vernacular architecture in venetian crete: urban and rural practices

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/15700674-12342115

Medieval Encounters 18 (2012) 447-480 brill.com/me

MedievalJewish, Christian and Muslim Culture

Encountersin Confluence and Dialogue

Vernacular Architecture in Venetian Crete: Urban and Rural Practices

Maria Georgopoulou*The Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies at Athens,

54 Souidias Street, GR-106 76, Athens, Greece*E-mail: [email protected]

AbstractThe architecture built in Venice’s colony on Crete between its establishment in 1211 and the Ottoman conquest of the island in 1669 displays an intermingling of Western (Latin) architectural traditions with pre-Venetian Byzantine (Orthodox) forms and styles. Previous scholarship has explored the urban architecture of Venetian Crete, but less attention has been granted to the many rural Orthodox churches of the later medieval period that dot the Cretan countryside. While the official monuments of Cretan cities have been interpreted as employing architectural forms with a strong ideological—especially political—intent, the use of forms in rural buildings was not as ideologically charged. These more modest struc-tures employed “Western” and “Byzantine” architectural styles in an ideologically neutral manner that reflected trends in fashion or taste rather than distinctions of cultural or polit-ical identity. By the fourteenth century, “Latin” and “Orthodox” architectural traditions had merged into a local style that expressed the cosmopolitan character of medieval Crete.

KeywordsCrete-Venetian rule (1204-1669), Byzantine architecture, Venetian architecture, vernacu-lar architecture, Gothic sculpture

The establishment of Latin states in various regions of the Near East and Greece after the Fourth Crusade of 1204 brought about the downfall of Byzantine political power and a new political system and socio-economic framework dominated by the Italian maritime Republics of Venice and Genoa. Different systems of patronage, needs for novel religious and pub-lic spaces in the towns and the countryside and unprecedented mercantile

448 M. Georgopoulou / Medieval Encounters 18 (2012) 447-480

mechanisms opened new vistas in the former Byzantine territories.1 This essay explores the traces that Byzantine art left in the states that were formed in its stead and the ways in which the presence of newcomers affected local artistic culture.2

My focus is the architecture and decorative sculpture of rural churches on Venetian Crete in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The island of Crete was acquired by the Venetians as a result of complex political nego-tiations following the Fourth Crusade of 1204.3 The arrival of the Vene-tians in 1211 marked a new beginning in the social, political and economic life of Crete. Although the Latin feudal lords who were sent from Venice to Crete were only a minority, the Venetians managed to impose a tight political control over the largely Greek locals.4 Eventually the coexistence

1 Klaus-Peter Matschke, “The Late Byzantine Urban Economy, Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries,” and Matschke, “Commerce, Trade, Markets, and Money: Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries,” in Economic History of Byzantium, ed. Angeliki Laiou, 3 vols. (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 2:463-495 and 2:771-806; also see Angeliki Laiou and Cécile Morrisson, The Byzantine Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. 166-230.

2 C. V. Bornstein and P. Parsons Soucek, The Meeting of Two Worlds: The Crusades and the Mediterranean Context (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1981); Manolis Chatzidakis, “Éssai sur l’école dite ‘Italogrecque’ précédé d’une note sur les rapports de l’art vénitien avec l’art crétois jusqu’à 1500,” in Venezia e il Levante fino al secolo XV. Convegno internazionale di storia della civiltà veneziana, 2 vols., Civiltà Veneziana Studi 27, ed. A. Pertusi (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1973-1974), 69-124; Chatzidakis, “La peinture des ‘madonneri’ ou ‘véneto-crétoise’ et sa destination,” in Venezia centro di mediazione tra Ori-ente e Occidente (secoli XV-XVI), Aspetti e problemi. Atti del II Convegno Internazionale di Storia della Civiltà veneziana, 2 vols., eds. Hans-Georg Beck, Manoussos Manoussacas and Agostino Pertusi (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1977), 2:675-690; Camille Enlart, Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, trans. and ed. David Hunt (London: Trigraph in association with the A.G. Leventis Foundation, 1987); Maria Georgopoulou, “Gothic Architecture and Sculpture in Latin Greece and Cyprus,” in Byzance et le monde extérieur: contacts, rela-tions, échanges, Byzantina Sorbonensia 21, ed. Michel Balard, Élisabeth Malamut, Jean-Michel Spieser and Paule Pagès (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2005): 1-28; Ernst Kitzinger, The Art of Byzantium and the Medieval West: Selected Studies, ed. W. Eugene Kleinbauer (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1976).

3 Antonio Carile, “Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae,” Studi veneziani, 7 (1965), 125-305.

4 For an overview of the settlement of the Latins on Crete see G. Silvano Borsari, Il dominio veneziano a Creta nel XIII secolo (Naples: F. Fiorentino, 1963). The first charter of colonization, the so-called Concessio insulae Cretensis, was composed in 1211 for the set-tling of the western and central part of Crete; see George Martin Thomas, Urkunden zur älteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, mit besonderer Beziehung auf

M. Georgopoulou / Medieval Encounters 18 (2012) 447-480 449

of Venetians and Greeks on the soil of Crete for more than four centuries (1211-1669) left traces of a rapprochement between the two peoples that are visible in the linguistic, literary, cultural and religious spheres.5

Issues of terminology and taxonomies are especially vexed when study-ing territories shared by different communities since no clear-cut boundar-ies can be drawn when co-habitation is prolonged. I use the terms “Greek” and “Latin” to designate, on the one hand, the local Greek population that had lived on Crete since the Byzantine period, and on the other hand the newcomers (colonists and others) who came primarily from Italy and were Latin Catholic Christians. These terms are apt because they appear in gov-ernmental and notary documents from fourteenth-century Crete. Never-theless, Sally McKee has shown that as legal definitions they do not always reflect the complexities of mixed families and the special relationships that were formed between the two communities of Venetian Crete in their daily interaction.6 With language and ethnicity hard to pin down, it was religion that became a significant factor in determining each community’s identity; the Greeks of Crete remained Orthodox Christians, but the island was officially a Roman Catholic territory placed under the jurisdiction of a Latin archbishop.7 Other ethnic groups present on the island, including Jews and Armenians, are not treated in this essay.8

Byzanz und die Levante, 3 vols., Fontes rerum Austriacarum 2 (Vienna: K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1856), 2:130-136. Also see A. Sefakas, Παραχώρησις από της Εvετικής Συγκλήτoυ τoυ διαμερίσματoς τωv Χαvίωv ως φεoύδoυ εις Εvετoύς ευγεvείς εv έτει 1252 (The Concession by the Venetian Senate of the Department of Chanea as a Feudum to Venetian Nobles in the Year 1252) (Athens: s.n., 1940).

5 Maria Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies. Architecture and Urbanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); David Holton, ed., Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Sally McKee, Uncom-mon Dominion. Venetian Crete and the Myth of Ethnic Purity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000); Chryssa Maltezou, “Η Κρήτη στη διάρκεια της περιόδoυ της Βεvετoκρατίας (1211-1669)” (Crete during the Period of Venetian Rule (1211-1669)), in Κρήτη: Iστoρία καί πoλιτισμός (Crete: History and Civilization), ed. N. Panagiotakes (Herakleion: Syndesmos Topikon Enoseon Dimon kai Koinotiton Kretes, 1988), 2:105-161; Freddy Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne au Moyen Age. Le développement et l’exploitation du domaine colonial vénitien (XII-XV siècles) (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1959; 2nd ed., 1975).

6 Sally McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 6, 86-99, and 168-171.7 Giorgio Fedalto, “La chiesa latina a Creta (1204-1261),” Kretika Chronika, 24 (1972),

24 (1972), 145-176 (146).8 On the Jewish community of Candia in the colonial landsape see Maria Georgopoulou,

“Mapping Religious and Ethnic Identities in the Venetian Colonial Empire,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 26, no. 3 (1996), 467-496.


