most common type of dedicatory
epigram in Later Byzantium, namely, the epigram in the form of a personal prayer
spoken in the voice of the patron. I will identify some generic features of this type
and highlight its affinities with other genres and types of discourse in the first
person singular. Then I will lay out some principles and parameters that govern
the construction of personal identity in epigrams foregrounding the patrons I.
Special consideration will be given to what I should like to call the patrons
devotional self. In order to illustrate how this self may be articulated through
words, visual forms and iconographies, and precious materials, in the second
part of the essay I will examine three exquisite objects inscribed with dedicatory
verses. The goal of this exercise is to flesh out the range of possibilities available
to Byzantine patrons in fashioning their devotional selves.
byzantinische Zeugnisse zu Metrik und Rhythmik, Byzantinoslavica 56 (1995): 27990, at 28589;

Marc Lauxtermann, The Velocity of Pure Iambs: Byzantine Observations on the Metre and Rhythm
of the Dodecasyllable, Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 48 (1998): 933 Andreas Rhoby,
Vom jambischen Trimeter zum byzantinischen Zwolfsilber: Beobachtung zur Metrik des spatantiken
und byzantinischen Epigramms, Wiener Studien 124 (2011): 11742.
7
Cf. Antonio Iacobini, Il segno del possesso: Committenti, destinatari, donatori nei manoscritti
bizantini delleta macedone, in Bisanzio nelleta dei Macedoni: Forme della produzione letteraria
e artistica. VIII giornata di studi bizantini (Milano, 1516 marzo 2005), ed. Fabrizio Conca and
Gianfranco Fiaccadori (Milan: Cisalpino, 2007), 15194, at 153. For ktetor, the key among these
terms, see Karl Krumbacher, Kthvtwr: Ein lexikographischer Versuch, Indogermanische Forschungen
25 (1909): 393421 Tania Kambourova, Ktitor: Le sens du don des panneaux votifs dans le monde
byzantine, Byzantion 78 (2008): 26187; Andreas Rhoby, Varia Lexicographica, Jahrbuch der
Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 57 (2007): 116, at 1415.

Dedicatory Epigrams: Prayer, Performance, and the Self
Depending on the occasion and setting, as well as on the choices of the individ-
uals involved, dedicatory epigrams can take several forms.8 Some, for instances,
focus entirely upon the praise of the patron. This is especially the case with
epigrams on public monuments and buildings. When in 1313/14 Gregory, arch-
bishop of Ohrid, added an elegant two-storied exonarthex to the citys cathedral,
the Church of Hagia Sophia, he had this accomplishment commemorated in a
brick inscription on the buildings main facade (Figs. 12).9
Mws~ oJ Grhgovrio[~ Ij sra]h;l nev
skhnh;n ejgeivra~, to;n qeovgraon novmon
eqnh ta; Musn ejkdidavskei pansovw~.
[Having erected a tabernacle for the New Israel, like Moses, Gregory teaches the Mysian
peoples the divinely written Law in an all-wise fashion.]
A confidant of the emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos (r. 12821328), Gregory
was sent from Constantinople to administer the see of Ohrid with its predomi-
nantly Slavic population, to which the verses refer using the archaism Mysoi.10 In
accordance with its prominent display on the citys most important church, the
inscription reads like a public proclamation addressed to the populace at large.
Built around a flattering comparison between Gregory and Moses, the inscription
8
On Byzantine dedicatory epigrams, see Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry, esp. 15866; Wolfram
Horandner, Zur Topik byzantinischer Widmungs- und Einleitungsgedichte, in Dulce melos: La
poesia tardoantica e medievale. Atti del III Convegno internazionale di studi, Vienna, 1518 novem-
bre 2004, ed. Victoria Panagl (Alessandria: Edizioni dellOrso, 2007), 31935; Rhoby, Byzantinische
Epigramme auf Fresken und Mosaiken, 5556 Andreas Rhoby, The Structure of Inscriptional Ded-
icatory Epigrams in Byzantium, in La poesia tardoantica e medievale: IV Convegno internazionale
di studi, Perugia, 1517 novembre 2007. Atti in onore di Antonino Isola per il suo 70 genetliaco, ed.
Clara Burini De Lorenzi and Miryam De Gaetano (Alessandria: Edizioni dellOrso, 2010), 30932
Floris Bernard, The Beats of the Pen: Social Contexts of Reading and Writing Poetry in Eleventh-
Century Constantinople (PhD diss., University of Ghent, 2010), 26573 Foteini Spingou, Words
and Artworks in the Twelfth Century and Beyond: The Thirteenth-Century Manuscript Marcianus
Gr. 524 and the Twelfth- Century Dedicatory Epigrams on Works of Art (PhD diss., University of
Oxford, 2012).
9
See Iordan Ivanov, Bulgarski starini iz Makedoniia (Sofia: Durzhavna pechatnitsa, 1931), 3435
(no. 1) Cvetan Grozdanov, Prilozi proucavanju Sv. Sofije ohridske u XIV veku, Zbornik za likovne
umetnosti Matice srpske 5 (1969): 3758, at 3742, and the drawing of the inscription after p. 50. For
the reconstruction of the lacuna in line 1, see Ihor Sevcenko and Jeffrey Featherstone, Two Poems
by Theodore Metochites, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 26 (1981): 145, at 8 n. 18. On
the archbishop Gregory, see Erich Trapp, ed., Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, 12
vols. (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 197696), no. 91716. On
the exonarthex, see Barbara Maria Schellewald, Die Architektur der Sophienkirche im Ohrid (Bonn:
Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universitat, 1986), 16883 Boris Cipan, St. Sophia: The Cathedral
Church of the Ohrid Archbishopric. A Chronology of the Architecture (Skopje: Sigmapres, 1996),
esp. 12224.
10
For the use of the archaizing ethnonym Mysos, see Theodora Papadopoulou, Hoi horoi Mysia
kai Mysos stis byzantines peges tes meses kai hysteres periodou, in Hypermachos: Studien zur Byzan-
tinistik, Armenologie und Georgistik. Festschrift fur Werner Seibt zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Christos
Stavrakos, Alexandra-Kyriaki Wassiliou, and Mesrob K. Krikorian (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008),
25781.

Fig. 1. (Color online) Exonarthex of the Cathedral Church of Hagia Sophia, Ohrid,
1313/14 (photo: Miodrag Markovic).
Fig. 2. (Color online) Dedicatory epigram of the archbishop Gregory, Cathedral Church
of Hagia Sophia, Ohrid, 1313/14 (photo: Miodrag Markovic).
celebrates the archbishops munificence, learning, and, most notably, his pastoral
care for his Mysian flock. In dedicatory epigrams commemorating religious
works, however, spiritual concerns rather than praise are typically in the fore-
ground.
Ephxe bavqra t na sou, parqevne,
Levwn, Ajrgeivwn ajlitro;~ quhpovlo~,
per paravscoi~ luvtron ajmplakhmavtwn
eij~ ajntavmeiyin, eujloghmevnh kovrh.

Fig. 3. (Color online) Church of the Hagia Mone, Areia, 1149 and later (photo: Christina
Pinatsi).
[Leo, the sinful priest of the Argives, laid the foundations of your church, O Virgin. May
you, blessed Maiden, grant him in repayment the remission of his sins.]
These verses, accompanied by the date of April 1149, are engraved in marble
on the west facade of the monastery church at Areia in Argolid, founded by
Leo, bishop of Argos and Nauplia (Figs. 34).11 Set up by two prelates upon the
11
See Denis Feissel and Anne Philippidis-Braat, Inventaires en vue dun recueil des inscriptions his-
toriques de Byzance. III. Inscriptions du Peloponnese (a lexception de Mistra), Travaux et memoires
9 (1985): 267395, at 3089 (no. 51), with further bibliography. On the monastery at Areia and its

Fig. 4. (Color online) Dedicatory epigram of the bishop Leo, Church of the Hagia Mone,
Areia, 1149 (photo: Christina Pinatsi).
buildings they had erected, the inscriptions at Ohrid and Areia are very different.
The former is a verbal celebration of ecclesiastical leadership, the latter a personal
request for salvation.
The vast majority of dedicatory epigrams in the religious sphere take the form
of a prayer addressed to the divine or saintly beneficiary of the dedication. Yet
in the inscription at Areia the patron does not present the church he founded
in propria voce. Rather, an impersonal voice appeals to the Mother of God on
behalf of the bishop Leo. In Later Byzantium, however, the patron is usually more
assertive and assumes the I of the epigram. Indeed, most dedicatory epigrams
from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries are personal prayers: the patron,
speaking in his or her own voice, offers a pious gift to Christ, the Virgin, or a
saint, and gives thanks for favors received in the past or asks for future favors or
for the eternal repose of his or her soul in the hereafter. These personal prayers
can be quite concise. Such is the poetic inscription on a sumptuous silk cloth
with a depiction of the Crucifixion embroidered with gold and silver thread, now
housed in the National History Museum in Sofia (Fig. 5).12 The six rather crudely
lettered dodecasyllable lines displayed beneath Christs outstretched arms, three
on either side, present the patrons petition.
founder, see Georgios A. Choras, He Hagia Mone Areias en te ekklesiastike kai politike historia
Naupliou kai Argous (Athens: s.n., 1975). For the architecture of the church, see Charalambos Bouras
and Laskarina Boura, He helladike naodomia kata ton 12o aiona (Athens: Emporike Trapeza tes
Hellados, 2002), 8185, with further bibliography.
12
See Nikodim P. Kondakov, Makedoniia: Arkheologicheskoe puteshestvie (St. Petersburg, 1909),
27374 Iuliana Bocheva, Edin pametnik na vizantiskata vezba ot Ohrid: Datirane i atributsiia,
Problemi na izkustvoto 31/3 (1998): 815; Ralitsa Lozanova, ed., Icones et manuscrits bulgares:
Musees royaux dart et dhistoire, Bruxelles, du 11 octobre 2002 au 5 janvier 2003 (Brussels: Fondation
Europalia International, 2002), cat. no. 75 (Ralitsa Lozanova). For the dedicatory epigram on the
cloth, see also Andreas Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst:
Nebst Addenda zu Band 1 Byzantinische Epigramme auf Fresken und Mosaiken (Vienna: Verlag der
Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), 36971 (no. Te1).

Fig. 5. (Color online) Embroidered cloth with the Crucifixion, c. 1295, National History
Museum, Sofia (photo: Todor Dimitrov).

Drovn soi kleino;~ mevga~ eJtaireiavrch~
tuvpon s~ staurwvsew~ ajnatup soi
ejk t~ dokouvsh~ tavca timiva~ ulh~
su;n Eujdokiv t oJmozuvg, lovge,
5 ou s Komnhn mhtropappopatrovqen
ina luvsin lavbwmen ajmplakhmavtwn.
[I, illustrious megas hetaireiarches, make the image of your Crucifixion for you with a
material that is allegedly precious, O Logos, as a gift together with my wife Eudokia,
who is a Komnene through her maternal and paternal grandfather, so that our sins may
be pardoned.]
Until the early twentieth century the cloth had been kept in the treasury of
the Church of the Mother of God Peribleptos in Ohrid, founded shortly be-
fore 1294/95 by the same individuals mentioned in the epigramthe megas het-
aireiarches Progonos Sgouros, a senior military officer, and his wife Eudokia
Komnene.13 It is safe to assume that the cloth was commissioned around that
time and donated to the new foundation as part of the couples endowment. The
silk embroidery most likely served as a veil attached to a particularly venerated
icon of Christ.14 The verses placed on the cloth were meant to commemorate the
couples devotion and generosity and to negotiate, as it were, the transfer of this
splendid gift to the Divine Logos. If, in the spirit of humility befitting a pious
donor, Sgouros should express his doubts about the true value of the cloths gold
and silver embroidery, it is because all this bullion, as stated in the concluding
line, was meant to outweigh the burden of his and his wifes amplakematatheir
sins.
The epigram on the Crucifixion cloth is rather straightforward in its negoti-
ation of spiritual exchange between Sgouros and Christ. However, a dedicatory
prayer can be much more verbose and incorporate extensive praise of the dedica-
tee, repeated invocations studded with sparkling epithets, references to dogmatic
precepts, expressions of affection and loyalty, and even a certain amount of au-
tobiographical detail. Elaborate dedicatory epigrams of this kind are especially
common in the realm of icon piety. Some of the best examples are to be found in
the epigrammatic opus of Nicholas Kallikles, a physician and poet at the courts
of Alexios I (r. 10811118) and John II Komnenos (r. 111843). Here is a poem,
preserved in a manuscript, that Kallikles composed for a gold-woven purple veil
13
On the Church of the Mother of God Peribleptos (now Saint Clement) and its founders, see
Petar Miljkovic-Pepek, Deloto na zografite Mihailo i Eutihij (Skopje: Republicki zavod za zastita na
spomenicite na kulturata, 1967), 4347 Ivan Zarov, Ktitorstvoto na velikiot heterijarh Progon Zgur
na Sv. Bogorodica Perivlepta vo Ohrid, Zbornik: Srednovekovna umetnost 6 (2007): 4961, with
further bibliography.
14
If the prefix ajnav in the verb ajnatupovw, meaning represent, in line 2 is to be understood as adding
the sense of again or anew, then this must have been an icon of the Crucifixion. At any rate, it
was not uncommon for icon veils to replicate the imagery of the panels to which they were attached.
See A. Frolov, La podea: Un tissu decoratif de leglise byzantine, Byzantion 13 (1938): 461504,
at 48489. In an epigram by Nicholas Kallikles, an icon veil is characterized as eijkw;n eijkovno~ (an
image of an image): Nicola Callicle: Carmi, ed. and trans. Roberto Romano (Naples: Bibliopolis,
1980), 104 (no. 26, line 5).

