The Medieval Salento. Linda Safran

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СКАЧАТЬ his own hand (χειρὶ) a church of the Theotokos at Cavallino, but the efforts of the patron are cited first [36]. The ciborium of the Orthodox monastery at Santa Maria di Cerrate gives credit to the abbot for its expense, but the priest Taphouros, further identified as the engraver (ξέστης) of the dodecasyllabic inscription, “constructed” (κατεσκεύαζε) it [114.C]. At San Nicola at Acquarica del Capo in 1282/83, painters named N—Melitinos and Nicholas co-signed in Greek a long dedicatory text that they executed in Latin [1.A]. A few years later, the rock-cut church at Li Monaci was painted by the hands, ἐζωγραφήθη δὲ χειρὶ, of a father-and-son team, Nicholas and Demetrius of Soleto [43.A]. Uniquely, at Santa Chiara alle Petrose in Taranto the undated “humble painter John” explicitly seeks remission of his sins [143.A].

      As it states more than once, the famous mosaic pavement of the cathedral at Otranto was the work of the “right hand” (per dexteram, per manus) of the priest Pantaleon, in conjunction with its patron, Archbishop Jonathan [86.C–G]. When the so-called “Madonna della Sanità” in the Benedictine monastery at Nardò was repainted in 1255 it was made by “the skilled hand of Bailardus” (doctaque manu Baylardi); two others are said to have “made” it, which generally has a financial implication [78.C]. A bronze bell originally in the church of Sant’Anna in Brindisi has on its rim an inscription crediting a prior named Matthew with (initiating?) the work and the hand of a priest named Bartholomew with finishing it and a companion bell [22.F]. It is unlikely that Bishop Bailardus actually built the cathedral at Brindisi with his own hands (the verb used is composuit) but Peter, son of Gui—, may well have been the architect because his name appears modestly at the base of the apse exterior, even though no verb is preserved [21.A, C]. Only in the case of the rebuilt walls of Taranto is a recognized professional architect described as being eminent, renowned, and greatly valued. His social status is apparent from the adjectives, and in fact Jacob has shown that he is identical with the magistros and strategos Nikephoros Hexakionites known from other sources [139].

      More craftsmen sign their work in Greek than in other languages; presumably their patrons permitted or encouraged them to do so. Studies of late Byzantine dedicatory inscriptions indicate that painters’ names were included only when they shared the social rank and cultural background of the patron and that this only occurred in monuments outside the major cities.²⁰ Because the Salentine craftsmen are associated most often with priests or monks, neither of whom enjoyed a particularly high status, a comparable standing likely accrued to the artists as well. We might think of them as locally distinguished (perhaps more for their apparent literacy than for artistic skill) but not among the wealthy elite.

      The only secular “profession” recorded pictorially is that of the military man. I disagree strongly with Maria Stella Calò Mariani that the male embracing a woman on the ceiling at Li Monaci is the soldier Souré of the dedicatory inscription [43.A, C].²¹ The only depicted figures who are inarguably knights are a single figure at Santa Caterina at Galatina and a series of supplicants on the upper walls at Santa Maria del Casale near Brindisi. Both are Roman-rite churches built and decorated with aristocratic support and painted in 1432 and the fourteenth century, respectively. “Franciscus of Arecio” at Galatina [47.D] has been identified as the artist rather than the subject image because of the Latin fecit, but “made” very likely meant “had this made” rather than “painted it with my own hands.” In any case this is a humble supplicant addressing a single saint, even if he is clad in chain mail. That fighting was a high-status occupation is much clearer from the scale of the paintings at Brindisi [28] with their subjects often identified by inscriptions and titles, and the fact that the knights are usually accompanied by grooms, horses, and repeated heraldic markers.

      The grooms in the retinue of one of the soldiers at Santa Maria del Casale are certainly servants and may even be slaves [28.D]. There are numerous documentary references to slaves in the Salento—wealthy members of all three religious groups had them—but their representation is rare. Slaves are referred to in the eleventh-century Stratigoules epitaph [32.J], unless ψυχαρίων there refers more broadly to servants.²² In addition, a southern Italian Hebrew poem of the ninth or tenth century refers to handsome males and females being brought into an unnamed local port by ship and sold by the shipmaster for a quantity of straw (women) or a measure of gold and gems (men).²³

      Salentine Jews were involved in a wide variety of professions, although these are unremarked on their tombstones (nebulous references to “rabbi” are unlikely to indicate a line of work). When Benjamin of Tudela visited in the twelfth century he noted that the Jews of Brindisi were all involved in dyeing.²⁴ More information comes from the Jewish communities displaced from southern Italy (including Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily) in the sixteenth century. In Corfu the newly arrived Jews were active in moneylending, dyeing, leatherworking, and commerce; in Thessalonike they were mariners, fishermen, bricklayers, and tavernkeepers, unlike the exiled Jews from Rome, who tended to be merchants, doctors, and lawyers.²⁵ This accords with scattered documentary information about what the Jews were doing in the medieval Salento.

      Heraldry

      Beginning in the mid-twelfth century, the ability to employ heraldic symbols systematically on one’s person, household, and possessions was one of the most obvious European indexes of status.²⁶ Heraldry was intimately connected to family identity, kinship, and lineage. Even some Jewish Italian families adopted heraldic symbols in the late Middle Ages in clear imitation of highly regarded contemporaries [149.B].²⁷

      In 1483 the well-traveled Dominican Felix Fabri noted a wide range of ways that visitors to holy sites left a record of their presence: by painting their coats of arms or pasting paper copies to church walls; using chisels and mallets to carve them; or even hanging their shields. He goes on to criticize these visual intrusions into the sanctity of the sites (parietes deturpabant).²⁸ Notwithstanding such criticism, in the material culture of the Salento heraldry appears in the form of painting and carving. There are impressive compositions high on the walls of Santa Maria del Casale, where many of the panels are framed with a series of painted shields or other insignia, sometimes echoed in such compositional details as banners, horse blankets, and shields [28. I, N, Q, R, V]. In other panels, one or more painted shields testify to patronage at a high level [28.C, N; Plate 6]. At other sites, stemmata (coats of arms) are painted on roof beams.²⁹ Comparable to this ostentatious painted display is the carved shield on the relief slab of a judge (iudex) at Santa Maria dell’Alto [79.A] or the tomb of Nicholas Castaldo’s unnamed wife at San Paolo in Brindisi [26.C] and, in larger format, on a separate slab in the same church [26.D]. Whether painted or carved, these constitute formal, public statements of family status just as valid and even more legible than a verbal text. In the Middle Ages, the Anjou or Del Balzo coats of arms were immediately recognizable, and perhaps the Di Tocco and Di Marra were as well, at least to certain audiences. But like most names from the past, the insignia at Santa Maria del Casale and elsewhere have lost their visual impact and are seldom recognizable today.³⁰

      A curious painted panel at Santa Maria del Casale [28.J, L] may postdate the badly abraded frescoes it covers (I was not able to examine the stratigraphy up close). It is certainly medieval. The left part of this “triptych” has a red helmet with white crest balanced on a white shield with diagonal red cross.³¹ The faint letters below, “IOHS.… / RODI,” refer to the order of Saint John of Jerusalem and Rhodes, to whom all the Templar possessions passed within a few years after the formal process against them took place in 1310, quite likely in Santa Maria del Casale itself.³² It is tempting to read in this panel a commemoration of the local event and a visual assertion of Hospitaller status vis-à-vis the Templars. The adjacent panel is more elaborate: a diagonally balanced СКАЧАТЬ