chronographia

AFTER LEPANTO: VISUALIZING TIME, HISTORY, AND PROPHECY IN THE CHRONOGRAPHIA OF GEORGIOS

KLONTZAS

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate School

of the University of Notre Dame

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Master of Arts

By

Mary Williams

Charles Barber, Director

Department of Art, Art History and Design

Notre Dame, Indiana

April 200

i

CONTENTS

Figures.......................................................................................................................................ii

Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................vi

Chapter 1: Introduction............................................................................................................1

1.1. The Chronographia of Georgios Klontzas…………………………………………………………..2

1.2. An Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto…………………………………………………………………..6

Chapter 2: The Marcianus Codex cl. VII, 22 (=1466)……………………………………………………………....9

2.1. General Characteristics…………………………………………………………………………………......9

2.2. The Contents of the Manuscript…………………………………………………………………........10

2.2.1. Biblical and Legendary Past (ff. 1r-38r)…………………………………..............12

2.2.2. History of Islam: Mohammed to Murad III (ff. 38v-141v)……………........17

2.2.3. Prophetic Future Events (ff. 141v-204r)………………………………………........22

Chapter 3: The Life and Work of Georgios Klontzas…………………………………..............................27

Chapter 4: The Pictorial Narrative of the Ottoman Expansion…………………………………..............32

4.1. Visualizing Lepanto as the Fulfillment of History………………………………………..........32

4.1.1. The Battle of Lepanto……………………………………………………………………......32

4.1.2. The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios………………………………………………..35

4.1.3. The Oracles of Leo the Wise………………………………………………………………...40

4.1.4. The Xerolophus Column………………………………………............................. ..43

4.2. Cyclical, Linear and Historical Time……..................................................................48

4.3. Configurations of Time in the Pictorial Narrative………………………………………….......52

4.3.1. Unifying Compositional Strategies………………........................................54

4.3.2. Configurations of Time……………………………………………………...................56

4.4. After Lepanto…………………………………………………………………………….........................64

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….........67

Apendix: Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………................69

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..........96

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FIGURES

Figure 1: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folio 140r

[after Rigo, Oracula,61]...............................................................................................70 Figure 2: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folia 140v-141r

[after Rigo,Oracula, 62-63+……………………………………………………………………………………….71 Figure 3: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22. Leather Cover

* after Paliouras, 61+………………………………………………………………………………………………….72

Figure 4: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folio 74v [after Rigo, Oracula, 52+……………………………………………………………………………………………72

Figure 5: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 120r [after Rigo, Oracula, 58]……………………………………………………………………………………………73

Figure 6a: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, fol. 3r [microfilm: Marciana Library]……………………………………………………………………………………………………..73

Figure 6b: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 78r *microfilm: Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………74

Figure 7a: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, Fol. 64v

*microfilm: Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………74 Figure 7b: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, Fol. 65v

*microfilm: Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………74

Figure 8a: Paris, Private Collection, Codex Bute, fol. 5v [after Vereecken and Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles, Pl. VIII+……………………………………..75

Figure 8b: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 170, fol. 6v [after

Rigo, Oracula, 20+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..75 Figure 8c: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folio 98r

[after Rigo, Oracula Leonis, 54+…………………………………………………………………………………76 Figure 9a: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 155v

*microfilm: Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………76 Figure 9b: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 157r (detail)

*microfilm: Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………77 Figure 9c: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 158v (detail)

[microfilm: Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………77

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Figure 10a: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 89r (detail)

[after Rigo, Oracula, 51] …………………………………………………………………………………………..78 Figure 10b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 112v (detail)

[after Rigo, Oracula, 56+……………………………………………………………………………………………78

Figure 10c: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 120r [after Rigo, Oracula, 58+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..79

Figure 10d: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 129r [after Rigo, Oracula, 59+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..80

Figure 10e: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 145v. [after Rigo, Oracula, 64+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..80

Figure 11: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 3, fol. 3v [after Rigo,

Oracula, 80+………………………………………………………………………………………………………………81 Figure 12a: Paris, Private Collection, Codex Bute, fol. 7v [after Vereecken

and Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles, Pl. X+………………………………………………………….82 Figure 12b: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 170, fol. 8v [after Rigo,

Oracula, 24+………………………………………………………………………………………………………………82 Figure 13: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 145, fol. 257v [after Hutter,

Corpus der byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften, Vol. 2, fig. 619+………………………83 Figure 14a: Paris, Private Collection, Codex Bute, fol. 8v [after Vereecken and Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles, Pl. XI+………………………………………………………….83 Figure 14b: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 170, fol. 9v [after Rigo,

Oracula, 26+………………………………………………………………………………………………………………84 Figure 15: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 84v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..84

Figure 16: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folia 148v-149r [microfilm: Marciana Library]……………………………………………………………………………………85

Figure 17: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 102v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..86 Figure 18: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 106v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+…………………………………………………………………………………………………….87 Figure 19: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 127v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..87

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Figure 20a: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 9 [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..88 Figure 20b: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 95v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..88 Figure 21a: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 138r [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..89 Figure 21b: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 138v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..89 Figure 21c: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 139r [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..90 Figure 22a: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, folio 121v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..90 Figure 22b: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, folio 122r [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..91 Figure 22c: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 122v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..91 Figure 22d: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 123r [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..92 Figure 23: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 92v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..92 Figure 24: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 101v [microfilm:

Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..93 Figure 25: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 93r [microfilm:



Marciana Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………..94 Figure 28: Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, [microfilm: Marciana

Library+……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..95

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

On October 7th, 1571, the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim II (1566-1574) was

defeated by the combined Christian navy of the Holy League, consisting of Spain, Venice

and the Papacy, at the Battle of Lepanto (in modern-day Nafpakos, Greece).1

Considered the greatest naval battle since the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, where the

Roman Emperor Octavian defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the victory signaled a

new era of unity in the Mediterranean and Western Europe after years of internal

strife.2 However, the memory of Lepanto outlived the actual military significance of this

victory. The Ottomans quickly recovered their navy and took the strategic fortress of

1 For a general survey of the historical events surrounding Lepanto, the origins of the Holy League, a detailed account of the battle, see F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 1027-1139; Other recent sources on the Battle of Lepanto cited in the present thesis include, S. Shaw, “The Empire of the Gazis: The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1280-1808,” Vol. 1. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); H. Bicheno, The Crescent and the Cross: The Battle of Lepanto, 1571 (London: Cassell, 2003).

2For the comparison between Actium and Lepanto in Spanish and Italian literature, see M. Murrin, History and Warfare in the Renaissance Epic, 143; The two battles, separated by over a millennium of warfare, took place in close distance to one another. On the tension left in Christian nations after the Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Spanish Inquisition and the idea of unity under Crusade, see H. Bicheno, 11-12.

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Modon in 1572 at the tip of the Peloponnese.3 Venice concluded peace with the sultan

in 1573 and the Holy League disbanded soon after.4

1.1. The Chronographia of Georgios Klontzas

When the Cretan icon-painter and miniaturist Georgios Klontzas (1540-1608)

began composing his universal history, the Chronographia (Venice, Marcianus Graecus

Codex VII, 22), two decades had passed since the Holy League victory at Lepanto.5 As a

Greek living in the capital of Venetian Crete, Klontzas had borne witness to this

momentous event and the overwhelming response of the Christian community.6 The

3 Braudel, 1121-1123.

4 On the “betrayal” of Venice, see Ibid.,1125-1133. According to Braudel, the death of Pope Pius V, the primary defender of the Crusade against the Turks, on May 1st, 1572, was sufficient enough to cause the dissolution of the Holy League. Ibid., 1114-1115.

5 E. Mioni, Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum Codices Graeci manuscript, Vol. II (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1960), pp. 36-38; For this study I have consulted a microfilm of the manuscript from the Marciana Library in Venice.

6 On the religious and civic ideology of Lepanto in Venice, see E. Gombrich, “Celebrations in Venice of the Holy League and the Victory of Lepanto,” in Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Art Presented to Anthony Blunt (London: Phaidon, 1967); The number of artistic commissions in Venice and Spain point to an immediate desire to memorialize the battle and the men who participated in it. See, in particular, a general discussion of commissions in K. M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976), 1100 ; On specific works of art, see Anthony Blunt’s discussion of El Greco’s Dream of Philip II (also called “The Adoration of the Name of Jesus” and “Allegory of the Holy League), in “El Greco’s ‘Dream of Philip II’: an Allegory of the Hoy League,” JWCI 3 (1939-1940), 58-69; See also, Bronwen Wilson’s discussion of Paolo Veronese’s Allegory of Lepanto, commissioned in 1572 by Pietro

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collective memory of the Holy League victory is shown in a composite image on folio

140r (Fig. 1) of the Chronographia acts as a frontispiece for the battle, shown on folia

140v-140r (Fig. 2).7 In this image, the artist, Klontzas, brings together apocalyptic and

oracular texts in a way that frames the battle of Lepanto as the culminating event of his

universal history. However, Klontzas, living two decades after the Battle, was aware of

its unexceptional aftermath and continues to illustrate historical events like the capture

of Modon (ff. 141v-142r) and the reign of Murad III (f. 145v). Klontzas’ interpretation of

the Battle of Lepanto in the Chronographia, it will be argued here, represents one

artist’s unique manner of negotiating the symbolic devices through which human beings

understand their own temporality.

The entire manuscript is, like the frontispiece on folio 140r, a composite of

apocalyptic and oracular works and historical events.8 However, the series of 410

miniatures executed by Klontzas that fully illustrate the Chronographia bring together

Giustinian for the altar of the Rosary at the Church of Saint Peter Martyr in Murano. B. Wilson, The World in Venice: Print, the City, and Early Modern Identity (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 150-153.

7 In the upper right corner of the battle scene of folio 42r, Klontzas writes: “Here is the greatest victory of Christianity”*e9dw~ ei0nai me/galwtath bi/twriaj tw~n xristianw~n ].

8 Most of the apocalyptic texts quoted in the Chronographia, although quoting different pseudonymous authors, are inseparable from traditional Byzantine apocalyptic thought. Specific sources will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 1, Section 2, of this thesis. Paul J. Alexander’s extensive body of work on the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition gives a general survey of texts and themes. See P. J. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, D. deF. Abrahamse, ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

4

these disparate parts into a universal chronicle of humanity, from the expulsion of Adam

and Eve to the Last Judgment. The basic focus for Klontzas’ universal history is an

apocalyptic account of the conflict between Christianity and the sons of Hagar, the

Ishmaelites. This account, attributed pseudonymously to the Bishop Methodios of

Patara, allowed Klontzas to incorporate the rise, spread and eventual fall of the

Ottoman Empire into a longer narrative of the divinely-ordered process of Christian

history.9

Klontzas’ manuscript is astonishing and has certainly not received sufficient

scholarly attention for the breadth of historical data and artistic merit it reveals. The

first extensive study of the manuscript was published in 1977, by Athanasios Paliouras.10

Paliouras published all 410 miniatures, giving a brief description of each.11 His main

objective was to situate these images in relation to other works of art, notably the

author’s other works and, especially, Italian prints that circulated heavily in the second

9 For the conflict between Christianity and the Ishmaelites in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, see Paul Alexander, Bzyzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 24.

10 A. Paliouras, 9O Zwgra/foj Gew/rgioj Klo/ntzaj kai\ ai3 Mikrografi/ai tou~ Kw/dikoj au0tou~ (Athens: Ekdoseis Gregore, 1977). For a description of the contents of the manuscript, see Spyridon Lambros, “9O Markiano\j kw~dic tou~ Krhto\j Gewrgi/ou Klo/ntza” in Ne/oj 9Ellhnomnh/mwn 12 (1915), 41-52; For discussion of an Oracle concerning Cyprus, see V. Laordas, “0O Markiano\j kw~dic tou~ Gewrgi/ou Klo/ntza kai\ oi9 peri\ Krh/thj xrhsmoi/,” in Krhtika\ Xronika\ 5 (1951), 231-245.

11 Paliouras, 78-159.

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half of the sixteenth century.12 While Paliouras has certainly established Klontzas’

dependence upon Renaissance and Mannerist works of art, his study offers no

comprehensive analysis of these images within the narrative status of the manuscript.

Subsequent literature has framed narrow aspects of the manuscript.13 Most

recently, in 2005, Angela Volan examined the representations of the Legend of the Last

Emperor, an important feature of the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition, in the

Chronographia.14 Volan’s goals did not include a comprehensive analysis of the

manuscript and her objectives were directed more toward the Last Emperor tradition in

the sixteenth-century, with the Chronographia merely offering a contemporary example

which went into great detail regarding the events of the Ottoman expansion. Her

findings were based primarily upon the established tradition of the Last Emperor in

Byzantine apocalyptic, so very little evidence from the manuscript was used to support

12 Paliouras, 23. See, for example, the parallel between the image of Noah’s son Ionitus, the first astrologer, on fol. 5v of the Chronographia, and the allegory of astrology by Giulio Campagnola.

13 See C. Mango, “The Legend of Leo the Wise,” Zbornik Radova Vizantoloskog Instituta 6 (Belgrade, 1960), 59-93. Reprinted in Ibid., Byzantium and its Image (London: Variorum, 1984), study XVI. The relationship between Georgios Klontzas’ Chronographia and other sixteenth-century Post-Byzantine miniature cycles is discussed in detail in Ch. 3; See also, A. Rigo, Oracula Leonis: Tre manoscritti Greco-veneziani degli oracoli attribuiti all’imperatore bizantino Leone il Saggio (Bodl. Baroc. Marc. gr. VII. 22, Marc. gr. VII.2), (Venice: Studio Editoriale Programma, 1988). Rigo compares three different versions of the manuscript composed in the sixteenth century.

14 A. Volan, “Last Judgments and Last Emperors: Illustrating Apocalyptic History in Late and Post-Byzantine Art,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2005).