dedicated to the celebrated icon of the Virgin Hodegetria by the sebastos John
Arbantenos.15
Ejmauto;n aujto;~ dron, aJgnhv, soi; evrw,
ouj dra mikrav, crusivon kai; poruvran
ejn to~ klovnoi~ ga;r kai; zavlai~ ta~ ejk tuvch~
euroun se eqron eron ajtaraxiva~,
5 eron ajnivkhtovn se avrmakon novswn,
ajpallagh;n katedon ejn ta~ rontivsi
dovxh~ ejr parevsce~ aqonon klevo~
khvdou~ crovno~ sunya~ ojlbiv gevnei,
crus platavn, t basilevw~ tuvc,
10 olon kateskivasa~ hJmn to;n bivon.
Davknei qovno~ tiv~ qlavson aujto ta;~ gnavqou~
lupe dovlo~ suvntriyon aujto ta;~ muvla~
anoigev moi ta; splavgcna to basilevw~
scoivnisma lamprovn, klron ojlbivou bivou
15 do;~ kai; tevkna bravbeue kai; zw~ plavto~,
do;~ praevwn gn kai; tovpon swthriva~,
do;~ paggen moi th;n Ejde;m katoikivan
diadramouvsh~ t~ kavtw paroikiva~.
Ajrbanthnov~ soi tata, semnh; parqevne,
20 pistov~, devspoina, so;~ lavtrh~ Ij wavnnh~.
[I bring my very self to you as a gift, O pure one, not small gifts, gold and purple. For,
in the turmoil and distresses of fate, I found you as a fair-flowing stream of calm; I
found you as an invincible cure against afflictions, and I saw a deliverance from my
cares. I desire fame; you gave me abundant glory. When it was time to marry, you
united me with a noble family, a golden plane tree, with imperial connections. You have
watched over my whole life. If someones envy should bite, smash its jaws! If deceit
should cause me pain, break its molars!16 Open the emperors heart to me, grant me a
glorious lot, an inheritance of prosperous life, and children, too, and reward me with
fullness of life. And when this earthly sojourn has passed, grant me the land of the meek
and the place of salvation, grant me Paradise, the dwelling place of every species. Ar-
bantenos says these words to you, holy Virgin, your faithful servant, O Mistress,
John.]17
Like the inscription on the cloth dedicated by Sgouros and his wife, Kalli-
kless poem is essentially a personal prayer to the Virgin. Arbantenos invokes
the Mother of God directly, in his own voice. Appealing to her presence and at-
tention, he calls her by her epithet pure and further praises her as a fair-flowing
15
Nicola Callicle, ed. and trans. Romano, 7778 (no. 1). On Arbantenos, see Paul Gautier,
Lobituaire du typikon du Pantocrator, Revue des etudes byzantines 27 (1969): 23562, at 26062.
On the icon of the Hodegetria, see especially Christine Angelidi and Titos Papamastorakis, The Ven-
eration of the Virgin Hodegetria and the Hodegon Monastery, in Mother of God: Representations
of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Milan: Skira, 2000), 37387; Bissera Pentcheva,
Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2006), chap. 4, with further bibliography.
16
Cf. Job 29.17.
17
Translation after Valerie Nunn, The Encheirion as Adjunct to the Icon in the Middle Byzantine
Period, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 10 (1986): 73102, at 99, substantially modified.

stream of calm, invincible cure, and deliverance. As in the inscription on the
Crucifixion cloth, there is an emphasis on direct exchange between the human and
the divine spheres. The ostensible aim of Kallikless verses was to negotiate the
presentation of the sumptuous icon veil, which Arbantenos donated to the Virgin
as a thank offering, a small repayment for the benefactions she had bestowed upon
him. The most significant among these was his elevation into the highest echelon
of the Komnenian elite, sealed by his marriage to Anna, niece of the emperor John
II Komnenos. Aside from acknowledging the sebastoss debt to the Virgin, the
gift of a costly icon veil was also meant to buttress his request for further bene-
factions, including defense against his enemies, imperial favor, the capacity to
produce offspring,18 and a place in Paradise. The relationship between the donor
and the sacred recipient is portrayed as intrinsically personal. Arbantenosso we
are toldhas enjoyed the Mother of Gods protection throughout his life. As her
faithful servant, he truly belongs to her. Indeed, no gift could better express
his intense emotional attachment to her than the gift of his own self. The string
of imperatives laced through his petitionsmash, break, open, reward,
and thrice-repeated grantonly underscores the privileged nature of his access
to the Virgin. The forcefully stated I here implies a you, and even though the
Virgin is not brought into the text to converse with her devotee, her presence is
nonetheless linguistically signaled. Kallikless poem ends with a disclosure of the
donors identity. The two concluding lines are not, in fact, spoken in the voice of
the donor. The poem here switches to an impersonal voice, which, in an apos-
trophe to the Virgin, explains that it is John Arbantenos who has addressed the
preceding linestata (these words)to her. Later Byzantine dedicatory
epigrams often end with such a coda.
A dedicatory verse inscription in the form of a prayer is essentially a speech,
an orchestrated first-person address, in which the poet endows the patron not
only with a voice, but also with a dramatic persona, an I. The staged, mediated
nature of this speech is occasionally highlighted in titles attached to epigrams in
manuscripts, which may use expressions such as ejk proswvpou (spoken in
the person of), wJ~ ajpov (spoken as if by), wJ~ ajpo; stovmato~ (spoken
as if from the mouth of), and the like, followed by the patrons name.19 Due
to the lack of direct evidence, the exact nature of the patrons involvement in
18
We know that, eventually, Arbantenoss wife Anna was able to conceive a child. The pregnant
sebaste dedicated another sumptuous veil to the icon of the Hodegetria. In the verses composed by
Kallikles for that occasion (Nicola Callicle, ed. and trans. Romano, 1045 [no. 26]), Anna prays to
the Virgin to watch over her pregnancy and grant her safe delivery and also to rescue her husband,
who was suffering from a raging fever at the time.
19
To limit myself to the epigrammatic opus of Manuel Philes, the most prolific poet of the early
Palaiologan era, see, e.g., Manuelis Philae carmina ex codicibus Escurialensibus, Florentinis, Parisinis
et Vaticanis, ed. Emmanuel Miller, 2 vols. (Paris, 185557), 1:70 (no. 159), 1:72 (no. 161), 1:74 (no.
164), 1:76 (no. 166), 1:77 (no. 168), 1:116 (no. 220); 1:117 (no. 223), 1:122 (no. 231), 1:129 (no.
254), 1:131 (no. 259), 1:240 (no. 66), 1:244 (no. 71), 1:432 (no. 224), 2:144 (no. 92), 2:153 (no.
109), 2:154 (no. 110), 2:161 (no. 126), 2:187 (no. 156), 2:194 (no. 172), 2:198 (no. 180), 2:354 (no.
9). See also Manouel I. Gedeon, Manouel tou Phile historika poiemata, Ekklesiastike Aletheia 3
(1883): 21520, 24450, 65259, at 658. For the use of the wJ~ ejk (ajpo;) proswvpou formula in other
contexts, see Nikolaos B. Tomadakes, Apothesaurismata, Athena 64 (1960): 316, at 811.

the creation of an epigram is difficult to ascertain. While in many, if not most,
instances the patron was probably no more involved than in rewarding the poet
for his labor, it is reasonable to assume that the commissioner often specified
the ideas or sentiments that the epigram was expected to convey.20 Yet, regard-
less of the degree to which the patron may have collaborated with the poet in
formulating the prayer put into his or her mouth, the real and the poetic
voice of the patron must be kept distinct. For dedicatory epigrams are by no
means direct reflections of biographical reality, much less revelations of interi-
ority, a view onto ones personal emotions and experiences. Rather, they are
highly stylized discursive constructions of identity, idealized projections shaped
by individual choices as much as by literary conventions and social norms and
institutions.
In order to understand and appreciate the logic behind the construction of
identity in dedicatory epigrams in the form of a prayer, we should begin with
their essential feature. The patron in these poetic statements plays an active role
and, assuming the I of the epigram, speaks about him- or herself. This kind of
self-assertiveness should not be taken lightly. To say I was a charged gesture in
Byzantium. Both Christian morality and rhetorical tradition imposed severe re-
strictions on self-reference. Periautologia, literally speaking about oneself, car-
ried negative connotation and was often equated with boasting.21 In Byzantine
rhetorical practice, to speak about oneself was considered acceptable or neces-
sary only in specific situations, for instance, when the speaker is forced to reveal
the truth, defend him- or herself, or morally edify others by setting a personal
example of virtuous conduct.22 Religious contexts provided another venue for ad-
missible yet restrained self-reference. In dedicatory epigrams spoken in the voice of
the patron, periautologia was framed and thus justified, on the one hand, by the
religiously significant and socially commendable gesture of donation, and on the
other, by the praise of the sacred recipient and his or her benefactions bestowed
upon the speaker.
In their articulation of the patrons voice, dedicatory epigrams show affini-
ties with other genres and types of discourse that dramatize the I, including
20
An example of a patrons hands-on approach is preserved in the correspondence of the Late
Palaiologan scholar John Chortasmenos. When a patriarchal official mocked the verses that Chortas-
menos had written for the newly built palace of the senator Theodore Palaiologos Kantakouzenos in
Constantinople, the author excused himself in a letter by saying that he had only fulfilled the express
wish of his employer. Not only did the senator interfere with Chortasmenoss versifying, but he also
kept a close eye on the masons, who were not allowed even to plaster a wall without his approval.
Letter 15, ed. Herbert Hunger, Johannes Chortasmenos (ca. 1370ca. 1436/37): Briefe, Gedichte
und kleine Schriften (Vienna: Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1969), 16566. Chor-
tasmenoss epigrams on the palace of Theodore Palaiologos Kantakouzenos are published in ibid.,
19092 (b, d, e), 19495 (g, g1).
21
On periautologia, see Hinterberger, Autobiographische Traditionen, 13249; Hinterberger,
Autobiography and Hagiography, 15051.
22
An authoritative statement in this regard was Plutarchs treatise On Praising Oneself Inoffen-
sively: Hinterberger, Autobiographische Traditionen, 13839; Hinterberger, Autobiography and
Hagiography, 15051.

