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Virgin Η Αληθινή : a new hypothesis regarding the appellation and model of the icon in the Yerokomeio monastery at Patras

Σύμμεικτα

• Μητσάνη, Αγγελική

A fine Byzantine icon of the Virgin and Child bearing the inscription Η ΑΛΗΘΙΝΗ and venerated in the Yerokomeio Monastery at Patras (fig. 1-3) was published by Myrtali Acheimastou-Potamianou in the collective volume Byzantine East, Latin West, in honour of the late Byzantine scholar Kurt Weitzmann, which was published in 1995 by the Departmentof Archaeology and Art of Princeton University. The icon was dated to the late 14th century and the workshop producing it was placed in Thessaloniki or elsewhere in Northern Greece. The present article re-examines the question of the appellation of the Virgin Η Αληθινή, since, in addition to its theological content, it may apparently be associated with the specific local tradition; the article also examines the issue of the iconographie type, in order to formulate a new hypothesis on the origins of the appellation and possibly also of the model for the icon. On 15th-century Rhodes, which was under the sovereignty of the Order of the Knights Hospitallers, there were at least two Orthodox churches with the appellation Alithini. One inside the fortification walls of Rhodes town, dedicated to the Virgin Alithini and St John, and the other outside the walls, dedicated to St Magdalene Alithini. It thus seems that the appellation Alithini on Rhodes was connected with the presence on the island of the Knights of St John.At the same time, the history of the Yerokomeio Monastery at Patras, though not fully established, is of some interest. After the capture of Patras by the Franks in 1204, the Byzantine monastery was granted to the Templars, and thereafter formed a bone of contention between the Knights and the Catholic Bishop of Patras, Antelmus. It is highly likely that, when the order of the Templars was dissolved in 1311, the Yerokomeio Monastery came into the hands of their brethren, the Knights Hospitallers, along with their enormous property and estates. At the end of the 14th century, the Hospitallers were already in the Peloponnese, along with the Grand Master of the Order, Juan Fernandez de Heredia, on an eventful sojourn. During the years 1376-1381, the Knights rented the principality of Achaia from Joanna I of Naples, and at the beginning of the 15th century they were in possession of the Acrocorinth and enjoyed close relations with the principality of Mystras. To this same period, the late 14th century, as we have seen, has been assigned the manufacture of the fine icon of the Virgin Η Αληθινή, and it is tempting to associate its appellation with the presence of the Knights of Rhodes in the Yerokomeio Monastery at Patras. Careful observation of the icon of the Virgin Η Αληθινή in the Yerokomeio Monastery (fig. 1, 3) reveals a number of distinctive iconographie features, which are found in isolation in other icons of the Virgin and Child, though the precise iconographie type of the icon of Yerokomeio is not repeated elsewhere. It is true, however, that iconographie similarities can be identified between a number of Byzantine icons of the same period preserved on Rhodes (double-sided icon with the Virgin and Child (fig. 4) and the Pantokrator, middle of the 14th century) and Kos (Virgin Gorgoepikoos, late 14th/early 15th century) (fig. 5), and the icon of the Yeromomeio Monastery. This points to the hypothesis that they had a shared model, an icon of the Virgin venerated particularly in the Dodecanese in the Hospitaller period, as suggested by the historically documented existence on Rhodes of churches with the appellation Alithini. The discovery of the icon of the Virgin H Αληθινή in the Yerokomeio Monastery at Patras may be connected with the presence of the Knights of Rhodes, and indeed the Grand Master of the Order, Juan Fernandez de Heredia in the principality of Achaia, and probably in the monastery itself, at the end of the 14th century.

• History and Archaeology
• Arts

• Αρχαιολογία
• Χριστιανικές αρχαιότητες
• Τέχνη

βυζαντινή περίοδος

Πρόκειται για τη δημοσίευση ανακοίνωσης με τίτλο «Παναγία η Αληθινή», στο Γ Πολιτιστικό Συμπόσιο Δωδεκάνησου, Κως, 27-30 Αυγούστου 1997., Περιέχει εικόνες