6

her arguments. One consequence of this is that a number of her observations regarding

the text and miniatures are incorrect.15

The Chronographia of Georgios Klontzas has thus never been examined in its

own right. Comparative studies of the individual miniatures ignore the complexity of the

pictorial narrative, while broad analyses of quoted sources in the manuscript draw

attention away from the role of Klontzas as both artist and author. Therefore, much

work remains to be done on the Chronographia. In this thesis, I will address one topic in

particular, namely the role of the author/artist Klontzas in designing a visual response to

the oracular and apocalyptic texts that framed the Ottoman expansion. By juxtaposing

these allegorical ways of understanding the past with the historical mode, Klontzas

considers the extent to which all three are ideological constructions mediated by the

artist.

1.2. An allegory of the Battle of Lepanto

The composite image to the Battle of Lepanto on folio 140r will offer an initial

point of departure for the present study, as Klontzas incorporates multiple layers of

meaning upon a singular abstracted landscape. On the left side of the composite image

on folio 140r stands a column that traverses the top of the frame. Upon the shaft of this

15 For example, see her interpretation of the image on folio 34r, which illustrates Pseudo-Methodios’ text above stating that Alexander wrote a prophecy upon the golden gates he built to hold the kings of the nations of Gog and Magog. Volan interprets this image as Alexander writing his name on the trunk of a tree in the tradition of the great kings depicted above. Volan, 161.

7

column, the artist has depicted a number of figures arranged in five tiers. Seven kings

stand side by side in the top and bottom tiers, situated with three in the upper tier and

four in the lower. The three middle tiers are conjoined vertically by a long serpent on

either side of which stands five Turkish sultans, two in the top tier, two in the middle

tier, and one in the lowest tier, the latter of which stands below the serpent with arms

outstretched. All twelve figures bear a sword against their shoulder. At the bottom of

the column is an open tomb resting upon a small bridge. Inside the tomb lays the

skeletal figure of another king.

Above the tomb to the right of the column stand the five largest figures in the

composition. They can be easily divided into two groups based on gestures of dialogue.

Two men, a Pope and a Venetian Doge, stand on either side of an archangel in the group

to the right. The angel hands a cross-staff and an olive branch to the Pope and the

Venetian Doge holds a palm of victory. On the right, two fantastical creatures, a

skeleton dressed in courtly/military garb and a bull dressed in an Ottoman sultan’s

robes, grasp each other’s right hand. Another skeleton stands directly behind the bull-

headed sultan, obscured from the neck down. The skeleton is crowned with an olive

wreath and is holding a lantern in its right hand. The tail of the bull-headed sultan’s

robes is being devoured by a winged lion in the bottom right corner of the image.

Entitled “Here is the fulfillment of the oracle of Leo the Wise, where he speaks of

8

Selim,”16 we are told only that the image below depicts some sort of oracular fulfillment

concerning the sultan Selim II.

The historical event to which this composite image acts as a frontispiece, the

Battle of Lepanto, informs an initial identification of the three central characters in the

composition. These figures can be identified as the Sultan Selim II, Pope Pius V (1566-

1572), and the Doge Alivise Mocenigo (1570-77). Certain aspects of the iconography, I

will argue, point to the Holy League victory at Lepanto, thereby signaling the association

between the composite image and the battle depicted on the next two folia. However,

in the description given above, one immediately recognizes the existence of added

layers of meaning for which the historical battle of Lepanto gives no precedence. In the

present thesis, I will use this composite image, and the gaps in its legibility, as a point of

departure for the use of apocalyptic and oracular symbolism in the Chronographia.

16 Marc. Gr. VII, 22. Fol. 140r: e0dw~ plhrwnetai o9 xrhjmo\j tou~ kurou~ le/ontoj tou~ sofou o3pou le/gei peri\ tou~ selh~m.

9

CHAPTER 2: THE MARCIANUS GRAECUS CODEX VII 22 (=1466)

2.1. General Characteristics

The manuscript of Klontzas’ universal history is now held in the Bibliotheca

Marciana in Venice under the label Marcianus Graecus Codex VII 22.17 Historical clues

within the manuscript give a date range of 1591-92 for the manuscript’s production.18

The manuscript contains 217 folia that measure 205 x 153 mm and is illustrated with

410 miniatures of varying sizes.19 It is bound in a leather cover that measure 207 x 160

mm, (Fig. 3) which, Paliouras concludes, was more than likely added later and produced

in an unknown workshop in Candia.20 The only use of color in the manuscript occurs in

the elaborate ornamental illustrated frames, which are decorated in gold leaf and red

ink, (Fig. 4) and in the script, which switches back and forth between black and red ink

17 E. Mioni, Codices graeci manuscripti Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum, v. II (Rome, 1960), 36-38; Ibid, Codices graeci manuscripti Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum. Indices omnium codicum graecorum (Rome, 1960), 54.

18 Paliouras, 67. The first clue to the date of the piece can be found on folio 136r, where Klontzas mentions February 1591. The next one occurs on ff. 149v-150r, which contains an inscription pointing to Girolamo Cappello (GRNM KPL DOUK), who was Duke of Candia between 12 November 1590 to March of 1593.

19 Paliouras, 60.

20 Ibid., 62.

10

to distinguish significant points in the text.21 (Fig. 5) Two scribes can be distinguished:

one, who only wrote the passages quoted in the text, is marked by a much larger script

and a consistent use of ligatures. (Fig. 6a) The other hand writes the remainder of the

text.22(Fig. 6b)

2.2. Contents of the Manuscript

Folia 1r-204v of the manuscript are dedicated to the Chronographia, which

concludes on folio 204v with a note from the author that states: “The hand of Georgios

Klontzas, that wrote these things received from memory and by my own free will.”23

21 The ornamental frames primarily encase portraits either of authors, as their works are referenced in passing or directly quoted in the text of the Chronographia, or important historical figures mentioned in the text, such as the individual Ottoman sultans, as the reign of each sultan is introduced by an imperial portrait and concludes with what I will refer to as “tomb portraits”.

22 Rigo, 70, no. 3. The scribal hand attributed to the copied sources appears on ff. 1r-6r, 18r, 29v-38r, part of 48r, 88v, 90v-91v, part of 136r, 151v, part of 154v, 157v-160v, 175v-178v, 179v. The rest of the text is written in the hand of the other scribe. The majority of the text is written in the smaller text and might thus be attributed to the author, Klontzas. The small calligraphic text is used whenever the author is not quoting another source, including the commentary provided above or below historical episodes, with the exception of the Oracles of Leo the Wise, the Book of Daniel, and a treatise by Pseudo-Hippolytus, discussed below, which are rendered in the same small script.

23 Marc. Gr. VII, 22: Fol. 204v. Gewrti/ou xei\r klo/ntza, ta de\ gegra/fei o9 d0 au0~ labw\n me/mnhso kai\ mou~ profro/nhj. The signature of the author/artist Klontzas on folio 204v is followed on folia 205r-206r with a poem (oracle) by Gregory the Theologian (also called Gregory Nazianos) (329-289), and is written in the same script as the signature on folio 204v, thus marking the whole section as a post-script. Sixteen folia (208r-217r) follow this last portion of the text and contain a number of sketches, which Paliouras concludes were added to the end of the manuscript sometime in the seventeenth century. Paliouras, 60.

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The Chronographia is a universal history of mankind from the fall of Adam and

Eve to the Last Judgment, between which the author traces historical wars between

Christianity and the descendents of Hagar, the Ishmaelites. The greater structure of the

manuscript is based upon a seventh-century Byzantine apocalyptic text attributed to

Bishop Methodios of Patara.24 This apocalyptic and prophetic work sets up the conflict

among the great empires of Christianity, Rome and Byzantium, and the descendents of

Ishmael, represented in the kingdoms of Islam. The Holy Wars between Islam and

Christianity is a thread that runs through the entire Chronographia and situates the rise

and expansion of the Ottoman Empire within a universal apocalyptic narrative. Given

the nature of the present argument, which presents the Battle of Lepanto as a crucial

turning point in the manuscript, a brief summary of the entire contents of the

Chronographia is necessary in order that this culminating battle and the history of the

24 Alexander, 14-36. The Syriac text, from Cod. Vat. Syr. 58, has been edited by

G.J. Reinink with a German Translation, Die Syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodios. Corpus Scriptorium Orietnalium, v. 540-541 (Lovanii: Peeters, 1993); Alexander provides an English Translation of the Syriac Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios as it appears in Cod. Vat. Syr. 58. See, Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 37-51. The first Greek redaction of the text was first edited in 1897 by V. Istrin, Otrovenie Mefodiia Patarskago I Apokrificheskiia Videniia Daniila v Vizantiiskoi I Slaviano-Russkoi Literaturakh, in Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestvie Istorii I Drevnostei Rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete (Moscow, 1897), in two volumnes, Izsledovanie (vol. 181) and Teksty (vol. 183). Two more recent critical editions have since been prepared by Anastasios Lolos, Die Apocalypse des Pseudo-Methodios, Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie, Heft 83 (Meisenheim am Glan, 1975), and most recently by W.J. Aerts and G.A.A. Kortekaas with a Latin translation, Die Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodios die Ältesten Griechischen und Lateinischen Übersetzungen. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, vol. 569-570, Subsidia t. 97 (Lovanii: Peeter, 1998). All quotations or citations from the Greek text are taken from Aerts and Kortekaas’ edition, vol. 1 (pp. 70-198), and follow their chapter divisions and pagination.

12

Ottoman Empire can be understood in relation to the larger apocalyptic structure of the

manuscript.

2.2.1. Biblical and Legendary Past (folia 1r-38r)

As mentioned above, the Chronographia is a universal history composed largely

from traditional Byzantine apocalyptic texts. Of these the Apocalypse of Pseudo-

Methodios, which will be discussed in greater detail below, is the primary source quoted

in the manuscript for both biblical/legendary past events and apocalyptic future

scenarios.25 The manuscript opens on folio 1r with the first line of this apocalypse, which

reads: “The holy word of our father Methodios, bishop of Patara, who is among the

saints, concerning the kings of the nations.”26 History begins 5500 years before the birth

of Christ, with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and the murder of Abel by

Cain (Fol. 1v).27 Methodios’ text carries the narrative up to the reign of the first king

25 The scenes that illuminate the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios (from here on PsM) in the Chronographia constitute the only known example of an illustrated version of this seventh-century narrative that exists today. Volan, 145.

26 Marc. Gr. VII, 22: Fol. 1r. “Tou~ e0n a0gioj patroj h9mw~n meqodiou e0piskopou

patarwn~ lo\goj h0kribwmenoj peri\ ta\j basilei\aj tw~n e0qnw~n”.

27 PsM, 1:1-2. The expulsion and labors of Adam and Eve, Paliouras has pointed out, follows the same formulaic model as the Genesis cycles in Byzantine painting and Western monumental art. For example, see Paliouras’ comparison of the figure of Adam tilling the soil (fol. 1r) and a similar image in a Raphael Sadeler engraving series of 1583. Paliouras, 160. Volan adds that Klontas’ monochrome hatch-work technique imitates the stylistic effect of western etchings and woodcuts. Volan, 148.

13

Nimrod (Fol. 6r), who constructed the Tower of Babel.28 The relationship between text

and image in this section introduces the precedence given by Klontzas to the visual field

for the narration of events.29

Klontzas leaves the Pseudo-Methodios apocalypse on folio 6v with the birth of

Nebuchadnezzar.30 The next thirty-two folia (6v-22v) are quoted from the Book of

Daniel, which is substituted for the various Babylonian conquests mentioned in Chapters

4 and 5 of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios.31 This alteration by Klontzas allows him

28PsM, 4:3; 6:2.

29For example, the bottom image on folio 1v, illustrating the death of Abel by Cain, depicts four events at once conflating both spatial and temporal distance within the frame. In this scene, one witnesses the first distinctive priority given to the visual account over the textual, as the line from Methodios reads: “And in the hundredth year of Adam’s life Cain slew his brother and Adam made lament over his murder one hundred years.” The events are expanded according to the biblical narrative in the image below, situated counterclockwise in chronological order: (1) the sacrifice of Cain, depicted in the upper left corner (2) the sacrifice of Abel (3) the murder of Cain by Abel (4) God addressing Cain (5) the lament over the body of Abel by the first family (6) Deborah and Kalama’s lament, depicted in the bottom left corner. Therefore, within this singular image, Klontzas successfully expands upon Methodios’ brief mention of the event, depicts multiple events occurring simultaneously (the sacrifices of Cain and Abel and the laments of Adam and the sisters), and presents a complex rendering of chronological events.

30 Nativity scenes are frequently used in the Chronographia to introduce notable figures into the historical record. See, for example, the birth of John the Baptist (Fol. 31v), Christ (Fol. 32v), Mohammed (38v), Murad I (Fol. 67r), and the Antichrist (Fol. 178v).

31 The Book of Daniel is quoted in the following manner on these folia: Fol. 7r (Daniel, 3:1); 7v (1: 1-2); 8r (1: 3-6); 8v (1:6-16); 9r (1: 17-21); 9v (2:1); 10r (2: 29-35); 10v (2: 7-10); 11r (2:12); 11v (2:1); 12r (2: 25-30); 13r (2: 31-35); 13v (2: 36-49); 18r (3: 31 – 4: 11); 19r (4: 11-27); 19v (4: 28-33); 20r (4: 34-37); 21r (5: 1-16); 22r (5: 17-30); 23v (10: 1-18); 24r-25r (10: 18, 11); 25v (12: 1-7); 26r (12: 7-13); 26v (7:2); 27r (7: 3); 27v (7:4);

14

to emphasize the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, which is otherwise mentioned only briefly in

Methodios’ text.32 In drawing on the biblical source, Klontzas is also able to introduce

the importance of prophetic “visions” as a theme within the manuscript. Four prophetic

visions of Daniel are mentioned in this section of the manuscript: The two Dreams of

Nebuchadnezzar (Fols. 13r-13v and 18v-19v),33 the Dream of Belshazzar concerning

Darius (Fols. 20v-21r)34 and Daniel’s vision of the Four Beasts of the Apocalypse (Fols.