23 24
first-person passages in liturgical hymns, communion prayers, catanyctic
alphabets,25 poems eis heauton (to oneself),26 and epitaphs spoken in the voice
of the deceased.27 A constant point of reference is the language of the Psalms
the paradigmatic poetry of prayer, contrition, praise, and thanksgiving in the
first person singular.28 Two genres, however, deserve special attention: ethopoiia,
or character study, and the autobiographical preface to a monastic typikon, or
foundation charter.
Ethopoiia is a rhetorical genre widely practiced in Byzantium both as a class-
room exercise, one of the progymnasmata, and as a literary composition, either
autonomous or inserted into a larger narrative.29 Ethopoiia, as the rhetorician
Aphthonios (late fourth and early fifth century CE) defines it, represents an imi-
tation of the character of a proposed speaker.30 The writers task in composing it
was to imagine what a particular person would say in a given situation, typically
a critical moment in his or her life. Hence, many freestanding ethopoiiai are intro-
duced by the formulaic question Tivna~ a]n eipoi lovgou~, or What words would
so-and-so say?for example, What words would Medea say when she is about
23
Notable examples include the Great Parakletikos Kanon and the Small Parakletikos Kanon to the
Virgin, and the Great Kanon of Andrew of Crete: Bartholomaios Koutloumousianos, ed., Horologion
to mega, 7th ed. (Venice: Hellenike Typographia tou Phoinikos, 1851), 41533; Wilhelm von Christ
and Matthaios Paranikas, eds., Anthologia graeca carminum christianorum (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871;
repr. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1963), 16379. See also the celebrated hymn on the sinful woman by
the poetess Cassia: Christ and Paranikas, eds., Anthologia, 104, with Andrew R. Dyck, On Cassia,
Kuvrie hJ ejn polla~ . . . , Byzantion 56 (1986): 6376.
24
See Stefanos Alexopoulos and Annewies van den Hoek, The Endicott Scroll and Its Place in the
History of Private Communion Prayers, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 60 (2006): 14588.
25
See Dragutin N. Anastasijewic, Alphabete, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 16 (1907): 479501; Marc
D. Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm: An Essay on the Political Verse and Other Byzantine Metres
(Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), 3135.
26
See Herbert Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, 2 vols. (Munich:
Beck, 1978), 2:15862; Hinterberger, Autobiographische Traditionen, 7174; Emilie Marlene van
Opstall, Jean Geometre: Poemes en hexametres et en distiques elegiaques (Leiden and Boston: Brill,
2008), 3132.
27
See Nikolaos Papadogiannakis, Studien zu den Epitaphien des Manuel Philes (Heraklion: s.n.,
1984), esp. 7679; Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry, 21518.
28
On the language of the Psalms as a model and a mirror for the Christian reader, see Athanasios
of Alexandrias famous Letter to Marcellinus 1112, PG 27:24. On the role of the Psalms in personal
piety, see Georgi R. Parpulov, Psalters and Personal Piety in Byzantium, in The Old Testament in
Byzantium, ed. Paul Magdalino and Robert Nelson (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection, 2010), 77105.
29
See Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur, 1:10816. On ethopoiia as a rhetorical
genre more broadly, see Hans-Martin Hagen, H j qopoia: Zur Geschichte eines rhetorischen Begriffs
(Erlangen: s.n., 1966); Eugenio Amato and Jacques Schamp, eds., Ethopoiia: La representation de
caracteres entre fiction scolaire et realite vivante a lepoque imperiale et tardive (Salerno: Helios,
2005).
30
Aphthonios, Progymnasmata 11.1, ed. and trans. Michel Patillon, Corpus rhetoricum: Anonyme,
Preambule a la rhetorique. Aphthonios, Progymnasmata. En annexe: Pseudo- Hermogene, Progym-
nasmata (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2008), 144: hjqopoiiva ejsti; mivmhsi~ hqou~ uJpokeimevnou proswvpou.
It is interesting to note that the thirteenth-century Lexicon of Pseudo-Zonaras uses the expression
wJ~ ejk proswvpou in its definition of prosopopoiia, i.e., ethopoiia. Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon ex tribus
codicibus manuscriptis, ed. J. A. H. Tittmann, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Crusius, 1808), 2:1578: proswpopoii?a.
otan ti~ provswpon uJpoqevmeno~ eteron h] uJpodu;~, wJ~ ejk proswvpou tino;~ eip.

to murder her children? The writer could either focus on the speakers emotions
(pathetical ethopoiia) or foreground his or her character, will, and moral dispo-
sition (ethical ethopoiia), or combine the presentation of character with the por-
trayal of emotional pathos (mixed ethopoiia). Central to effective characterization
was the observance of the principle of prepon, that is, the choice of appropriate
diction depending on the speakers age, occupation, social status, and so forth,
as well as on the specific circumstances in which the delivery of the speech was
imagined to take place. Dedicatory epigrams are, of course, not ethopoiiai in the
strict sense. Rather, in their verbal staging of the patrons persona, they draw in a
varying degree upon the patterns of rhetorical characterization. It is no accident, I
believe, that the genre of ethopoiia gained increasing popularity in the Komnenian
era, which is precisely the time when the I speech emerged as the dominant form
of dedicatory epigram. Authors as diverse as Michael Italikos and John Kinnamos
occasionally engaged in composing freestanding ethopoiiai,31 while Nikephoros
Basilakes, the foremost among the twelfth-century practitioners of the genre, left
over two dozen character studies of biblical heroes and personages from pagan
mythology and ancient history.32 In the twelfth century, it should be pointed out,
contemporary figures, too, were considered a suitable subject for such rhetorical
exercises.33 Eustathios, future archbishop of Thessalonike, wrote an ethopoiia
of the metropolitan Neophytos of Mokessos who, having been robbed of his
clothes in a bathhouse, found himself naked, much to the amusement of the
crowd that gathered to mock him.34 And when the son of the epi tou kanikleiou
Theodore Styppeiotes, a high official at the court of Manuel I Komnenos, sur-
vived a fall from an upper floor of their family residence, an anonymous writer
penned a poem in the so-called political verse entitled Tivna~ a]n eip lovgou~ oJ uiJo;~
to ejpi; to kanikleivou ajblabh;~ diaulacqeiv~ (What words would the son of
the epi tou kanikleiou say after having been saved unharmed?).35 This Komne-
nian enthusiasm for ethopoiia was not limited to writing autonomous character
studies. The conventions of the genre were employed in other kinds of literary
compositions that called for rhetorical dramatizations of the I. Scholars have
31
Michel Italikos: Lettres et Discours, ed. and trans. Paul Gautier (Paris: Institut francais detudes
byzantines, 1972), 23436; Cinnami Ethopoeia, ed. and trans. Gyorgy Banhegyi (Budapest: Kir. M.
Pazmany Peter Tudomanyegyetemi Gorog Filologiai intezet, 1943), 610.
32
Niceforo Basilace: Progimnasmi e Monodie, ed. and trans. Adriana Pignani (Naples: Bibliopolis,
1983), 139232.
33
Exceptionally, before the twelfth century, free-standing ethopoiiai may feature contemporary
imperial figures. Examples include John Geometress ethopoiia of Nikephoros II Phokas (r. 96369)
and an anonymous ethopoiia of Michael V Kalaphates (r. 104142): Van Opstall, Jean Geometre, 281
88 (no. 80); Christian Walz, ed., Rhetores Graeci, 9 vols. (Stuttgart: Cotta, 183236), 2:5089, with
Craig A. Gibson, The Anonymous Progymnasmata in John Doxapatres Homiliae in Aphthonium,
Byzantinische Zeitschrift 102/1 (2009): 8394, at 9192. See also Lia Raffaella Cresci, Ethopoiia di
argomento storico nella poesia bizantina, in La retorica greca fra tardo antico ed eta bizantina: Idee
e forme, ed. Ugo Criscuolo (Naples: M. DAuria, 2012), 33753.
34
Eustathii metropolitae Thessalonicensis opuscula, ed. T. L. F. Tafel (Frankfurt-am-Main: Schmer-
ber, 1832; repr. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1964), 32832, with emendations in Peter Wirth, Gehort die
Ethopoiie Poius an eipe logous ktl. zum Briefcorpus des Erzbischofs Eustathios von Thessalonike?,
Classica et mediaevalia 21 (1960): 21517.
35
Basilike Kouphopoulou, Dyo anekdota poiemata gia ton gio tou Theodorou Styppeiote,
Byzantina 15 (1989): 35167, at 36265.
already drawn attention to the importance of the tradition of ethopoiia for under-
standing works such as the Ptochoprodromic poems36 or the twelfth-century erotic
novels with their sequences of speeches, dramatic monologues, and laments.37 The
same, I would insist, may be said of contemporary epigrammatic poetry.
By the time the dedicatory epigram in the form of a prayer gained currency,
the I speech had already become a mode of discourse associated with religious
donation, albeit in a different context. Beginning in the eleventh century, if not
earlier, it became common to introduce a monastic foundation charter with an
autobiographical preface, in which the founder gives an account of his or her
life and explains the motives that guided him or her in setting up or restoring
a monastic house.38 Notable examples composed by or for lay founders include
the prefaces to the Diataxis of Michael Attaleiates for the Monastery of Christ
Panoiktirmon in Constantinople and a poorhouse at Rhaidestos on the Black Sea
(1077);39 the Typikon of Gregory Pakourianos for the Monastery of the Mother
of God Petritzonitissa at Backovo in Bulgaria (1083);40 the Typikon of the em-
peror Michael VIII Palaiologos (r. 125982) for the Monastery of Saint Demetrios
in Constantinople (1282);41 the Typikon of Theodora Palaiologina Synadene for
the Convent of the Mother of God Bebaia Elpis in Constantinople (c. 1300);42
and the testamentary oration of Constantine Akropolites for the Monastery of the
Anastasis in Constantinople (c. 1320).43 To be sure, these autobiographical pref-
aces are complex documents with important legal and institutional ramifications,
but to the extent that they contain first-person narratives of individual quests for
36
See Roderick Beaton, Ptochoprodromika Gv : He ethopoiia tou ataktou monachou, in Mneme
Stamate Karatza (Thessalonike: Aristoteleio Panepistemio Thessalonikes, 1990), 1017.
37
See Panagiotis Roilos, Amphoteroglossia: A Poetics of the Twelfth-Century Medieval Greek Novel
(Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2005), esp. 61111.
38
See Michael Angold, Were Byzantine Monastic Typika Literature?, in The Making of Byzantine
History, ed. Roderick Beaton and Charlotte Roueche (Aldershot: Variorum, 1993), 4670 Angold,
The Autobiographical Impulse, 22557; Hinterberger, Autobiographische Traditionen, esp. 183
201; Hinterberger, Autobiography and Hagiography, 14247. See also Catia Galatariotou, Byzan-
tine Ktetorika Typika: A Comparative Study, Revue des etudes byzantines 45 (1987): 77138; Rose-
mary Morris, Monks and Laymen in Byzantium, 8431118 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), chap. 5 Margaret Mullett, Constructing Identities in Twelfth-Century Byzantium, in Byzan-
tium Matures, ed. Angelidi, 12944, at 12933; Margaret Mullett, ed., Founders and Refounders of
Byzantine Monasteries (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, 2007).
39
Paul Gautier, La diataxis de Michel Attaliate, Revue des etudes byzantines 39 (1981): 5143, at
1725; trans. Alice-Mary Talbot, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Trans-
lation of the Surviving Founders Typika and Testaments, ed. John Thomas and Angela Constantinides
Hero, 5 vols. (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000), 1:33335.
40
Paul Gautier, Le typikon du sebaste Gregoire Pakourianos, Revue des etudes byzantines 42
(1984): 5145, at 1923, 2935; trans. Robert Jordan, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents,
2:51920, 52224.
41
Henri Gregoire, Imperatoris Michaelis Palaeologi de vita sua, Byzantion 2930 (1959
60): 44776, at 44765; trans. George Dennis, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, 3:
124147.
42
Hippolyte Delehaye, Deux typica byzantins de lepoque des Paleologues (Brussels: M. Hayez,
1921), 2027; trans. Alice-Mary Talbot, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, 4:152327.
43
Hippolyte Delehaye, Constantini Acropolitae hagiographi byzantini epistularum manipulus,
Analecta Bollandiana 51 (1933): 26384, at 27982; trans. Alice-Mary Talbot, in Byzantine Monastic
Foundation Documents, 4:137779.

salvation, developed around the theme of religious donation, they come close to
dedicatory epigrams.
Although full-fledged autobiographies were hardly ever written in Byzantium,
the autobiographical impulse was strong and left its imprint on a wide variety of
writings, from histories and saints vitae to travel reports and letters of resignation.
As evidenced, among other things, by the emergence and relative popularity of
the genre of the autobiographical preface to a monastic charter, this impulse
seems to have gained in momentum in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.44 Its
impact, I would argue, may be identified, too, in the rise of the I speech as
the dominant form of dedicatory address. Despite a marked distaste for factual
detail that is characteristic of the epigrammatic genre as a whole, one can often
detect autobiographical elements in dedicatory epigrams. Kallikless epigram on
the veil dedicated to the icon of the Hodegetria by the sebastos John Arbantenos
is a good example. In the first half of this poem, one recalls, Arbantenos reflects
on his past experiences, making oblique reference to his rise to eminence and his
crowning achievementhis marriage to an imperial niece. The phenomenon of the
autobiographical preface and the increasing prominence of dedicatory epigrams
featuring the patrons prayer should thus be seen as manifestations of the same
self-representational urge. This urge, I believe, is not so much a testament to a new
kind of self-awareness, let alone individuality, in eleventh- and twelfth-century
Byzantium.45 Rather, it represents an aspect of what seems to be a broader shift
in Byzantine religious culture toward more personal and more affective forms of
self-expression, a point to which I shall return in the second part of this essay.
With its dramatization of the I, the dedicatory epigram in the form of a prayer
provides an account of the patrons self. As noted above, the I that speaks in
the epigram is less an historical person than a dramatic persona performing on the
stage of the inscribed object. Congenial to my understanding of performance and
selfhood in this context is the notion of the performative self formulated by the so-
ciologist Erving Goffman, most notably in his seminal The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life (1959). Goffman employs the metaphor of theater to describe and
analyze everyday encounters. He conceives of face-to-face interactions as a series
of performances in which individuals present themselves to different audiences,
attempting to manage and control the impressions they make. In Goffmans view,
personal identity may be construed as a product of such performances. A cor-
44
See especially Angold, The Autobiographical Impulse, 22557. See also Kazhdan and Wharton
Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture, esp. 22030; Lauxtermann, Byzantine Poetry, 3738 Paul
Magdalino, Cultural Change? The Context of Byzantine Poetry from Geometres to Prodromos, in
Poetry and Its Contexts in Eleventh-Century Byzantium, ed. Floris Bernard and Kristoffel Demoen
(Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 1936, at 2930.
45
The rise of the individual in the eleventh and twelfth centuries is one of the guiding themes in
Kazhdan and Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture, a study that provides what is arguably
the most influential account of the mechanisms and nature of social and cultural transformations
in medieval Byzantium. For a critique of this study as it relates to the question of individuality, see
Mullett, Constructing Identities, 12944. For the debate about the discovery of the individual in
the twelfth-century West, see the overview in Susan R. Kramer and Caroline W. Bynum, Revisiting
the Twelfth-Century Individual: The Inner Self and the Christian Community, in Das Eigene und das
Ganze, ed. Melville and Schurer, 5785, esp. 5763.