Community identities were not fixed nor were the artistic products of this society distinctly tied to one or the other group. Interestingly, the terms “Greek” and “Latin” were also employed during the medieval period to distinguish the iconography of religious icons produced on Crete, but they do not offer any better understanding of the nuanced artistic encoun-ters between the two communities. The very practice of building in a colo-nial, multicultural territory is a process that problematizes notions of neatly organized classifications, which divide actions and cultural produc-tion according to ethnicity or cultural background.9 So, art historical labels such as “Gothic” and “Byzantine,” which traditionally have been associ-ated with ethnicity (French versus Greek/Byzantine) do not work well for monuments built in the colonial territory of Crete, especially when we move away from the public official monuments of the capital city of Vene-tian Candia (modern Herakleion).10

My essay focuses on the rural Orthodox churches of Venetian Crete that were adorned with several “Gothic” details. Such details recalled a tradition that originated from outside Crete, but we can be almost certain that not all of these monuments were created by Venetian builders and artists, who are all but absent from the historical records. The simplicity of the plans and modes of construction of these churches in the countryside of Crete suggests that they should be considered as examples of vernacu-lar architecture. The position of these churches on the colonial landscape becomes more complex when we move away from the first moment of construction: after a couple of generations these “Gothic” details became part and parcel of the architectural vocabulary available on the island in the same manner as Heather Grossman has shown for the Frankish Peloponnese.11

9 Heather E. Grossman, “Syncreticism Made Concrete: The Case for a Hybrid Moreote Architecture in Post-Fourth Crusade Greece,” in Archaeology in Architecture: Papers in Honor of Cecil L. Striker, eds. Deborah Deliyannis and Judson Emerick (Mainz: Ph. von Zabern, 2005), 65-73, esp. 65-66.

10 For a more extensive discussion see Georgopoulou, “Gothic Architecture and Sculp-ture in Latin Greece and Cyprus.”

11 Heather E. Grossman, “Building Identity: Architecture as Evidence of Cultural Inter-action between Latins and Byzantines in Medieval Greece” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 2004), available online at http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3152042/. See also Grossman, Architecture and Interaction in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean: Building Identity in the Medieval Morea (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, forthcoming).


The thousand or so small rural churches that dot the countryside of Crete thus underscore the inter-pollination that inevitably occurs at the local level among diverse communities that inhabit the same space. Rather than undertake the daunting task to consider these rural churches as a whole, I present here certain tightly-knit cases that hold the key to under-standing broader paradigms. The careful exploration of cases on the micro level often suggests significant perspectives for further research. Although hard to prove from the available evidence, it is logical to assume that after certain Western architectural and sculptural elements were introduced into the cities of Crete by Venetian builders/architects, local stone masons (murarii) transferred them to structures of the countryside. By focusing on patronage and regional patterns, I argue that instead of the diametrically opposed position that Byzantine and Gothic art often hold in the minds of medievalists, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Crete the two styles do not seem to have been in strong ideological opposition. If we accept that by the fourteenth century “Gothic” details had become a deco-rative element devoid of any ideological weight, we can push the argument further to test to what extent the intrusion of such foreign elements (which must have been associated with the official structures of the Venetians on Crete) might be read as indicative of the attitudes of the rural population and perhaps also of those of the non-ruling elite.

The imposition of Venetian control after 1204 was followed by a cen-tury of revolts led primarily by the local Greek lords, who fought in order to keep their landed estates and privileges.12 After a devastating earthquake in 1303, the fourteenth century was a period of calm when new economic and social opportunities improved living conditions on Crete.13 The peace-ful co-existence between Greeks and Latins reached such a level that in 1363, upon the imposition of new taxes on Venetian Crete, the two

12 Stephanos Xanthoudides, Η Εvετoκρατία εv Κρήτη καί oι κατά τωv Εvετώv αγώvες τωv Κρητώv (Venetian Rule in Crete and the Fights of the Cretans against the Venetians) (Athens: Byzantinisch-Neugriechischen Jahrbuecher, 1939), and Nikos Svoronos, “Το νόημα και η τυπολογία των Κρητικών επαναστάσεων του 13ου αι.” (The Meaning and Typology of the Cretan Revolts of the 13th c.), Symmeikta, 8 (1989), 1-14. See also Chryssa Maltezou, “The Historical and Social Context,” in Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete, ed. David Holton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 17-47.

13 Angeliki Laiou, “Venetians and Byzantines: Investigation of Forms of Contact in the Fourteenth Century,” Thesaurismata, 22 (1992), 29-43; and Sally McKee, “Households in Fourteenth-Century Venetian Crete,” Speculum, 70 (1995), 27-67.


communities joined forces against the Venetian administration.14 Although Orthodox Greeks living on Crete were no longer under Byzantine rule, they were not completely isolated from the empire. Painted churches in the fourteenth century show affinities with major developments in the Byzantine world.15 Artists traveled to Constantinople in the early fifteenth century, and clerics or monks from Byzantium visited Crete.16 The island’s colonial society and its commercial outlets in Western Europe proved a fertile ground for artistic experiments that blended the Byzantine and Latin/Venetian modes of expression.

Among the most striking examples of this osmosis are the religious icons produced in large numbers on Crete after 1453. New subjects were intro-duced from Italy like the Pietà or the embrace of St. Peter and St. Paul,17 and even Western saints like St. Francis invaded as traditional a Byzan-tine iconography as that of the Virgin holding the Child. For instance, a fifteenth-century icon of the Madonna and Child at the Byzantine Museum of Athens (attributed on stylistic grounds to the Greek artist Nikolaos Tzafouris) portrays to the left of an Italian-looking Virgin and Child a small figure of St. Francis; he holds a cross and a Bible, and the stigmata clearly show on his hands.18 Numerous archival documents assert

14 Sally McKee, “The Revolt of St Tito in Fourteenth-Century Venetian Crete: A Reas-sessment,” Mediterranean Historical Review, 9 (1995), 173-204.

15 Manolis Chatzedakes, “Τοιχογραφίες στην Κρήτη” (Wall Paintings in Crete), Kretika Chronika, 6 (1952), 59-91; Konstantinos D. Kalokyris, The Byzantine Wall Paintings of Crete (New York, NY: Red Dust, 1973); Klaus Gallas, Klaus Wessel and Manolis Bor-boudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta (Munich: Hirmer, 1983); and Maria Vassilakis-Maurakakis, “The Church of the Virgin Gouverniotissa at Potamies, Crete” (PhD diss., Courtauld Insti-tute of Art, University of London, London, 1986), 67-69.

16 The highly educated monk Joseph Bryennios was in Crete from 1375-1395; the artist Nikolaos Filanthropenos was imprisoned in Crete in 1419 for having ties to the church in Constantinople; and according to his will, the icon painter Angelos Acotanto traveled from Crete to Constantinople in the first half of the fifteenth century; see Maria Vassilaki-Mau-rakaki, “Ο ζωγράφος Άγγελος Ακοτάντος: το έργο και η διαθήκη του (1436)” (The Artist Angelos Acotanto: His Oeuvre and his Will (1436)), Thesaurismata, 18 (1981), 290-299. See also Vassilaki-Maurakaki, ed., The Hand of Angelos: an Icon Painter in Venetian Crete, trans. Alex Doumas (Farnham: Lund Humphries in association with the Benaki Museum, Athens, 2010).

17 Maria Vassilaki, “A Cretan Icon in the Ashmolean: the Embrace of Peter and Paul,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik, 40 (1990), 405-422, has rightly identified this subject as a reference to the Union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

18 Athens, Byzantine and Christian Museum, T. 233; see Myrtali Acheimastou-Potamianou, From Byzantium to El Greco: Greek Frescoes and Icons (Athens: Ministry of


that the icon painters from Candia, Crete’s capital city, could paint in both the Greek and the Latin mode.19 Far from the authority of Orthodox bishops, professional icon painters in Candia created images that took lib-erties from the established canon of Byzantine religious iconography and form that had crystallized in Byzantium after Iconoclasm; Orthodox rules must have been relaxed and at times broken in order to accommodate the demands of a new clientele.20

Such cultural negotiations were not reached without discord, and by no means did all aspects of life on Crete reach a similar equilibrium. A colo-nial situation incorporates by definition moments of conflict as well as harmonious encounters between diverse communities that inhabit the same space. Monuments are typically interpreted as spaces where this power struggle is played out, both through their material forms and deco-ration as well as through the events and rituals that transpire within them. Venetian Crete offers a wealth of art historical material that may give us clues into this process: (a) four urban centers (Candia, Chania, Rethymnon and Sitia) still preserve Latin and Greek churches, administrative palaces,

Culture, 1987), no. 46, 114 and 179-180. On Tzafouris/Zafuri see M. Bianco Fiorin, “Nicola Zafuri, cretese del Quattrocento, e sua inedita ‘Madonna’,” Arte veneta, 37 (1983), 164-169; and Mario Cattapan, “I pittori Pavia, Rizo, Zafuri da Candia e Papadopulo dalla Canea,” Thesaurismata, 14 (1977), 199-238.

