“A Spectacle to the World, Both to Angels and to Men”: Multiculturalism in Medieval Famagusta, Cyprus, as seen through The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste Mural in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul

In 2012 the fifteenth-century mural of The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Famagusta, Cyprus, underwent a major restoration funded by Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and the World Monuments Fund. It had been singled out for priority treatment not only because of its advanced state of decay, but because of the wealth of information it could offer historians working on the cultural histories of medieval Cyprus. This article looks at some of the questions raised about multiculturalism in medieval Famagusta and offers some tentative suggestions for a “reading” of the mural.