Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-4hvwz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-02T17:36:42.900Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evidence from Rome for the image of Christ on the Chalke gate in Constantinople

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

John Haldon  and
Bryan Ward-Perkins
John Haldon
Affiliation:
Trinity College Oxford
Bryan Ward-Perkins
Affiliation:
Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies Birmingham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The biography of Pope Zacharias (741-52) in the Liber Pontificalis gives an account of his building-works and embellishments at the papal Lateran palace. After describing a new dining-room (triclinium) and an oratory and portico of St. Silvester, the account goes on to say:

Fecit autem a fundamentis ante scrinium Lateranensem porticum atque turrem ubi et portas ereas atque cancellos instituit et per figuram Salvatoris ante fores ornavit; et per ascendentes scalas in superioribus super eandem turrem triclinium et cancellos aereos construxit, ubi et orbis terrarum descriptione depinxit atque diversis versiculis ornavit.

(He made from their foundations, in front of the offices of the Lateran, a portico and tower, where he set up bronze doors and railings, and adorned it in front of the doors with a figure of our Saviour. [Reached] by stairs going up, in the upper parts over the same tower he built a triclinium and bronze railings, and here painted a representation of the orb of the world and ornamented it with various verses).

Type
Short Notes
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 23 , 1999 , pp. 286 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Duchesne, L. (ed.), Le Liber Pontificalis I (Paris 1955), 432 Google Scholar.

2. Krautheimer, R., Rome, Profile of a City, 312-1308 (Princeton 1980) 121 Google Scholar: ‘When, shortly before the middle of the century, Pope Zacharias erected an entrance “tower” with a bronze gate surmounted by a portrait of Christ, it was unmistakably derived from the bronze gate, the Chalke – the two-storeyed towerlike entrance to the Imperial Palace in Constantinople.’

3. Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, § 94 (ed. O. Holder-Egger, in MGH Scriptores rerum langobardicarum et italicarum, at 337): ‘… in fronte regiae quae dicitur Ad Calchi istius civitatis, ubi prima porta palatia fuit …’.

4. Krautheimer, Rome, 121; and Krautheimer, R., ‘Die Decanneacubita in Konstantinopel: ein kleiner Beitrag zur Frage Rom und Byzanz’, in Tortulae: Studien zu altchristlichen und byzantinischen Monumenten (Römische Quartalschrift, suppl. 30, 1966), 195–199 Google Scholar.

5. There is admittedly a problem here – in that for most of his pontificate, and in the account of it given in the Liber Pontificalis, Zacharias’ relations with the iconoclast emperor Constantine V (741-75) were friendly. However there were moments when the relationship was strained, and Zacharias even (briefly) recognised the usurper Artabasdos: Bertolini, O., ‘I rapporti di Zaccaria con Costantino V e con Artavasdo’, in Scritti scelti di storia medioevale, 2 (Livorno 1968) 463–484 Google Scholar, at 468ff., 474ff.; and Speck, P., Artabasdos, der rechtgläubige Vorkämpfer der göttlichen Lehren (Poikila Byzantina 2, Bonn 1981), 114–122 Google Scholar. The evidence of certain papal letters shows that the Pope did recognise Artavasdos, albeit briefly, even though, as Speck has argued, some of the letters were later re-dated or otherwise altered to avoid embarrassment to the Papacy for having recognised a usurper: see Bertolini, ‘Zaccaria’, 468ff.; Speck, Artabasdos, 122-128 (in the context of a discussion of the dates of the reign of Artavasdos); and Davis, R., The Lives of the Eighth-century Popes (Liber Pontificalis) (Translated Texts for Historians 13. Liverpool 1992), notes at pp. 45–46 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). However, since we cannot place the building of the Lateran gateway at any specific point within Zacharias’ pontificate, it is probably fruitless to speculate how it might have fitted in with specific events; and perhaps a silent religious rebuke was possible even within the context of relative political harmony.

6. See Mansi xiii, 108 A7-128 A12, at 124-125. For its genuineness see Stein, D., Der Beginn des byzantinischen Bilderstreits und seine Entwicklung bis in die 40er Jahre des 8. Jahrhunderts (Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 25, Munich 1980), 30f. At pp. 70ffGoogle Scholar. Stein argues that Leo’s image was probably at the Chalke, since this was the main entrance, and the most publicly significant point at which something would be erected ‘in front of’ the palace.

7. A point stresed by Stein, Bilderstreit, pp. 70-77. The literature on this issue is enormous: the most recent analyses of the sources can be found in Mango, C., The Brazen House: a Study of the vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (Arkeologisk-Kunsthistoriske Meddelelsev udgivet af der Kongelige Danske Videns-kabernes Selskab, Bind 4, nr. 4, Copenhagen 1959), esp. pp. llOff.Google Scholar; Speck, P., Kaiser Konstantin VI. Die Legitimation einer fremden und der Versuch einer eigenen Herrschaft (Munich 1978), 2, pp. 606–619 Google Scholar; Auzépy, M.-F., ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ de la Chalcé par Léon III: propagande ou réalité?, B 40 (1990) 445–492, at 451-472Google Scholar. On the later literary tradition, see also Thümmel, H.G., ‘Zur Tradition von der Abnahme des Christusbildes an der Chalke in Konstaninopel’, in Collatz, C.-F. et al., Dissertatiunculae criticae. Festschrift für Günther Christian Hausen (Berlin 1998), 409–416 Google Scholar.