19 Mario Cattapan, “Nuovi documenti riguardanti pittori cretesi del 1300 al 1500,” in Pepragmena tou B’ Diethnous Kretologikou Synedriou 3 (Athens: s.n., 1968), 29-46; Mario Cattapan, “Nuovi elenchi e documenti dei pittori in Creta dal 1300 al 1500,” Thesaurismata, 9 (1972), 202-35; Nano Chatzidakis, Venetiae quasi alterum Byzantium. From Candia to Venice. Greek Icons in Italy, 15th-16th Centuries (Athens: Foundation for Hellenic Culture, 1993); Maria Constantoudaki-Kitromilides, “Οι Κρητικoί ζωγράφoι και το κoιvό τoυς: Η αvτιμετώπιση της τέχvης τoυς στη βεvετoκρατία” (The Cretan Painters and Their Audi-ence: The Reception of Their Art during the Venetian Rule), Kretika Chronika, 26 (1986), 246-261; Maria Constantoudaki, “Icone cretesi del XV secolo e la pittura italiana del tardo medioevo,” XXXVIII Corso di cultura sull’arte Ravennate e bizantina (Ravenna: Edizioni del Girasole, 1991), 125-129; and Maria Constantoudaki, “Conducere apothecam, in qua exer-cere artem nostram: Το εργαστήριο ενός Βυζαντινού και ενός Βενετού ζωγράφου στην Κρήτη” (The Workshop of a Byzantine and a Venetian Artist in Crete), Summeikta, 14 (2001), 291-299.

20 A similar suggestion has been made for the appearance of Western iconographic ele-ments in the wall paintings of the Athenian church of Omorphe Ekklesia in Galatsi; see Agape Vasilaki-Karakatsani, Οι τοιχογραφίες της Όμορφης Εκκλησιάς στην Αθήνα (The Wall Paintings of Omorfe Ekklesia in Athens) (Athens: Christianiki Archaiologiki Etaireia, 1971), 114. I would like to thank Professor Slobodan Ćurčić who suggested this to me in Princeton.


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private dwellings and fortifications refurbished in the course of the six-teenth and seventeenth centuries (Fig. 1); (b) the ruins of several fortresses situated on promontories or by the sea still dominate the horizon; (c) a handful of major monasteries that have attracted the Orthodox population since the Byzantine period and that display continual remodelings over many centuries; and (d) hundreds of small Greek churches that still func-tion or stand as ruins in the countryside (Fig. 2).21 It is this last type of

21 The magisterial studies produced by Giuseppe Gerola for the Istituto Veneto di Sci-enze, Lettere ed Arti in the early twentieth century offer invaluable information on these monuments: Giuseppe Gerola, I monumenti veneti nell’isola di Creta, 4 vols. in 5 parts (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1905-1932). For the photographic archive of this mission also see Spiridione Alessandro Curuni and Lucilla Donati, Creta veneziana: l’Istituto veneto e la Missione cretese di Giuseppe Gerola: collezione fotografica 1900-1902 (Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1988).

Figure 2. Rural church in Cretan countryside, region of Chania. Photo: Maria Georgopoulou. This figure is published in colour in the online edi-tion of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/15700674.


monument that has attracted the least scholarly attention to date and forms the focus of the present study.

The ways in which conflict is played out in monumental art created by mixed populations typically excite art historians’ imagination: we seem convinced that monuments are filled with ideological messages, yet we conceptualize notions of artistic diffusion and the inter-pollination of for-mal elements between distinct artistic traditions differently in the case of public, official architecture and private dwellings. The latter are considered to have a smaller impact on the formation of collective identities and ide-ologies than public monuments. In my previous work I have explored public official architecture as a way to showcase the colonial presence of the Venetian lords on the island of Crete.22 Here I am instead interested in the non-official forms of art and architecture, which are usually thought to be more conservative and more resistant to change because the symbolic messages that they carry are thought to be second to their functional pur-pose. Precisely for this reason one could argue that the intrusion of new elements in buildings that were not sponsored by the government or the Church is a sign of an even wider diffusion of building styles, techniques and decoration as their use may be non-intentional. Nonetheless, for all intents and purposes the small rural churches that form the focus of this study are public monuments within the context of the village or fief in which they are situated. What is the form that these monuments of a lesser political (or ecclesiastical) significance take? Do they follow older patterns of pre-Venetian, Greek monuments or do they show awareness of new forms as if they want to partake of the new building achievements of the colonial rulers?

Little remains of the original governmental palaces that the Venetians erected on Crete, but many significant Latin churches have survived. The seats of Latin bishops as well as that of the archbishop were significant structures, in fact often reused Byzantine churches, but for the most part new, impressive Latin churches were built by the Mendicant orders in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with later additions. These are typi-cally three-aisled basilicas with ribbed vaulting over the choir and simple, elegant moldings on the portals and windows.23 Archival records and the standing medieval Latin and Greek churches give us valuable information

22 Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies, 43-103.23 For the most significant Latin churches on Crete see Beata Kitsiki-Panagopoulos,

Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece (Chicago, IL: University of Chi-


on religious practices and inter-community relations. On the arrival of the new Latin Archbishop, Orthodox bishops were expelled from the island and obstacles were imposed on the ordination of Orthodox priests, but there was no proselytism, and the numerous Greek monasteries kept their property and monks, as had been promised by the pope in the thirteenth century.24 Although the two rites remained distinct, archival evidence from the fourteenth century onwards affirms that Greek and Latin priests marched together in urban religious processions, and oftentimes Venetian noblemen married Greek women or vice versa.25 The absence of Greek bishops and the general lack of strong religious control on the part of the Orthodox Church may have something to do with the situation on the island and should, therefore, be taken into account when studying the architecture of Greek churches on the island.

Surprisingly not only did Latin rule not hinder the erection of Greek Orthodox churches, it created the socio-economic conditions that allowed for their flourishing. A large number of new (or newly renovated) churches of the Orthodox rite were constructed in the hinterland of Crete as hap-pened in other regions under Latin rule as well.26 These remote churches

cago Press, 1979); Kitsiki-Panagopoulos, “Some Venetian Churches of Crete,” Arte veneta, 30 (1976), 20-29; and Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies, 107-164.

24 Nikolaos B.Tomadakis, “Οι Ορθόδοξοι παππάδες επί Ενετοκρατίας και η χειροτονία αυτών” (The Orthodox Priests during the Venetian Rule and their Ordination), Kretika Chronika, 13 (1959), 39-72; and Tomadakis, “La politica religiosa di Venezia verso i cretesi ortodossi dal XIII al XV secolo,” in Venezia e il Levante fino al secolo XV. Convegno inter-nazionale di storia della civiltà veneziana, 2 vols., Civiltà Veneziana Studi 27, ed. A. Pertusi (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1973-1974), 1, 2:783-800.

25 Although it is hard to pinpoint the earliest origin of these processions it is beyond doubt that by 1368 these included Greeks and Latins; see Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediter-ranean Colonies, 187-188, and 217-228. On the issue of mixed marriages and the multieth-nic composition of households including the presence of indigenous wet nurses in Latin families of Candia see McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 100-115; McKee, “Households in Fourteenth-Century Venetian Crete,” Speculum, 70 (1995), 27-67; and Peter Topping, “Co-existence of Greeks and Latins in Frankish Morea and Venetian Crete,” in Studies on Latin Greece A.D. 1205-1715 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1977), XI: 21.

26 Myrtali Acheimastou-Potamianou, “Η μνημειακή ζωγραφική στα νησιά του Αιγαίου κατά το 13ο αιώνα. Η περίπτωση της Ρόδου και της Νάξου” (Monumental Painting on the Aegean Islands in the Thirteenth Century: Rhodes and Naxos), in Byzantine Art in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade and Its Consequences: International Congress, March 9-12, 2004, ed. Panagiotis Vocotopoulos (Athens: Academy of Athens, Research Center for Byz-antine and Post-Byzantine Art, 2007), 13-30. On Naxos there were few new churches built. The majority of the renovations involved the addition of new wall paintings in older


constitute the new landscape of “Byzantine” art after 1204 and played a dominant role in shaping the immediate cultural horizon of the inhabit-ants of these regions.27 By examining the architecture and sculptural deco-ration of several of these rural churches from the perspective of patronage as well as local and regional patterns, we can uncover the mechanics of interaction between different communities.

