La pi antica icone di Maria. Un prodigioso vincolo fra e occidente(review)Paul Corby Finney

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1993,pp. 104-105 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/earl.0.0136

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104 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Margherita GuarducciLa piu antica icone di Maria. Un prodigioso vincolo frae occidenteRome, 1989Pp. 100 + 14 endplates (4 in color)

I found this little volume interesting and informative, even entertaining, and forthose who have some Italian, I would recommend this study of what the authorcalls the Oldest icon' representing Mary. Guarducci's language is lively, and shewrites with considerable enthusiasm for her subject. Readers of Patristics willrecognize her name in connection with her most celebrated (and most controver-sial) early Christian publication, namely !graffiti sotto la Confessione di San Pietroin Vaticano (Vatican City, 1958) IIII. Other works by Guarducci on early Chris-tian subjects can now be found conveniently gathered between the covers ofEPROER vol. 98 (1983). By training Guarducci was a Hellenist, an archaeologistand an epigrapher (she was general editor of Inscriptiones Creticae 1935ff.) Herfirst article appeared in 1925, and it was not until 1942 that she first wrote on aChristian subject. Early Christianity was something of a scholarly avocation forGuarducci, although in her later years it grew to a professional commitment. Shemade some solid contributions in the early Christian field (e.g., her study of aninscription influenced by Valentinian gnosticism: Rmische Mitteilungen 80[1973] 169ff.), but I suspect her most enduring published work will prove to be hereditorship of the Greek inscriptions of Crete. In the present volume, which concernslate Roman and early Medieval art history, she has moved quite a considerabledistance from her fields of demonstrated competence.

The essence of this book's theory is as follows. Based on a discovery made in1950 by Pico Cellini, Guarducci concludes that the underpainting of the Medievalicon of Mary in the ninth-century Santa Francesca Romana (formerly Santa MariaNova) near the Roman Forum actually consists in a fifth-century (ca. 400425),east Mediterranean, encaustic image on a linen ground. This image, she believes,reproduces the same iconographie type (Hodigitra) which was formulated (438 or439) in a Constantinopolitan workshop as the official image of TheotokosindeedGuarducci believes the underpainted image in Santa Francesca is a direct andcontemporary copy of the original Hodigitra, executed in Constantinople butcarried west sometime in the fifth century. She believes that this painting washoused in the sixth-century church of Santa Maria Antiqua al Foro Romano, thatthe church received its epithet 'Antiqua' thanks to the painting and that the encaus-tic underpainting is the very icon which Pope Gregory carried in procession in theyear 590 to stem the tide of disease which ravaged Rome. She also believes that thisso-called fifth-century icon served as the model for the thirteenth-century image ofthe Virgin in Santa Maria Maggiore, the 'Salus populi Romani' type which wasconnected in the popular imagination with Luke the Evangelist. The volume con-cludes with a brief but informative bibliography and a general index. The photosare better than average in quality.

Guarducci's method of argument is ingenious, speculative and somewhat circu-lar. It reminds me of Carcopino's work earlier in this century on the so-called neo-

BOOK REVIEWS 105

Pythagorean basilica underground at Porta Maggiore. Possibly over time Guarduc-ci's theory will be vindicated. More likely, it will remain a theory.

Paul Corby Finney, Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton University

Carolyn L. ConnorArt and Miracle in Medieval Byzantium: The Crypt at HosiosLoukas and its FrescoesPrinceton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991Pp. xiii + 132 + 100 color and black-and-white plates.$65.00

In 1981 Peter Brown set up a model for the examination of the social function of theveneration of the saints in his masterpiece The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise andFunction in Latin Christianity. Now Carolyn Connor provides an example ofBrown's thesis for the Greek-speaking medieval Christianity. She examines the cultof St. Luke the Younger (d. 953) through the social, political, economic, andmilitary contexts of the art and architecture of the crypt of the Katholikon or GreatChurch of the monastery of Hosios Loukas at Phokis in Greece.

Connor has already explored the life of the holy man in her work (with W.Robert Connor) on his vita, The Life and Miracles of Saint Luke of Steiris: ATranslation and Commentary (Hellenic College Holy Orthodox Press, forthcom-ing). But in this book she takes a step further.

While the mosaics of structure above the crypt in the Katholikon have been thesubject of many studies, the frescoes and furnishings of the crypt have received lessattention. Connor remedies this lack. First she presents the art of the crypt. Here sheis at her best technically and imaginatively. This should be no surprise for hertraining is in the history of art. With the author the readers descend the steps andexamine the crypt. With the help of architectural diagrams and the author's ownphotographs of the interior, the readers stand in the crypt with the tombs of Lukeand of the founders, the abbots Theodosius and Philotheus. Only once the readersare well-oriented are they ready to gaze upward at the frescoes of the vaults. Connorelucidates her catalogue and photographs of the frescoes with an interpretive essayon the style of and program for the selection of the portraits in the frescoes.Apostles, ascetics, and warrior martyrs adorn the vaults. The apostles echo theconventions of the time; the ascetics correspond to the life of the holy monk Luke;the portraits of the warrior martyrs follow The Painter's Manual but also mirror theinterests of the retired military officers who built the crypt and whose portraits aspatrons are enshrined nearby.

The frescoes on the upper walls guide the visitors through the events surroundingthe passion and death of Jesus. The order of the scenes along the walls supports themeditation of those participating in burials in the crypt. The proximity of thecrucifixion and the burial of Jesus to the altar and the scene of the Deesis abovethe altar with the Dormition on the opposite wall lead the contemplative mournersto the theological truth about the death of their earthly companions.

Once the readers have a clear picture of the frescoes and their program, Connor