8. Mango, C., Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople. Short History (Washington D.C. 1990), §60Google Scholar.

9. Theophanis Chronographia, ed. de Boor, C. (Leipzig 1883, 1885), 405 Google Scholar (Engl. trans. The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, trans. Mango, C., Scott, R. [Oxford 1997], 559 Google Scholar), and Auzépy’s analysis of his account, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 456-60. Stein, Bilderstreit, pp. 155-56, shows that the story of the removal of the icon by Leo in both Theophanes and the Life of Stephen the Younger was probably originally an independently-circulating iconophile tale, incorporated into these as well as other, later, sources: La vie d’Étienne le jeune par Etienne le diacre, ed. et trad. Auzépy, M.-F. (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs, 3, Aldershot 1997), § 10 (pp 100-101 text, 193-194 transi.)Google Scholar, with discussion at pp. 5-19. The oldest version was compiled ca. 809; but the Life contains many elements found also in texts which can be dated to after 809, including elements in common with the Adversus Constantinum Caballinum taken from a common anti-iconoclastic pamphlet of the later eighth century; and interpolated passages on the nature of figural decoration in the Blachernai church of the Virgin: see Speck, P., Ich bin ‘s nicht. Kaiser Konstantin ist es gewesen. Die Legenden vom Enfluß des Teufels, des Juden und des Moslem auf den Ikonoklasmus (Poikila Byzantina 10. Bonn 1990), esp. 158, 509ff., 222-234Google Scholar.

10. Text in PL 89, 495-530/Mansi xii, 959-974, 975-982; new edn. by Gouillard, J., ‘Aux origines de ľiconoclasme: le témoignage de Grégoire II?’, TM 3 (1968) 243–307 Google Scholar (repr. in Gouillard, J., La vie religieuse à Byzance [London 1981] IV): text at 277–297, 299-305)Google Scholar. According to Gouillard, the two letters are an early ninth-century compilation. Speck, Ich bin’s nicht, 637-695, argues in contrast that there is good internal evidence for thinking that at the heart of the two letters were originally polemical writings directed against Constantine V, probably composed in a non-Greek language, possibly Syriac, and from a similar theological context as John of Damascus. At some point after their translation into Greek they were subject to the work of copyists and redactors, one of whom assumed them to be letters of Gregory II to Leo (since Gregory certainly wrote to Leo in connection with the issue of the Italian taxes, and Gregory III wrote in connection with Germanos’ abdication in 730). Speck argues that this redactional stage was probably much later than ca. 800, the period proposed by Gouillard for their composition. Cf. Gouillard, ‘Grégoire II’, text 11. 218-228 (pp. 293-95).

11. Such as the closely associated derivative De SS. martyribus Constantinopolitanis, in: AS Aug. ii, 434-447 (Acta Gregorii spatharii) (BHG 1195), a late ninth-century confection composed in 869, drawing partly on the Chronographia of Theophanes and the Life of Stephen the Younger. See esp. Auzépy, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 466-472. For the older literature, see Beck, H.-G., Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft xii, 2.1 = Byzantinisches Handbuch 2.1, Munich 1959), 561 Google Scholar; Mango, Brazen House, 113f. The chronicle of George the monk incorporated the same story: ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig, 1904) ii, 742 (see Mango, Brazen House, 171 and the discussion of Auzépy, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 464-466) as did the so-called letter to Theophilos, purportedly from the three eastern patriarchs Christopher of Alexandria, Job of Antioch, and Basil of Jerusalem (although attributed in the older tradition to John of Damascus): see Munitiz, J.A., Chrysostomides, J., Harvalia-Crook, E., Dendrinos, Ch., The letter of the Three Patriarchs to Emperor Theophilos and related texts (Camberley 1997)Google Scholar. The first, shorter version of the letter, is usually held to be genuinely by the three patriarchs in question; but for some doubts as to this: Vasiliev, A., ‘The Life of St. Theodore of Edessa’, B 16 [1942/1943] 165–225 Google Scholar; Gouillard, J., ‘Deux figures mal connues du second Iconoclasme’, B 31 (1961) 371–401 Google Scholar, at 396ff. Speck has suggested that the two (very different versions) represent neither a letter of three patriarchs nor any treatise addressed to the emperor Theophilos: Ich bin’s nicht, 449-534. Speck’s critical dissection of the text suggests a very complex history, in which there remains the possibility that fragmentary elements of an original letter addressed to Theophilos may have been incorporated to form the basis of the first section. But the greater part of the letter, in both versions, represents according to Speck at least two redactional stages and the addition of much ninth-century material. The current state of the discussion is presented in Munitiz et al., The letter of the Three Patriarchs, xvii-xxxviii, li-lxxviii.

