medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (27. December) is the feast day of:
John, apostle and evangelist (d. ca. 100, supposedly). J., "the beloved disciple", was brother to the apostle James son of Zebedee (James the Great). In the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology and in the Latin Calendar of Sinai (ca. 800) both are celebrated on this date. In late antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages it was believed that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist, and John the Divine (John the Theologian), the author of the Apocalypse, were one and the same person. (Despite some modern doubts, this is also the position of the RM.) All the Johannine writings other than 2. and 3. John were usually ascribed to this one John.
Many legends of J. go back to an originally probably later second-century aprocryphal _Acts of John_ that circulated in Greek and in other languages and that was condemned by the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. A fifth- or sixth-century _Acts of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian_ supposedly written by his disciple St. Prochorus (BHG 916-917; Latin translation, BHL 4323) was likewise very influential. Somewhat similar in approach but substantively rather different is a legendary _Account of John_ in Syriac (BHO 468). Legendary anecdotes of J. occur in many other venues.
Apart from a period of exile on Patmos (preceded by arrest and transportation to Rome for interrogation, as in the story of John before the Latin Gate), J.'s legendary apostolate was conducted from Ephesus. He is also said to have died there and a legend grew up that once he had been buried his body disappeared into the surrounding earth (J.'s metastasis). The sands over his grave were said to move; the tomb that was built above it gave forth on his feast day a healing, dust-like manna collected by numerous pilgrims. Herewith a few views of the remains of the Justinianic basilica that replaced an earlier chapel at the site and that lasted until late in the fourteenth century:
http://www.guide-martine.com/images/stjhon.jpg
http://www.fenichel.com/Grave.htm
http://www.todayscatholicworld.com/st-john-tomb-ephesus-turkey.jpg
The Sacred Destinations page on this church:
http://tinyurl.com/2w4abfd
That model of the basilica in an early state, seen from a different angle:
http://tinyurl.com/ubjrd
Marjorie Greene's Shutterfly views of the site are here:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/990
Other visuals associated with J.:
1) The image believed to be that of John in the roundels of the late fourth-century ceiling in the catacomb of Santa Tecla in Rome:
http://tinyurl.com/39mlpoc
2) The basilica di San Giovanni Evangelista at Ravenna (425-30; later additions). Originally commissioned by Galla Placidia, this church was a casualty of USAmerican bombing in 1944 (by which time its mosaic decor had long since been lost). What one sees is therefore very largely restoration work.
Exterior views:
http://wr.racine.ra.it/racine/ravtur/giova2.htm
http://sabin.ro/gallery/ravenna/P5081843_pro
http://sabin.ro/gallery/ravenna/P5081841_pro
http://sabin.ro/gallery/ravenna/P5081844_pro
http://sabin.ro/gallery/ravenna/P5081845_pro
Forecourt portal:
http://sabin.ro/gallery/ravenna/P5081840_pro
Forecourt portal (detail):
http://wr.racine.ra.it/racine/ravtur/giova3.htm
The Italia nell'Arte Medievale page on this church has several good views of the interior and of interior details (but the site, alas, is still off-line):
http://tinyurl.com/y9d4jj9
3) An early eighth-century portrait of J. in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.IV; fol. 209v):
http://tinyurl.com/7s5lq9
4) An early ninth-century ivory plaque now in The Cloisters collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY:
http://tinyurl.com/23orwal
5) The ninth-century Apocalypse of Saint-Amand (Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 99) includes among its numerous illustrations not a few depictions of J. The entire manuscript -- it's not very long -- has been digitized and in that form is accessible here:
http://tinyurl.com/y7mds8
6a) An eleventh-century portrait of J. (with his disciple St. Prochorus) in a Gospels belonging to the Dionysiou monastery on Mt. Athos:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ikon/athos9.gif
6b) A late tenth-century version of this scene in another Gospel codex in the same monastery is reproduced here (image is expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/3dubt7
6c) Another version (eleventh-century again) in a Gospels in the Special Collections of Glasgow University Library (MS Hunter 475 [olim V.7.2], fol. 274v):
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/treasures/greek.html
6d) A version from ca. 1300, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos:
http://tinyurl.com/29qtmq5
Detail (J.):
http://tinyurl.com/2bangfa
7) An eleventh-century mosaic in the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv/Kiev:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=981
8) An illustrated, English-language page on the originally eleventh-century monastery of Sv. Ioan Bogoslov (St. John the Theologian) at Zemen in western Bulgaria:
http://www.bulgarianmonastery.com/zemen_monastery.html
and a page, with English-language text commencing a little more than halfway down the page, on its fourteenth-century frescoes:
http://www.pravoslavieto.com/manastiri/zemenski/index.htm
9) J. (at left; at right, Longinus) in a detail of a Crucifixion scene in the mid-eleventh-century mosaics in the katholikon of the Nea Moni on Chios:
http://tinyurl.com/28d22a4
10) J. (at right) in a late eleventh-century Crucifixion mosaic in the katholikon of the Daphni monastery in Chaidari (Athens prefecture):
http://tinyurl.com/27cakqa
Detail (J.):
http://tinyurl.com/2e39noc
11) A page on the late eleventh- or early twelfth-century church of Agios Ioannis Theologos in Athens:
http://tinyurl.com/2vd5hp
Other views:
http://tinyurl.com/7qrpnk
http://tinyurl.com/932y7a
http://tinyurl.com/96559u
http://tinyurl.com/9x2zgj
12) Remains of the originally twelfth-century church of San Giovanni Evangelista at Siracusa (Syracuse). A rebuilding of a late antique church erected over a fourth-century catacomb, this structure underwent various modifications prior to its collapse in the earthquake of 1693.