26v-28v). These visions introduce the four world kingdoms of Babylon, Persia,

Alexandria and Rome. 35

After a brief account of the Incarnation of Christ quoted from the Gospel of Luke

(fols. 29r-33r),36 Klontzas returns to the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios with the birth

of Alexander the Great on folio 33v.37 Here, Klontzas illustrates a legend from the

28r (7: 7-11); 28v (7: 11-28). The New American Bible (New York: Benziger Inc., 1970); ff. 22v-23v quote PsM, ch. 5.

32 Volan notes that even though the Book of Daniel excerpts are substituted for Chapters 4 and 5 of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, it merely gives a different account of event from the fourth millennium. Therefore, its inclusion in no way disrupts the temporal progression of the Methodios text, which resumes its construction of ancient history after the anachronistic quotation from the Gospel of Luke. Volan, 153.

33 Daniel, 2: 31-39; 3:31-4: 33. 34 Daniel, 5: 1-16. 35 Daniel, 7: 2-28. 36 The Gospel of Luke is quoted on the following folia: 29v (Luke, 1:23-28); 30v

(1: 39-47); 31r (1:57-62).

37 PsM, 8: 1-4. Methodios Legends = ff. 33v-38r; Quotations occurs as follows – 33v (PsM 8: 1-4); 34r (8: 6-8); 34v (8: 10; 9: 1); 35r (9: 1); 35v (9: 2-4); 36r (9: 4); 36v (9: 5-7); 37r (9: 8-9; 10: 1); 37v (10: 1-5); 38r (10: 6; 11: 1).

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conquests of Alexander the Great concerning the “unclean people” of the East, the

nations of Gog and Magog.38 In the illustration, Klontzas show Alexander on horseback

in front of a mountainous landscape, wherein the kings of the nations of Gog and Magog

are trapped by the erection of a golden gate. Although, according to legend, Alexander

trapped the kings of these nations in the mountains of the north, the prophet Ezekiel

(Ez. 38-39) predicted their return at the end of time.39 The apocalyptic myth of Gog and

Magog is repeated in the final portion of the Chronographia, which will be discussed in

more detail below.

In the next portion of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, the author sets up

an important defining feature of his apocalyptic narrative, namely the Legend of the Last

Emperor. According to Methodios’ prophecy, a Last Emperor of the Romans (Byzantium)

would drive the Ishmaelites out of the Christian kingdom and bring forth an era of peace

until the end of time.40 The nations of Gog and Magog would come forth during his

reign, at which point the Last Emperor would lay down his crown at Golgotha to signal

the Second Coming of Christ.41 Although a literal handing over of power was

prophesized by David in Psalm 68: 31, the prophet predicted that this deed would be

38 Fol. 34r, PsM, 8: 6-8. On the Legend of Gog and Magog in Byzantine

apocalyptic tradition, see Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 185-192. 39 Fol. 34v. The biblical prophecy predicts the nations of Gog, of the land of

Magog, will invade a “land of unwalled villages,” or a peaceful land. Ezekiel 38: 11, New American Standard Bible (New York: Benzinger Inc., 1970).

40 PsM, 13: 10. Quoted on folio 151v of the Chronographia

41 PsM, 10:8.

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performed by the kingdom of Ethiopia (the Cushites): “let Cush extend its hands to

God”.42 To correct this discrepancy, Pseudo-Methodios introduces a second marriage of

Alexander’s mother, Chouseth, the daughter of the king Phol (or Cush) of Ethiopia, to

the founder of Byzantium, Byzas.43

The Christian kingdoms of Byzantium and Rome are thus introduced into

Pseudo-Methodios’ apocalyptic narrative with the child of Chouseth and Byz, Byzantia

on folio 36r.44 Byzantia is then married to Romulus and they have three children.45

Therefore, according to Pseudo-Methodios, the Ethiopians were subdued by the Greeks

and the Greeks were subdued by the Romans. “The offspring of Chouseth,” Methodios

claims, “daughter of Phol, king of Ethiopia, prevailed over the kingdom of the

Macedonians and Romans and Greeks throughout the centuries, for the kingdom of the

Greeks – that is, the Romans – are from the seed of Ethiopia, and this kingdom will

‘stretch forth her hand to God’ in the Last Days, according to the prophetic

revelation…”.46 After Pseudo-Methodios’ survey of ancient history, Klontzas leaves the

42 Psalm 68: 31. Translation from Alexander, 42. 43 Ibid., 22.

44 PsM, 9:4.

45 Fol. 36v, PsM, 9:4-7. Romulus and Byzantia have three sons: Armaleus, Urbanus, and Claudius. Armaleus (Armaleo) ruled Rome, Urbanus ruled Byzantium (the city of his mother), and Claudius ruled Alexandria.

46 PsM, 9: 7.Translation from Alexander, 42.

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source completely, returning only to the Apocalypse in the final section of the

Chronographia.

2.2.2. The History of Islam: Mohammed to Murad III (folia 38v-141v)

The history of Islam is introduced on folio 38v with the life of Mohammed.47 This

section serves primarily to introduce the nation of Islam as the prophesized descendents

of Ishmael and thus the enemy of Christianity.48 The connection between Islam,

Mohammed and Ishmael is made through the quotation of Saint John of Damaskos’

101st Heresy concerning the Ishmaelites, which is narrated and illustrated on folia 42r

to 44v.49 The first conflict with Christianity is introduced with the Arab-Muslim wars of

47 Klontzas mentions four different author portraits in this text. A certain John

the Deacon is pictured on folio 38v, but there are no quotations of this source after the authorial pronouncement. The second author portrait points to Giacomo da Voragine. Although Voragine mentions Mohammed in his Vita of Pope Pelagius II, this is not the text quoted in this section on the life of Mohammed. Therefore, the source of this section remains obscure. The only fully quoted source is Saint John of Damascus’ 101st heresy concerning the Ishmaelites, quoted on folia 43v-45r. For an English translation of the text, see, The Fathers of the Church, A New Translation: Saint John of Damascus, Writings: [The Fount of Knowledge] Vol. 37. F. Chase, trans. (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1958), 153-160.

48 An image on folio 42v depicts an archangel approaching Hagar, with her son Ishmael. The text between them records what is spoken between them. Hagar says, “because Sarah sent me away.” The archangel delivers a prophecy regarding the Ishmaelites to Sarah that is recorded in Genesis, 16: 11-12.

49 See note 50, above.

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the seventh-century.50 Although the wars took place years after the death of the

prophet,51 Mohammed is depicted leading the Muslim army in a number of battles that

culminate on folio 54v with the 717 siege of Constantinople.52

Having established this thread regarding Christianity’s conflicts with Islam, a brief

section of the Chronographia is devoted to historical moments in Byzantium. Beginning

with the iconoclastic Emperor Theophilos (829-842) and the triumph of Orthodoxy at

the Council of Jerusalem in 843, this short section ends with the Latin conquest of

Constantinople in 1204 and the reign of Michael Palaiologos beginning in 1261.

Therefore, in seven folia, the author covers half a millennium of Byzantine history. The

internal religious conflicts of Byzantium and conflicts with the Latin Empire do not

receive much attention in the Chronographia because these would detract from the

essential dichotomy presented in this narrative, between Islam and Christianity.

Klontzas introduces the second Islamic threat to Christianity with the rise of the

Ottoman Empire in the thirteenth-century. From folio 62r to 78v, Klontzas traces the

foundation of the Empire, from the reign of the first sultan Orchan (Ghazi, 1326-1359) to

Murad II (1421-1451), and the emergence of a new threat to the kingdom of Christianity

50 Fols. 51v-54r. For a general survey of these wars, see W. E. Kaegi, Byzantium

and the Early Islamic Conquests (Cambridge: University Press, 1992). The Byzantine Empire, in these invasions, lost Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Armenia.

51 Mohammed died in 632. Ibid., 67.

52 Ibid., 248. This was the first siege of Constantinople by an Arab Muslim force. It was the first use of Greek fire, an igneous petroleum substance used to destroy fleets of ships. The second Arab Muslim siege occurred in 717 and marked the zenith of the Empire. Klontzas does not distinguish which siege is presented on folio 54v.

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directed specifically at the seat of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople.53 In this

section, the artist also introduces an important pictorial theme that divides the

historical narrative by the lives of the Ottoman sultans. Each sultan is thus introduced

with an imperial portrait, such as the portrait of Orchan I on folio 64v (Fig. 7a), and ends

with a tomb portrait (Fig. 7b). This section on the rise of the Ottoman Empire between

Orchan I and Murad II contains no oracular or prophetic texts. It is simply history and as

such reiterates that our manuscript is as much historical as prophetic in its contents.

History, its beginning and its end, is as important to the overall message of Klontzas’

manuscript as the end of time and the Second Coming.

After the reign of Murad I, there is a significant break in the historical narrative.

Here, Klontzas introduces the Oracles of Leo the Wise, the second major apocalyptic

source after the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios in the Chronographia.54 On folio 79v,

the artist depicts the two pseudonymous authors of these texts within a vast library. The

text below states: “the most wise emperor of Constantinople, Leo” whose enigmatic

writings are “explained by the pious archbishop Methodios of Patara”.55 Since there are

53 For the historical background of this period, see S. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, 13-54.

54 For the text of the Oracles of Leo the Wise, see PG 107, 1129-1140. For the tradition of the oracles, see C. Mango, “Legend of Leo the Wise,” (1960); K. Kyriakou, Oi9 i9storhme/noi xrhsmoi\ tou~ Le/ontoj tou~ Sofou~. Xeiro/grafh para/dosh kai\ e0kdo/seij kata\ tou\j ie/ -iq/ ai0w~nej. (Athens, 1995);

55 Marc. Gr. VII, 22. Fol. 79v. “o9 sofw/tatoj le/wn basileu\j th~j kwnstantinoupo/lewj…meqodi/ou a0rxh e0pisko/pou pata/rwn…”

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no commentaries by Methodios on Leo’s oracles, we might assume Klontzas means

these oracles will be illuminated by the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios when

incorporated in the Chronographia. The Oracles of Leo the Wise are incorporated into

the reigns of the last six Ottoman sultans, between Mehmed II (1444-46, 1451-1481),

the son of Murad II, and Murad III (1574-1595). Folia 89r-148v are dedicated to the

historical period of the Ottoman expansion in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century,

and will be the central focus of the present study.

Mehmed II (called “the conqueror”) is introduced with sword in hand in an

imperial portrait on folio 89r.56 The fall of Constantinople is illustrated on folio 90r, in an

elaborate full-page scene with Christ depicted, hands outstretched in benediction,

above the chaos below. Coupling this with the words “this terrible revenge”,57 Klontzas

intended to show the attack of Constantinople as God delivering his people to the

enemy as retribution for their sins. The Fall of Constantinople marks an important

turning point in the historical narrative. The events of 1453 are presented by the

author/artist Klontzas as the beginning of the Ishmaelite domination prophesized in the

Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, which is quoted directly after the image on folio 90r.58

Therefore, the historical narrative from this point on has been predetermined in the

Chronographia to end with the coming of a Last Emperor and the expulsion of the

56 The reign of Mehmed II is narrated across Fols. 89r-97v

57 Fol. 90r: a2skeimoj h9 edi/khsij au6thj

58 PsM. 11:1-13:10. In the Chronographia, the text is narrated across folia 90v-91v.

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Ishmaelites. A survey of historical events continues after the Fall of Constantinople,

through the reigns of Bayezid I (1481-1512),59 Selim I (1512, 1517-1520),60 Suleyman I

(1520-1566),61 Selim II (1566-1574),62 and Murad III.63

In this section, the historical narrative of the Ottoman expansion is framed not

only by the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios but also by the Oracles of Leo the Wise.

Both of these texts, I will argue, come to fulfillment in the historical Battle of Lepanto,

presented on folia 140v-141r. In the larger historical survey of the Chronographia, all of

the events, from the birth of Mohammed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, are

presented as fulfillments of apocalyptic or oracular prophecies. The last of these

historical fulfillments is represented by the Battle of Lepanto, leading one to ask, “What

happens after Lepanto”?

2.2.3. Prophetic Future Events (folia 141v-204r)

Klontzas does not give a clear answer to this question. Instead, he offers a

number of possible end-time scenarios, many of which mirror events that have already

come to pass. All of these independent narratives, which include the Legend of the Last

59 Mar. Gr. VII, 22. Fols. 98r-112r

60 Ibid., Fols. 112r-119v.

61 Ibid., Fols. 120r-128v

62 Ibid., Fols. 129r-145r

63 Ibid., Fols. 145v-150r

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Emperor,64 the invasion of Gog and Magog65 and the reign of the Antichrist,66 usher in

the Second coming of Christ (fol. 196v) and the Last Judgment (ff. 199r-200v). This final

act gives the Chronographia a sense of closure, necessitated by the fact that time has a

finite beginning in the manuscript (fol. 1r) and must therefore have a finite end. Yet this

entire section of prophetic future events is characterized by a sense of chronological

uncertainty, beginning with the reign of Murad III.

As the manuscript was produced within the reign of Murad III, the sultan’s tomb

portrait is not included and the narrative transitions into the coming of a Last Emperor

soon after an aerial image of Candia on ff. 148v-149r.67 A sixteenth-century paraphrase

of the Legend of the Last Emperor is quoted in full and illustrated on ff. 153v-156v.68

64 Ibid., Fols. 152v-156r

65 Ibid., Fols., 176r-178r

66Ibid., Fols. 180v-198r

67 Fols. 151r-152r are dedicated to oracle IX. Within a large frame the artists

depicts a cross spanning the vertical axis of the frame with four figures behind it – a fox and three Christian soldiers/generals. This same conception of the oracle appears in the Barrocc. 170 (fol. 12v) and the Codex Bute (fol. 11v), discussed below in Chapter 4, Section 1. This oracle predicts the formation of a coup or “League” which comes together against a common enemy but after confusion only one king remains. This is justified in the next folio, 151v, where the image of an enthroned king is framed at the top of the page. This king is predicted to bring about the final expulsion of the enemies (who remain unidentified). PG 107: pp. 1129-1140

68 The anonymous paraphrasis, called by Alexander the Cento of the True Emperor is first narrated in full across ff. 152v – 154r, and then followed by illustrations on ff. 155r – 163v. It is reprinted in Migne, PG 107. 1141-50.The text is considered by Alexander to be an independent work that draws together many sources from Jewish, early Christian and Byzantine traditions on the expected coming of a Messianic ruler.