The majority of the rural churches are architecturally conservative: they are small, mostly single-nave buildings with few openings and thick walls. Nevertheless, they display certain architectural innovations, which became more pronounced in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: pointed arches in doorways and windows, pointed barrel vaults, as in the church of St. Michael the Archangel in Axos Mylopotamou of the first quarter of the fourteenth century (Fig. 3), and decorative sculptural details on the exterior (especially at doors and windows) and in the interior (consoles at the springing of the vaults and occasionally ribbed vaults), as in the church of Panagia Kera at Kritsa dated from the middle of the thirteenth century to c. 1320 (Fig. 4).28

The simplicity of the architecture of the churches (which in their major-ity are single-aisled or modest, additive buildings), the irregularities in plan, the thick masonry walls with few openings and the minimal ornamental sculptural designs on their portals and windows point to a local workforce using the indigenous stone construction technique without complex archi-tectural planning.29 Whether or not this mode of building was due to the financial means of the patrons, to the lack of access to master builders or

Byzantine structures. Of the 180 painting strata identified on the island of Naxos, half are dated to the thirteenth century (14). In the hinterland of southern Greece, small churches and chapels were newly built; see Charalambos Bouras, Βυζαντινή & μεταβυζαντινή αρχιτεκτονική στην Ελλάδα (Byzantine & Post-Byzantine Architecture in Greece) (Athens: Melissa, 2001), 166.

27 The term “Byzantine” is used here as an art historical stylistic term that refers to Greek Orthodox churches.

28 Stella Papadaki-Ökland, “Η Κερά της Κριτσάς. Παρατηρήσεις στη χρονολόγηση των τοιχογραφιών της” (Kera in Kritsa. Observations on the Dating of Its Wall Paintings), Archaiologikon Deltion, 22 (1967), 87-111.

29 Klaus Gallas, Mittel- und spätbyzantinische Sakralarchitektur der Insel Kreta: Versuch einer Typologie der kretischen Kirchen des 10. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (München: Hofbauer, 1983); and Kostas Lassithiotakis, “Οι κυριαρχούντες τύποι χριστιανικών ναών από τον 12ο αιώνα και εντεύθεν στη ∆υτική Κρήτη” (The Principal types of Christian Churches since the 12th century in Western Crete), Kretika Chronika, 15-16 (1961-1962), 2:173-201.


Figure 3. St. Michael the Archangel in Axos Mylopotamou (from Olga Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη στην Ύστερη Μεσαιωνική Εποχή (Crete in the Late Medieval Period) (Herakleion: Panepistimiakes Ekdoseis Kretes, 2010), 135, fig. 145).

Figure 4. Church of Panagia Kera at Kritsa, ribbed vault. Photo: Maria Georgopoulou.


to the absence of a strong religious authority for the Orthodox of Crete, the mode of construction suggests that local patrons used their resources to create something akin to “vernacular” architecture. Nevertheless, some of the sculptural decoration of Cretan churches has a flamboyant “Gothic” flair, especially in the treatment of windows or the ornamental detailing of oculi, as in the case of the sculptural ornamentation of the monastery of St. Phanourios in Varsamonero (Fig. 5). The question is: do these Gothic details constitute an anomaly? There is little evidence to suggest that their function was more than decorative; they surely did not interfere with the liturgical function of the churches.

Used in reference to language, the term “vernacular” signifies the mother tongue that is not learned, and vernaculars are often contrasted with an official, institutional, pan-regional language such as Latin. Similarly, ver-nacular architecture is concerned with the local and the functional. It is also a term used to differentiate between public or monumental buildings and structures of a non-official nature made by empirical builders without the intervention of professional architects using locally available resources and indigenous methods of construction.30 Even if small village churches may have ultimately functioned as significant public structures for the community, the term “vernacular” captures the creative process for this kind of architecture. Without wanting to take sides on the debate about the role of the “architect” (μηχανικός or μηχανοποιός) versus “mason” (οικοδόμος) in Byzantium, it is fair to say that the rural churches of Crete were made in the traditional local manner.31 Thus although these struc-tures are typically thought not to carry any meaning other than to provide

30 Gabriela Arboleda, “What is Vernacular Architecture?” Ethnoarchitecture, May 29, 2006, available online at http://www.vernaculararchitecture.com/ (accessed 15 November 2011); and Paul Oliver, ed., Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). I would like to thank Alicia Walker for bring-ing to my attention a recent study that focuses on a similar theme: H. Pulhan and I. Numan, “The Traditional Urban House in Cyprus as Material Expression of Cultural Transforma-tion,” Journal of Design History, 19 (2006), 105-119.

31 Robert Ousterhout believes that in Byzantium structures were erected out of practical experience. However, Charalambos Bouras suggests that despite a lack of extant architec-tural plans, designs recorded in various media indicate that architects did indeed use draw-ings in addition to mathematical calculations in their building processes. See Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 43-85; and Bouras, “Τρόποι εργασίας Βυζαντινών αρχιτεκτόνων και αρχιμαστόρων” (Methods of Work of Byzantine Architects and Chief-Masons), Μνήμη Μανόλη Χατζηδάκη. Ακαδημία Αθηνών, 4 Μαρτίου 2008 (Memory of Manolis Chatzidakis. Academy of Athens, 4 March


Figure 5. St. Phanourios in Varsamonero (from Klaus Gallas, Klaus Wessel and Manolis Borboudakis, eds., Byzantinisches Kreta (Munich: Hirmer, 1983), fig. 95). This figure is published in colour in the online edition of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/15700674.


a place of worship, in fact they were the public monuments of the coun-tryside and constituted the very symbols of the Greek Orthodox popula-tion among the few Venetian villas/farms and remote fortifications. Hence, these vernacular churches take on a highly important public role. What is more, since “foreign” elements have intruded in the vernacular architec-ture it could be argued that they were readily available and highly desirable by the non-Venetian users of the Orthodox churches. It follows that in their eyes these details probably did not have any strong ideological con-nection to the Latin overlords of the island.

It comes as no surprise that the rural churches of Crete do not form a homogeneous whole nor should we try to think of them as expressions of a single ideology even when they share common decorative and structural features. Taking an often repeated example, eleven rural churches contain donor inscriptions that commemorate the names of the ruling Byzantine emperors from the reign of Andronikos II (1282-1328) until the eve of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.32 This practice has been interpreted as the sign of a nascent “national” consciousness possibly artic-ulating a self-identity vis-à-vis the arrival of a foreign overlord. This nostal-gic evocation of the severed political and ecclesiastical ties with the patriarchate of Constantinople is counteracted by many expressions of a

2008) (Athens: Akademia Athenon Kentro Ereunas tes Vyzantines kai Metavyzantines Technes, 2010), 22.

32 Klaus Gallas, Klaus Wessel, and Manolis Borboudakis, eds., Byzantinisches Kreta (Munich: Hirmer, 1983), 41: Andronikos II (1282-1328), John V (1341-1391), Andron-ikos IV (1376-1379), Manuel II (1391-1425), and John VII (1425-1448). Angela Volan suggests that the legend of the Last Emperor was used in Crete as a theme that helped anti-unionist efforts, by identifying the current emperor in Constantinople with the eschato-logical Last Emperor through inscriptions located within representations of the Last Judgment and the messianic image of Christ. See Volan, “Last Judgments and Last Emper-ors: Illustrating Apocalyptic History in Late- and Post-Byzantine Art” (PhD diss., Univer-sity of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2005), 111.

Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, Dedicatory Inscriptions and Donor Portraits in Thirteenth-century Churches of Greece, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Histo-rische Klasse Denkschriften 226, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für die Tabula Imperii Byzantini 5 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1992), 25, has recorded eight more cases in the thirteenth century from mainland Greece, three of which come from areas that had been ruled by the Latins (Omorphe Ekklesia in Aegina, H. Ioannes in H. Basileios Pediados in Crete and H. Georgios Bardas in Rhodes). In Byzantine times the addition of an emperor’s name was a sign that the patron was close to the emperor.


social rapprochement of the Venetian and Greek communities starting in the fourteenth century. Among those we should mention a most blunt approval of the new colonial situation also painted on the walls of a Greek church: a donor inscription at the church of the Archangel Michael at Kavalariana (1327-1328) that refers to the time as the period “when Crete was ruled by the great Venetians our masters.”33

Between these two extremes the realities of co-habitation tell a variety of stories, especially after the end of violent confrontations of the first hun-dred years of Venetian rule.34 There were Venetian lords who wrote poetry in Greek like Marin Falier;35 Greek noblemen who gained acceptance in the Venetian colonial elite, such as the poet Stephanus Saclichi (born c. 1330);36 local aristocrats who acquired the rank of Venetian nobility like the Calergi family in 1381;37 Greek priests or monks who used their reli-gious zeal to promote the cult of a local saint by constructing a monastery;38

33 Angeliki Lymberopoulouhas interpreted the following Greek inscription as a sign of a positive attitude toward or even an act of submission to the Venetian overlords of the island on the part of the donors, Theotokis Kotzis, Manuel Melisourgos, Nikitas Sideres and Dimitrios and their children: . . .τρέχο(ν)τα(ος) του παρόντος εόνος. έτους ςωλς αφε(ν)τέβο(ν)τ(ος) ε<ν> Κρήτη τ(ον) μεγάλον κε αφέ<ν>τ(ον) ημ(όν) βενετήκ(ον). See Lym-beropoulou, Church of the Archangel Michael at Kavalariana: Art and Society on Fourteenth-Century Venetian-Dominated Crete (London: Pindar Press, 2006), 171.

34 Here it is worth mentioning the parallel phenomenon of Iberian “convivencia;” see Chris Lowney, A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age of Enlightenment (New York, NY: Free Press, 2005); Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain, eds Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick and Jerrilynn D. Dodds (New York, NY: G. Bra-ziller and the Jewish Museum, 1992); Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Maria Rosa Menocal and Abi-gail Krasner Balbale, The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008); Simon R. Doubleday and David Coleman, eds, In the Light of Medieval Spain: Islam, the West, and the Relevance of the Past (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

35 Arnold Van Gemert, “The Cretan Poet Marinos Falieros,” Thesaurismata, 14 (1977), 7-70.

36 A.F. van Gemert, “Ο Στέφανος Σαχλίκης και η εποχή του” (Stephanos Sachlikis and His Time), Thesaurismata, 17 (1980), 36-130.

37 McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 74-83; Ernst Gerland, “Histoire de la noblesse cré-toise,” Revue de l’Orient Latin, 10 (1903-1904), 172-247; 11 (1905-1906), 7-144; and D. Mertzios, “Η συvθήκη Εvετώv-Καλλέργη καί oι συvoδεύovτες αυτήv κατάλoγoι” (The Treaty between the Venetians and Kallergis and the Lists that Accompany It), Kretika Chronika, 3 (1949), 262-292.

38 Vassilakis-Maurakakis, “The Church of the Virgin Gouverniotissa,” 77; and Maria Vassilaki, “Saint Phanourios: Cult and Iconography,” Deltion Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias, 10 (1980-1981), 223-238.


and simple folk (nuns, monks, priests) who combined their personal resources or those of their whole community to build a modest house of worship.39 To all, the Cretan countryside signified the source of their live-lihood and at a certain level there must have been an understanding of a common good.

The Orthodox churches of the countryside served the agrarian, Greek population, but often it was the Latin feudal lords who paid for their con-struction or refurbishment out of concern for the welfare of the peasants who worked their lands (Fig. 6).40 For instance, during the first decade of the fourteenth century the local (Latin) lords of the villages of Steriano and Agio Silla sponsored the reconstruction of churches that were actually built by the villagers.41 In 1348 Nicolaos Plachina, a Greek feudatory, left in his will money to the papas Ianni of the villages of Mulia (which must have belonged to him) for the refurbishment of the church of St. Nikolaos, probably in the same village.42 From her study of the wills of Venetian Crete, Sally McKee has shown that sixteen Latin feudatories and nine women married to Latin feudatories left small sums of money to the churches located in the villages to which they held rights.43 The Latin lords were further concerned about the presence of enough Greek priests to officiate in their villages: in 1386 the Latin feudatory Giorgio della Porta

39 Thirteenth-century donor inscriptions from Crete refer to monks (ieromonachoi; St. Anna of Amari and St. George at Kouneni Kissamou), a nun and a lector (anagnostes), who doubled as the artist who painted the church. In contrast, ten churches were funded by communal donations of the whole village (Archangel Michael in Doraki Monophatsiou, St. Nikolaos in Maza and St. Anna in Kritsa). On another occasion, several villages belong-ing to the same administrative region (tourma) paid for a church (Hagia Paraskeve in Kithi-ros Selinou in 1372-1373). Kalopissi-Verti, Dedicatory Inscriptions and Donor Portraits, 36 and n. 100.

40 Zacharias N. Tsirpanlis, Κατάστιχo Εκκλησιώv καί Μovαστηρίωv τoυ κoιvoύ” (1248-1548). Συμβoλή στή μελέτη τωv σχέσεωv Πoλιτείας καί Εκκλησίας στή βεvετoκρατoύμεvη Κρήτη (Catasticum of the Churches and the Monasteries of the Commune (1248-1548). Contribution to the Study of the Relations between Church and State in Venetian Crete) (Ioannina: Panepistemio Ioanninon, 1985), 81-82, has published information from the first decades of the fourteenth century for the city of Candia and its immediate hinterland, called Paracandia. In addition, many Latins left money in their wills for the enlargement or painting of churches in their fiefs as well as smaller sums to various Orthodox churches in the villages in which they held rights; see McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 109 n. 44.

41 Chryssa A. Maltezou, “Byzantine ‘Consuetudines’ in Venetian Crete,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 49 (1995), 269-280, esp. 277.

42 McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 109.43 McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 109 n. 44.


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provided funds to cover the salary of a priest to serve the residents of the villages of Gurnes for three years, and numerous petitions of feudatories were made for the ordination of Greek priests outside Crete; there were six cases in 1391 alone.44 The detailed studies that Charalambos Gasparis has produced on the feudal cadastres of Venetian Crete has yielded informa-tion that can partly allow us to relate patronage in particular villages to the corresponding fiefs in order to define the specific history of a locale.45

From a socio-economic perspective the sheer number of churches—often a handful in a single village—suggests that in addition to the spiri-tual rewards they offered to their patrons, they must also have provided their priests with tangible benefits. The information contained in an early fourteenth-century collection of documents, known as the Catasticum, indicates that the returns from the properties of the Orthodox churches were significant.46 Indeed performing mass was a lucrative exercise for Greek priests who since 1418 were asked to serve the liturgical needs of the Latins because of the dearth of Catholic priests on the island.47 The situa-tion in the last two centuries of Venetian rule deteriorated even further: Latin cathedrals were dismantled (Mylopotamo in the seventeenth century and Ario in 1551) and in at least one case in Ierapetra a church was pro-vided with portable altar furnishings so as to accommodate both the Orthodox and the Catholic rite.48

44 McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 110-111 n. 52 and 107 n. 32.45 C. Gasparis, Catastici feudorum Crete: catasticum Sexterii Dorsoduri, 1227-1418, 2 vols.

(Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2004); Gasparis, Catastici feudorum Crete: catasticum Chanee, 1314-1396 (Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation, 2008); and Gasparis, Η γη και οι αγρότες στη μεσαιωνική Κρήτη, 13ος-14ος αι. (Land and Peasants in Medieval Crete 13th-14th c.) (Athens: National Hellenic Research Founda-tion, 1997).

46 Tsirpanlis, Catasticum, 87.47 Angeliki Panopoulou, “Οι Βενετοί και η ελληνική πραγματικότητα. ∆ιοικητική,

εκκλησιαστική, οικονομική οργάνωση” (The Venetians and the Greek Reality. Administra-tive, Ecclesiastical, Economic Organization), in Όψεις της Ιστορίας του βενετοκρατούμενου Ελληνισμού. Αρχειακά τεκμήρια (Views of the History of the Venetian-ruled Hellenism. Archival Records), ed. Chryssa Maltezou (Athens: Idryma Ellenikou Politismou, 1993), 281-406, esp. 294.

48 On Mylopotamo see Marco Petta, “La chiesa latina di Creta negli ultimi anni del dominio Veneto,” Bolletino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata, 22 (1968), 3-56, esp. 6. In 1627 the cathedral of Mylopotamo was in bad condition: it lacked a baptistery and Holy Communion was no longer celebrated. On Ario see Kostas E. Lambrinos, “Η Λατινική Επισκοπή Μυλοποτάμου. Όψεις της εκκλησιαστικής και οικονομικής οργάνωσης (16ος


It is only natural that there was also some intermingling of artistic and cultural forms much earlier. The thousand rural churches that dot the countryside of Crete show the results of an inevitable give-and-take between different communities that inhabit the same space. Archival doc-uments about construction in the city of Candia indicate that masons and architects were locals, that is Greeks or Latins.49 Donor inscriptions in rural churches do stress the participation of the local community (as in the case of the aforementioned churches of Steriano and Agio Silla) or of eponymous Greek painters like Ioannes Pagomenos,50 but are regrettably silent when it comes to Latin masons or architects.

