Made in God's Image: Eve and Adam in the Genesis Mosaics, Venice (review)

Reviews 175 And, as in Hamlet and The Spanish Tragedy (and, with appropriate differences The Revenger's Tragedy), the catharsis comes about not so much because the evil one is unmasked and punished, but because his victim can discover again who he is, dedicated to death, but standing above it in the clarity of his knowledge w h y it has to be thus.' (p. 442) Tragicomedy is equally well served. A comparison between Cymbeline and Philaster ends with a paragraph which sums up the differences between Shakespearean romances and other tragicomedies in a way which reveals the essential natures of both: The catatonic Pericles who has seen his wife's coffin and his daughter's tomb, Imogen w h o has seen her dead husband's body, the guilt obsessed Leontes, the revenge obsessed Prospero are all rewarded for a continuity of purpose they did not know they possessed. The excitement of a Beamont and Fletcher tragicomedy, on the other hand, depends on final truth emerging with a shock of surprise. Only then can the brilliance of its alternations be secured.' (pp. 511-12) The lists of plays, chronology of playhouses and performances, brief biographies of principalfigures,actors, theatre owners, writers, and a select bibliography make this a very useful book. It is also a very wise one. Derick R. C. Marsh Melbourne Jolly, Penny Howell, Made in God's Image: Eve and Adam in the Genesis Mosaics, Venice, (Discovery Series, 6) Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997; cloth; pp. xiii, 142; 34 b / w illustrations, 12 colour plates; R.R.P. US$45.00, £35.00. The Genesis mosaics that appear in the narthex cupola in San Marco, Venic have long been a focus of art historical interest. Generally discussion has been around the cycle's connection with the fire-damaged Cotton Genesis manuscript, n o w in the British Library, and related mosaic cycles at Monreale and Palermo in Sicily. The close familial relationships between these mosaics and the manuscript is of particular fascination to those concerned with the transmission of images and the 'hunt for missing prototypes' pursued by scholars like Kurt Weitzmann. It is therefore some relief to encounter a study of these mosaics that is more concerned with the contents of the cycle itself rather than its position within this highly focused pursuit. The interest for 176 Reviews Jolly is as much in how the San Marco version differs from these related schemes, and h o w the reinterpretation of the familiar creation story both effects the images' meanings and reflects the intentions behind these alterations. She suggests, drawing on Michael Camille, 'that images may be more susceptible to multivalent readings than words need not be seen as a weakness' (p. 6). The ability of images to carry a rich variety of readings is, indeed, one source of their power. Jolly has provided a very close reading of the imagery, examining each scene in some detail. Her interest is in h o w the retelling of what was probably one of the best known biblical narratives in thirteenth-century Venice also reflects the specific historical, political and religious concerns of the time. The creation story featured prominently in Lenten preparations and had been the subject of one of the earliest vernacular mystery plays. She argues that this particular version was considered important enough to be placed prominently at the entrance of the city's most important public building. In the final chapter, she argues that the iconography continues the theme of both divine and secular justice that also occurs on the west facade and the atrium, a scheme that reflects the interests of the Procurator, a secular official, w h o oversaw the mosaic and sculptural decorations of the church at a time when the Doge's real power was decreasing and that of the Procurator increased. The book focuses upon the first cupola in the narthex, ignoring subsequent narratives about Noah, Abraham, Joseph and Moses. This decorative scheme began in the 1220s and continued into the 1290s. The Genesis cycle consists of 24 frames laid out in three concentric circles, recounting the story from the Creation to the Labours of A d a...