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idenTiTY marKers in The arT of fourTeenTh-CenTurY famaGusTa Michele Bacci The monuments of famagusta have received much more attention in recent years than in the entire century separating us from Camille enlart’s pioneering work on Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, published in 1899.1 in my opinion, the slow formation of an art-historical debate in and about Cyprus in general and the practical difficulties connected to the awkward political situation on the island does not sufficiently explain this long-standing lack of interest.2 indeed, famagusta was well known and acknowledged as a necessary stop for tourists at least until the dramatic events of 1963 and 1974: the Guide Bleu de la Méditerranée orientale, for example, recommended in 1953 a visit to the town because of its impressive Gothic cathedral and the “curious” mural paintings preserved in its churches.3 in this way, cultured travellers going on a mediterranean cruise were encouraged to view this town as a strange outpost of Western europe in the picturesque levant. This attitude can be interpreted as a direct corollary of Count mas latrie’s and enlart’s reading of famagustan art as an unquestionable testimony to the fixity of french culture in this part of the world.4 1 C. enlart, L’art gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre (Paris: e. leroux, 1899); idem, Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, transl. d. hunt (london: Trigraph, 1987). The most recent surveys of famagustan monuments include: a. G. marangou, Ammochostos, he historia tes poles (nicosia: imprinta, 2005); J.-b. de Vaivre and Ph. Plagnieux, eds., L’art gothique en Chypre (Paris: de boccard, 2006), 218–96; m. bacci, “la concepción del espacio sagrado en la famagusta medieval”, Studium Medievale 3 (2010), 79–101; Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta: Studies in Architecture, Art and History, ed. m. Walsh, P. W. edbury and n. s. h. Coureas (farnham: ashgate, 2012). 2 on the material vicissitudes of famagustan monuments and their painted decorations in the 20th century see especially m. Walsh, “What lies beneath: a Contemporary survey of the surviving frescoes of the Churches in the syrian Quarter of famagusta”, in Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta, ed. Walsh, edbury and Coureas (farnham: ashgate, 2012), 199–215. 3 Les Guides Bleus. Méditerranée orientale (Paris: hachette, 1953), 256–7. 4 on such leitmotifs of early literature on famagusta and Cyprus, see m. bacci, “l’arte delle società miste del levante medievale: tradizioni storiografiche a confronto”, in Medioevo: arte e storia, ed. a. C. Quintavalle, Proceedings of the international symposium, Parma, 18–22 september 2007 (milan, 2008), 339–54. MICHELE BACCI 146 architectural evidence functioned as the major argument to confirm the theory of famagusta’s “frenchness”. The imposing appearance of the town cathedral of saint nicholas was considered a self-evident demonstration of this assumption. The presence of murals was undoubtedly more controversial, especially because contemporary scholarship was accustomed to think that french Gothic churches were not decorated with frescoes—essentially because only a few remnants had survived the sixteenth-century religious wars, the Counterreformation, and the destruction caused by the french revolution . Given the lack of useful comparanda from france it was safer to link such frescoes with italy, where mural painting was much more widespread: this enabled enlart and his readers to rule out any possible association with the byzantine tradition, which would have been interpreted as an unnatural hybridization. for enlart was convinced that styles, perceived as integral manifestations of a people’s innate spirit, could not combine with each other, except in moments of irreversible cultural decadence. any such phenomena were not worthy of consideration, given that they constituted proof of the passive imitation of both old-fashioned models and other peoples’ forms. The outcome was the making of absurd and “bastardized” works, unworthy of scientific attention.5 notwithstanding enlart’s arguments, it was evident that the famagustan murals could hardly be interpreted in traditional stylistic terms. Greek scholars occasionally made efforts to claim them as belonging to the byzantine artistic tradition by singling out the works displaying the most easily recognizable Palaiologan elements: Georgios sotiriou published a detail from the Passion cycle in saint George of the Greeks, labelled in the corresponding caption as a “typical” example of fourteenth-century byzantine painting, although with some italian influence,6 while athanasios Papageorgiou laid special emphasis on the “byzantineness” of the Gospel scenes decorating the upper walls of saint anne’s, without commenting, however, on the peculiar choice...

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