With no written sources available we can only look for material evi-dence. What is the relationship of these rural churches to the large Latin establishments in the cities that offered models for these “Gothic” sculp-tural details? Recently the Center for Mediterranean Studies of the University of Crete in Rethymno, under the direction of Olga Gkratziou, has produced an inventory of Venetian sculptures on the island.51 This

αιώνας)” (The Latin Bishopric of Mylopotamos. Aspects of the Ecclesiastical and Eco-nomic Organization (16th century)), in Ο Μυλοπόταμος από την αρχαιότητα ως σήμερα. Περιβάλλον, αρχαιολογία, ιστορία, λαογραφία, κοινωνιολογία (Mylopotamos from Antiq-uity to Today. Environment, Archaeology, History, Folk Studies, Sociology), 9 vols., eds. Eirene Gavrilaki, Giannes Z. Tziphopoulos, Maria Andreadaki-Vlazaki and Michalis G. Andrianakis (Rethymno: Historike kai Laographike Hetaireia Rethymnou, 2006), 6:37-65, esp. 61.

49 Chryssa Maltezou, “Métiers et salaries en Crète vénitienne (XVe siècle),” Byzantinis-che Forschungen, 12 (1987), 327-328, and Maria Georgopoulou, “Private Residences in Venetian Candia (Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries),” Thesaurismata, 30 (2000), 95-126. There are also instances where the masons were Latin as in the case of the two masons hired by Andrea Corner to construct a loggia at his residence in Candia in 1386; see McKee, Uncommon Dominion, 61.

50 Pagomenos and his workshop were responsible for the decoration of eight Cretan churches; see A. Sucrow, Die Wandmalereien des Ioannes Pagomenos in Kirchen der ersten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts auf Kreta (Berlin: s.n., 1994).

51 “Digital Crete: Mediterranean Cultural Identities,” FORTH: Institute for Mediter-ranean Studies, available online at http://digitalcrete.ims.forth.gr/ (accessed 2 May 2012). The website contains information on the archaeology of Crete including G.I.S. maps from prehistory to the Ottoman period. Two new books, one on sculpture and the other on church architecture, engage several themes: patronage, questions of production of decora-tive architectural sculpture and the proposition that double-nave churches with multiple altars were created for a mixed congregation of the Greek and Latin rites; see Olga Gkratz-iou, Γλυπτική και λιθοξοϊκή στη Λατινική Ανατολή, 13ος-17ος αιώνας (Sculpture and Stonecutting in the Latin East, 13th-17th Century) (Rethymnon: Panepistimiakes Ekdo-


reexamination of the material begs a closer look at specific examples and opens the way for investigating regional systems of the diffusion of formal elements through local patronage. The piecemeal preservation of sculpture unearthed outside its original context, in salvage excavations or reused in newer buildings, has led scholars to discuss the material as a whole by focusing on taxonomies that give few answers. Moreover there is much more extant architectural sculpture in situ that needs to be catalogued.52 A full inventory of sculptural details including their dimensions would surely enhance the way in which we can gather statistics and form group-ings of churches based on the sculptural details they display. In fact, the way in which carefully cut stones and repetitive decorative moldings are used to embellish the rubble masonry has led Gkratziou to suggest that sculpted architectural details such as moldings that frame portals, tympana and archways or decorated corbels must have been available directly from the quarry or from organized stone-cutting workshops; the access to ready-made elements reinforces the idea that local masons could put together most of the existing structures without the presence of an experienced master. Further calculations have to be performed to verify which monu-ments used similar pieces.53 Alternatively the similarity of construction also suggests that masons could have been organized in workshops that moved from place to place.

Building on existing studies, I present here some groupings of rural churches about which we have concrete historical information in order to unpack the meaning and symbolism of Gothic details. Patterns of patron-age can be explored by studying the churches sponsored by the Calergi family in their feudal holdings of Mylopotamo and the patronage of the Latin lord Marin Falier in his fiefs. A different perspective on patronage can be seen in the case of the monastery of St. Phanourios in Varsamonero,

seis Kritis, 2007); and Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη στην ύστερη μεσαιωνική εποχή: η μαρτυρία της εκκλησιαστικής αρχιτεκτονικής (Crete in the Late Medieval Period. The Evidence of the Ecclesiastical Architecture) (Herakleion: Panepistimiakes Ekdoseis Kritis, 2010); review of the latter by Vassiliki Tsamakda in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 104, no. 1 (2011), 189-198.

52 An interesting parallel project that provided an inventory of vernacular architecture in the region of Eleia in the Peloponnesos is the Morea Project under the directorship of Frederick A. Cooper of the University of Minnesota. The Morea Project produced a detailed study of thousands of buildings and a comprehensive census of vernacular architecture over 750 years based on a intensive survey of the countryside from 1991 to 1997; see Frederick A. Cooper, ed., Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnesos (1205-1955) (Athens: Melissa, 2002).

53 Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη στην ύστερη μεσαιωνική εποχή, 67-76 and 79-82.


which can be understood as an attempt to create a pole of attraction of pilgrims. Finally, regional patterns of imitation or friendly competition can be investigated within a group of churches in the vicinity of the mon-astery of Panagia Gouverniotissa in Potamies.

The fifteen churches related to the Calergi family have been studied by Manolis Borboudakis.54 The identifying coats of arms and the elaborate sculptural decoration of their churches in Mylopotamo—the Panagia of Meronas, Panagia tou Thronou, Kera Asomaton and St. George Kamariotis—broadcast the good will of the patronus to his cohort and to the peasants who worked for him. The prominent Calergi family, who after a long rebellion against the Venetians was permitted to keep their lands and their Orthodox faith while participating in the political life of Crete, must have used models from Candia or perhaps from Venice itself to add to their prestige in their estates. A number of churches dot the large estates of the Calergi, which was the only family among the Greek elite (archon-tes) to be included in the ranks of the Venetian patricians (1381) with-out having converted to Catholicism. By broadcasting the association of the Calergi with the Venetian authorities, these Orthodox churches must have worked as victory monuments enhancing further the prominence of the feudal family within the Greek community. St. George Kamariotis in Mylopotamo shows the coats of arms of the Calergi family above the door to the interior of the church from the narthex (Fig. 7).55 The winged

54 Manolis Borboudakis, “Θυρώματα και παράθυρα σε εκκλησίες της Κρήτης (Τέλος 14ου- μέσα 15ου αιώνα” (Portals and Windows in 14th and 15th Century Cretan Churches), in Γλυπτική και λιθοξοϊκή στη Λατινική Ανατολή, 13ος-17ος αιώνας (Sculpture and Stonecutting in the Latin East, 13th-17th Century), ed. Olga Gkratziou (Rethymnon: Panepistimiakes Ekdoseis Kritis, 2007), 60-89, esp. 80-81; Borboudakis, “Η τέχνη κατά τη Βενετοκρατία” (Art During the Venetian Period), in Κρήτη. Ιστορία και πολιτισμός (Crete. History and Civilization), ed. N. M. Panagiotakis (Herakleion: Syndesmos Topikon Henoseon Demon & Koinoteton Kretes, 1988), 231-288, esp. 235-240; and Borboudakis, “Η Παναγία του Μέρωνα και μια συγκεκριμένη τάση της κρητικής ζωγραφικής” (The Church of the Panagia in Meronas and a Specific Tendency of Cretan Painting), in Πεπραγμένα του Ε΄ Διεθνούς Κρητολογικού Συνεδρίου. Άγιος Νικόλαος 1981 (Acts of the 5th International Cretological Congress. Hagios Nikolaos 1981), 3 vols. (Herakleion: Hetairia Kretikon Historikon Meleton, 1986), 2:396-412. On a discussion of the Calergi family as donors of art see Michalis Andrianakis, “Η αρχιτεκτονική γλυπτική στην Κρήτη” (Architectural Sculpture in Crete), in Γλυπτική και λιθοξοϊκή στη Λατινική Ανατολή, 13ος-17ος αιώνας (Sculpture and Stonecutting in the Latin East, 13th-17th Century), ed. Olga Gkratziou (Rethymnon: Panepistimiakes Ekdoseis Kritis, 2007), 14-33, esp. 20-21.