Italian-language site with plans and multiple views:
http://tinyurl.com/853yx
Distance views:
http://www.ibmsnet.it/siracusa/sanmarz.gif
http://tinyurl.com/2wh7xq3
Other exterior and interior views:
http://tinyurl.com/2dxuwnj
http://tinyurl.com/23kqoln
Views of the catacomb named for the church:
http://tinyurl.com/2agnk4y
13) The originally twelfth-century cathedral of San Giovanni Evangelista in Sansepolcro (AR), Tuscany (medievally, Borgo San Sepolcro), formerly the church of a Camaldolese abbey of the same dedication.
Multiple views (expandable):
http://tinyurl.com/y3yldt
Facade:
http://tinyurl.com/y2xxxy
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/sfqp6
14) A mid-twelfth-century (ca. 1147) portrait of J. on the surviving leaf of the Wedricus Gospels (Societé Archéologique et Historique, Avesnes-sur-Helpe [dép. du Nord], France):
http://tinyurl.com/8c9tpd
15) Illustrated, Spanish-language pages on the mid-twelfth-century iglesia de San Juan Evangelista at Arroyo de la Encomienda (Valladolid):
http://tinyurl.com/6vbnst
http://www.1romanico.com/004/monumentor.asp?MONU=000839
http://www.1romanico.com/004/monumentoe.asp?monu=000839&ruta=
http://tinyurl.com/7nnpg2
16) A full-page portrait of J. in Vukan's Gospel (ca. 1200), one of the oldest Church Slavonic books from Serbia in Cyrillic (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia; shelfmark: РНБ. F.п.I.82):
http://tinyurl.com/2bajb5t
17) The St. John window (early thirteenth-century), cathedral of Notre Dame, Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/yguzgpw
18) J. (second from left) in the jamb statues of the central portal (earlier thirteenth-century) of the south transept, cathedral of Notre Dame, Chartres (photograph by Gordon Plumb):
http://tinyurl.com/2fw7pgm
19) A full-page portrait of J. in a mid-thirteenth-century Gospels of Constantinopolitan origin (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 54, fol. 278v):
http://tinyurl.com/yzxfjc9
20) A wall painting (later thirteenth-century), Reformed Church, Csaroda (Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg), Hungary:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabboo/428434728/sizes/l/
http://www.hung-art.hu/kep/zmisc/falkepek/13_sz/csaroda5.jpg
21) The originally thirteenth(?)-century church of St. John the Theologian (Sv. Jovan Zlatoust; also a common way of referring to St. John Chrysostom) at Kaneo on Lake Ohrid in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, reworked, it would seem, in the fourteenth century and restored in the early 1960s:
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo999861.htm
http://tinyurl.com/7z2cts
http://tinyurl.com/3cvm8h
http://tinyurl.com/y8qmg3u
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo460499.htm
http://tinyurl.com/yh7yaeo
22) The thirteenth-/fifteenth-century ex-cathedral of Meißen in Saxony is dedicated to J. and to St. Donatus of Arezzo. Two aerial views:
http://www.burgenperlen.de/images/albrechtsburg_luft.jpg
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/9300166.jpg
The west front collapsed after a lightning strike in 1413. This is how it looked at the beginning of the twentieth century:
http://tinyurl.com/2anvcfq
And this is how it looks now after Neo-Gothic construction begun in 1904:
http://tinyurl.com/2fk4ugx
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/965ax2
http://tinyurl.com/yaadwkk
http://tinyurl.com/2jnyc4
http://tinyurl.com/2cgk5hf
http://tinyurl.com/yhhpat7
The four thirteenth-century statues (after 1267) seen dimly in the last two views are of the founders of the diocese, Otto I and the empress Adelheid (St. Adelaide), and of the cathedral's titulars, shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/22lgqh3
The protuberance emerging from the west front, seen better here:
http://tinyurl.com/yu64z2
http://tinyurl.com/2fpn9dx
, is the Fürstenkapelle erected starting in 1425. Here's an expandable view of the entrance from the Fürstenkapelle into the nave, incorporating the formerly exterior thirteenth-century west portal:
http://tinyurl.com/2b7qa5
23) The thirteenth-/fourteenth-century church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Rimini belonged to an Augustinian convent and is often referred to either as that of Sant'Agostino or as that of SS. Agostino e Giovanni Evangelista. When it was reworked in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the interior was plastered over and redecorated to contemporary taste. An earthquake in 1916 revealed extensive early fourteenth-century frescoing on the triumphal arch, inside the apse, and in a chapel the belltower. These included a Last Judgment now in the Museo della Città and, still in the apse, a cycle of scenes from the life of John the Evangelist. Herewith views of the belltower, of the exterior of the apse, and of the frescoes in the apse:
