C h r i s t o d o u l o s H a d j i c h r i s t o d o u l o u

A Map of Cyprus in a Post-Byzantine Cypriot Icon

Abstract

The Orthodox Byzantine cultural tradition remained strong and even thrived in Cyprus throughout the U^-lty^ centuries although the island had become a badly neglected province of the Ottoman Empire from 1571 to 1878. The leading figure among a multitude of 17 th century icon painters in Cyprus was Leontios, who used to sign his icons as "the hieromonk (= priest-monk) from Nemesos" (Limassol). The signature of the Cyprus-born painter is found on an icon kept in the Royal Monastery of Machairas. The icon represents the founder of the Church of Cyprus, the Apostle Barnabas, enthroned. Below the saint's feet, Leontios painted a map of the island, which is so far unique in the corpus of Byzantine painting, as far as Cyprus is concerned. What was the printed or manuscript prototype and where did Leontios come upon it?

The post-Byzantine artistic tradit ion remained strong and f lourished in Cyprus be tween the seventeenth and the n i n e t e e n t h century, a pe r iod w h e n the island was an insignificant, neglected province of the Ot toman Empire.

One of Cyprus's important icon-painters of the seventeenth century was Leontios (1673P-1705?),1 who usually signed his icons as "the pr ies t -monk from Nemesos [Lemesos, Limassol]." The Cypriot painter 's signature is to be found on an icon2

(dimensions: 49 x 37.5 cm) of 1673 (Fig. 1), which is kept in the sacristy of the Royal and Stavropegic Machaira Monastery3

and comes from the Church of St. George4 in nowadays Turkish-occupied Nicosia.

The icon shows the founder and patron saint of the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus, the Apostle Barnabas,5

enthroned, and with the island of Cyprus shown at the bottom of the icon. St. Barnabas wears episcopal vestments, gives his

Institute for Neohellenic Research N.H.R.F. Eastern Mediterranean Cartographies Tetradia Ergasias 25/26 (2004) p. 337-346

A M A P OF CYPRUS IN A P O S T BYZANTINE CYPRIOT ICON

blessing with his right hand, and in his left holds an open gospel

book with the inscription: ΕΙΠΕΝ 0 ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΤΟΙΣ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ ΜΑΘΗΤΑΙΣ

0/ΑΚΟΥΩΝ ΥΜΩΝ ΕΜΟΥ ΑΚΟΥΕΙ ΚΑΙ 0 ΑΘΕ[ΤΩΝ ΥΜΑΣ ΕΜΕ ΑΘΕΤΕΙ]

(He that hears you hears me; and he that despises you despises

me - Luke 10: l 6 ) . 6 Two archangels are shown in the two upper

corners, doing reverence and proffering to the saint a mitre, an

imperial sceptre (!), a gold inkstand with cinnabar, and an

archiépiscopal royal staff and the melon (globe of the world), imperial privileges, which were given, according to tradition, to the Archbishop of Cyprus. The iconographie subject is, without any doubt, the creation of Leontios and concealed behind it are symbolisms of the secret longings of the enslaved Greeks of Cyprus.

The Apostle Barnabas is, then, shown to be blessing his homeland of Cyprus, as its missionary, protector and saviour par excellence, and the Archbishop of the day, his successor on the throne. St Barnabas was established as the patron saint of the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus in the late fifth century, w h e n the Roman doctr ine of apostolicity on apostolic sees made its appearance in the East and was at that t ime declared to be a principle of ecclesiastical organisation.

Leontios seems to have been a p r i e s t -monk at the archiépiscopal court, wi th access to the upper reaches of Cyprus society, and to libraries. It is apparent from his work that he had a good knowledge of history and of the local hagiography7

of the Church of Cyprus, and was the sole portrai t-painter of his age, h is subjects inc luding the Archbishops of Cyprus Christodoulos II (1682-1685?) and Iakovos I ( I69I- I692?) . 8

Typical is the use of escutcheons in his icons for the inclusion of inscriptions or dates. He could be identified wi th the painter Leontios 'Lefkosianos' (of Nicosia), w h o m the m o n k Akakios ment ions in his texts of 1733.9

Leontios had studied paint ing for ten years in Russia.10 His icons, wi th their onion-domed Russian churches, provide evidence of this. Leontios also had connections wi th the

fig. 1: Saint Barnabas, 1Ó73-

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fig. 2: Saint Barnabas, the map of Cyprus (detail).