rectly staged and performed scene, as he puts it, leads the audience to impute a
self to a performed character.46 The self, therefore, is not an organic thing that
has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, and to
die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented.47 The
epigrammatic staging of the patrons I is, of course, very different from the kind
of performances explored by Goffman, but his dramaturgical framework may be
brought to bear on the construction of identity in devotional artifacts inscribed
with dedicatory verses. One aspect of the epigrammatic performance that needs
to be emphasized here is that it is addressed to two distinct audiences, one divine
and the other human. In Byzantium, as in other medieval cultures, the practice
of religious donation responded to both devotional and social concerns. Accord-
ingly, the objects bearing dedicatory inscriptions were instrumental in negotiating
simultaneously the patrons relationship with the divine realma host of heavenly
protectors and intercessorsand with his or her broader community on earth.
Indeed, put schematically, dedicatory epigrams may be said to construct an
identity for the patron along two axes: the horizontal axis of social positioning
and the vertical axis of devotion. In social terms, the patrons identity is typically
defined through title, rank, and lineage. This emphasis on the conventional mark-
ers of status, which serve to determine the patrons place in a network of social
relations and hierarchies, points to a mode of self-presentation that privileges con-
formity over individuality. The epigram on the veil dedicated by Arbantenos is
characteristic in this regard. The sole concrete autobiographical detail mentioned
in the donors dutiful acknowledgement of the Virgins benefactions on his behalf
concerns his marriage with the emperors niece, a matrimonial bond that united
him with a noble family, a golden plane tree, with imperial connections. Good
birth had always been a sign of social distinction in Byzantium, but following
the accession of the Komnenoi to the throne, eugeneia, or nobility, was positively
identified as a virtue and, moreover, a requisite attribute of the elitea notion
that persisted until the fall of the empire.48 References to lineage abound in later
Byzantine dedicatory epigrams. As we have seen, the anonymous author of the
dedicatory verses on the Crucifixion cloth from Ohrid did not fail to spell out
the impeccable Komnenian pedigree of Sgouross wife Eudokia. A telling, if ex-
treme, testament to this obsession with eugeneia can be found in a set of epigrams
composed by Maximos Planoudes for the Church of Saint Andrew en te Krisei in
Constantinople, which Theodora Raoulaina, a niece of the emperor Michael VIII
46
Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City: Doubleday, 1959), 252.
47
Ibid., 25253.
48
On eugeneia and the importance of lineage in Byzantium, see Angeliki E. Laiou, The Byzantine
Aristocracy in the Palaeologan Period: A Story of Arrested Development, Viator 4 (1973): 131
51 Paul Magdalino, Byzantine Snobbery, in The Byzantine Aristocracy, IX to XIII Centuries,
ed. Michael Angold (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 1984), 5878; Jean-Claude Cheynet,
Laristocratie byzantine (VIIIeXIIIe s.), Journal des savants (JulyDecember 2000): 281322;
Dimiter Angelov, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium, 12041330 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007), 1059, 22634; Peter Frankopan, Kinship and the Distribution
of Power in Komnenian Byzantium, English Historical Review 122, no. 495 (February 2007): 134.

Palaiologos, restored sometime between 1282 and 1289.49 One of Planoudess
poems, presumably intended to accompany a donor portrait of Theodora, opens
with a programmatic statement, a kind of definition of what an epigram is sup-
posed to do. Spoken in the voice of the patroness, but addressed to a visitor to
her church rather than to the churchs patron saint, the verses state:50
Ejpigraai; dhlosi ta;~ tn pragmavtwn
kai; tn proswvpwn ejn graa~ parastavsei~.
Ejpigra divdwmi kajgw; manqavnein
tiv~ kai; tivnwn pevuka kai; tivno~ tuvch~.
[Inscriptions explain the things and persons depicted in images. And I make known
by means of this inscription who I am, from whom I descend, and what my
fortune51 is.]
Following upon this introductory statement is a detailed account of Theodoras
noble ancestry, as well as of the ancestry of her deceased husband John, complete
with titles, offices, and strings of family names, which runs to over thirty lines.
In this verbal exposition of who the patroness is, lineage is not simply a mark
of social distinction, but a crucial aspect of ones identity: who I am is here
tantamount to from whom I descend.52
To look for less conventional, more diverse and imaginative, and often fairly
individualized forms of self-presentation, one needs to turn to the vertical axis of
devotion. It is in the realm of personal piety that the patrons I truly emerges
as the bearer of a distinct selfa devotional self. The performative forging of this
self is governed by two operational principles: resemblance and relationality.
Modern thinking typically conceives of personal identity in terms of singular-
ity, autonomy, and freedom. For us, the self is something unique, something that
differentiates us from others. In the Christian Middle Ages, however, any consid-
eration of the questions of identity and selfhood inevitably returned to Genesis
49
The epigrams are published in Spyridon Lambros, Epigrammata Maximou Planoude, Neos
Hellenomnemon 13 (1916): 41421, at 41518 (nos. 13). On Theodora Raoulaina, see Trapp, ed.,
Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, no. 10943; Alexander Riehle, Kaiv se prostavtin
ejn aujto~ t~ aujtn ejpigravyomen swthriva~: Theodora Raulaina als Stifterin und Patronin, in Female
Founders in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Lioba Theis, Margaret Mullett, Michael Grunbart, Galina
Fingarova, and Matthew Savage (Vienna: Bohlau, 2014), 299315, with further bibliography. On the
Church of Saint Andrew en te Krisei, see Vassilios Kidonopoulos, Bauten in Konstantinopel 1204
1328: Verfall und Zerstorung, Restaurierung, Umbau und Neubau von Profan- und Sakralbauten
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), 910; Vasileios Marinis, Architecture and Ritual in the Churches
of Constantinople: Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014),
11922, with further bibliography.
50
Lambros, Epigrammata Maximou Planoude, 416 (no. 2).
51
The word tuvch in this particular context carries the additional meaning of marriage: cf. the
word tucerov in Modern Greek.
52
Theodoras pride in her eugeneia is also reflected in two book epigrams that she may have authored
herself, one in a manuscript of Ailios Aristeides in the Vatican (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS
Vat. gr. 1899) and the other in a manuscript of Simplikioss commentary on Aristotles Physics in
Moscow (State Historical Museum, MS 3649). See Alexander Turyn, Codices graeci Vaticani saeculis
XIII et XIV scripti annorumque notis instructi (Vatican City: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1964),
6365 Boris L. Fonkich, Zametki o grecheskikh rukopisiakh sovetskikh khranilishch, Vizantiski
vremennik 36 (1974): 13438, at 13435.

1.2627 and the notion of man being created in the image of God. Within the
framework of biblical anthropology, ones true inner self was ultimately this like-
ness of the Divine Creator and thus something shared by all humans.53 Even
beyond this fundamental theological premise, resemblance was a key mechanism
for the formation of medieval identities.54 To borrow a felicitous phrase from
Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, to be was to be alike.55 The principle of resemblance is
clearly at work in dedicatory epigrams in the form of a prayer. The patron here
assumes and reenacts a set of normative roles, often simultaneously, including the
roles of the servant of a holy figure, the repentant sinner, the grateful giver, and
the affectionate lover. Occasionally, as we shall see, the patron may appear in the
guise of a paradigmatic biblical character. In the epigrammatic performances of
the devotional self, identity is not a matter of individuality in the modern sense,
but of conformity and identification with prescribed models.
Aside from being fashioned after a set of exemplary characters and types, the
patrons devotional identity is fundamentally relational. In the realm of personal
piety, the self is constituted by its connectedness to a divine or saintly Other.56
Arbantenoss rise to eminence and his inclusion among the imperial sebastoi
may have defined his persona in social terms, but Kallikless verses portray him
primarily as a faithful servant of the Virgin, whose unfailing protection he has
enjoyed his entire life.57 It is this special, privileged relationship with the Mother of
God that invests Arbantenos with an alternative devotional identity. The purpose
of a dedicatory prayer and the object it accompanies was ultimately to create such
an identity for the patron by placing him or her in a direct relationship with the
dedicatee.
Regarding the principle of relationality, an instructive parallel to dedicatory
epigrams is provided by sealsthe paradigmatic markers of personal identity in
Byzantium. It is common for a seal to identify its owner not only by spelling
53
The following remark by Benton, Consciousness of Self, 285, sums up eloquently this basic
difference between the modern and the medieval notions of selfhood: [T]he conceptualization of the
nature of self and of what we call personality differed from our own. To state the matter in a metaphor
of direction, in the Middle Ages the journey inward was a journey toward self for the sake of God;
today it is commonly for the sake of self alone. In the modern secular world, when a person sets out
to find himself, his quest is usually conceived of as a stripping away of the layers of conformity and
contrived artifice and the psychological defenses which encrust, hide, and even smother the true self.
It is as if each wondrously unique infant were wrapped by its social environment in thick swaddling
clothes which must be broken or cut away in order for the individual personality to appear most
fully. In medieval thought the persona was not inner but outer, and looking behind the individualized
mask eventually brought one closer to the uniqueness, not of self, but of God.
54
See especially Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago, passim.
55
Ibid., 6, 227.
56
For the notion of the relational self in prayer, albeit in a different context, see Esther Menn,
Prayer of the Queen: Esthers Religious Self in the Septuagint, in Religion and the Self in Antiquity,
ed. Brakke et al., 7090. For a theological perspective on the self as emerging through relationship,
see John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood: St.
Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1985) John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in
Personhood and the Church, ed. Paul McPartlan (London: T & T Clark, 2006).
57
Angelidi and Papamastorakis, The Veneration of the Virgin Hodegetria, 379, have suggested
that Arbantenos may have been a member of a special confraternity dedicated to the service of the
Hodegetria. There is no direct evidence, however, to support this hypothesis.

Fig. 6. (Color online) Seal of Basil, metropolitan of Thessalonike, mid-twelfth century,

Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC (photo: Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Collection,
Washington, DC).
out his or her name, titles, andincreasingly from the late eleventh century
onwardlineage, but also by revealing the owners spiritual allegiances. The
seal of Basil, a mid-twelfth-century metropolitan of Thessalonike, in the Dum-
barton Oaks Collection is a typical example (Fig. 6).58 The obverse of the seal
shows an image of Saint Basil the Great, while the reverse bears an inscription, a
dodecasyllable monostichon in the form of an invocation addressed to the saint:
OJmwvnumovn soi Qettaln quvthn skevpe (Protect your namesake, the metropoli-
tan [literally, sacrificer] of the Thessalians). Clearly, the seal identifies the
metropolitan first and foremost as a devotee of his saintly namesake and protec-
tor. Such emphasis on personal piety is characteristic of the Byzantine sphragistic
practice.59 Much like dedicatory epigrams featuring the patrons prayer, personal
seals with religious themesand they, I should add, constitute the majority in the
58
John Nesbitt and Nicolas Oikonomides, Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in
the Fogg Museum of Art, 6 vols. (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection,
19912009), 1:78 (no. 18.80). On the metropolitan Basil, see Konstantinos G. Pitsakes, Basileios
Achridenos, Metropolites Thessalonikes (1145post 1160): Enas Byzantinos kanonologos se dialogo
me ten latinike Dyse, in Christianike Thessalonike: Polis synanteseos Anatoles kai Dyseos. Prak-
tika IAv Diethnous Epistemonikou Symposiou, ed. Ioannes M. Phountoules (Thessalonike: University
Studio Press, 2006), 25996.
59
See Nicolas Oikonomides, Byzantine Lead Seals (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection, 1985), esp. 1015, 19; Nicolas Oikonomides, Lepigraphie des bulles de
plomb byzantines, in Epigrafia medievale greca e latina: Ideologia e funzione, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo
and Cyril Mango (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sullAlto Medioevo, 1995), 15368, at 16268;
John Cotsonis, The Contribution of Byzantine Lead Seals to the Study of the Cult of the Saints
(SixthTwelfth Century), Byzantion 75 (2005): 383497; John Cotsonis, Onomastics, Gender,
Office and Images on Byzantine Lead Seals: A Means of Investigating Personal Piety, Byzantine
and Modern Greek Studies 32 (2008): 137; John Cotsonis, Narrative Scenes on Byzantine Lead
Seals (SixthTwelfth Centuries): Frequency, Iconography, and Clientele, Gesta 48/1 (2009): 5586;
Alexandra-Kyriaki Wassiliou-Seibt, Corpus der byzantinischen Siegel mit metrischen Legenden, vol. 1,
Einleitung, Siegellegenden von Alpha bis inklusive My (Vienna: Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 2011), esp. 3545, 5759.