55 Gerola, Monumenti veneti, 4:373. In the church of St. George Kamariotis, located high up in the mountain of Ida, in addition to the coat of arms of the Calergi, Gerola noted


Figure 7. St. George Kamariotis, portal in narthex (from Olga Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη στην Ύστερη Μεσαιωνική Εποχή (Crete in the Late Medieval Period) (Herakleion: Panepistimiakes Ekdoseis Kretes, 2010), fig. 88).


lion of St. Mark mirrors official Venetian monuments on Crete and the motherland; the painted coat of arms accentuates the unique accomplish-ment of the Calergi having gained Venetian nobility in 1381 as reward for helping Venice in her fight against Genoa during the War of Chioggia. The decorative sculpture, rich coloring and the positioning of the lion of Venice allow us to see the Cretan church within the orbit of contemporary Venetian art, although the original impetus for the practice of using sculp-tural details to frame doors and windows cannot be proven as a direct artis-tic borrowing from Venice.56 Significantly, the stones that form the jambs and tympanum of this portal were assembled in the same fashion as those of much humbler buildings, stressing the similar construction techniques used by masons and sculptors. Other churches associated with the same family in the village of Meronas also display the arms of the family sculpted on the exterior. The church of the Panagia is decorated with frescoes of a high quality, and both churches speak to the significance of feudal patron-age. The trend of the use of coats of arms of feudal lords appears to have spread around 1400, as evidenced in portals and frescoes, though so far few of the numerous extant examples have been identified. Since they were surely a sign of ownership and pride, their identification with specific lords would further the research on the construction of these churches.57

The Venetian feudal lord and poet Marino Falier was a staunch Catho-lic and a fervent supporter of the union of the churches after 1439. He was eager to see the two rites united to provide for a peaceful coexistence between him and the Greeks working his land, but his interest in the religious well-being of the laborers in his estates went beyond his own religious convictions. In June 1434, he appealed to the government of Crete for permission for the ordination of Greek priests on the island who would serve the needs of the peasants in his estates, because since 1429 prospective priests from Crete were not allowed to go to Modon or Coron

a bilingual inscription on the floor (34×55 cm) reading: ΟΜΑΡΤΥΡΟCΓΕΟΡ and SANCTEGEORGI. On the coat of arms of the Calergi family see Emmanuel S. Kallergis, “Οικόσημα και τοπωνύμια των Καλλεργών στην Κρήτη” (Coats of Arms and Place Names of the Kallergis in Crete), in Acts of the 7th International Cretological Congress (Rethymnon: Historike kai Laografike Hetaireia Rethymnes, 1995), vol. B1, 308-311.

56 Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη κατά την ύστερη μεσαιωνική εποχή, 55-90 and 324.57 There are unidentified coats of arms in the south wall of the narthex in Varsamonero,

in Panagia of Vlachiana, and in Agios Georgios at Ano Symi Viannou, all churches dated to the early to mid-fifteenth century; see Borboudakis, “Θυρώματα και παράθυρα,” 80, and Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη στην ύστερη μεσαιωνική εποχή, 120.


to be ordained. Falier complained that his village, Sarchos, became depop-ulated because its two priests had died; he was perhaps worried that the workers would leave for other villages. The boycott on ordination was lifted in 1436 after additional petitions for the ordination of Greek priests, six of which were initiated by Falier.58 While no other extant archival doc-ument speaks to his direct patronage of churches in his fiefs, this vehement proponent of the union of the churches also participated in the decoration of the Greek monastery of Panagia in the village of Kitharida. Here he may have been responsible for the imported bowl with the phrase “Ave Maria” that is immured on the façade of the church as a bacino (Figs 8 and 9). We can only speculate about the significance of this plate on the wall of an Orthodox monastery especially if it was given to the church by Falier, a Latin who wrote his poetry in Greek. The writing on the glazed bowl pro-vides a clear link to the well-known Catholic hymn that celebrates the Virgin Mary and offers an interesting juxtaposition between the two lan-guages, reinforcing the patronage of the poet Falier.

A more fruitful way to understand the meaning of these churches from a formal point of view would be to see them in dialogue with one another and within a specific region. Indeed masons working on these structures would have migrated among sites on the island, thereby contributing to technical and stylistic connections among buildings. We can follow the evolution of this decorative concept in the fourteenth and fifteenth centu-ries. The church of St. Phanourios Monastery in Valsamonero (1400/1426-1431) employed many so-called Gothic features (in other words, the latest “fashion”) in the decoration of the doorframes of the monastery to attract pilgrims to the newly found relics of St. Phanourios and bolster his cult.59 At the same time the interior of the chapel of St. Phanourios was adorned in 1432 with first-rate Byzantine paintings by Constantine Eirenikos and

58 Van Gemert, “The Cretan Poet Marinos Falieros,” Thesaurismata, 14 (1977), 41-42. Three petitions were about churches and monasteries in and around his village Sarchos, the nunnery of Petela (perhaps the monastery of St. Anthony in Petali), the monastery of St. Mary Skaliotissa (perhaps Panagia Spiliotissa near the village of Peza in the province of Pediada, a fief that he buys in 1441 from Michaeli Mauro), the church of St. Michael in Candia and a church in the village Ini.

59 According to an inscription the aisle that was dedicated to St. Phanourios was built in 1426 and was painted in 1431-1432; see Gerola, I monumenti veneti, 2:285. Maria Vassi-laki records the development of the cult of St. Phanourios thanks to the efforts of the abbot of the monastery of Valsamonero, Ionas Palamas; see Vassilaki, “Saint Phanourios,” 223-238. Also see Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη στην ύστερη μεσαιωνική εποχή, 143.


Figure 8. Kitharida, monastery of the Virgin, façade. Photo: Maria Geor-gopoulou. This figure is published in colour in the online edition of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/15700674.

Figure 9. Detail of Figure 8 showing bacino. Photo: Maria Georgopoulou. This figure is published in colour in the online edition of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/15700674.


icons in the hand of the famous icon painter Angelos. The unidentified coats of arms that are visible in the church suggest that the abbot Ionas Palamas, who invented the cult of Saint Phanourios at this monastery, must have been assisted by a feudal lord who most probably had property rights in the area. The use of the latest Gothic fashion observed in the elaborate sculptural decoration of the portals that has not survived any-where else on Crete suggests a concerted effort on the part of the abbot to use a visually striking formal element in order to impress the visitors. The monastery was also well known for its library, which according to a catalog of 1644, contained religious and philosophical works.

In other cases the relationship seems local and we can deduce the pres-ence of a regional workshop or a local fashion that denoted a cosmopolitan taste but not any socio-political alignment. The Panagia Gouverniotissa in Potamies was most probably the catholicon of a monastery originally known as the Virgin Varnakiotissa, which due to its relative proximity to Candia may have been a significant center of learning. According to Maria Vassilaki the particular architectural plan of the church—a “free-cross” vaulted church with a dome—was associated with the revival of the cult of a local saint of the eleventh century, St. John Xenos.60 The style of its wall paintings suggests a date in the third quarter of the fourteenth century and the appearance of iconographic elements that betray a familiarity with Western art point to a connection with the capital city of Candia and its lively com-munity of icon painters. It seems therefore that this monastic church must have commanded a significant position in the area of Potamies, which in 1368 was located in the fief of the Latin lord Laurentius Maripiero.61 The entrance into the church of Gouverniotissa displays a simple design of a pointed arch above the flat lintel (Fig. 10). A recessed tympanum may have been adorned with a painted decoration that is now lost. Similar sculptural dec-oration adorns the portals of a group of churches in the region of Pediada, near the villages of Avdou and Potamies, that are located merely three miles apart. In addition to the later façade of St. Constantine (1445) (Fig. 11), the portals of Sotiros Christou at Potamies (first half of fourteenth century) also resemble the entrance to the church of Gouverniotissa.62 So, it may be

60 Vassilaki-Maurakaki, “The Church of the Virgin Gouverniotissa at Potamies,” 381-384.61 The village now belongs to the demos of Chersonisos; see “Παναγία η Γκουβερνιώτισσα

στις Ποταμιές ∆ήμου Χερσονήσου” (Panagia Gouverniotissa at Potamies, Chersonisos), Odysseus, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism, available online at http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/2/gh251.jsp?obj_id=9222 (accessed 16 November 2011).