Maronite community of Cyprus, given that in 1684 he painted

the icon of St. Antony, wi th Greek and Arabic inscriptions, for

the Maronite church at Kythrea.

The presence of a map in an icon is, in the present state of

our knowledge, a unique p h e n o m e n o n in the Byzantine and

post-Byzantine painting of Cyprus. 1 1 The m a p of Cyprus (Fig. 2)

in the icon of the Apostle Barnabas was painted afterwards, since

the outline of the south coast continues on to the gold band of

the margin. The title of the m a p -ΚΥΠΡΟΣ (Cyprus)- is wr i t ten

outside the island, top left on the background of the icon.

There is damage to the m a p of Cyprus from the crack, which

has opened between the two boards of w h i c h the icon is made

up at the level of the Karpasia promontory . There has also been

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fig. 3: Paolo Forlani, "Isola di Cipro," Venice 1570.

a loss from the clear outline of the map, located in the Famagusta -Larnaka area (in the east) and the Limassol- Akrotiri area (in the south).

But which map served as the working drawing or the model for Leontios?

It seems likely that the painter Leontios would have come into contact with cartographical material on his journey to and from Russia. It is, however, much more likely to have been the case that he had some model at hand, which he would have found in the well-stocked library of the Cyprus Archbishopric.

The outline of the map, and particularly the rendering of the northern shoreline, leads to the conclusion that its model must have been the map, which is based on the outline of the one drawn and published in 1570 by Paolo Forlani12 (Fig. 3). This

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fig. 4: Paolo Forlani, "Isola di Cipro," Venice 1570.

fig. 5: Matthes Ziindt, "Cypern," Nuremberg 1570.

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specific map by Forlani happens to be shown in some copies of the work of Steffano Lusignano, Chorograffia et Breve Historia Universale dell' Isola de Cipro principiando al tempo di Noè per insino al 1572 (Bologna 1573)13 (Fig. 4). The Church of Cyprus possessed certain pr in ted chorographies; one copy has been preserved in the library of the Archbishopric of Cyprus.

In 1570, Nadale Bonifacio Sibenisensis14 used Forlani's map in publishing his own Cyprus Insula in Venice. Furthermore, another very important map wi th an outline identical wi th that of Forlani was brought out in the same year by Matthes Ziindt (Fig. 5). There was always a copy of this map in Cyprus; today it is kept in the Kykkos Monastery.15

The outline of Forlani's map was in wide circulation from the end of the sixteenth century to the second decade of the eighteenth in the itineraries {viaggia). The itineraries belong to a category of travel books of modest quality. They circulated widely because they were cheap and provided a service for travellers setting out from Venice for Constantinople and the Holy Land. These travel guides had almost always three items which concerned Cyprus: the map of the island and the topographical plans of the cities of Famagusta and Nicosia.16 In all the itineraries, the same map is used, and that is the map of Forlani.

The map in the icon of the Apostle Barnabas may be related more particularly wi th the map of Cyprus which the engraver Gioseppe Rosacelo re-engraved in his Viaggio Da Venetia, a Constantinopoli per Mare, e per Terra Santa, Venice, after l 6 l 0 , which is also shown devoid of place-names.1 7

Leontios was also aware of the geophysical morphology of Cyprus and ventured to give a rendering not only of the Troödos mountain range, but also of the Pentadaktylos, schematically, in the form of five mountains in a row. Low vegetation and flowers grow all over the island, showing Cyprus, in spite of the difficult situation then prevailing, as an 'earthly paradise'. Traces of blue paint on the background of the icon rendered the sea which surrounds the island.