post-iconoclastic eraposit a relational model of selfhood. In both of these media
of self-presentation available to elite Byzantines, the self emerges through submis-
sion to a holy Other. In this context, personal identity is not an essence but a
relation.
Devotional Self-Fashioning: Three Examples
With these general observations in mind, let us now turn to three examples of
devotional artifacts inscribed with dedicatory prayers. In addition to illustrating
various strategies of devotional self- fashioning, the purpose of this exercise is to
demonstrate how in the construction, staging, and performance of the patrons
I inscriptions work in concert with crafted, material objects.
My first example is a celebrated icon of the Virgin, the so-called Freising Lukas-
bild (Fig. 7).60 Measuring a mere 27.8 21.5 cm, this delicate small panel shows
a half-length figure of the Mother of God, her hands raised in supplication, gently
gazing out at the spectator. The nimbus and background of the figure are cov-
ered with gilded silver. The epithet written in niello on either side of the nimbus
identifies this Virgin as hJ Ejlpi;~ tn Ajpelpismevnwn, or the Hope of the Hope-
less. Surrounding the central field of the icon is a broad frame, also sheathed
with precious metal, featuring enamel medallions with holy figures: the archangels
Michael and Gabriel are at the top, reverently turned towards the so-called Het-
oimasia, a symbolic image of the prepared divine throne; the apostles Peter and
Paul and the great warrior saints George and Demetrios are at the sides; and three
doctor saints Cosmas, Panteleimon, and Damianthe latters medallion fragmen-
tarily preservedare at the bottom. The rest of the frame is occupied by a poetic
inscription densely lettered in blue enamel against gold ground.
Yuc~ povqo~, arguro~ kai; cruso;~ trivto~
soi; t kaqar prosevrontai parqevn
arguro~ mevntoi kai; cruso uvsi~ ontw~
devxainto uvpon wJ~ ejn qart oujsiv
5 ejk de; yuc~ oJ povqo~ w]n ajqanavtou
out a]n spivlon devxaito oute mh;n tevlo~
ka]n ga;r luq to; sma tot dou tovp,
to t~ yuc~ oiktou se; duswpn mevnei.
Kanstrivsio~ tatav soi prosevrwn levgei
10 Manouh;l Disuvpato~ tavxei lebivth~.
Kai; tata devxai sumpaq~, w parqevne,
to;n eusto;n toton ajntididosa bivon
60
On this icon, see Marinos Kalligas, Byzantine phorete eikon en Freising, Archaiologike
Ephemeris (1937): 5016 Christian Wolters, Beobachtungen am Freisinger Lukasbild, Kunst-
chronik 17 (1964): 8591; Andre Grabar, Les revetements en or et en argent des icones byzantines
du Moyen Age (Venice: Institut hellenique detudes byzantines et post-byzantines, 1975), 4143 (no.
16); Reinhold Baumstark, ed., Rom und Byzanz: Schatzkammerstucke aus bayerischen Sammlungen
(Munich: Hirmer, 1998), cat. no. 84 (Marcell Restle); David Buckton, Byzantine Enamels in Bavaria,
Mitteilungen zur spatantiken Archaologie und byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 2 (2000): 93105, at
9799 Maria Vassilaki, Praying for the Salvation of the Empire?, in Images of the Mother of God:
Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 26374;
Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst, 6468 (no. Ik12).

Fig. 7. (Color online) Icon of the Virgin Elpis ton Apelpismenon, third quarter of the
fourteenth century, Diozesanmuseum, Freising, inv. no. F 1 (photo: Diozesanmuseum,
Freising).
ta~ sa~ dielqen ajnwvdunon presbeivai~

wJ~ hJmevra~ deivxeia~ kai; wto;~ tev[lo~].61
[The desire of my soul, and silver, and thirdly gold are here offered to you, the
pure Virgin. However, silver and gold could be stained since they are of perishable
61
The inscription is well preserved, except for two minor lacunae in the right-hand plaque at the bot-
tom. The reconstruction of the final word in the plaque as tevlo~, adopted by Grabar (Les revetements,
43) at the suggestion of M. Manousakas, is certainly more satisfying than tevknon or tevknoi~the
readings found in Kalligas, Byzantine phorete eikon, 505, and Wolters, Beobachtungen, 86,
respectively.

material, whereas the desire, coming from the immortal soul, could not be stained nor
come to an end. For even if this body should dissolve in Hades, it [i.e., desire] will
continue to entreat you for the mercy of my soul. Thus speaks the kanstrisios Manuel
Dishypatos of the order of Levites [i.e., deacon] offering these gifts to you. Receive
them compassionately, O Virgin, and grant in return that through your entreaties I may
traverse this ephemeral life free from pain, until you show the end of the day and light.]62
The relative chronology of the Freising icon has been the subject of some contro-
versy. Most scholars identify the patron recorded in the inscription with Manuel
Opsaras Dishypatos, a mid-thirteenth-century metropolitan of Thessalonike.63
While this is no place to revisit the available evidence, I subscribe to the view
advanced by the late Titos Papamastorakis,64 according to whom the patron is
more likely to be identified with the deacon Manuel Dishypatos, an official of
the metropolis of Serres in Byzantine Macedonia, mentioned in a document of
1365.65 Dishypatos appears to have been responsible not only for enhancing the
icon with the addition of a precious-metal revetment, but also for having it re-
painted. An X-ray examination has revealed that an earlier depiction of the Virgin
lies underneath the paint surface.66 Given the icons intimate scale, it most likely
served as Dishypatoss personal devotional image.
To supply a devotional image with a luxury adornment was a favored act of
artistic patronage in Later Byzantium.67 The verses on the frame of the Freising
62
The translation modifies the one rendered by Alice-Mary Talbot, Epigrams in Context: Metrical
Inscriptions on Art and Architecture of the Palaiologan Era, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999):
7590, at 82.
63
This identification was first proposed by Kalligas, Byzantine phorete eikon, 506. On Manuel
Opsaras Dishypatos, see Trapp, ed., Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, no. 5544. For
various attempts to reconcile the chronology resulting from this identification with the one suggested
by the stylistic features of the icons painted surface, metalwork, and enamels, see the references cited
above, n. 60.
64
Papamastorakis expressed his view in a paper delivered at the Twenty-Eighth Symposium of
Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Archaeology and Art of the Society for Christian Archaeology (Cris-
tianikhv Arcaiologikhv Etaireiva), held at the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens on May 17,
2008.
65
Paul Lemerle, Andre Guillou, Nicolas Svoronos, and Denise Papachryssanthou, Actes de Lavra,
4 vols. (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 197082), 3:9092 (no. 143). On this figure, see also Angeliki Laiou,
Koinonikes dynameis stis Serres sto 14o aiona, in Diethnes Synedrio Hoi Serres kai he perioche
tous apo ten archaia ste metabyzantine koinonia: Praktika, 2 vols. (Thessalonike: Demos Serron,
1998), 1:20319, at 209.
66
See Wolters, Beobachtungen, esp. 8788, 90.
67
On the phenomenon of icon adornment, see Grabar, Les revetements; Nancy Patterson Sevcenko,
Vita Icons and Decorated Icons of the Komnenian Period, in Four Icons in the Menil Collection, ed.
Bertrand Davezac (Houston: Menil Foundation, 1992), 5769; Irina A. Sterligova, Dragotsenny ubor
drevnerusskikh ikon XIXIV vekov: Proiskhozhdenie, simvolika, khudozhestvenny obraz (Moscow:
Progress-Traditsiia, 2000) Titos Papamastorakis, The Display of Accumulated Wealth in Luxury
Icons: Gift-Giving from the Byzantine Aristocracy to God in the Twelfth Century, in Byzantine
Icons: Art, Technique and Technology, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Heraklion: Panepistemiakes Ekdoseis
Kretes, 2002), 3547; Jannic Durand, Precious-Metal Icon Revetments, in Byzantium: Faith and
Power (12611557), ed. Helen C. Evans (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 24351;
Glenn Peers, Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2004), chap. 5 Annemarie W. Carr, Donors in the Frames of Icons: Living
in the Borders of Byzantine Art, Gesta 45/2 (2006): 18998 Brigitte Pitarakis, Les revetements

icon invest this gesture with a distinctly emotional charge. Seeking the Virgins
intercession, Dishypatos honors her not only with silver and gold, but also with
pothos, the desire of his soul. Similar professions of affection are frequent in
dedicatory inscriptions, poetic and prose alike. Indeed, in epigrammatic discourse
the personal rapport between a devotee and a holy figure is commonly portrayed
in emotional terms. An investment in religious donation is thus often described as
being motivated by the donors emotional attachment to the sacred recipient, an
attachment that occasionally assumes the guise of erotic passion. Various terms
were used to designate the donors inner disposition in this context, including
philtron (ivltron),68 schesis (scevsi~),69 andexceptionallyeros (erw~),70 but
pothos is by far the most common among them.71 The reason why this should be
the case lies, I believe, not only in the fact that pothos is less sexualized than eros.
This term, one should recall, also carries the connotations of lack, separation, and
distance.72 As spelled out already by Plato in Cratylus 420a, pothos is primarily a
desire for someone or something that is not at hand, a feeling of intense longing for
the object of love that lies beyond the lovers reach. The author of the treatise On
Emotions (first century BCE or CE), handed down under the name of Andronikos
dorfevrerie des icones paleologues vus par les redacteurs dinventaires de biens ecclesiastiques: Les
icones de leglise de la Vierge Spelaiotissa de Melnik (Bulgarie), Cahiers archeologiques 53 (2009
10): 12942; Bissera V. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), esp. 198208, 21122.
68
See, e.g., Nicola Callicle, ed. and trans. Romano, 83 (no. 8, line 15) Spyridon Lambros, Ho
Markianos kodix 524, Neos Hellenomnemon 8 (1911): 259, 12392, at 48 (no. 88, line 5), 54 (no.
97, line 12) Spingou, Words and Artworks, 84 (no. 262, line 14), 86 (no. 269, line 14), 88 (no.
279, line 6), 93 (no. 308, line 5), 95 (no. 356, line 3); Manuelis Philae carmina, ed. Miller, 1:78 (no.
169, line 7), 1:137 (no. 283, line 4), 2:194 (no. 172, line 11).
69
When encountered in dedicatory epigrams in the context of donation, this semantically preg-
nant termwith its meanings ranging from nature and quality to relation, expression, or
attitudeis best translated as affection or simply love. The majority of examples come from
the epigrammatic opus of Manuel Philes. See Manuelis Philae carmina, ed. Miller, 1:71 (no. 159, line
21), 1:116 (no. 219, line 9), 1:311 (no. 120, line 2); 1:356 (no. 188, line 4); 2:76 (no. 33, line 24);
2:135 (no. 68, line 7); Emidio Martini, ed., Manuelis Philae carmina inedita ex cod. C VII 7 Bibliothe-
cae nationalis Taurinensis et cod. 160 Bibliothecae publicae Cremonensis (Naples: Typis academicis,
1900), 35 (no. 28, line 2), 90 (no. 67, line 49); Gedeon, Manouel tou Phile historika poiemata,
657. See also the epigram on the reliquary of Saint Marina in the Museo Correr in Venice: Rhoby,
Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst, 253 (no. Me81, lines 4, 12).
70
See, e.g., Lambros, Ho Markianos kodix 524, 31 (no. 65, line 2), 177 (no. 334, line 18);
Spingou, Words and Artworks, 74 (no. 40, line 13).
71
Despite its ubiquity in dedicatory epigrams, pothos has not received much comment in scholarship.
A notable exception is Bernard, The Beats of the Pen, 270. Bernard, however, fails to acknowledge
the emotional and erotic charge in this term, treating it simply as a synonym for devotion. Spingou,
Words and Artworks, 21921, points to the comparable use of pothos and more broadly, the
vocabulary of affectionin hymnographic texts. On the ubiquity of pothos, see also Enrica Follieri,
Un reliquiario bizantino di S. Simeone Stilita, Byzantion 35 (1965): 6282, at 6364; Lauxtermann,
Byzantine Poetry, 164 Rhoby, The Structure of Inscriptional Dedicatory Epigrams, 31819.
72
For the semantics and etymology of pothos, see Gerrit Kloss, Untersuchungen zum Wortfeld
Verlangen/Begehren im fruhgriechischen Epos (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), passim
Michael Weiss, Erotica: On the Prehistory of Greek Desire, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
98 (1998): 3161, esp. 3234. See also Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English
Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), s.v. povqo~.

