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. Apart from a period of exile on Patmos (in legend, preceded by arrest and transportation to Rome for interrogation, as in the story of John before the Latin Gate), J.'s apostolate was said to have been conducted from Ephesus.
J.'s tomb at Ephesus was an important late antique and medieval Christian cult site. Here are a few views of the remains of the Justinianic basilica that replaced an earlier chapel 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
And one of a model of the basilica in an early state:
http://tinyurl.com/ubjrd
Marjorie Greene's Shutterfly views of the site are here:
http://medrelart.shutterfly.com/990
A few other visuals associated with J.:
1) 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:
http://tinyurl.com/y9d4jj9
2) Early eighth-century portrait of J. in the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.IV; fol. 209v):
http://tinyurl.com/7s5lq9
3) 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
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
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
And here's a version from ca. 1300, attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos (in this view, though poor P. has been almost entirely cropped out, the familiar opening words of J.'s Gospel identify the scene):
http://tinyurl.com/y9glals
4) 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
5) J. at right in a late eleventh-century mosaic in the katholikon of the Daphni monastery in Chaidari (Athens prefecture):
http://tinyurl.com/yzsr26o
6) 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
7) 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 view:
http://www.ibmsnet.it/siracusa/sanmarz.gif
Interior (multiple views, some showing early elements):
http://tinyurl.com/y6qllp
Remodeled crypt, capital with symbol of J. the Evangelist:
http://tinyurl.com/tuppn
Exterior views (some details of cloister):
http://tinyurl.com/y7lfdb
8) The originally twelfth-century cathedral of San Giovanni Evangelista, 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
9) 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
10) 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
11) 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/2rm64w
12) St. John window (early thirteenth-century), cathedral of Notre Dame, Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/yguzgpw
13) 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
14) 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
15) 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
16) 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/yrmm64
And this is how it looks now after Neo-Gothic construction begun in 1904:
http://tinyurl.com/ydpvflx
Interior:
http://tinyurl.com/965ax2
http://tinyurl.com/yaadwkk
http://tinyurl.com/2jnyc4
http://tinyurl.com/2ka3bf
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. I could not find a good reproduction of J.'s statue on the free Web.
The protuberance emerging from the west front, seen better here:
http://tinyurl.com/yu64z2
, 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
17) 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 and of the frescoes in the apse:
http://tinyurl.com/yjyply
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
18) Mosaic portrait (Cimabue; betw. 1301 and 1303, flanking a Christ Enthroned), cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Pisa:
http://www.wga.hu/art/c/cimabue/mosaic/st_john.jpg
Detail:
http://tinyurl.com/yhlf5on
19) Dome fresco (ca. 1312-1321) 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:
ttp://tinyurl.com/y94kd3o
20) 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
21) 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
22) Wall painting (fourteenth-century), All Saints church, Weston Longville (Norfolk):
http://www.paintedchurch.org/wlongvje.htm
23) Fresco (fourteenth-century) in the originally thirteenth(?)-century church of Agios Ioannis Theologos in the village of Agios Ioannis, Sfakia (Chania prefecture):
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
24) Vault fresco (late fourteenth-century), baptistery of Parma:
http://tinyurl.com/39n7ul
25) Marble statue (Donatello; 1410-1411), Museo dell'Opera del duomo, Florence:
http://www.wga.hu/art/d/donatell/1_early/duomo/3john_1.jpg
26) 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
27) 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
28) 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
Best,
John Dillon
(last year's post revised)
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