Christodoulos Hadjichristodoulou Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation

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NOTES

1. ATHANASIOS PAPAGEORGIOU, entries on 'the painter Leontios' and 'the priest-monk Leontios', Μεγάλη Κυπριακή Εγκυκλοπαίδεια [Great Cyprus Encyclopedia] (Nicosia: Philokypros, 1984-), 9: 29. This is probably the same artist who, as a layman in 1659, signed the icon of the Crucified in the katholikon of the Our Lady Amirous Monastery. Leontios painted in I677 the icon of the Deesis from the Church of St. John at Galini, in 1679 the icon of St. John the Theologos in the Church of Our Lady Amirous, in I68O the icon of the Crucified and the Lypera in the katholikon of the Monastery of St. Spyridon at Tremetousia, in 1685 the icon of St. Antony in the Maronite church of the same dedication at Kythrea, in 1683 the icon of St. John the Theologos in the Church of Our Lady Chrysopolitissa at Larnaka, in 1685, as a commission from Archbishop Christodoulos II (1682-1685?), he painted the icon of St. John the Baptist for the Church of Our Lady Asprophorousa at Bellapai's, in I686 the icon of All Saints in the Cathedral Church of the Saviour in Larnaka. The icon for veneration of the Transfiguration of the Saviour in the same church has also be attributed to this painter (K. GERASIMOU, " Ή Αγιογραφική Τέχνη από τό 15ο έως καί τό 17ο αιώνα" [The art of icon-painting from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century] in Ή κατά Κίτιον αγιογραφική τέχνη [The Kition art of icon-painting], Larnaca: Sacred Bishopric of Kition, 2000), 83-4 and I96 (l659?-l692?). In I696 he painted the icon of Christ the Great High Priest in the Machaira Monastery. Gerasimou, op. cit., 93-4, note 26. In 1705 Leontios painted the icon of St. John the Theologos, which used to be located in the women's gallery of the old Cathedral Church of Sts Andronicus and Athanasia at Limassol.

2. I. K. PERISTIANIS, Γενική ιστορία της νήσου Κύπρου [General history of the island of Cyprus] (Nicosia: Epiphaniou, 1995), 758 (photocopied reprint of the first edition, Nicosia 1910). Peristianis erroneously read the name of the painter as "Leonidas, priest-monk".

3. Thanks are due to the Very Reverend Archimandrite Arsenios Machairiotis, Abbot of the Holy Machaira Monastery, for permission to photograph and present the icon of the Apostle Barnabas, and to Professor Maria Iakovou for her suggestions in connection with the cartographical material. I owe my information on the existence of the icon to the conservator Mr Costas Gerasimou, in whose studio this icon was conserved.

4. PERISTIANIS, op. cit.

5. It is customary for small icons of the Apostle Barnabas, founder of the Church of Cyprus, instead of an icon of Christ, to be placed on the bishop's thrones of the churches of the Archdiocese, within whose jurisdiction the Holy Monastery of the Apostle Barnabas, near ancient Salamis, belongs. According to Peristianis, op. cit., the icon under

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examination was also hung on the episcopal throne of the Church of St George, Nicosia. Peristianis makes no reference to the presence of the map in the icon.

A similar custom, of placing icons of the Apostles or Hierarchs who are patron saints on episcopal thrones, is to be found in the Metropolitan Bishopric of Paphos, where the icon of the Apostle Philip, whose relics are kept in the churches of Arsos and Omodos, is placed on the throne, and in the Metropolitan Bishopric of Kition (which then included what is today the Metropolitan Bishopric of Limassol), where it is the icon of St Lazarus, patron saint of Larnaka, which is placed on the episcopal throne.