73
of Rhodes, defines pothos as a loving desire for that which is absent. Likewise,
Pseudo-Ammonioss treatise on differences between similar words (fourth century
CE) explains that eros and pothos differ, because eros pertains to that which is
present and pothos to that which is absent.74 Byzantine lexica and textbooks offer
similar definitions.75 The connotations of lack and insufficiency make pothos, in
a sense, ideally suited to express the affective side of personal piety. For, while
it posits a strongly emotional bond between the devotee and the object of his or
her desire, pothos simultaneously affirms the existential gulf that separates them.
No other term in the Greek vocabulary of affection captures more poignantly the
paradox of impossible yet indispensible intimacy with a figure in heaven.
The epigram commemorating Dishypatoss threefold gift to the Virgin casts
him in the role of a lover. Professed in the enameled verses, the patrons desire
for his beloved is acted out in the gesture of adorning her image. The shimmering
precious-metal revetment that enshrines the Virgins likeness makes visible and,
indeed, tangible the affective tie that binds the patron to his heavenly intercessor.
And if Dishypatos decries the value of all this silver and gold, it is to stress his
relentlessly abiding pothos for her, whichso he claimscan be neither stained,
nor perish, but remains pure and immortal as his own soul.
In Later Byzantium, devotional images were increasingly manipulated to artic-
ulate and dramatize ones relationship with the person depicted. In my second ex-
ample, a fourteenth-century icon from the treasury of the Vatopedi monastery on
Mount Athos (Fig. 8), this was achieved through a multiplication of the patrons
or, in this instance, the patronessspersonal markers.76 Like the Freising icon,
this is a small, intricately adorned panel painting measuring no more than 25.5
22 cm. It, too, shows the Virgin labeled hJ Ejlpi;~ tn Ajpelpismevnwn, or the Hope
of the Hopeless, an epithet to which I shall return shortly. Locked in a tender
embrace with her Child, Mary is depicted casting a melancholic gaze upon the
spectator. Her left hand, covered by a gilded applique that does not belong to
73
Pseudo-Andronicus de Rhodes: Peri; paqn, ed. A. Glibert-Thirry (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 231:
ejpiqumiva kata; erwta ajpovnto~.
74
Ammonii qui dicitur liber De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. Klaus Nickau (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1966), no. 189: erw~ kai; povqo~ diaevrei. erw~ me;n ga;r tn parovntwn, povqo~ de; tn ajpovntwn.
Cf. also ibid., nos. 190 and 192.
75
See, e.g., Thomae Magistri sive Theoduli monachi Ecloga vocum atticarum, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm
Ritschl (Halle: in Libraria Orphanotrophei, 1832), 14344; Georgii Lacapeni et Andronici Zaridae
epistulae XXXII cum epimerismis Lacapeni, accedunt duae epistulae Michaelis Gabrae ad Lacapenum,
ed. Sigfrid Lindstam (Goteborg: Elander, 1924), 152.
76
On the Vatopedi icon, see Grabar, Les revetements, 6162 (no. 32); Euthymios N. Tsigaridas
and Katia Loberdou-Tsigarida, Hiera Megiste Mone Batopaidiou: Byzantines eikones kai ependyseis
(Mount Athos: Hiera Megiste Mone Vatopaidiou, 2006), 19195, 288, 35763, with further bibliog-
raphy. See also Alice-Mary Talbot, Female Patronage in the Palaiologan Era: Icons, Minor Arts and
Manuscripts, in Female Founders in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Theis et al., 25974, at 26062. The
piece is now joined with another icon of Christ to form a diptych. Encased in a special silver casket,
the two panels are venerated as the famous niniva, or dolls, of the empress Theodora, wife of the
last iconoclast emperor Theophilos (r. 829842). According to a popular story, when a court jester
surprised the empress one day, while she was venerating icons in her bedchamberTheodora was a
covert iconophileshe excused her behavior by saying that she was merely playing with her dolls.
See Theophanes Continuatus 3.6, ed. Immanuel Bekker, Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae 33
(Bonn: Weber, 1838), 9192.

Fig. 8. (Color online) Icon of the Virgin Elpis ton Apelpismenon, mid-fourteenth century,
Vatopedi monastery, Mount Athos (after Euthymios N. Tsigaridas and Katia Loberdou-
Tsigarida, Hiera Megiste Mone Batopaidiou: Byzantines eikones kai ependyseis [Mount
Athos: Hiera Megiste Mone Vatopaidiou, 2006], fig. 314).
the icons original precious-metal cladding, is raised toward Christ in a gesture of

supplication. Hovering on either side of Marys head are diminutive figures of the
archangels Michael and Gabriel. The icon has suffered considerable damage, and
now it is very hard to discern a female figure portrayed in the lower frame to the
left, crouching in supplication (Figs. 910). The figure is dressed in a simple red
garment and wears a white wimple-like headdress. A nearly obliterated formulaic
prose inscription, painted in red to her right, reveals her name: Devhsi~ t~ douvlh~
to Qeo A nnh~ Palaiologivnh~ Kantakouzhn~ t~ Filanqrwpin~ (Prayer of
Fig. 9. (Color online) Portrait of Anna Philanthropene on the icon of the Virgin Elpis
ton Apelpismenon, mid-fourteenth century, Vatopedi monastery, Mount Athos (after Eu-
thymios N. Tsigaridas and Katia Loberdou-Tsigarida, Hiera Megiste Mone Batopaidiou:
Byzantines eikones kai ependyseis [Mount Athos: Hiera Megiste Mone Vatopaidiou, 2006],
fig. 210).
Fig. 10. Drawing of the portrait of Anna Philanthropene on the icon of the Virgin Elpis
ton Apelpismenon, mid-fourteenth century, Vatopedi monastery, Mount Athos (after
Euthymios N. Tsigaridas and Katia Loberdou-Tsigarida, Hiera Megiste Mone Batopaid-
iou: Byzantines eikones kai ependyseis [Mount Athos: Hiera Megiste Mone Vatopaidiou,
2006], fig. 211).
the servant of God Anna Palaiologina Kantakouzene Philanthropene).77 Perhaps
at a slightly later date, but not long after the execution of the painted figures, Anna
supplied her icon with a precious-metal revetment.78 This luxury cover combines
exquisite filigree work in the central field with a frame consisting of figural reliefs
alternating with panels engraved with a dedicatory epigram. The extensive loss
of the metalwork makes it impossible to reconstruct the epigram in its original
form, but a transcription79 made when the verses were in a slightly better state of
preservation allows for a partial reconstruction.80
Bebaiva ejlpi;~ hjporhmevnwn, kovrh,
skevph geno mou kai; yuc~ swthriva
to;n bovrboron pluvnousa tn aJmartavdwn.
Oidav se kai; ojrann te kai; xevnwn
[...]
Filanqrwphnh; A nna tatav soi kravzei.81
[O Maiden, sure hope of those in need, be my protection and the salvation of my soul,
and wash away the dirt of my sins. I know that you [ . . . ] of both orphans and strangers.
[ . . . ] Anna Philanthropene cries out these words to you.]
Leaving aside the puzzling reference to orphans and strangers, the overall mes-
sage of the epigram is clear: it is a personal plea, a prayer for salvation.82 Seeing
the engraved verses in conjunction with Annas portrait in the lower frame, one
cannot help but read them as a kind of cartoonlike speech bubble emanating from
the crouching figure.
77
On this figure, see Donald M. Nicol, The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus)
ca. 11001460: A Genealogical and Prosopographical Study (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks
Center for Byzantine Studies, 1968), 15051 (no. 40); Trapp, ed., Prosopographisches Lexikon der
Palaiologenzeit, no. 29737. The erroneous identification of the patroness with the second wife of
Manuel III, emperor of Trebizond, first proposed by Nikodim P. Kondakov, Pamiatniki khristianskago
iskusstva na Afone (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorsko Akademii Nauk, 1902), 19293 n. 1,
has been uncritically repeated in more recent scholarship. See above, n. 76.
78
Due to the complete loss of the revetment in the lower frame, it is impossible to ascertain whether
the painted portrait was left exposed after the addition of the revetment. This seems to be the most
likely scenario, although the possibility that the portrait was duplicated on the revetment should not
be excluded either.
79
The transcription is preserved in an eighteenth-century manuscript in the Vatopedi monastery
(MS Athous Vatop. 1037, fol. 25v), from which it was edited by the monastery librarian, the monk
Eugenios, in his 1891 verse description of this Athonite house. See Kondakov, Pamiatniki, 19293
n. 1; Gabriel Millet, Jules Pargoire, and Louis Petit, Recueil des inscriptions chretiennes de lAthos
(Paris: A. Fontemoing, 1904), 26 (no. 76).
80
For the epigram, see Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und Objekten der Kleinkunst,
9194 (no. Ik26).
81
The exact number and sequence of the verses remain debatable. While I concur with Rhobys
reconstruction of the order of the verses (ibid., 93), I think that the epigram may well have been more
than six lines long. There was certainly enough space on the frame for additional plaques with the
inscription. The plaque with the verse Filanqrwphnh; A nna tatav soi kravzei is now displayed on the
right, below the bust of John Chrysostom, but there is no reason to assume that this is its original
position. Since the verse evidently belonged to the concluding part of the epigram, the plaque could
have been placed in the lower frame.
82
For a possible explanation of the reference to orphans, see below, n. 96.

It should be pointed out that the opening words of the epigrambebaiva ejlpiv~,
or sure hopewith which Anna invokes her spiritual protectress clearly echo
the epithet Elpis ton Apelpismenon inscribed on two vertical plaques on either
side of the Virgin. The popularity of such epithets is a distinctive feature of
later Byzantine icon piety.83 As a matter of fact, in the Vatopedi icon a special
name is attached not only to the figure of the Virgin, but also to that of Christ,
worked in relief and displayed in the upper frame at the center. Accompanying
this Christ is the epithet Plhroorhthv~, an extremely rare appellation that can
be translated as the One Who Fulfills or the One Who Gives Assurance. I
am aware of only one other instance of its use. It occurs in two epigrams penned
by Nikephoros Kallistou Xanthopoulos at the behest of Theodore Palaiologos,
one of the sons of the emperor Andronikos II, who founded a church in honor of
Christ Plerophoretes following a miraculous cure.84
Epithets attached to images of holy figures generally fall into two categories:
toponymic and qualitative.85 The former derive from the names of particularly
83
A comprehensive study of iconic epithets in Byzantium is yet to be written. The existing schol-
arship, mostly concerned with Marian images, tends to focus on the relationship between epithets
and iconography. The relevant studies include Nikola P. Likhachev, Istoricheskoe znachenie italo-
grechesko ikonopisi: Izobrazheniia Bogomateri v proizvedeniiakh italo-grecheskikh ikonopistsev i
ikh vliianie na kompozitsii nekotorykh proslavlennykh russkikh ikon (St. Petersburg: Imperatorskoe
Russkoe arkheologischeskoe obshchestvo, 1911); Nikodim P. Kondakov, Ikonografiia Bogoma-
teri, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Imperatorsko Akademii Nauk, 191415) Andre Grabar,
LHodigitria et lEleousa, Zbornik za likovne umetnosti Matice srpske 10 (1974): 314 Andre
Grabar, Les images de la Vierge de tendresse: Type iconographique et theme (a propos de deux
icones a Decani), Zograf 6 (1975): 2530; Richard Hamann-Mac Lean, Grundlegung zu einer
Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Monumentalmalerei in Serbien und Makedonien (Giessen: Schmitz,
1976), esp. 80120; Andre Grabar, Remarques sur liconographie byzantine de la Vierge, Cahiers
archeologiques 24 (1977): 16978; Gordana Babic, Epiteti Bogorodice koju dete grli, Zbornik
za likovne umetnosti Matice srpske 21 (1985): 26175 Gordana Babic, Il modello e la replica
nellarte bizantina delle icones, Arte cristiana 76 (1988): 6178 Gregor M. Lechner, Maria, in
Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, ed. Klaus Wessel et al. (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1963), 6:17
114 Mirjana Tatic-Djuric, Studije o Bogorodici (Belgrade: Jasen, 2007). For the sphragistic material,
see also Werner Seibt, Die Darstellung der Theotokos auf byzantinischen Bleisiegeln, besonders im
11. Jahrhundert, in Studies in Byzantine Sigillography, ed. Nicolas Oikonomides (Washington, DC:
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987), 3556 Herbert Hunger, Zur Termi-
nologie der Theotokosdarstellungen auf byzantinischen Siegeln, Aachener Kunstblatter 60 (1994):
13142 Ioanna Koltsida-Makre, He eikonographia tes Theotokou apo enepigraphes parastaseis
molybdoboullon tou Nomismatikou Mouseiou Athenon, in Thorakion: Aphieroma ste mneme tou
Paulou Lazaride, ed. Loula Kypraiou (Athens: Hypourgeio Politismou, 2004), 28594. For the rela-
tionship between epithets and function, see the important remarks in Pentcheva, Icons and Power,
esp. 7580, 17482.
84
Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos, Byzantinische
Zeitschrift 11 (1902): 3849, at 4445 (nos. 89). Incidentally, this church is missing from Raymond
Janins catalogue in La geographie ecclesiastique de lEmpire byzantine I: Le siege de Constantinople
et le patriarcat cumenique, vol. 3, Les eglises et les monasteres, 2nd ed. (Paris: Institut francais
detudes byzantines, 1969).
85
In the case of Marian images, a subcategory of qualitative epithets may be singled out. It includes
appellations derived either from a particular feature of an image, e.g., Chymeute (Enameled), or
from a miracle performed by the Virgin, e.g., Machairotheisa (Stabbed with a Knife). See Nico-
lette S. Trahoulia, The Truth in Painting: A Refutation of Heresy in a Sinai Icon, Jahrbuch der