12. Scriptor incertus de Leone Armenio, in: Leo Gramm., 335-362; provided with a critical apparatus by Browning, R., in: Byz 35 (1965), 391-40Google Scholar. New ed. with commentary and translation Fr.Iadevaia, , Scriptor Incertus (Messina 1987)Google Scholar: here at p. 64. Discussion in Mango, Brazen House, p. 12If.

13. Auzépy, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 449, notes that the text can also be read to say: ‘that which Leo the despot took down in this place in ancient times Eirene has set up anew’.

14. Brazen House, p. 112.

15. Theoph., 285 (trans. Mango-Scott, 410); see Mango, Brazen House, 109-110.

16. Ioannis Antiocheni Fragmenta, in: FHG v, 27-38 (here v, 36); also in: Exc. de lnsid. 58-150 (here 108). See Mango, Brazen House, pp. 110f.

17. E.g. Auzépy, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 448-449.

18. Konstantin VI, 608-609.

19. Auzépy, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 449-450.

20. Konstantin VI, pp. 610ff.

21. Mango, Brazen House, p. 121.

22. See Mango, Brazen House, 121 f., and the sources discussed in Speck, P., ‘Angiologia Palatina 1, ) und das Apsismosaik der Hagia Sophia’, Varia II (Poikila Byzantina 6. Bonn 1987), pp. 285–329 Google Scholar, at 287 n. 2. Cf. also Speck, ‘Parerga zu den Epigrammen des Theodoros Studites’, where the three sets of epigrams preserved in the refutatio et eversio of Theodore of Stoudios are discussed.

23. Speck, P., ‘TA ΤΗΔΕ ΒΑΤΤΑΡΙΣΜΑΤΑ ΠΛΑΝΑ. Überlegungen zur Aussen-dekoration der Chalke im achten Jahrhundert’, in: Studien zur byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte. Festschrift für Horst Hallensleben zum 65. Geburtstag (Amsterdam, 1995), 211–220, see 212 and no. 12Google Scholar.

24. See Mango, Brazen House, 122f. and Auzépy, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 450. For the iconoclastic iambics, see esp. Speck, P., ‘Die ikonoklastischen Jamben an der Chalke’, Ellenika 27 (1974), 376–380 Google Scholar; Konstantin VI, 606f; and idem, Die kaiserliche Universität, 74; and idem, ‘Parerga zu den Epigrammen des Theodores Studites’, Ellenika 18 (1964) 11-43, 270f.

25. See esp. Auzépy, ‘La destruction de l’icône du Christ’, 454ff., who points out that it is most unlikely that there were any survivors from the period before 726, in Constantinople in the 790s, who would have remembered whether there had ever been a Christ icon on the Chalke before 726.

26. Art.cit., 446. For discussion, editions and further literature, see Cameron, , Herrin, , Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Leiden, 1984), § 5bGoogle Scholar; and Berger, A., Untersuchungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos (Poikila Byzantina 8. Bonn 1988)Google Scholar.

27. Volbach, W.F., Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters (Mainz 3 1976) 95 and pl. 76Google Scholar.

28. Holum, K.G., Vikan, G., ‘The Trier Ivory, Adventus Ceremonial, and the Relics of St. Stephen’, DOP 33 (1979) 113–133 Google Scholar; Wilson, L.J., ‘The Trier Procession Ivory: a New Interpretation’, B 54 (1984) 602–614 Google Scholar. See now L. Brubaker, ‘The Chalke gate, the construction of the past, and the Trier ivory’, infra, 258-285, at 270 ff.

29. Speck, Konstantin VI, 608-9; see Mango, Brazen House, 104 f.

30. Speck, P., ‘Ikonoklasmus und die Anfänge der makedonischen Renaissance’, in Varia I (Poikila Byzantina 4. Bonn 1984) 177–210, at 179Google Scholar; idem, ‘Das Trierer Elfenbein und andere Unklarheiten’, in Varia II (Poikila Byzantina 6. Bonn 1987) 275-83, at 276-78; following the dating argued in Duket, A., A Study in Byzantine Historiography: an Analysis of Theophanes’ ‘Chronographia’ and its Relationship to Theophylact’s ‘History’, the Reign of Maurice and the seventh Century to 711 (Diss. Boston College, Ann Arbor, 1980) p. 297 Google Scholar n. 16 (not available to us at the time of writing).

31. Placed as it was on the outside of the entrance-gate to the palace-complex (the closest that the vast majority of the population ever got to the inner workings of the palace), it is easy to see that the absent Chalke icon could become a very important symbol of the imperial will, and stories about it an important focus of resistance amongst iconophiles.