62 Interestingly, an inscription in the church of St. Constantine at Avdou records that the church was renovated during the reign of Byzantine Emperor, John VIII Palaiologos in


Figure 10. Panagia Gouverniotissa at Potamies: façade. Photo: Maria Georgopoulou. This figure is published in colour in the online edition of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/15700674.


Figure 11. Hagios Konstantinos, Avdou: façade. Photo: Maria Georgo-poulou. This figure is published in colour in the online edition of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/15700674.


that the sculptural décor of the Gouverniotissa was based on that of an earlier church in the vicinity and possibly was executed by a workshop of stonecutters that was active in the area. The portal of Panagia at Avdou (dated to the sixteenth century) similarly copies the earlier one (Fig. 12). The windows of the Gouverniotissa and the church of the Annunciation at Avdou (fourteenth century) are also related. It appears then that in these cases it would be wrong to speak of a Venetian or Gothic influence in the sculpted décor as even if these features had originally come from the capi-tal city of Candia, they were soon incorporated into the architectural rep-ertoire of a local workshop. It may indicate the existence of a local tradition that becomes the trademark of this region. Or, the patrons may have wanted their churches to emulate well-known, older churches built by their neighbors, friends or foes.

Elsewhere I have argued that in Latin-ruled Greece, the rich Latin churches with their Gothic appearance signal the superiority of the Latin Church vis-à-vis the Orthodox.63 These “Gothic” decorative details could not possibly have had a similar ideological symbolism in the rural churches of Crete. By denoting that they belonged to a sphere of higher Veneto-Cretan artistic production, these elements would have carried connota-tions of sophistication, affluence and fashion. Indeed, the framework of the vernacular allows us to shift our interpretation from one of political ideological meaning to the more neutral idea of fashion.

Although definitive proof is lacking, there is little doubt that the impetus for new sculptural elements in rural churches was created by urban archi-tectural projects that employed large numbers of stonecutters and sculp-tors.64 These projects may have produced a surplus of ready-made materials that made its way to the hinterland, or, new pieces could have also been produced for rich patrons. Along with the traditional, perhaps expressly old-fashioned ways of building and decorating a church with frescoes,65

1445; see Giuseppe Gerola, Monumenti veneti nell’isola di Creta, 4, 513, no. 14; and Thalia Gouma-Peterson, “Manuel and John Phokas and Artistic Personality in Late Byzantine Painting,” Gesta, 22 (1983), 159-170, esp. 161 and fig. 2.

63 Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies, 108.64 Gkratziou, Η Κρήτη στην ύστερη μεσαιωνική εποχή, 155.65 Still fundamental is the study of Giuseppe Gerola and Kostas Lassithiotakis, who

identified 845 painted churches of the Venetian period. See Gerola and Lassithiotakis, Τoπoγραφικός κατάλoγoς τωv τoιχoγραφημέvωv εκκλησιώv της Κρήτης (Topographic Catalogue of the Wall-painted Churches of Crete) (Herakleion: s.n., 1961), 142-145. Also see Manfred Bissinger, Kreta: byzantinischen Wandmalerei, Münchener Arbeiten zur Kun-stgeschichte und Archäologie 4 (Munich: Editio Maris, 1995); Gallas, Wessel, and Bor-


Figure 12. Panagia, Avdou: façade. Photo: Maria Georgopoulou. This figure is published in colour in the online edition of this journal, which can be accessed via http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/15700674.


came the need to add details that made the rural churches conversant with the more recent types of decorative sculpture that originated in the urban centers and on monuments sponsored by the Venetian overlords. These, too, had become part of the local vocabulary of forms and pointed to a lively exchange of ideas between the two communities that lived side by side. In the case where Latin lords put their signature on the Orthodox structures of the countryside, the message was also clear. They added details that, along with their coats of arms, communicated their status in terms of wealth and socio-political connections.

Even if Gothic elements seemed foreign when first introduced into the cultural sphere of the Byzantine art of Crete, it is reasonable to speculate that after two or three generations they would have been incorporated into the vocabulary of the artists who could now employ them freely on differ-ent monuments. After all, to whom would a Cretan landowner turn if not to the best artisans in the cities? The fact that in all probability these rural churches were based on the example of the Latin churches and convents of the large cities of the island did not translate into a polemical act. In the end, the monuments of Crete also recall the public monuments and churches of Venice (for example, the ducal palace or San Giovanni e Paolo of the Dominicans), but were already a generation removed. The monu-ments of the cities functioned as a pole of artistic attraction for Latins and Greeks alike. After the end of the thirteenth century, the locals also began to use similar cultural idioms and maybe to employ foreign artists, if avail-able, in their Orthodox churches. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-ries the coexistence of Venetians and Greeks had given birth to a common culture, in which fashion, as a neutral element of taste, played the main role rather than political ideology; the circulation of printed architectural treatises was also a significant factor in the way decorative elements were applied to even the most remote buildings in the countryside including the major Orthodox monasteries built at the time.66

boudakis, Byzantinisches Kreta; K. D. Kalokyris, The Byzantine Wall Paintings of Crete (New York, NY: Red Dust, 1973); Ioannis Spatharakis, Dated Byzantine Wall Paintings of Crete (Leiden: Alexandros Press, 2001); and Spatharakis, Byzantine Wall Paintings of Crete, Rethymnon Province (London: Pindar Press, 1999-).

66 Kanto Fatourou-Hesychaki, “Η Κρητική Αvαγέvvηση καί τά Iταλικά πρότυπα της αρχιτεκτovικής της” (The Cretan Renaissance and its Italian Architectural Models), Ariadne, 1 (1982), 103-138; Iordanis Demakopoulos, “O Sebastiano Serlio στα μοναστήρια της Κρήτης (Serlian Manifestations in Cretan Monasteries),” Deltion Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias, 7, Series 4 (1970-1972), 233-245, has shown the direct loans from Sebastiano Serlio in the monasteries of the Holy Trinity of Zangaroli near Canea and Arkadi near Rethymno as well as the influence of Serlio and Palladio in urban monuments; see also


Long before the introduction of printed architectural treatises, the rural structures of Crete participated in an artistic dialogue with the Venetian monuments of the cities, a dialogue that had social and economic roots and implications. The sculptural details that adorned certain focal points on the structures (portals, windows, and the springing of the vaults) had to be transmitted through a human agent: the will of a patron and/or the skills of a mason. The simplicity of such sculptural décor gives the impres-sion that certain of these architectural elements could have been ready-made and easily available from a quarry or a shop. Similarly, the modest construction and size of most Orthodox churches in the Cretan country-side would characterize them best as the products of vernacular architec-ture. Hence, the academic terms “Byzantine” and “Gothic” or “Greek” and “Latin” do not advance our understanding of the processes of produc-tion nor of interaction between the two communities. On the other hand, in the case of the monastery of St. Phanourios the elaborate sculptural decoration that has no parallel on the island points to a different process of production, suggesting the presence of a skilled mason from an urban cen-ter or outside of Crete altogether. It is, thus, important to appreciate the regional aspect of artistic creation that includes access to similar quarries, itinerant or resident workshops as well as issues of imitation and fashion. All these factors should counteract the notion that the use of Gothic arches and simple “Gothic” carved reliefs in the churches of the Cretan country-side had any political or religious meaning. The large number and rich wall paintings of these remote churches assert that they constituted significant focal points for the Greek population of the countryside. Paid for by the congregation, priests, monks or local Latin and—in one case—Greek magnates, these simple buildings constructed using some ready-made materials commanded a public role perched on the summits of hills or located in the middle of an estate. Seeming to invoke a neutral sense of fashion or taste, rather than firm and directed ideology, the use of these Gothic details reinvigorates the architectural simplicity of the small monu-ments of post-1204 Byzantine art and places them within the larger frame-work of Mediterranean vernacular.

idem, “Ενα αναγεννησιακό θύρωμα του Ρεθύμνου σε σχέδιο του Sebastiano Serlio” (A Renaissance Portal in Rethymno in a Design of Sebastiano Serlio), Kretika Chronika, 23 (1971), 209-223, and idem, “Μεγάλη βρύση, μια βενετσιάνικη Κρήνη του Ρεθύμνου” (The Great Fountain. A Venetian Fountain in Rethymno), Kretika Chronika, 22 (1970), 322-343.

vernacular architecture in venetian crete: urban and rural practices

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