venerated shrines and pilgrimage centers, and often mark replicas of charismatic
icons housed at these sites, perhaps the best-known example being the Marian
epithet Hodegetria.86 The latter category encompasses a variety of designations
that convey particular qualities or attributes of the person depicted, or indicate
his or her individuality. Epithets inscribed on devotional images have often been
interpreted in iconographic terms, as nearly technical designations for different
visual types. I would argue that in the case of qualitative appellations such as Elpis
ton Apelpismenonfor which Byzantine hymnography appears to have been the
main source87 naming may be construed as a form of invocation. Highlighting
specific traits or attributes of the person depicted, qualitative epithets have an
adjectival force and thus provide a means of inflecting the image and customizing
it to suit a particular purpose.
If the reason why Christ in the upper frame is identified as Plerophoretes eludes
us, the characterization of the Virgin as the Hope of the Hopeless is less enig-
matic. The epithet Elpis ton Apelpismenon is well known from liturgical poetry.
It occurs, for instance, in a prayer included in the services of the Great and Small
Compline,88 as well as in the Great Parakletikos Kanon to the Virgin.89 However,
we rarely see it in Marian images, the Freising icon of Manuel Dishypatos being
another notable example of its use.90 In the case of the Vatopedi icon, this poetic
moniker almost certainly alludes to a shrine with which Anna Philanthropene
was personally connected, namely, to the convent of the Bebaia Elpis, the Mother
of God of Sure Hope, in Constantinople.91 This convent had been founded
by Annas grandmother, Theodora Palaiologina Synadene, a niece of the em-
peror Michael VIII Palaiologos.92 The famous illuminated copy of the convents
Typikon in Oxford (Lincoln College, MS gr. 35) contains a scene of donation, in
Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 52 (2002): 27185, esp. 277; George P. Galavaris, The Mother of
God, Stabbed with a Knife, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 13 (1959): 22933.
86
For replicas of the Hodegetria, see especially Gordana Babic, Les images byzantines et leurs
degres de signification: Lexample de lHodigitria, in Byzance et les images, ed. Andre Guillou and
Jannic Durand (Paris: Documentation francaise, 1994), 189222.
87
See Sophronios Eustratiades, He Theotokos en te hymnographia (Paris: Librairie ancienne Honore
Champion, 1930).
88
Bartholomaios Koutloumousianos, ed., Horologion to mega, 149, 158.
89
Ibid., 428, 431.
90
For further examples of the use of this epithet in Marian images in Byzantine and post- Byzantine
art, see Ekaterini Kousoula and Alexandra Trifonova, A Paleologean icon of Virgin h Elpiv~ twn
Apelpismevnwn from Thessaloniki, in Nis i Vizantija: Zbornik radova VII, ed. Misa Rakocija (Nis:
Univerzitet u Nisu, 2009), 30716.
91
On the convent of the Bebaia Elpis, see Kidonopoulos, Bauten in Konstantinopel, 6974; Alice-
Mary Talbot, trans., Bebaia Elpis: Typikon of Theodora Synadene for the Convent of the Mother of
God Bebaia Elpis in Constantinople, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, 4:151278, at
151222; Alice-Mary Talbot, Building Activity in Constantinople under Andronikos II: The Role of
Women Patrons in the Construction and Restoration of Monasteries, in Byzantine Constantinople:
Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed. Nevra Necipoglu (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 32943, at
33839 Arne Effenberger, Die Kloster der beiden Kyrai Martha und die Kirche des Bebaia Elpis-
Klosters in Konstantinopel, Millennium 3 (2006): 25591.
92
On Theodora Palaiologina Synadene, see Trapp, ed., Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiolo-
genzeit, no. 21381; Carolyn L. Connor, Women of Byzantium (New Haven and London: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 2004), chap. 12.

which Theodora (the nun Theodoule), accompanied by her daughter Euphrosyne,
is portrayed presenting her foundation to the Virgin Bebaia Elpis (fols. 10v
11r; Figs. 1112).93 One of a series of commemorative portraits of members of
Theodoras family that prefaces the text of the Typikon in the Oxford manuscript
depicts Anna in the company of her husband, Michael Philanthropenos (fol. 4r;
Fig. 13).94 Sumptuously attired, the aristocratic couple is shown en face, with their
hands raised in prayer toward a figure of Christ Emmanuel extending his blessing
from above. It is possible that, having taken the veil, Anna spent the remainder of
her life in the convent of the Bebaia Elpis. As has been suggested, she is probably
to be identified with the nun Xene Philanthropene, who, in 1392, undertook the
restoration of this monastic house and whose daughters continued to support it
after her death.95 The epithet applied to the Virgin in the Vatopedi icon thus car-
ries a strongly personal resonance. Through its addition, this exquisite, intimately
scaled devotional image has been customized not only to respond to Annas per-
sonal piety, but also to express her family identity.96 The epithet, in other words,
functions as a kind of signature, a personal marker that defines the patroness as
much as it does the object of her veneration.
To sum up, several elements have been mobilized to articulate Annas relation-
ship with the Virgin: her portrait, the precious-metal revetment, the prose and
verse inscriptions, and the epithet. Taken individually, none of these elements is
uncommon in the artistic and epigraphic arsenal of later Byzantine icon piety.
What is unusual is their accumulation in the same icon. Working in concert, these
elements formulate a subtle yet unmistakably self-assertive devotional statement.
Through the insertion of multiple personal signs, Anna not only makes manifest
her intimate rapport with the Virgin of Sure Hope; she also claims a place for
93
On the Oxford manuscript of the Typikon and its miniatures, see Hans Belting, Das illuminierte
Buch in der spatbyzantinischen Gesellschaft (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1970), 3132, 7677, 8183;
Iohannis Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 190
206 Irmgard Hutter, Die Geschichte des Lincoln College Typikons, Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen
Byzantinistik 45 (1995): 79114 Leslie Brubaker, Art and Byzantine Identity: Saints, Portraits,
and the Lincoln College Typikon, in Byzantium: Identity, Image, Influence. XIX International
Congress of Byzantine Studies, University of Copenhagen, 1824 August, 1996. Major Papers, ed.
Karsten Fledelius and Peter Schreiner (Copenhagen: Danish National Committee for Byzantine Studies,
1996), 5159; Irmgard Hutter, Corpus der byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften, 5 vols. (Stuttgart:
Hiersemann, 197797), 5/1:5662 (no. 24) and 5/2, figs. 20920 Cecily Hennessy, The Lincoln
College Typikon: Influences of Church and Family in an Illuminated Foundation Document for a
Palaiologan Convent in Constantinople, in Under the Influence: The Concept of Influence and the
Study of Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. John Lowden and Alixe Bovey (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007),
97109.
94
On Michael Philanthropenos, see Trapp, ed., Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit,
no. 29778.
95
Delehaye, Deux typica, 1034; trans. Talbot, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents,
4:156768. For this identification, see Nicol, The Byzantine Family of Kantakouzenos, 165 (no. 56).
The identification has been questioned by Hutter, Die Geschichte des Lincoln College Typikons, 81
n. 11, who argues that Xene was more likely Annas daughter.
96
The link with the family convent of the Bebaia Elpis could perhaps explain the reference to
orphans in the epigram on the Vatopedi icon. As indicated in its Typikon, the monastic house founded
by Annas grandmother provided refuge to orphaned girls. Delehaye, Deux typica, 2526; trans.
Talbot, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, 4:1526.

Figs. 1112. (Color online) The Virgin Bebaia Elpis with Christ Child (left) and Theodora-
Theodoule Palaiologina Synadene with her daughter Euphrosyne offering the church of the
Bebaia Elpis (right), Oxford, Lincoln College, MS gr. 35, fols. 10v11r, c. 1330s (photo:
Lincoln College, Oxford).

Figs. 1112. (Color online) (Continued).

Fig. 13. (Color online) Portraits of Michael Philanthropenos and Anna Philanthropene,
Oxford, Lincoln College, MS gr. 35, fol. 4r, c. 1330s (photo: Lincoln College, Oxford).

Fig. 14. (Color online) Embroidered podea (?) with the archangel Michael and the suppli-
cant Manuel, fourteenth or early fifteenth century, Museo di Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, inv.
no. 1990.D.216 (photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Storici Artistici ed Etnoantropologici
delle Marche, Urbino).
herself in the icon and thereby transforms it from a simple devotional image into
a vehicle of self-expression.
My final example is a gold- and pearl-embroidered silk cloth of a fourteenth- to
fifteenth-century date, now kept in the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino (Fig. 14).97 The
cloth has often been mistaken for a banner, but its precious materials, format,
97
See Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi, Di un antico vessillo navale, in Dissertazioni della Pontificia Ac-
cademia Romana di Archeologia, 2nd ser. 3 (1890): 185 Luigi Serra, A Byzantine Naval Stan-
dard (circa 1141), Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 34 (1919): 15257; Silvio Giuseppe Mer-
cati, Sulliscrizione del cos ditto vessillo navale di Manuele Paleologo conservato nella Galleria
Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino, in Collectanea Byzantina, 2 vols. (Bari: Dedalo libri, 1970),

iconography, and verse inscriptions militate against this identification. Originally,
it most likely served as a podea, a textile hanging suspended from the lower edge
of a particularly venerated cult image.98 Like the Vatopedi icon, the cloth features
a figure in prostration. But whereas Anna Philanthropene addresses her prayers
to the Virgin from a distance, reduced, as it were, to an unobtrusive existence
in the frame, the richly dressed blond-haired nobleman by the name of Manuel
portrayed in the cloth is accorded a much more direct access to the object of his
veneration.99 Assuming a place at the feet of a tall, slender figure of the archangel
Michael, labeled as Fuvlax, or Guardian, Manuel casts himself to the ground,
with his hands raised and his head thrown sharply backwards, in an attitude
suggestive of both submission and a hopeful reaching out. A kneeling supplicant
at the feet of a holy figurethis is the kind of iconography that one often sees in
Byzantine devotional imagery.100 One of the earliest examples is an icon at Sinai,
2:24248; Italo Furlan, ed., Venezia e Bisanzio (Milan: Electa, 1974), cat. no. 119 (Italo Furlan)
Antonio Carile, Manuele Nothos Paleologo: Nota prosopografica, Thesaurismata 12 (1975): 137
47 Andre Guillou, Inscriptions byzantines dItalie sur tissu, in Aetos: Studies in Honour of Cyril
Mango Presented to Him on April 14, 1998, ed. Ihor Sevcenko and Irmgard Hutter (Stuttgart: Teub-
ner, 1998), 17276, at 17476; Gianfranco Fiaccadori, Minima Byzantina, Nea Rhome: Rivista di
ricerche bizantinistiche 4 (2007): 383412, at 38693; Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen
und Objekten der Kleinkunst, 38386 (nos. Te8Te9).
98
Carile, Manuele Nothos Paleologo, 137, was the first to identify the cloth as a podea, although
by podea he understood un drappo usato per ricoprire, in segno di onore e riverenza, una icona,
that is to say, an encheirion.
99
The identity of the portrayed supplicant has yet to be established. In the inscription on the frame,
which I reproduce below, Manuel takes pride in the illustrious ancestry of his mother Eudokia, whose
parents were a kaisar and a princess born in the purple. Most scholars, following Cozza-Luzi, Di
un antico vessillo navale, identify him with Manuel, an illegitimate son of John V Palaiologos who
won a minor naval victory over the Ottoman Turks in 1411, but there is no direct evidence to support
this identification. See Trapp, ed., Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, nos. 91885 and
92618.
100
On portraits embedded in devotional images, see Tania Velmans, Le portrait dans lart des
Paleologue, in Art et societe a Byzance sous les Paleologues (Venice: Stamperia di Venezia, 1971),
91148, at 13234; Janko Radovanovic, Jedinstvo nebeske i zemaljske crkve u srpskom slikarstvu
srednjeg veka ili Likovi zivih ljudi na freskama i ikonama srednjeg veka, Zbornik za likovne umetnosti
Matice srpske 20 (1984): 4766, at 5663 Nancy Patterson Sevcenko, The Representation of Donors
and Holy Figures on Four Byzantine Icons, Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias 17
(199394): 15764 Nancy Patterson Sevcenko, Close Encounters: Contact between Holy Figures
and the Faithful as Represented in Byzantine Works of Art, in Byzance et les images, ed. Guillou
and Durand, 25585 Doula Mouriki, Portraits de donateurs et invocations sur les icones du XIIIe
siecle au Sina, Etudes balkaniques: Cahiers Pierre Belon 2 (1995): 10335 Natalia Teteriatnikov,
The New Image of Byzantine Noblemen in Paleologan Art, Quaderni utinensi 8, nos. 1516 (1996):
30919 Titos Papamastorakes, Epitymbies parastaseis kata te mese kai hystere byzantine periodo,
Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias 19 (199697): 285304, at 298303 Annemarie
W. Carr, Cypriot Funerary Icons: Questions of Convergence in a Complex Land, in Medieval
Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Jeremy duQuesnay Adams, ed. Stephanie A. Hayes-Healy, 2 vols.
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 1:15374 Carr, Donors in the Frames of Icons Elisabeth
Yota, Limage du donateur dans les manuscrits illustres byzantins, in Donation et donateurs dans
le monde byzantin: Actes du colloque international de lUniversite de Fribourg, 1315 mars 2008, ed.
Jean-Michel Spieser and Elisabeth Yota (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 2012), 26592. See also Katherine
Marsengill, Portraits and Icons: Between Reality and Spirituality in Byzantine Art (Turnhout: Brepols,
2013).