23

According to the legend, a sleeping king would be awoken from outside the gates of

Constantinople, gather a great army and expel the Ishmaelites from the kingdom of

Christianity. Klontzas depicts these wars led by the Last Emperor across ff. 157v-159v.69

However, within this last section, the Ishmaelites are expelled from the kingdom of

Christianity at least twice: once prior to the Legend of the Last Emperor, with the

imperial comeback of an anonymous Christian ruler (fol. 151v) and a second time with

the wars of the Last Emperor (ff. 157v-159v). This sense of repetition and chronological

uncertainty characterizes all of the events in this last section of the manuscript.

Klontzas uses a number of diverse sources to construct the sequence of events

following the abdication of the Last Emperor on folio 163v, including another division of

the Christian Empire on fol. 164r,70 the reign of a mythical Konon, 71 who is a precursor

See Alexander, “The Last Emperor and Messianic Origins,” JWCI 41 (1978): 1-15; Ibid., Byzantine Apocalyptic, 130-141.

69 The wars are purely Klontzas’ interpretation. Although Pseudo-Methodios and others mention the Last Emperor’s wars against the Ishmaelites, they never provide a description of them. Therefore, the images may be meant to signify events that have already occurred and are thus being configured by Klontzas in visual form. In Pseudo-Methodios, the True Emperor lays down his crown at Golgotha following the expulsion of the infidels, but this does not occur in the Chronographia.

70 On folio 164v-165r the kingdom of the Last Roman Emperor is divided among four Tetrarchs who go to war with one another, visualized symbolically on folio 164v and literally on 165r. The illustration on 164r, entitled meri/moj (division), depicts three figures positioned on a globe which is partially obscured to focus only upon Europe and the Mediterranean region. Four winds blow from the mouths of personified cherub figures and intersect at a point in the center which has been designated by two crossed lines. The source for this specific event is unknown, but the artist’s allusion to the Oracles of Leo the Wise, specifically referring to the oracle of Murad III (fol. 146r) suggests a cyclical pattern within the narration of end-time scenarios.

24

to the Antichrist, and finally the coming of a Silver-haired king (ff. 169v-171r), who

resembles the Last Emperor. After the death of this silver-haired king, Constantinople is

destroyed by an apocalyptic flood on folio 173r, from which only the altar of the Hagia

Sophia is saved and lifted up in a cloud by angels. Klontzas’ inconsistent sequence of

events continues on folio 175 recto and verso with the release of Gog and Magog from

their captivity in the Northern Mountains. An image shows a decrepit Alexander looking

down upon the events from a throne in the sky. The following pictorial narrative

visualizes the tortuous actions of these kings, which includes cannibalism that causes all

Christians to flee to caves in the mountains.72 On folio 176, the Lord sends one of his

archangels to destroy these kings and their followers in a single moment.73 In the

Apocalypse, it is the invasion of these tribes that leads the Last Emperor to lay down his

crown and cross at Golgotha, at which point “son of perdition will be appear.”74 The

Antichrist appears immediately after the destruction of Gog and Magog in the

Chronographia, thereby illustrating another chronological change by Klontzas in this last

section.

The reign of the Antichrist is introduced on folio 174v, with the prophecies of

Jeremiah and Moses concerning the origin of the Antichrist in the tribe of Dan. The

71 Marc. Gr. VII, 22: ff. 165v-169r

72PsM, 13:19

73 PsM, 13: 21

74 PsM, 14: 2

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author/artist returns to Pseudo-Methodios on 174v, wherein the letter of Paul to the

Thessalonians concerning the Antichrist is quoted and accompanied by the author

portrait of the Apostle.75 Klontzas continues quoting the Apocalypse in the first three

depictions of the Antichrist on folia 178v, 179r and 179v, wherein the text recounts the

three woes to the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, from which the

Antichrist will be born, raised and reign respectively. 76 Folia 180v-183r consist of the

textual narrative of the Antichrist in full in the Apocalypse, although it is attributed to

the theologian John Chrysostom and is thus most likely a later redaction of the text

edited most recently by Vasiliev.77

After this narrative, Klontzas quotes another source for the remainder of the

Chrongraphia, specifically an eschatological tract attributed pseudonymously to

Hippolytus of Rome entitled De consummatione mundi concerning the life, reign and fall

of the Antichrist.78 The Hippolytus tract segues into the Second Coming of Christ on folio

196v and ends on folio 203r. The last three folia of the Chronographia are dedicated to

75 II Thessalonians 2:1-8. It is quoted in the Chronographia as it appear in PsM.

76PsM, 14: 1. The three woes are mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew (11:21-24) and Luke (10: 13-15)

77 A. Vasiliev, Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina (Moscow: Universitas Caesarea, 1893), 33-38.

78 The Greek text referred to here was printed in PG 10: 913A-C; see also: A. Whealey, “De consummatione mundi of Pseudo-Hippolytus: Another Byzantine apocalypse from the early Islamic period,” Byzantion 69 (1996): 461-469

26

an acrostic poem from the Sybilline Oracles, spelling out “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saves

on the Cross”.79

79

J. Geffcken, Die Oracula Sibyllina. Leipzig: J.C. Henrichs, 1902: pp. 153-157

27

CHAPTER 3: THE LIFE AND WORK OF GEORGIOS KLONTZAS

According to a timeline compiled by Paliouras from notarial records in the

Archivo di Stato in Venice, Klontzas was born into a middle class Candian family, married

his first wife, Ergina, in 1562, and had three sons, Nicholas, Maneas, and Luke, all three

of whom would become painters as well.80 Paliouras noted a number of notarial

signatures attributed to Klontzas,81 the most significant of which was a 1566 appraisal

by the artist of a work by Domenikos Theotokopoulos (called El Greco).82 Although we

have no record of his first wife’s death or divorce, Klontzas remarried in 1587 and the

same year purchased a painting studio in the Piazza San Marco in Candia.83 The artist’s

death is recorded in 1608.84 His will, written in 1597, lists an illuminated manuscript

given to his son, Luke.85 Since the Chronographia is recorded in the possession of the

Archdeacon John Trulino of the Church of the Hodegetria in Candia, the family’s church,

80 Paliouras, 25-26.

81 Notarial documents I-XII, see Ibid., 28-58

82 Ibid., 39.

83 Ibid., 287.

84 Ibid., 287.

85 Ibid., 287.

28

where it remained until the Ottoman occupation of the island in 1669, it is possible that

the illuminated manuscript listed in the will is his universal chronicle, Marc. Gr. VII, 22.86

Although the present study is concerned with Klontzas as a miniaturist, he was

renowned in his own time for his work as an icon-painter on Crete in the later sixteenth-

century.87 His painted icons and triptychs, which have been extensively analyzed

analyzed by Paliouras and Manoulis Chatzidakis, can be found in Athens,88 Venice,89

Zakynthos,90 Corfu,91 and Mount Sinai,92 among other locations. His painted icons, like

86 Ibid., 62. For a complete provenance, see Ibid., 64-67.

87 For the Cretan school, see R. Cormack, Painting the Soul: Icons, Death Masks, and Shrouds (London: Reaktion Books, 1997), 202; See also, Paliouras, 2-24; N. Chatzidakis, “Icon Painting in Crete during the fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” in Greek Frescoes and Icons from Byzantium to El Greco, M Chatzidakis, ed. catalogue of exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 27th March – 21st June, 1987 (Athens: Greek Ministry of Athes; Byzantine Museum of Athens, 1987): 48-50.

88 There are a number in Athens, among which is a triptych in the Benaki museum. A. Sungoupoulou, Sxedi/asma, 175.

89There are three icons in the Hellenic Institute of Venice. M. Chatzidakis, Icons of Patmos (Athens: National Bank of Athens, 1985), 74-81.

90 Ntinou Konomou, To\ Mousei~o Zaku/nqou (Athens, 1967), 7, 23, fig. 43.

91 M.S. Axeimastou, Ei0kw\n th~j Deute/raj Parousi/aj e0k thj~ Su/mhj,” Delti/on th~j Xristianikh~j 0Arxaiologijh~j 0Etaipei/aj 4, no. 5 (1969), 217, figs. 90b-95b.

92 There are three icons at Mount Sinai. K. Amantou, Sinaitika\ mnhmei~a a0ne/kdota (Para/rthma tou~ periodikou~ “Ellhnika/”) (Athens, 1928), 52.

29

the miniatures in the Chronographia, show a knowledge of and interest in Italian

Renaissance, notably Mannerist, style and compositional techniques.93

Klontzas had also established himself as a miniaturist prior to the production of

the Chronographia. He was commissioned by the Creto-Italian humanist Francesco

Barozzi (1537-1604) to provide the illustrations for two companion manuscripts of the

Oracles of Leo the Wise.94 These commissions also linked Klontzas to a circle of

renowned humanists, as Barozzi, having studied mathematics at the University of

Padua, founded a Neoplatonic Academy in Reythmno, the Accademia dei Vivi, in 1561.95

A monograph on the earlier of these two manuscripts, the Codex Bute, dated to

around 1575 and now in a private collection in Paris, was recently published by Jeaninne

Vereecken and Lydie Hadermann-Misguich.96 The second manuscript, which provides an

exact date of 1577, is now held in the Barozzi collection of the Bodleian Library in Oxford

93 While other Cretan artists, like Michael Damaskinos and El Greco, travelled directly to Italy to learn from the Venetian masters Titian and Veronese, Klontzas, having remained in Candia, picked up Renaissance and mannerist trends from the engravings circulating at this time.

94 Francesco Barozzi, as a respected Neo-Platonist was part of a movement that sought to combine Platonic theory with other major philosophies of antiquity, including, one might purport, the oracular traditions of the pseudonymous Leo the Wise. For Barozzi, see Les Oracles de Leon le Sage illustres par Georges Klontzas: La version Barozzi dans le Codex Bute, J. Vereecken and L. Hadermann-Misguich, eds. (Venice: the Hellenic Institute of Venice and the Vikelaia Municiple Library of Herakleion, 2000), 61-65.

95 Ibid., 61.

96 Vereecken and Hadermann-Misguich, op. cited. In this publication, Vereecken and Hadermann-Misguich provide an interpretation of the individuals oracles and an extensive introduction concerning the political, religious and scientific life of Barozzi.

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under the label Bodleian Baroccianus 170. This version of the oracles was most recently

published by Antonio Rigo, along with a discussion of Klontzas’ use of the oracles in the

Chronographia.97 Both Barozzi manuscripts include the Greek Oracles and a Latin

translation. The oracular images executed by Klontzas in both manuscripts bear close

resemblance to the oracular images in the Chronographia. This similarity can be

recognized in the illustration of the second oracle in all three manuscripts, as all three

shows a large snake vertically extended with two ravens attacking it from both sides.

(Fig. 8a-c) However, one quickly recognizes certain differences in the Chronographia’s

fictive landscape and the use of elaborate frames in the Barocc. 170. These slight

modifications give each version of the oracles, all executed by the same artist, Klontzas,

their own unique character.

The Chronographia, however, expands the Oracles of Leo the Wise far beyond

the framework of Barozzi’s manuscripts. The use of the Oracles in the Chronographia is

unique, as it is situated, on the one hand, within the historical narrative of the Ottoman

sultans, and, on the other, within the narrative of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios.

In the present thesis, I will argue that these alternative conceptions of time are

deliberately juxtaposed in the pictorial narrative of the Ottoman expansion to bring

attention to the role of the artist in producing meaning from historical events.

In section 4.1, I will argue that the author, in the composite image on folio 140r,

makes an explicit reference to two symbolic systems, or structures of symbols, that

97 I. Hutter, Corpus der Byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften. Vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1977), 80-85. Rigo, Oracula Leonis, 17-48.

31

furnish the descriptive context of his pictorial narrative of the Ottoman expansion. The

first is the Oracles of Leo the Wise and the second is the Apocalypse of Pseudo-

Methodios. Having located these systems and discussed the degree to which they frame

the Battle of Lepanto, section 4.2 will discuss these systems as symbolic articulations, or

configurations, of time. The Oracles of Leo, on the one hand, represent cyclical time,

while the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, represents linear time. Both, however, are

grouped as allegorical conceptions of the past. Historical time, in contrast, does not

place symbolic forms onto time, as allegorical structures do. Instead, historical time

forms structures out of individual episodes. This third conception of time will be

examined in section 4.3, through an analysis of the pictorial narrative of the Ottoman

expansion. The configuration of time and construction of meaning from the past is

placed wholly within the command of the artist. Section 4.3 will thus outline Klontzas’

unique configuration of time, but distinguishing four different types. Finally, section 4

will take up the question, “What happens after Lepanto?” Certain elements of the

pictorial narrative point to a distinctive commentary by the artist regarding his role in

the memory of the past time, the expectation of the future time, and the experience of

the present.

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CHAPTER 4: THE PICTORIAL NARRATIVE OF THE OTTOMAN EXPANSION IN THE CHRONOGRAPHIA

4.1. Visualizing Lepanto as the fulfillment of history

4.1.1. The Battle of Lepanto

The composite image on folio 140r is the frontispiece to a two-page rendering of

the Battle of Lepanto and will act as a point of departure for my analysis of the

intertwining of history and prophecy in the Chronographia. Labeled “the greatest victory

of Christianity,”98 Klontzas underscores the centrality of this battle between Christianity

and Islam within the greater apocalyptic narrative of the manuscript.

The Battle of Lepanto, as mentioned in the introduction to the present study,

marked the end of the Ottoman threat in the Mediterranean and Western Europe.