6. Of particular interest are depictions of the Apostle Barnabas as a bishop, wearing a pallium and holding a gospel book, as in wall-paintings in the Church of Our Lady of Asinou (1105-1106). V. ENGLEZAKIS (Archimandrite Pavlos), Αιά την Έκκλησίαν Κύπρου. Είκοσι Μελεται / Τέταρτος εως εικοστός αιών [For the Church of Cyprus. Twenty studies / Fourth to twentieth century] (Athens: A. G. Leventis Foundation & CFNB, 1996), cover illustration and p. 71, in the Church of Our Lady Arakiotissa at Lagoudera (1192). D. MOURIKI, "The Cult of Cypriot Saints in Medieval Cyprus" in The Sweet Land of Cyprus, papers given at the twenty-fifth jubilee spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 1991 (Nicosia: Cyprus Research Center & The University of Birmingham, 1993), 258; A. & J. STYLIANOU The painted Churches of Cyprus. Treasures of Byzantine Art (Nicosia: A. G. Leventis Foundation, 21997), 175, in the Church of the Holy Apostles at Pera Chorio (late twelfth century) (MOURIKI, op. cit., 213), in the Church of of the Holy Cross of Agiasmati (1494) (STYLIANOU, op. cit., 213), in the Church of Christ Antiphonitis (late fifteenth century) (STYLIANOU, op. cit., 484), in the Church of Our Lady at Kourdali (first half of the sixteenth century) (STYLIANOU, op. cit., 147, 149-50), in the Church of the Archangel Michael at Choli (sixteenth century) (STYLIANOU, op. cit., 421) -only the saint's head has survived here, but his full-frontal posture is reminiscent of the examples cited above- in a portable icon from the Church of St. Luke, Nicosia (first half of the sixteenth century) (MAKARIOS III, Archbishop of Cyprus, Κύπρος ή 'Αγία Νήσος [Cyprus the sacred island] (Nicosia: Sacred Archibishopric of Cyprus, 1997), cover, Figs 7, 8), in a portable icon of the Man of Sorrows with saints from the Church of Our Lady Chrysopantanassa at Palaichori, now in the Byzantine Heritage Museum of Palaichori (SOPHOCLES SOPHOCLEOUS in collaboration with CHRISTODOULOS

HADJICHRISTODOULOU, Palaichoria. Heritage of Centuries (Nicosia: A. G Leventis Foundation, 2002), 194-95 (Greek, English)), and in a portable icon from the Church of Our Lady Pallouriotissa, Nicosia (I69I), in which the Apostle Barnabas is shown enthroned (entry on 'The Apostle Barnabas', in A. PAPAGEORGIOU, Ή Αυτοκέφαλος Εκκλησία της Κύπρου [The autocephalous Church of Cyprus], exhibition catalogue (Greek, English) (Nicosia: Byzantine Museum of the Archbishop Makarios III of Cyprus Foundation, 1995), 159-60.

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7. C. GERASIMOU, "Rescuing from obscurity the humble icon-painters of the churches of the Metropolis of Morphou," in Sacred Bishopric of Morphou. 2000 Years of Art and Holiness (Nicosia: Sacred Bishopric of Morphou, 2002), 165.

8. G. KARGOTOU, " Ή Μονή Παλουριωτίσσης" [The Palouriotissa Monastery],

Kypriakai Spoudai 13 (1949): 71-2 and Pi. VII, 2.

9. Κ. SPYRIDAKIS, G. PAPACHARALAMBOUS, Ν. KLERIDES, A. and J. STYLIANOU,

"Οι άγιοι Καρπασίας Φίλων, Συνέσιος, Θΰρσος, Φωτεινή, Σωζόμενος, Εισαγωγή και κείμενον ακολουθιών καί συναξαριών επί τή βάσει τοΰ χειρογράφου Άκακίου μονάχου του Κυπρίου (1733), μετά εικόνων" ["The saints of Karpasia Philo, Synesios, Thyrsus, Photeine, Sozomenus. Introduction and text of offices and synaxaria on the basis of the manuscript of the monk Akakios of Cyprus (1733), with icons"], Kypriakai Spoudai 11 (1947): 26-7.

10. Op. cit., 27.

11. CHRISTODOULOS HADJICHRISTODOULOU, "Maps and the Cultural Heritage of Cyprus in the Post-Byzantine Period" in 18th International Conference on the History of Cartography, Athens, 11-16 July 1999, Abstracts, p. 75.

12. ANDREAS and JUDITH STYLIANOU, The History of Cartography of Cyprus

(Nicosia: Cyprus Research Center, 1980), 218, entry 39·

13. STYLIANOU 1980, op. cit., 269, entry 77.

14. A. HADJIPASCHALIS, M. IAKOVOU, Maps and atlases (Nicosia: Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, 1989), 54 (English, Greek).

15. STYLIANOU 1980, op. cit., 234, entry 53-

16. HADJIPASCHALIS, IAKOVOU, op. cit., 78.

17. Op. cit., 76-7.

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