Fig. 15. Icon of Saint Irene with the supplicant Nicholas, eighth or ninth century, Saint
Catherines monastery, Mount Sinai (photo: Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition
to Mount Sinai).
tentatively dated to the eighth or ninth centuries, in which a certain Nicholas is
portrayed crouching at the feet of Saint Irene (Fig. 15).101 In contrast to this and
101
See Kurt Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Icons, vol. 1, From
the Sixth to the Tenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), no. B.39.
other similar images, however, in the Urbino textile the supplicant and the holy
figure are not merely juxtaposed, brought into physical proximity, but actually
interact with each other. Unlike Saint Irene, whose strictly frontal and impassive
stance leaves the impression that she is hardly aware of the diminutive figure to
her right, Saint Michael acknowledges Manuels presence by turning towards him.
Visually articulated through gestures and bodily comportment, their interaction
is further dramatized in the dedicatory epigram embroidered on the cloth, which,
significantly, takes the form of a dialogue. Running along the frame, the first
part of the epigram comprises Manuels prayer to the archangel, while the second
part, displayed within the picture field, directly above Manuels head, contains
the archangels response.102
WJ~ pri;n Ij hso~ to Nau kavmya~ govnu
tn sn podn emprosqen auJto;n ejrrivh
aijtn para; so duvnamin eijlhevnai
wJ~ ajllouvlwn uJpotavx ta; stivh,
5 ou tw~ egwge Manouh;l so;~ oijkevth~,
Eujdokiva~ pa~ eujkleo~ trisolbivou,
utospovron me;n kaivsara kekthmevnh~,
gennhtrivan de; poruravnqhton klavdon,
tann ejmauto;n iJketik t trovp
10 ivptw posiv sou kai; litavzomai dev se
wJ~ sa~ skevp~ ptevruxi kecruswmevnai~
kai; proqavnwn uv~ me panto;~ kinduvnou
kai; prostavthn ecw se kai; uvlakav mou
yuc~ te kai; swvmato~ w]n ejn t biv
15 kajn t teleutaiv de; kai; rikt krivsei
eurw proshn dia; so to;n despovthn
ejk koiliva~ ga;r mhtrik~ ejperrivhn
ejpi; se, taxivarce tn ajswmavtwn.
[As once Joshua, the son of Nun, falling on his knees, threw himself at your feet, begging
you to grant him power to subdue the hordes of foreign tribes, so I, your servant
Manuel, son of the illustrious and thrice-blessed Eudokia, whose father was a kaisar,
and whose mother was a purple-blossoming branch [i.e., imperial offspring], now I
throw myself in a supplicatory manner at your feet and beseech you to protect me with
your golden wings and deliver me in advance from every danger; be the protector and
guardian of my soul and my body, as long as I live; and at the last and dreadful judgment
may I find, thanks to you, the Lord merciful. For, since my mothers womb, I have been
entrusted to you,103 O commander of the incorporeal ones.]
To Manuels prayer the archangel responds the following:

Ou~ mou prosevsce s dehvsei kai; skevpw
se me;n ptevruxin ijdivai~ wJ~ oijkevthn
ejcqrou;~ de; tou;~ sou;~ ajnel mou t spavq.
102
I reproduce the reading of the verses in Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Ikonen und
Objekten der Kleinkunst, 38485.
103
Cf. Ps. 21.11.

Fig. 16. (Color online) Joshua before the archangel and the entombment of Joshua, Vatican
City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. gr. 1613, p. 3, c. 1000 (photo: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana).
[My ear gave heed to your petition and I protect you with my own wings as my servant.
With my sword I shall destroy your enemies.]
In light of this poetic exchange, it becomes clear that the scene of supplication in
the Urbino textile was envisioned as a kind of devotional reenactment of Joshuas
encounter with the general of the heavenly army near Jericho, an episode described
in the eponymous book of the Old Testament (5.1315). Seeking the archangels
protection in this life, as well as his advocacy in the next, Manuel presents himself
in the role of the biblical hero, and like him, falls on the ground in reverence. As a
matter of fact, the entire composition of the textile, not just Manuels prostration,
is modeled after the scene of the archangels appearance to Joshua.104 A miniature
in the so-called Menologion of Basil II of c. 1000 in the Vatican (Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. gr. 1613, fol. 3) provides a good parallel (Fig. 16).
Here the encounter at the walls of Jericho is represented on the left, with Joshuas
figure depicted twice to convey two consecutive moments in the narrative: his
vision of the angelic warrior and his prostration at the latters feet. The similarity
104
For the iconography and examples of the scene, see Silas Koukiares, Ta thaumata-emphaniseis
ton angelon kai archangelon sten byzantine techne ton Balkanion (Athens: Dodone, 1989), 75, 126
31 Smiljka Gabelic, Ciklus arhandjela u vizantijskoj umetnosti (Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka
i umetnosti, 1991), 7382. The embroiderys dependence on the iconography of Joshuas encounter
with the archangel near Jericho has already been noted by Serra, A Byzantine Naval Standard, 156.

between this composition and the one seen in the textile is evident. Note that, in
both instances, the archangel is rendered in a three-quarter stance, with his right
hand holding a sword and his left placed on a scabbard.105
In Byzantium, Joshua was a common paradigm of rulership and military
prowess,106 but we rarely find him invoked as an exemplar of personal piety.107
This makes the Urbino textile all the more remarkable, for here Joshua provides a
scriptural model for articulating the patrons relationship with his heavenly pro-
tector and guardian. In a sense, it is this mimetic identification with the Israelite
leader that enables Manuel to claim intimacy with Saint Michael. Not only is the
archangel brought into dialogue with his oiketes, or servant, but, lending a benev-
olent ear to Manuels petition, he spreads his enormous wings and brandishes his
sword to protect him.108 The Urbino textile thus figures both the petition and its
positive outcome. In this embroidered tableau that turns prayer into a veritable
theater of devotion, spiritual protection is palpable, and salvation seems all but
within the supplicants grasp.
The three objects inscribed with dedicatory verses that I have examined in this
essay all construct, stage, and perform devotional identities for their patrons,
but they do so employing different strategies. In the Freising icon of Manuel
Dishypatos, the patron assumes the posture of a lover, with his pothos lavished
upon and expressed through an image of his heavenly mistress. In the Vatopedi
icon, Anna Philanthropene presented herself as a humble petitioner, painfully
aware of her sins, all the while claiming a privileged access to the Virgin through
multiple personal markers. The personalization of the icon, coupled with its
diminutive size, is here a sign of intimacy that Anna enjoysor rather, hopes
to obtainwith the Mother of God. Finally, in the Urbino textile, the patrons
identity is constructed on the basis of typology and emerges through identification
105
While undoubtedly based on the scene of the angelic apparition at Jericho, it is not inconceivable
that the Urbino textile also echoes a now lost bronze statuary composition showing Michael VIII
Palaiologos in proskynesis, with a model of the city of Constantinople in his hands, at the feet of the
archangel Michael. This celebrated sculpture group stood on a column erected by the emperor in front
of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. See Alice-Mary Talbot, The Restoration of
Constantinople under Michael VIII, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 47 (1993): 24361, at 25860 Jannic
Durand, A propos du grand groupe en bronze de larchange saint Michel et de lempereur Michel
VIII Paleologue a Constantinople, in La sculpture en Occident: Etudes offertes a Jean-Rene Gaborit,
ed. Genevieve Bresc-Bautier, Francoise Baron, and Pierre-Yves Le Pogam (Dijon: Faton, 2007), 4757.
For the possibility that the bronze group may have served as a model for the depiction of another
encounter between a supplicant and a holy figure, see Nancy P. Sevcenko, The Portrait of Theodore
Metochites at Chora, in Donation et donateurs, ed. Spieser and Yota, 189205.
106
See Vojislav J. Djuric, Novi Isus Navin, Zograf 14 (1983): 516; Catherine Jolivet-Levy,
Limage du pouvoir dans lart byzantin a lepoque de la dynastie macedonienne (8671056), Byzan-
tion 57 (1987): 44170, at 46566 Paul Magdalino and Robert Nelson, Introduction, in The Old
Testament in Byzantium, ed. Magdalino and Nelson, 138, at 23.
107
Cf. Glenn Peers, Holy Man, Supplicant, and Donor: On Representations of the Miracle of the
Archangel Michael at Chonae, Mediaeval Studies 59 (1997): 17382, at 17882.
108
The term oiketes occurs in the second line of the archangels response. While the use of this term
is by no means unusual in dedicatory epigrams, the fact that it is encountered in Josh. 5.14 makes
its use in the verses embroidered on the Urbino textile particularly apposite. For the term oiketes, see
Youval Rotman, Les esclaves et lesclavage: De la Mediterranee antique a la Mediterranee medievale,
VIeXIe siecles (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2004), 12338, 23031.

with an exemplar from the biblical past. Taken together, these exquisite objects
demonstrate that religious devotion and the artistic patronage associated with it
provided an important setting for personal expression in Byzantium. Far from
responding merely to spiritual needs, inscribed devotional artifacts offered a flex-
ible medium for the dramatization of the self. In this context, personal piety was
a form of self-presentation.
Modernor better put, post-Enlightenmentthinking about subjectivity has
tended to locate the discovery of the self in the secular rather than the sacred
realm. In premodern Christian cultures, however, religious devotion was a critical
setting for both the expression and formation of identity. Asceticism, prayers and
meditation, acts of confession and penitence, and the liturgical rite itself variously
provided what Michel Foucault has called technologies of the self,109 that is,
procedures and instruments by which individuals might define, produce, and enact
identity. Dedicatory epigrams accompanying devotional artifacts also provided a
forum for the fashioning of the self, although this process was not a matter of
praxis, of effecting bodies and souls, thoughts and conduct, but rather a matter
of representation, of discursively and artistically shaping a self for display.
The devotional selves that inscribed objects such as the Freising and Vatopedi
icons and the Urbino textile put on display are no less crafted that the objects
themselves. They are products of carefully orchestrated performances of identity.
As much as these performances were structured and governed by the conventions
of the epigrammatic genre, iconographic tradition, and the culturally sanctioned
norms of religious decorum, they also opened up a space for individual choices,
for imagination and playfulness, and even for what we would now call originality.
109
Michel Foucault, Technologies of the Self, in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel
Foucault, ed. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1988), 1649.
Ivan Drpic is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington (e-mail: dr-

pic@uw.edu)

The Patron’s “I”: Exploring Selfhood in Byzantine Dedicatory Epigrams

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The Patrons I: Art, Selfhood, and the Later

Byzantine Dedicatory Epigram

Speculum 89/4 (October 2014) doi:10.1017/S0038713414000785 895

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byzantinische Zeugnisse zu Metrik und Rhythmik, Byzantinoslavica 56 (1995): 27990, at 28589;

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Dedicatory Epigrams: Prayer, Performance, and the Self

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Fig. 6. (Color online) Seal of Basil, metropolitan of Thessalonike, mid-twelfth century,

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Devotional Self-Fashioning: Three Examples

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ta~ sa~ dielqen ajnwvdunon presbeivai~

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the icons original precious-metal cladding, is raised toward Christ in a gesture of

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Figs. 1112. (Color online) (Continued).

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To Manuels prayer the archangel responds the following:

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Ivan Drpic is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington (e-mail: dr-

Speculum 89/4 (October 2014)

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