Although the Turks were a constant threat to Western Europe after the capture of

Constantinople, Selim II’s conquest of Venetian-held Cyprus in 1571 caused the

Venetian Doge Alvise Mocenigo to take action by forming a unified Christian defensive

attack against the powerful Islamic Empire.99 The Republic, which had remained largely

98 Marc. Gr. VII, 22. Fol. 141r, “e9dw~ ei0nai me/galwtath bi/twriaj tw~n xristianw~n.”

99 P.B. Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1977): 260-263. The Turks landed on the shores of Cyprus in Winter of 1570 and promptly took the entire island save the capital, Famagusta. This too fell after the Venetian general Marc Antonio Bragadin, seeking surrender on hospitable terms, was flayed alive and his body, stuffed with straw, paraded through the city. On Venice, see F.

33

neutral in the ‘holy war’ against the Turks, had now lost a key defensive and trading post

in the Mediterranean, and Doge Mocenigo could foresee an imminent threat to the

island of Crete, now left vulnerable to attacks from the east. Mocenigo thus appealed to

Pope Pius V for aid. The Pope had been leading the call for a holy war against the Turks

and was quick to accept the Doge’s pleas.100 Having beseeched Philip II of Spain to aid in

the Crusade, the Holy League was thus formed and a large fleet was assembled. Don

Juan of Austria, the illegitimate brother of the former Emperor Charles V ( was made

head commander of the combined Christian armada, who confronted the Turks at

Lepanto on October 7th, 1571, with 208 galley ships on the Christian side and 230 on the

Turkish side. The Christian won a decisive victory, having lost only 10 ships in

comparison to the 200 ships lost on the Ottoman side.101 The defeat was a major, if

temporary, blow to the Ottoman Empire. It gave the Holy League temporary control of

the Mediterranean, protected Rome from invasion and, for the time being, prevented

the Ottomans from advancing into Western Europe.

In the composite image on folio 140r, one can readily discern the figures of the

Pope and the Doge, and, although illustrated with a bull-head, the sultan Selim II. The

Christian rulers, as mentioned above, flank the figure of an angel who hands a palm to

the Doge and the Staff of the True Cross to the Pope, thus signifying the Holy League

Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Meditterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. II (1995): 1078-80; K. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, Vol. 4 (1984), 932.

100 Braudel, 1029; On the crusading rhetoric of Pius V, see Setton, 993-994.

101 Braudel, 1102.

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victory. The Sultan, on the other hand, clasps the right hand of death, signified by the

skeleton dressed in military costume. His robes are furthermore being devoured by a

winged Lion, signifying the Lion of Saint Mark, the symbol of the Republic of Venice. This

iconography symbolizes the Ottoman defeat, which is further emphasized by the

skeletal figure wearing an olive wreath and carrying a scythe that stands behind the

sultan. The iconography of the central group in this composition thereby points to the

Holy League victory at Lepanto. History, however, only partially illuminates the meaning

of this frontispiece.

In the following iconographic explication of this frontispiece to the Battle of

Lepanto, I will distinguish the fictive layers of meaning, referred to here as

“prefigurations” of time that are presented in the composite image as coming to

fulfillment, or brought to actuality, in the Battle of Lepanto. Within the interests of the

present study, these imaginary referents, which exist outside of time as ways of

understanding the past, link together the artist’s present with his memory of the past

and expectation for the future. In other words, by remembering Lepanto as the

fulfillment of the symbolic oracular and apocalyptic prefigurations mentioned below,

Klontzas’ experience of present time, two decades after the event, will be characterized

by a sense of uncertainty and the anxious anticipation of the near future.

35

4.1.2. The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios

“And they (the Ishmaelites) will blaspheme and say: There is no deliverer for the Christians. Then suddenly there will be awakened perdition and calamity as those of a woman in travail, and a king of the Greeks will go forth against them in great wrath, and he will be aroused against them like a man who shakes off his wine, and who [plots] against them as if they were dead men. He will go forth against them …and the [allies] of the king of Greece will seize the places of the desert and will destroy with the sword the remnant that is left of them in the land of promise.”102

This passage from Chapter 9 of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios predicts the

coming of a messianic Last Emperor that will drive the descendants of Ishmael, who

have reigned for seven years of weeks, 103 out of the kingdom of Christianity. It comes

after a long detailed passage concerning the horrible persecution of the Christian people

by the Ishmaelites. The Last Emperor’s coming will furthermore signal a new era of

peace, until the release of Gog and Magog from their mountainous prison, at which

point the Emperor will lay down his crown and the True Cross at Golgotha, signaling the

Second Coming of Christ.104 In the composite image on folio 140r, certain iconographic

characteristics present the combined forces of the Holy League as the fulfillment of this

prophecy concerning the coming of the Last Emperor and his expulsion of the

Ishmaelites.

102 Ps.M, 12: 7. Translation in Alexander, 48.

103 seven years of weeks = 49 years. See Alexander, “Medieval Apocalypses as Historical Sources,” American Historical Review 72 (1968): 990.

104 PsM, 13:17-18.

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Methodios’ work, and the tradition of Byzantine apocalyptic literature that

followed, provided Klontzas with the basic plot of the Chronographia, a preordained

conflict between Christianity and its Arab-Muslim enemies that could be measured and

incorporated into a universal history of the world. A reconstruction of the historical-

social context from which the original text emerged will further illuminate how the

Apocalypse is incorporated in the Chronographia, as both were produced in reaction to,

and consolation for, the rapid rise and spread of Islam into the Christian world. Ernst

Sackur placed the historical origins of the Apocalypse in seventh-century, while Paul

Alexander locates its geographical origins in the Byzantine colonies of Syria that had

recently been occupied by the newly formed Islamic state.105 Alexander situated the

text in the seventh-century Arab occupations of Byzantine Syria by distinguishing where

the “historical” portions of the apocalypse (vaticania ex eventu, or historical events

couched in prophetic language) ended and the true prophetic narrative begins. 106 He

claims, “a safe terminus post quem is the Moslem invasion of the Near East that began

in AD 634, for it is clearly known to the author, and his prophecies concerning it are to a

large extent vaticania ex eventu”.107

105 E. Sackur, Sibyllische Texte, 70. Quoted in Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 16, no. 49.

106 Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, 24.

107 Ibid. Alexander goes on to give a range between 644 and 678. He claims Pseudo-Methodios must have witnessed the first navy of the Islamic state, built under the khalif of Uthman (644-656), from the passage “And in vessels of wood they flew over the waves of the sea and the went to the lands of the West and came as far as the great Rome.” (fol. 121v) The terminus post quem is 678 since the author makes no

37

The Ishmaelite invaders mentioned in the Apocalypse are thus, as Alexander has

suggested, identified with the Arab invaders of the seventh-century and Pseudo-

Methodios’ text is a contemporary record of the deep impression the Arab conquest of

Syria made upon its Christian inhabitants.108 The interpolation of the Apocalypse of

Pseudo-Methodios is, therefore, one way in which Klontzas weaves the Ottoman

expansion into an apocalyptic narrative. It provided the author with a theme of

Byzantine wars against an enemy of the Empire while grouping the historical enemies,

the Turks, Persians, Saracens and Arabs, together as the descendents of Ishmael, the

son of Hagar and Abraham, the “wild ass of the desert” who “will live in hostility toward

all of his brothers” as is prophesized in Gen. 16, 11-12, thereby accounting for their

hatred of Christianity. 109

reference to the failed Arab siege of Constantinople in this year, which would have been “grist to his mill”. Alexander, 24-25.

108Pseudo-Methodios was not the only one to make these comparisons. For other apocalyptic works, see W. Kaegi, “Initial Byzantine Reactions to the Arab Conquest,” Church History 38, vol. 2 (June 1969), 139-149. The first person to connect Ishmaelites with Islam in writing is John Damaskos, whose text, the 101st heresy, is quoted in the Chronographia in discussion of the life of Mohammed.

109 M. B. Ogle, “Petrus Comestor, Methodios and the Saracens, “ in Speculum 21 (July 1946), 320-322; The Syriac Pseudo-Methodios is concerned with the Arab Muslims, the author of the Third Greek redaction identifies the Saracens with the sons of Ishmael, and the Persians, under Cyrus, in the Syriac version are likewise enemies of the Empire. The identification of the Saracens with the sons of Ismael is found in the third Greek redaction of the Revelations, edited by Istrin (57): a0nasthsontai a0nasth\sontai a0n tau~thj kata\ th~j tw~n 9Rwmai~wn oi9 ui9oi 0Isma/hl oi9 lego/menoi Sarakh\noiThe editor, unfortunately, takes this to mean the text was composed in twelfth century during the Crusades when “the Saracens were on everyone’s mind.” (99).

38

The symbolic prefiguration of an Ishmaelite invasion and the Crusade of the Last

Emperor in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios are incorporated by Klontzas into the

narrative of the Ottoman expansion in the Chronographia. The first prophecy of

Methodios, concerning the punishment of the Greeks, is presented in the

Chronographia as having been fulfilled with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Klontzas

cites the passage concerning this event in Pseudo-Methodios following a full-page

illustration of the event 90r.110 This specific alignment with the Pseudo-Methodios

narrative in the Chronographia sets up a chain of events that will, either historically or

prophetically, end in the final expulsion of the Ishmaelites from the kingdom of

Christianity. This expulsion, I will suggest, occurs with the Holy League victory at

Lepanto. The fulfillment of this prophecy is supported by iconographic details in the

composite image on folio 140r.

Although originating in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, the Legend of the

Last Emperor became an important motif in the Byzantine apocalyptic literature.111 A

sixteenth-century paraphrasis, included in the prophetic section of the Chronographia,

expanded the allusion to this messianic figure in Pseudo-Methodios, specifically

including his mysterious revelation, instructions given to him by an angel sent from God,

110 Marc. Gr. VII, 22: Fol. 90v.

111 For a general overview of the Last Emperor Legend in Byzantine apocalyptic, see Alexander, Byzantine Apocalyptic, 151-183; see also, Ibid., “Byzantium and the Migration of Literary Works and Motifs: The Legend of the Last Emperor,” Medievalia et Humanistica, no. 2 (1971), 47-68.

39

and his physical characteristics.112 From here the narrative continues in keeping with the

Pseudo-Methodios prophecy: the emperor gathers a great army, defeats the

Ishmaelites, and introduces a new era of peace and prosperity to the kingdom of

Christianity. In the Chronographia, however, the artist’s quotation of the paraphrasis in

the last portion of the manuscript gives Klontzas the opportunity to visualize a number

of the Last Emperor’s attributes. Apart from his physical characteristics, the Last

Emperor is depicted with a standard of the True Cross, given to him in the first image on

folio 155r by an angel of God. (Fig. 9a) In the pictorial narrative from this point on, the

Last Emperor is shown bearing the standard of the True cross in religious procession on

folio 157r (Fig. 9b)and carrying it into battle against the Ishmaelites on ff. 157v-159r.

(Fig. 9c)This visualization of the Last Emperor in the prophetic future section of the

Chronographia establishes the connection between the Apocalypse of Pseudo-

Methodios and the Battle of Lepanto as the Pope is shown being handed a standard of

the True Cross in the composite image on folio 140r. The positioning of the Angel

between the Pope and the Doge implies the Holy League, verses one individual,

symbolizes the Last Emperor, being the archetypal figure of Christian unity.

112 PG 107, 1141-1150. Narrated in its entirety in the Chronographia on ff. 152v-154v.

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4.1.3. The Oracles of Leo the Wise

The anthropomorphic figure of Selim II in the composite image of folio 140r is

likewise the product of a pattern of prediction and fulfillment in the Chronographia. On

folio 140r, this connection is signaled through his fantastic depiction and the label at the

top of the page that reads: “Here is the fulfillment of the oracle of Leo the Wise, where

he speaks of Selim”.113

The Oracles of Leo the Wise contain a series of six poems accompanied with

symbolic images. Each oracle corresponds to a different ruler within a dynasty and is

accompanied by a titulus characterizing their time in power. According to the Lambicius

edition of the oracles in PG 107, the oracles and their tituli appear in the following

order: (1) a bear feeding cubs, with no title114 (2)meta/noiaj (repentance), a winged-

serpent attacked by two ravens 115 (3) e0pi/boulou (treachery), an eagle with a cross in

its beak116 (4) tomh\ (cut), a kingly figure holding a scythe and a rose/rose-bush117 (5)

113 See above, note 16.

114 PG 107, 1129

115 Ibid., 1129. In the Lambecius edition of the oracles, the first two oracles are conflated, as they are in the Chronographia, since the image of the bear feeding cubs had been lost to its source. This explains the lack of any tituli accompanying the first oracle.

116 Ibid., 1129-1132.

117 Ibid., 1132-1133

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e1parsij (ruin), a kingly figure riding a bull flanked on either side by decapitated

bodies118 (6) melismo\j (dismemberment/division), another bear feeding cubs.119

Although these oracles have existed, in either written or oral tradition, since the

twelfth century, they reached their greatest diffusion and received the common

iconography described above in the sixteenth-century, when they were associated with

the Ottoman sultans.120 The iconic images mentioned above are depicted by Klontzas at

the beginning of the reign of each sultan since the Fall of Constantinople: Mehmed II is

the first bear (Fig. 10a),121 Bayezid II is the serpent attacked by ravens (Fig. 8c),122 Selim I

is the eagle and the unicorn (Fig. 10b),123 Suleyman I is the figure with the scythe and

rose (Fig. 10c),124 Selim II is the figure on the bull with severed heads (Fig. 10d),125 and

Murad III, who was still reigning at the time of the manuscript’s production is the second

118 Ibid., 1133

119 Ibid., 1133

120 Mango lists a number of other versions of the Oracles with citations of their critical editions. Ibid., 79, nos. 109-130.

121 Fol. 89r.

122 Fol. 98v.

123 Fol. 112v.

124 Fol. 120r.

125 Fol. 129r.

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bear (Fig. 10e).126 These images frame the pictorial narrative of the Ottoman expansion,

by introducing and closing the reign of each sultan in an imperial and tomb portrait.127

Klontzas was not the first to associate the first six oracles of Leo the Wise with

the Ottoman sultans from Mehmed II to Murad III, although he was certainly the first to

incorporate the oracular text into an extensive historical chronicle. Other manuscripts

produced in the late sixteenth century included the Oracles of Leo the Wise as a singular

entity and made reference to historical figures through labels and historical allusions.