http://tinyurl.com/yjyply
http://tinyurl.com/3yvfr9y
http://tinyurl.com/yjcnnm
This Italian-language page on the church has expandable views including one of a very impressive Madonna:
http://www.comune.rimini.it/servizi/citta/monumenti/pagina15.html
A detail of the apse frescoes:
http://tinyurl.com/yxnghb
24) J. in a Deesis mosaic (Cimabue; betw. 1301 and 1303), cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Pisa:
http://www.wga.hu/art/c/cimabue/mosaic/st_john.jpg
Detail:
http://tinyurl.com/yhlf5on
25) A dome fresco (betw. 1312 and 1321) in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
http://tinyurl.com/y94kd3o
26) A fresco of J. on Patmos (Giotto; 1320) in the Peruzzi chapel, church of Santa Croce, Florence:
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giotto/s_croce/1peruzzi/evang1.jpg
Detail (J.; richer colors):
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giotto/s_croce/1peruzzi/evang11.jpg
27) A panel painting (Giotto; betw. 1320 and 1325) now in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris:
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giotto/z_panel/3polypty/12polypt.jpg
28) A glass window panel in the great west window (1338-1339), York Minster (photographs by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4708748991/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4932554864/
29) A fresco depicting J.'s Metastasis (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of recent events, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/ybm8wzu
30) A mural painting (fourteenth-century; referring to the legend of J. and the poisoned cup), All Saints Church, Weston Longville (Norfolk):
http://www.paintedchurch.org/wlongvje.htm
31) A fresco (fourteenth-century) in the originally thirteenth(?)-century church of Agios Ioannis Theologos in the village of Agios Ioannis in Sfakia (Chania prefecture) on Crete:
http://www.west-crete.com/dailypics/crete-2008/3-17-08.php
A view of the church:
http://images.tournet.gr/photos/1149/021.jpg
32) Two panel paintings (betw. 1348 and 1353) by Taddeo Gaddi, now in the Collezione Vittorio Cini in Venice (J. taken up to Heaven; J. drinking from the poisoned cup):
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gaddi/taddeo/panels/panel1.jpg
http://www.wga.hu/art/g/gaddi/taddeo/panels/panel2.jpg
33) Some illustrated, English-language pages on the mostly later fourteenth- to earlier sixteenth-century Sint-Janskathedraal (the west tower is a survivor from an earlier thirteenth-/earlier fourteenth-century predecessor) in 's-Hertogenbosch (Noord-Brabant):
http://tinyurl.com/ydw76fr
http://tinyurl.com/22mldvs
http://tinyurl.com/27gfz7m
Another exterior view:
http://tinyurl.com/2533qpn
Views of the originally fifteenth-century (ca. 1430-1460) choir stalls:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ana_sudani/sets/72157617935052008/
A page of expandable views (mostly exterior; many detail views):
http://www.sint-jan.nl/kaars.html
34) A vault fresco (later fourteenth-century), baptistery of Parma:
http://tinyurl.com/39n7ul
35) A panel of the east window (ca. 1390-1400) in Merton College Chapel, Oxford, with reference to the legend of J. and the poisoned cup (photograph by Gordon Plumb):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/5219294188/
36) Marble statue (Donatello; 1410-1411), Museo dell'Opera del duomo, Florence:
http://www.wga.hu/art/d/donatell/1_early/duomo/3john_1.jpg
37) Manuscript illumination of J. on Patmos (betw. 1412 and 1416), Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (Chantilly, Musée Condé, ms. 65):
http://tinyurl.com/23h9ak
38) A panel painting (Jan van Eyck; 1432, referring to the legend of J. and the poisoned cup), Ghent Altarpiece, cathedral of Saint-Bavon / Sint Baaf, Gand / G(h)ent:
http://tinyurl.com/yf8p4qr
39) A limewood statue (Tilman Riemenschneider; 1490-92) from the predella of the high altar of the St. Magdalenenkirche in Münnerstadt (Lkr. Unterfranken) in Bavaria, now in the Bode-Museum in Berlin:
http://tinyurl.com/277uhu
http://tinyurl.com/ytvo26
40) Two illustrated, German-language pages on the Pfarrkirche St. Johannes Evangelist in Marburg (built from 1492 to ca. 1520; restored, 1967), a foundation of the Brothers of the Common Life:
http://tinyurl.com/24l6mlb
http://www.kugelkirche-marburg.de/Kugelkirche.php
Other views (mostly interior):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/petroarktos/2781493992/
http://tinyurl.com/232l7nt
http://www.f-rudolph.info/images/marburgkugelkirche.jpg
http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,5741424_4,00.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2e6ngo2
http://tinyurl.com/2czbykn
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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