medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On 11/21/11, Christopher Crockett wrote:
> o.k., since you Guys know the names of everything, what is it that the angel
> on the left is holding:
>
> http://www.orthodoxy-icons.com/uploads/posts/2011-04/1304066217_city-nonresonant0009.jpg
>
> not a flabellum --some kind of rod with a round object on the end of it.
Two things that it's probably not:
a) A club. Though the club one of the Saracens about to attack St. Mark is holding in this mosaic in San Marco in Venice is somewhat similar in appearance:
http://www.orthodoxy-icons.com/uploads/posts/2011-05/1304251125_venice0014.jpg
b) A fondue skewer.
My guess is that it's a communion spoon. These angels are serving as deacons; at the end of the communion liturgy a priest or deacon spoons up and consumes the undistributed Body of Christ.
> and, just to put a fine edge on your nomenclaturatorial blades, how about
> these two ladies on their way to the Nativity
>
> http://www.orthodoxy-icons.com/uploads/posts/2011-04/1304066209_city-nonresonant0020.jpg
>
> the spherical something on the right almost looks like some sort of
> metastasized censor (an essential tool at any Nativity, i suppose), but what's
> the Deal with that scroll holder thingie the girl on the left is holding
> (along with some a staff?).
Maria G. Parani, _Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th-15th Centuries)_ (Leiden: Brill, 2003) says at p. 226:
"...one may also mention the vessels in the hands of the visiting women in the Birth of the Virgin at Nerezi (Pl. 233), which are reminiscent of contemporary sgraffito-ware ceramic vessels, both in their colour scheme (brown on buff) and in their decoration (bands of intricate scrolls) (Pl. 234). What is more, the cylindrical shape of the bottle at Nerezi finds parallels in contemporary glass bottle-shapes (Pl. 235)." Footnote 21 to this cites publications of twelfth-century bottles from Cyprus (and elsewhere?); Plate 235 shows a bottle from Paphos whose shape is virtually identical to the putative "scroll holder thingie".
> and i've always loved that left shoulder on the figure on the right, almost as
> much as the loverly-coiffed lower doo on this Old Greybeard
>
> http://www.orthodoxy-icons.com/uploads/posts/2011-04/1304066263_city-nonresonant0057.jpg.
Who seems to me to be Arsenius the Great. What do others think?
Best again,
John Dillon
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