The former practice is exemplified in a Venetian manuscript, Marcianus Graecus VII,

3.128 The fourth oracle in this manuscript (Fig. 11) depicts a kingly figure holding a rose

and a scythe and is labeled Sulta\n Sulehma/nhj to associate the oracle and image with

the reign of the sultan Suleyman I. In contrast, the illustration of the fourth oracle in the

Codex Bute (Fig. 12a) and the Bodleian Barozzi 170 (Fig. 12b), both executed by

Klontzas, show an Ottoman sultan, verses the archetypal king, holding the same

attributes and standing atop a pile of dead soldiers. This image, reproduced by Klontzas

in the Chronographia on folio 120r, connects the Sultan Suleyman with the oracle

through costume and historical allusion, specifically by referencing the capture of

Rhodes by the sultan in 1522. The verbal similarities between Rose and Rhodes further

validate the oracle by recognizing its historical fulfillment.

126 Fol. 145v.

127 Murad III is the only sultan without a tomb portrait.

128 Lambros, Ne/oj 9Ellhnomnh/mwn 19 (1925), 110-113. Reproduced in Rigo, Oracula Leonis, 73-99.

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In Klontzas’ visual interpretation of the oracles, historic and oracular figures are

conflated in a similar manner to the figure of Selim II in the composite image on folio

140r. Having been familiar with the prototypes from the Barozzi commissions, Klontzas

orchestrates this juxtaposition of history and oracle in the images to validate the

position of the former at the end of an apocalyptic narrative. On folio 129r, the sultan is

shown riding atop a bull with two severed heads on either side. While the severed

heads are explained on the next page by the sultan’s execution of his brothers, the bull

figured is explained in the oracular text below the image: “the bull is the fifth and the

last of the bear feeders”.129 The Oracles of Leo the Wise thus predict that a bull-like king

will be the fifth and last ruler of the dynasty. This prophecy, which associates Selim II

chronologically with the fifth oracle, explains the sultan’s anthropomorphic appearance

in the composite image. Moreover, the oracle of Selim II, stating his reign will mark the

end of the dynasty, is fulfilled in the crushing defeat of the Ottoman navy by the Holy

League at the Battle of Lepanto.

4.1.4. The Xerolophus Column

Another aspect of the composite image, specifically the column along the left

border, borrows from the established iconography of the Oracles of Leo the Wise and

supports a reading of the Battle of Lepanto as fulfilling the destiny of a prefigured

temporal order. The column appears in the same fictive landscape, standing atop the

129 Marc. Gr. VII, 22. Fol. 129r. “H bou~j de\ pe/mpton kai\ te/loj a0rktotro/fou to\

sxh~ma fai/nei kai\ to\n to/pon kai\ to\n tro/pon”.

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open tomb of a dead king and in front of a walled city, within an illustrated series of the

Oracles of Leo the Wise in the Bodleian Library (Bodl. Barocc. 145).130 (Fig. 13) According

to Imgard Hutter, the manuscript took its final form under the commission of Francesco

Barozzi prior to the Barocc. 170 completed in 1577.131 She attributes a terminus ante

quem of 1573/1575 to this manuscript.132 The illustrator is unknown, but, I propose,

given the similar composition of the column image, that Klontzas had access to this

manuscript and thus used it as a source for his own illustrations in the Barocc. 170 and

the Chronographia.

The artist of Barocc. 145 renders the column in the same manner as it is

presented in the Chronographia, with five central figures surrounding a snake and seven

more figures split between the top and bottom portions of the column. A versified

oracle, accompanying the image in the Bodleian manuscript and translated from the

original Greek by Cyril Mango, explains the allusive iconography:

“There is a column in Constantinople, and it stands in a place called Xerolophus. It is a piece of carved white marble, most beautiful, and it has all the oracles that were made there by the son of Basil the Macedonian, Leo the most-wise, the great emperor. For he says that five kings descended from Hagar will, by the dispensation of God, our Master and Lord, rule this city – I mean Constantinople – and dominate it with great might. He has these kings carved on the column, and in their hands they hold bared swords; and in the midst of the five rulers stands an

130 On Baroccianus 145, see Hutter, pp. 74-79 and figs. 585-620. The image of the Xerolophus column is fig. 619, and appears on folio 257v of the manuscript.

131 I. Hutter, 74.

132 Ibid. 74.

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upright snake, most savage of aspect. And of the fifth he says that he will forthwith come to an end, and a Christian emperor will once more rule this city…”133

The fifth sultan following the capture of Constantinople in 1453 was Selim II (1566-

1574), and the mention of descendents from Hagar thus definitively points to a

sixteenth-century conception of the oracles as referring to the Ottoman Sultans. The

mention of the descendents of Hagar furthermore connects the Oracles of Leo the Wise

to the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, since the later established the conflict between

Christianity and the Ishmaelites.

The reference to the Ottoman sultans is emphasized further by a list of the

Ottoman sultans, from Orchan I to Murad III, which is written to the right of the column.

134 Furthermore, beneath the names of Suleyman and Selim II, the author/artist has

written epithets concerning the historical takeovers of Rhodes and Cyprus. In the Codex

Bute, which has been attributed a contemporaneous date of composition, and Barocc.

170, these two historical Ottoman victories are emphasized by Klontzas in the oracular

133 Barocc. 145, Fols. 257r-257v. Mango translates this oracle from a fragment in Berlin (Staatliche Bibl. 297): Ibid. 79, no. 109. N.A. Bees, Peri\ tou~ i9storhme/nou xrhsmologi/ou th~j Kratikh~j Biblioqh/khj tou~ Beroli/nou (Codex Graecus fol. 62=297) kai\ tou~ qru/lou tou~ “marmarwme/nou basili~a”, in Byzantinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbucher 13 (1936/37), 242-244a. The image in the Berlin manuscript is very similar to the Barocc. 145 image, thereby pointing to an established iconographic tradition. However, the Berlin manuscript, although alluding to the Turkish sultans in the oracle, depicts western kings on its shaft, rather than sultans.

134 This list, however, must have been a later edition, since the text was composed prior to the reign of Murad III. However, it is interesting that the author/artist of this image refers to the capture of Cyprus as the defining event in the reign of Selim II instead of the Battle of Lepanto, since the latter validates the prophecy of Leo the Wise.

46

images. In addition to the historical allusion in the oracular image of Suleyman

mentioned above, the traditional iconography of the fifth oracle is depicted atop a

cartographic landscape outlining the island of Cyprus. (Fig. 14a,b) It should be noted

that only these two oracular images in the two Barozzi commissions illustrated by

Klontzas make reference to an historical event, thus strengthening the comparison

between these manuscripts and the Barocc. 145.

The tradition of a column that stands on the Xerolophus has a long tradition in

Byzantine apocalyptic and historical literature.135 The Xerolophus (“dry hill”) was located

in southwest Constantinople and was called the seventh hill of the city. In the Byzantine

apocalyptic tradition, the Xerolophus hill is said be the only dry spot to remain following

135 See, for example, a short history of the Xerolophus column, written by Manuel Malaxos, is included in Barocc. 145 following the Oracles of Leo the Wise. In it, Malaxos outline an ancient tradition claiming these oracles, or some version of them, were deciphered by the Emperor Leo VI, the wise, from cryptic inscriptions written on the column since the reign of Septimius Severus.135 According to Malaxos, the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus when attempting to capture the city of Byzantium set up a camp atop the Xerolophus hill. Frustrated by the resilience of the Byzantine people who were staunchly defending their city, Severus consulted an astrologer and philosopher by the name of John to predict the outcome of the war. The astrologer, having consulted the horoscope of the night sky, predicted the city would be the capital of the Roman Empire for a number of years. The stars, the author claims, gave the names of the Emperors who would reign from the city up to the coming of the Antichrist. Severus, in commemoration of this fortunate prediction, erected a column upon the Xerolophus hill and sculpted the names of the emperors up to the end of time upon its shaft. However, when the city became the capital of the Roman Empire, under Constantine I, after much inquiry, Malaxos states, the names or images inscribed upon the column could not be interpreted. (lns. 139-55) A number of other attempts to interpret the figures on the column are listed, but none were successful until the reign of Leo VI. Thus one reaches the origin, according to the author, of the Oracles of Leo the Wise, which, he claims, are the wise Emperor’s interpretation of the symbols carved into the Xerolophos column. G. Dagron and J. Paramellem “Un texte patriographique: “Le recit merveilleux, tres beau et profitable sur la colonne du Xerlophus’ (Vindob. Suppl. gr. 172, fol. 43v-63v),” Travaux et Memoires 7 (1979): 491-523.

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a great flood at the end of time, thus drawing upon its etymological origin (chro/j=dry).

The author of the Visions of Daniel mentions the Xerolophus as the only beacon

remaining after an apocalyptic flood, signaling the location of the great city now covered

with water.136 Klontzas alludes to the Xerolophus column as it is described in the Visions

of Daniel on folio 173r in the Chronographia, when he depicts the aftermath of a great

flood with only one column remaining in the sea. The figure below the column in the

Barocc. 145 and the Chronographia points to another tradition, regarding a legendary

column built by Constantine in 330 in commemoration of the new capital, which

likewise held a piece of the true cross believed to have been discovered by his mother,

Helena.137 The body of the Emperor is said to have been buried beneath this column,

thereby explaining the iconography of the entombed king in the composite image. The

figure of the Last Emperor, in Byzantine apocalyptic tradition, is closely linked to the

Constantine through the attribute of the True Cross. The illustrations of the prophetic

figure in the Chronographia, who carries a standard of the True Cross into battle, are

certainly meant to be compared with the image of Constantine at the Battle of the

Milvian bridge on folio 84v (Fig. 15).138

136 Vasilakis, 44: “…kai\ eu0qu\j seisqh/setai h9 e9pta/lofoj kai\

katapontisqh/setai su/myuxoj e0n buqw~| kai\ mo/noj o9 chro/lafoj e2stai faino/menoj,…”. Istrin, 138, ln. 9, 141, ln. 34.

137 Ryden, Andreas Salos, 211, ln. 288, quoted in Rigo, no. 24.

138 The author of the Sybilline Oracles refers to the Last Emperor as Constans. Alexander, 166.

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I have left the Xerolophus column to the end of this iconographic explication

because it creates a bridge, both visually and traditionally, between the Apocalypse of

Pseudo Methodios and the Oracles of Leo the Wise. On the visual level, Klontzas,

although drawing upon previous depictions of the column in illustrated version of the

Oracles, places historical figures and their oracular and apocalyptic symbols within the

once open fictive landscape. In doing so, Klontzas is able to emphasize the mutual

fulfillment of all three. On an interpretive level, the oracle accompanying the

Xerolophus image specifically refers to the sons of Hagar. Additionally, previous

depictions likewise presented a tomb of the “Last Emperor” at the bottom of the

column. Therefore, this aspect of the composite image’s iconography specifically points

to the artist’s intention to conflate both traditions within a single event and upon a

single abstracted landscape.

4.2. Cyclical, Linear and Historical Time

The Oracles of Leo the Wise and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios signify

different symbolic systems of understanding events as they occur in time.139 The also

signify two different conceptions of time in the Chronographia: cyclical and linear. In the

present thesis, both will be understood as eschatological, in that the former points to

time in eternity while the latter necessitates a definitive end of time. Linear

139 E. Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965). Cassirer distinguished six basic symbolic systems of time; myth, language, science, religion, art and history.

49

eschatological time is shaped by the Judeo/Christian belief in a finite beginning and end

of time. As mentioned above, Pseudo-Methodios’ Apocalypse situates the beginning of

time in 5500, in the first millennium, and is constantly spinning toward the end, the

apocalypse and the Second Coming. By incorporating the Ottoman expansion into this

apocalyptic narrative, Klontzas presents a layer of linear eschatological time in this

section of the Chronographia. Cyclical eschatological time, on the other hand, views

time in terms of nature, the cosmos, and the stages of human life. This latter conception

of time has many forms, among which is the natural cycle of growth, maturity and

decay, and the cosmic cycle typified by the months and seasons. The Oracles of Leo the

Wise conceptualize time as a cyclical pattern, as they predict the growth, maturity and

decay of a dynasty. Following the fifth oracle, which predicted the end of the dynasty,

the sixth Leonine oracle, associate in the Chronographia with Murad III, predicts a time

of transition and confusion after which a new order of time, an eternal peace, will

commence.140 Time, in the Oracles of Leo the Wise, does not proceed toward a finite

end, but rather toward new beginnings.

A third level of time, namely historical time, is represented in the composite

image on folio 140r in the figures of Selim II, Alvise Mocenigo and Pope Pius V. On a

basic level, the historical narrative of the Chronographia offers a view of the real-life

events that these apocalyptic and oracular texts supposedly predict. As such, the

pictorial narrative of the historical Ottoman expansion has been largely overlooked, as

140 PG 107, 1133: “natural time is aborted for it is predestined (to occur) at the end of time.”

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previous interpreters of the manuscript have been unable to separate it from the

oracles framing the lives of the sultans or the apocalyptic narrative of Pseudo-

Methodios. In her dissertation, Angela Volan distinguishes this third conception of time

as existing apart from the eschatological or oracular portions of the text. However, she

argues that it is derived from the contemporary genre of Italian humanist

historiography, thereby giving no thought to the carefully constructed pictorial

narrative.141

It is thus not surprising that previous studies of the Chronographia have

dismissed the two-page aerial projection of Crete on folia 149v-150r. (Fig. 16a)They

have thus failed to recognize the distinct message presented in the triad of symbolic

figures: the horoscope, the anagram, and the apocalyptic messengers of God. This

image of the capital of Crete, Candia, will be the focus of the following discussion of

time in the visual narrative of the Ottoman expansion. In the middle of the image

situated above the cityscape the artist has included a circular anagram with the letters

GRNMKPLO and beneath these the letters DOUK.(Fig. 16b) Paliouras offers a

convincing interpretation of this anagram as referring to the Duke of Crete, Geronimo

Kapello (1590-92).142 As the last historical allusion in the Chronographia, we can

141 Volan takes the position, furthermore, that the author is unknown, that Klontzas was merely the scribe and illustrator. This allows her to imagine the manuscript be created by whomever she wants, such as Francesco Barozzi. see Volan, 255-258.

142 Palioras, 140.

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confidently interpret this image as a representation of present time – the artist’s own

time and his own Candia.

Two set of images framing the anagram point to linear and cyclical eschatological

conceptions of time in the manuscript. In the upper left corner, the artist depicts a

series of astrological figures, (Fig. 16c) of which only Scorpio and Gemini can be readily

distinguished. These symbols do not reproduce the horoscope in its proper order and

thus can be said to serve only as representation of the cyclical nature of time tied to the

movement of the constellations. A third order of time, namely the eschatological

conception, is represented in the upper right corner with an angel bearing a sword and

scales of judgment and a dark wingless figure holding a scythe. (Fig. 16d) The

apocalyptic nature of these two enigmatic figures has led Paliouras to suggest this

image, with the masses of dead bodies depicted below, depicts a plague. However, the

ambiguous nature of the cityscape below appears to have detracted from an important

message presented quite clearly by the artist. Three orders of time, distinguished by

general representative forms, are depicted on the same level in this image.

In Chapter 4 Section 1, two orders of prefigured time have been distinguished in

the frontispiece to the battle of Lepanto, namely oracular/cyclical and

apocalyptic/linear. By means of Klontzas’ interpretation, as both author and artist, these

prefigurations come to fulfillment in this historical event. In Time and Narrative, Paul

Ricouer explains such a moment of synchronicity as “the destiny of a prefigured time

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that becomes a refigured time through the mediation of a configured time.”143 In the

Chronographia, Klontzas’ interpretation (configured time) of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-

Methodios and the Oracles of Leo the Wise (prefigured time) comes to fulfillment in the

Battle of Lepanto (refigured time). This three-part process is made all the more explicit

when the third order of time, namely historical, presented in the panoramic view of

Crete on ff. 149v-150r, is taken into account.

4.3. Configurations of Time in the Pictorial Narrative

Paul Ricouer assigns history, like oracular and prophecy, to symbolic discourse as

a prefiguration of time.144 Accordingly, the pictorial narrative of the Ottoman expansion

will by analyzed as a configuration of prefigured time, just as the Oracles of Leo the Wise

and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios are incorporated into this section of the

Chronographia. However, oracles and apocalyptic are both allegorical conceptions of

time, while history, being composed of real events, is in a classification of its own.

Klontzas’ depiction of history, although framed (sometimes literally) by cyclical/oracular

and linear/apocalyptic time, is not guided by either of them. In the following analysis of

the pictorial narrative of the Ottoman expansion, time, bound by neither linear nor

cyclical patterns, will be revealed as the malleable tool of the artist utilized in various

ways to present his own conception of history.

143 P. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 54.

144 Ibid., 57-59.

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The following analysis of the pictorial narrative will begin by recognizing the

basic unifying features of the visual field, specifically noting the artist’s employment of

an abstracted cartographic landscape and the block-formation of the army.145 This

abstraction of the visual field mirrors the process of translating historical fact or event

into narrative form.146 The cartographic landscape, on the one hand, reflects the use of

symbolic structures (myths, allegories, oracles) through, or upon, which action is

narrated. On the other hand, the abstracted geometric figuration of the army allows

Klontzas to depict this body of men as an extenuation of the sultan, whom they follow.

Accordingly, the artist is able to articulate the actions of the sultan through the direction

of the abstracted army. These compositional devices, moreover, highlight the extent to

which Klontzas’ historical narrative is a carefully constructed visual interpretation of

events. Although the contents of the pictorial narrative are real events, the form in

which these historical events present themselves is constructed by the artist.

4.3.1. Unifying Compositional Strategies

The abstracted landscape which time is grafted upon by the artist emulates a

cartographic model, labeled as such because of its resemblance to the minimalistic

145 On the map as a temporal, ideological and spatial construct at this time, see B. Wilson, 157-161.

146 H. White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), 47. “The only logic presiding over the transition from fact/event to narrative,” White states,“is that of figuration, or tropology.”

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coastlines depicted in early atlases. Topographic particulars, both physical and

geopolitical, are abstracted so as to provide a uniform landscape upon which the artist

can construct his visual narrative free of spatial constraints. The recognition of this

unifying spatial feature will thus be crucial for an understanding of the way time is

presented, or “mapped out”, by Klontzas in the pictorial narrative.

The successful legibility of the composite image on folio 140r is due in large part

to the singular landscape employed by the artist that acts as a unified surface against

which characters and events, although separated spatially and temporally, may be read

as a whole. The artist uses a similar technique in the pictorial narrative of the Ottoman

expansion. On folio 102v, (Fig. 17) for example, Klontzas depicts Bayezid II’s campaigns

in Albania along the Dalmation coast, showing the sultan and his armies twice, once in

the upper portion of the abstracted cartographic coastline approaching the city of

Durazzo and again in the lower portion approaching the city of Aulon.147 Another similar

composition, also occurring in the reign of Bayezid II, is depicted on folio 106v (Fig. 18),

in the sultan’s capture of two strategic Venetian ports on the Adriatic, Modon and

Coron. 148 In both instances, space and time are collapsed through the minimalistic

topography as only the shoreline of the region is delineated. The artist, Klontzas, thus

147 Bayezid’s Albanian campaign to Durazzo (August 14, 1501). Shaw, 75.

148 Shaw, 63. The “eyes of the Republic”, as they were called, Modon and Coron were captured by Bayezid in 1500, thus forcing the Venetians to seek peace with the Ottoman sultan.

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employs the abstracted cartographic landscape to emphasize the overarching program

of the Ottoman sultans and to unify the conception of individual historical events.

The cartographic model thus abstracts real time and real space so that narrative

time, controlled by Klontzas, might follow movement from place to place and event to

event.149 The cartographic landscape remains a tool of the artist through which he is

able to conceptualize the history of the Ottoman expansion in visual form.

The abstracted figuration of the Ottoman army in these scenes serves a similar

mechanical function in the unification of the pictorial narrative as the cartographic

model, as both features serve to compress time and space and reinforce the principle

action within the visual field. In the cartographic examples mentioned above, specifically

on folio 92v and 102v, the presence of the abstracted block formation of the Ottoman

army is emphasized by the birds-eye view perspective. As seen from above, the strategic

positioning of this body of men is primarily visualized as the strong arm of the sultan,

either reinforcing his advances from behind or foreshadowing the direction of his

offences in front.

In these images, the procession of the Ottoman army outlines the artist’s

intended line of vision with the sultan or the city situated at its axis. The geometric

directional purpose of this abstracted group is emphasized on folio 127v, (Fig. 19) as the

army, surrounding the sultan, Suleyman, creates a clear arrow-head in the direction of

advancement, or on folio 106v where the distant image of the army in the upper

149 See Wilson’s discussion of cartographic allegories in Venice. The World in Venice, 153.

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portions of the visual field tapers off in the direction of a port city on the island of

Moron. These abstract vectors created by the geometric block formation of the army

thus lead direction of the action across the abstracted landscape.

4.3.2. Configurations of Time

Armed with the basic structures of the visual field, we might turn to how time is

figured in the pictorial narrative. Paul Ricouer distinguishes two parts to the historical

narrative: the episodic dimension and the configurational dimension.150 The latter of

these two elements incorporates plot structures so that significant wholes may be

construed out of scattered, episodic, events. Klontzas’ depiction of historical time in the

pictorial narrative can be divided into four configurations: a series of images that give

the illusion of linear progression; highly abstracted landscapes depicting multiple

episodes in a totality; bird’s eye view battle scenes; and two-page panoramic images.

Although only a few representative examples of each will be analyzed, all four ways of

depicting time are utilized multiple times by the artist in variation.

The first configuration of time in the pictorial narrative mirrors a familiar

conception of time as progressing linearly through space. An example of a pictorial

sequence in the Ottoman expansion where time is conceived in this linear fashion

occurs when the author wishes to emphasize the Ottoman navy’s campaigns in the

Mediterranean. Klontzas shows the Ottoman navy leaving Berna on folia 95r (Fig. 20a)

150 Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 67.

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and sailing across the page to their destination at Otranto on 95v, (Fig. 20b) emphasizing

their forward progression by the homologous direction of the sails.151 The armada again

transgresses frame and page across folia 138r – 139r (Fig. 21 a-c) as they island hop

between Souda, Tzanes, and Corfu, leaving a path of destruction in their wake.152

A similar configuration occurs between ff. 121v and 123r. In these miniatures,

Klontzas narrates the military expedition of Ferhad Pasha, the Grand Vizier of Suleyman

I (1520-1566), sent by the sultan to quell an Anti-Ottoman revolt in Beirut led by the

governor Jambardi (also called “Cambardi”) al-Ghazali. 153 The situation is outlined in the

lower paragraph of folio 121r, beneath which is an imperial portrait of Suleyman holding

a sword and a shield. The actions, however, are visualized across the next three folia, as

Suleyman gives orders to Ferhad in the upper framed image on 121v and we see Ferhad

leaving on horseback below. (Fig. 22a) Ferhad continues on his journey on folio 122r,

(Fig. 22b) here without an army, travelling over an abstracted cartographic landscape

that the author has left free of explanatory labels (i.e cities, countries, regions).154 The

only identifying label is an abbreviation of fara\t, written above the vizier. On folio

151 The Historical episode illustrated here occurred in 1480. Paliouras, 119. On the Ottoman invasion of Otranto, see Shaw, 69-70.

152 On these Mediterranean raids prior to Lepanto, see Ibid., 178.

153 D. E. Pitcher, An Historical geography of the Ottoman empire: from the earliest of times to the end of the sixteenth century. (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 110.

154 According to Pitcher (110), Grand Vizier Ferhad Pasha traveled to Belgrade via Filibe and Nis. The text explaining the image on folio 122r is completely obstructed.

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122v (Fig. 22c) Ferhad continues his journey, now accompanied by an army of soldiers

arranged to allow strategic mobility and protect the general/vizier out front. A large

Islamic flag waves above the soldiers’ heads. No explanatory text is offered above or

within the framed image. The Ottoman army arrives in Beirut and a battle is depicted on

folio 123r (Fig. 22d) wherein this linear figuration of time is by a battle scene. By

abstracting the landscape in these images, Klontzas is able to collapses the distance,

spatial and temporal, between Ferhad’s departure from Constantinople and his final

destination in Beirut.

A second configuration of time occurs in images when the artist wishes to

present a number of events, separated by time and geographical location, within the

context of a larger military campaign or a specific narrative of events. In both of these

instances, Klontzas uses the cartographic landscape, mentioned above, and aerial

perspective. Through the employment of these compositional devices, the artist is

afforded the opportunity to see the coherence of the whole while, at the same time,

selecting the parts that constitute it. On folio 92v (Fig. 23), for example, the artist shows

Mehmed II and his army strategically capturing the Morea (Peloponnese) and its

surrounding islands.155 Klontzas’ use of aerial perspective and an abstracted

cartographic landscape allows him to present Mehmed’s campaigns in the

155 Shaw, 63 and 69. Conquest of the Morea (July, 1460, recaptured Spring, 1464), of Lemon (1456, recaptured by the Venetians in 1469), Negroponte (1470), Mytilini (July 3, 1462). The campaign illustrated by Klontzas is thus probably the Ottoman-Venetian war that began in September of 1463 and ended with a peace treaty signed in Constantinople on June 25, 1479.

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Mediterranean as a whole, rather than a series of individual takeovers. These four

conquests of Mehmed II represent the Ottoman-Venetian War that began in September

of 1463 and ended with a peace treaty in Constantinople on June 25, 1479. The

historical meaning of these events is thereby created by the artist, as he organizes them

within a single visual field. However, the totalizing effect of these compositional devices

also permits Klontzas to select the specific conquests he wishes to call attention to.

Therefore, the artist is able to emphasize the rapid geopolitical expansion of the

Ottoman Empire following Constantinople, a theme that will develop throughout the

pictorial narrative.

Another example of multiple episodes depicted within a single frame, occurs on

folio 101v (Fig. 24), where the artist shows the flight of Bayezid II’s brother Cem from

Asia to Rome.156 This image differs from those images where Klontzas’ wishes to

emphasize an entire military campaign, mainly because of the inclusion of a plot

structure. By showing multiple events upon an abstract landscape in aerial perspective,

Klontzas presents Cem’s flight as a story, with a beginning, middle and end. The

episodes on folio 101v are meant to be read in a backwards S pattern from left to

right.157 The textual commentary in the image is more detailed than simple geographical

156 For a historical account of these events and the situation between Bayezid and his brother Cem, see Shaw, 71-72.

157 Once this configuration is realized, then the events proceed thusly from top to bottom: Cem escapes Asia on a ship and sails to Rhodes where a label claims “the island of Rhodes where Cem came” (“to\n h9si/on th~j r9o/dou o4pou h0lqen o9 geme”); Cem sails to Rome, “the ship that carried Cem to Rome” (“to\ karabi o4pou feren to\n gene

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labels, as it traces the route of Cem from his escape in Asia. Both text and image show

Cem leaving Asia by ship to the island of Rhodes. Proceeding to the left, a ship leaves

Rhodes for Rome where he is shown bowing to the pope, Innocent III.158 To the right of

this is a funerary portrait of Cem, likewise identified by a label.159 The abstracted

landscape and perspective fills in the temporal and spatial gaps between the beginning,

middle and end of Klontzas’ narrative.

The third configuration is the most frequently employed by the artist in the

pictorial narrative and is reserved for full page renderings of single battles. These images

are presented in a bird’s eye view perspective, where, due to a high horizon line, the

artist is able to devote the entire graphic field to the representation of multiple

moments in battle. Although, technically, these images depict one historical event, the

artist delineates separate episodes within the course of the battle or occurring in

ei0j to\n r0wman”); Cem arrives in Rome which is signified by the depiction of his presentation to the Pope. Then the narrative proceeds to the right, with the “Death of Cem” (“o9 qa/natoj tou~ geme”). For a historical account of these events and the situation between Bayezid and his brother Cem, see Creasy, 120.

158 This image references the historical account of Cem’s arrival in Rome, where he refused to kneel before the pope

159 What is neither shown nor narrated in the paragraph below are the circumstances of Cem’s death. Alexander Borgia succeeded Pope Innocent I and tried to make a deal with Bayezid I, who had previously paid Pope Innocent III to keep Cem in Italy, that, if the sultan would pay a larger amount, the Borgia Pope would simply execute the prince. Traditions differ, but most agree that Bayezid gave no answer, and, when transferring the prince from Rome to France, the brother of the sultan died mysteriously in Naples. Bayezid pronounced three days of mourning after the death of his brother, but traditions question if he actually had Cem poisoned and the mourning was just for show. Creasy, 120.

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consequence by situating them vertically within a hierarchical temporal arrangement.

The height of battle is always depicted in the center of the image, while a cityscape is

depicted above and the aftermath below. On folio 93r (Fig. 25) two episodes can be

distinguished within the frame, a battle taking place above where canons blast out a

defensive wall that has apparently been breached by the opposing army, and the public

beheading of a leader below, with the sultan enthroned to his right ordering his

assassination. Labels identify the figures in the bottom scene as Mehmed II and the

leader of the Serbians, and the text above identifies the city in the background as

Bosnia. From the text above and the labels, we can interpret this scene as depicting the

Ottoman invasion of Bosnia in 1462-66 and its aftermath, specifically the assassination

of the last Bosnian king, Stephan, which occurred in Constantinople three years later.160

Although occurring at different times and in different locations, these two episodes are

brought together by the artist within a single frame and positioned in a vertical

hierarchical arrangement so that the liminal periods within the narrative, or those years

occurring between the battle and the execution, are eliminated.

A similar composition occurs on folio 103r, (Fig. 26) which depicts the Ottoman

victory over the Mamluk sultan of Egypt. Like the image on folio 93r, the battle occurs in

the middle and its aftermath, which occurred some years later, is depicted along the

160

On the invasion of Bosnia and the assassination of the last king of Bosnia, see, Kinross, 132-33. King Stephan agreed to capitulate if the sultan’s Grand Vizier, Mahmud Pasha, would agree to spare his life. Mahmud agreed to this, but when Mehmed II learned of his leniency he was furious. The sultan thus ordered Stephan’s execution, three years later, in Constantinople. Kinross mentions that some say the sultan beheaded the king himself.

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bottom.161 In the reign of Selim I the Ottomans were once again forced to quell an

uprising against the Mamluks, and Klontzas utilizes the same vertical compositional

structure as he had in the previous battles.162 At the bottom of folio 118r, (Fig. 27) the

sultan Selim orders the Mamluk leader, Tamun Bey, to be executed by hanging, while

two other episodes from this historical conflict are depicted above, with the battle at

Cairo occurring in the middle of the image and the escape of Tamun Bey over a river in

the upper right corner. It should be noted that these two events occurred

simultaneously, but the artist makes full use of the space allotted by the framed image

by depicting the escape above and labeling it “when Tamun Bey traversed the river”.163

The final presentation of time, the two-page aerial view, is actually distinguished

for the lack of temporal action delineated in these images by the artist. Here, Klontzas’

extreme distance from the ground turns the subject into abstracted topographic

symbols upon a cartographic projection of space. All of these images, of which there are

only five, are situated around the Battle of Lepanto. Beginning with the capture of

Cyprus, they all depict events that either led to or were a result of the Holy League

victory at Lepanto.

161 In the image on folio 103r, when compared to the image on folio 93r, instead of ordering the execution of the leader of the opposing army, Bayezid II is shown to be much more diplomatic than his father, as he is shown pardoning the Egyptian sultan below, thus making Egypt a vassal state to the Ottoman Empire.

162 On the Mamluk uprising, led by Tamun Bey, in 1517, see Shaw, 170.

163 Marc. Gr. VII, 22. Fol. 118r. o3tan e0pe/rasen o9 to/monmpeij.

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The first of these images is occurs in the artist’s conception of the capture of

Famagusta, the capital of Cyprus, on folia 131v-132r. (Fig. 28) Klontzas labels the Turkish

armada leaving port from Constantinople in the upper right corner, their arrival at the

port of Cyprus in the upper right of the island and the upper left at Famagusta, and their

decent into the interior of the island from both ports. Another two-page aerial scene is

depicted on the next folia, across 132v-133r. The scene shows the Cypriot refugees

arriving by ship to Crete, specifically the port of Heraklion, as the general Bragundino

had arranged following a siege of three months with the Ottoman general Mustafa.164 In

the upper right the artist depicts the island of Rhodes, from which the Turkish fleet was

dispatched to Cyprus to retrieve the refugees of Nicosia. Here, Klontzas highlights the

extent to which Crete was involved in the Ottoman expansion within the

Mediterranean, although remaining a Venetian colony. The island became a safe haven

and a gathering place for displaced Greeks as it had been after the fall of

Constantinople. The text below labels the scene: to\ ka/stron th~j Krh/thj. The Battle

of Lepanto (1571) is depicted in a two-page aerial image on folia 140v-141r, followed by

a similar aerial image of the capture of Modon on folia 141v-142r. The last of these two-

page aerial views is reserved for the image of Crete, discussed above, on folia 149v-

150r.

There are at least two possible reasons for the artist’s detachment from

narrating the historical progression of events. The first comes from the fact that these

164 Kinross, 266.

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are events that took place in Klontzas’ own time and they had an immediate impact on

his own island, Crete. These are thus visual descriptions of events that have been well

documented by witnesses as well as historians. This left very little room for temporal

manipulation. The second reason refers back to the image of Crete on folia 149v-150r,

where all three structural systems of time (Cyclical, historical and eschatological) are

shown together in the sky above Candia. The harmony of these symbolic figurations of

time mirrors their mutual fulfillment at the Battle of Lepanto. The distance of Klontzas

from the landscape might further reflect the location of historical time as it is visualized

by the artist in the image of Crete. Therefore, this perspectival shift, when combined

with the conflation of time and space in the composite image on folio 140r, suggests

that historical, oracular and eschatological time all come to fulfillment in the

Chronographia in the Holy League victory at Lepanto. The historical events depicted

after the battle, including the capture of Modon and the panoramic image of Crete, are

likewise projected through 2-page aerial views, suggesting the continuation of this

harmony of temporal configurations up to the final historical allusion in the manuscript.

4.4. After Lepanto

Having recognized the different conceptions of time utilized by the artist in the

Chronographia, the final section of this study will return to the panoramic image of

Crete on folia 149v-150r to pose the question “What happens after Lepanto?” The three

conceptions of time presented in the upper portion of the image can now be seen as an

extension of the conflation of all three in the composite image on folio 140r. However,

65

this does not account for the massive amounts of dead bodies in Candia being moved

outside the walls of the city. Rigo, Volan and Paliouras have all suggested that this image

represents a plague. However, the present study will offer a different interpretation of

this image, drawing upon a statement made by the artist on folio preceding it. It is not

what is depicted in this image that gives insight into the artist’s goal in composing this

universal chronicle of world history. Rather, it is what is not depicted, namely any

reference to one of the many end-time scenarios offered by the artist following this

transitional image.

The frontispiece to Lepanto presents the battle as the fulfillment of Pseudo-

Methodios’ prophecy concerning the coming of a Last Emperor and the expulsion of the

Ishmaelites, underscored by the fulfillment of the Oracles of Leo the Wise concerning

the end of a great dynasty. Through the reference made to the Xerolophus column,

these two symbolic prefigurations come together. The Ottoman Empire, under the fifth

sultan Selim II, is the historical realization of the sons of Hagar, the Ishmaelites, and

after his expulsion a Christian king will once again reign in Constantinople. History,

however, defies the artist’s multi-layered pronouncement of a new era of Christian

domination.

On folio 148r, Klontzas gives insight into his interpretation of what happens after

Lepanto. He states:

“…and thus I put this down on paper, desiring to write about the conclusion of the destruction of the kingdom of the that one (Murad III), so that this oracle will also be fulfilled which the wisest Emperor Leo made, saying: ‘in the eighty-first year Ishmael will be expelled from the city of seven hill,’ and again

66

elsewhere this Emperor Leo said: ‘It is written at the end of time’.”

This statement implies that oracle, which is actually a conflation of quotes from the

Apocalypse and the Oracles, will be fulfilled if Klontzas writes it down. Accordingly, the

panoramic image on the folia following this last statement of the artist visualizes this

oracular pronouncement and situates its fulfillment within the years 1590-1592, while

Gironimo Capello was Duke of Candia. The structures of time represented in the

Chronographia and discussed in the present study are thus, in this singular

pronouncement, on the one hand, reduced to being mere tools of the artist and author,

Klontzas, while, on the other hand, apparently maintaining the ability to dictate the

order of time.

It is not goal of the present study to speculate on the meaning of this image. Nor

is it possible within the boundaries of this inquiry to suggest the greater metaphysical

message of Klontzas’ final historical allusion, just as I do not attempt to understand the

nature of the final end-time scenarios presented in the last section of the

Chronographia. What this statement does show, however, is a distinctive commentary

by Klontzas concerning the role of the artist in the configuration of time.

67

CONCLUSION

The Chronographia of Georgios Klontzas is a product of its own time. The late

sixteenth-century was a time of geographical, astronomical, religious, historical and

artistic exploration. The union of these inquiries led to a radical reconceptualization of

man’s relationship to the world around him. Humanity began to seek truth in time,

rather than in a divine authority. Rather than look to the future for an end of time as

apocalyptic would entail, time was seen as subordinated to the historical narration of

the past. At the same time, the late sixteenth-century witnessed a resurgent interest in

oracles as a means of ordering the past and foretelling the future. Klontzas, a Greek

living in Venetian Crete, identified with all three of these conceptualizations of time: the

apocalyptic tradition of his Byzantine ancestors, the oracular tradition popularized

among Veneto-Cretans like Francesco Barozzi, and the historical past, memorialized in

the Fall of Constantinople and the Battle of Lepanto.

The goal of the present study has been to recognize the different conceptions of

time utilized by the artist in the recollection of the past and his visualization of the

present. I have begun with the composite image on folio 140r because the artist frames

the Battle of Lepanto as a point of convergence between two interpretive modes of

conceptualizing the past: allegorical (oracular and apocalyptic) and historical. While the

two allegorical modes, oracular and apocalyptic, are structured by a divine authority,

68

historical time is given form in the pictorial narrative by the artist. All three of these

conceptions of time represent symbolic systems, or prefigurations, which receive

meaning only when configured by the artist into a narrative. All three orders come to

fulfillment at the Battle of Lepanto, as it is visualized in the composite image on folio

140r. However, in the final historical allusion on folio 149v-150r, Klontzas suggests that

the entire pictorial narrative of the Ottoman expansion will come to an end, or be

fulfilled, only when he declares it to be so, specifically by writing and visualizing the final

oracle/prophecy. Just as allegory and history must be configured into a narrative by the

artist to have meaning, so too must all three conceptions of time presented in this

thesis, as individual aspects of the narrative, be refigured as a whole by the artist in their

final fulfillment. Klontzas’ Candia, depicted on folio 149v-150r, is therefore sacrificed by

the artist for the sake of historical and thus narrative fulfillment. The pictorial narrative

of the Ottoman expansion in the Chronographia is a locus for the Klontzas’ own

commentary regarding the role of the artist in visualizing the past, the present, and the

anticipated future. The answer to the question posed in the title of the present thesis,

“What happens after Lepanto?” is, therefore, whatever the author/artist Klontzas

envisions will occur.

69

APPENDIX: FIGURES

70

Figure 1. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folio 140r [after Rigo, Oracula, 61]

71

Figure 2. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folia 140v-141r [after Rigo, Oracula, 62-63]

72

Figure 3. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22. Leather Cover [ after Paliouras, 61]

Figure 4. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folio 74v [after Rigo, Oracula, 52]

73

Figure 5. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 120r [after Rigo, Oracula, 58]

Figure 6a. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, fol. 3r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 6b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 78r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

74

Figure 7a. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, Fol. 64v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Fig. 7b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, Fol. 65v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

75

Figure 8a. Paris, Private Collection, Codex Bute, fol. 5v [after Vereecken and Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles, Pl. VIII]

Figure 8b. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 170, fol. 6v [after Rigo, Oracula, 20]

76

Figure 8c. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folio 98r. [after Rigo, Oracula Leonis, 54]

Figure 9a. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 155v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

77

Figure 9b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 157r (detail) [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 9c. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 158v (detail) [microfilm: Marciana Library]

78

Figure 10a. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 89r (detail) [after Rigo, Oracula, 51]

Figure 10b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 112v (detail) [after Rigo, Oracula, 56]

79

Figure 10c. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 120r [after Rigo, Oracula, 58]

80

Figure 10d. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 129r [after Rigo, Oracula, 59]

Figure 10e. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 145v. [after Rigo, Oracula, 64]

81

Figure 11. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 3, fol. 3v [after Rigo, Oracula, 80]

82

Figure 12a. Paris, Private Collection, Codex Bute, fol. 7v [after Vereecken and Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles, Pl. X]


83

Figure 13. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 145, fol. 257v [after Hutter, Corpus der byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften, Vol. 2, fig. 619]

Figure 14a. Paris, Private Collection, Codex Bute, fol. 8v [after Vereecken and Hadermann-Misguich, Les Oracles, Pl. XI]

84


Figure 15. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, fol. 84v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

85

Figure 16. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII, 22, folia 148v-149r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

86


87



88

Figure 20a. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 9 [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 20b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 95v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

89

Figure 21a. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 138r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 21b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 138v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

90

Figure 21c. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 139r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 22a. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, folio 121v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

91

Figure 22b. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, folio 122r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 22c. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 122v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

92

Figure 22d. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 123r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 23. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 92v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

93

Figure 24. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 101v [microfilm: Marciana Library]

Figure 25. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, fol. 93r [microfilm: Marciana Library]

94



95

Figure 28. Venice, Marciana Library, ms. gr. VII. 22, [microfilm: Marciana Library]

96

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