Introduction to the Byzantine Miniature Art of the Monastery

The ruling class of Byzantium adorned its temples and residences with luxurious objects, mainly miniature works. Of these objects, only a few examples survive today, while some others are known to us from written sources, mainly from the accounts of Western travelers who visited the city from the 10th to the 14th centuries. The Crusaders, who conquered Constantinople in 1204, destroyed or sold most of the valuable objects. Some of their rulers transferred some religious objects to temples in the West. The remaining surviving works are kept in the Monasteries of Mount Athos, where they had arrived as offerings from Byzantine emperors or officials. The offerings contained in the sacristy of the Vatopedi Monastery are of exceptional art. With their peculiar shapes, careful construction and refined decoration, they are ranked among the most valuable works of Byzantine miniature art. According to tradition, the relics of the Monastery were stolen in the 13th century by pirates.

The surviving objects that are older than this period were purchased or donated to Vatopedi in a later period. The only ones that may be related to the period after the arrival of the three founders from Adrianople (10th century) are a silver box-encolpium of Saint Demetrius (12th century) and the famous icon of Panagia Vimatarissa. Among the most important relics of the Monastery are the icons made of steatite, the “asbestos stone” of the Byzantines. Four of them, of which the two two-faced ones, date back to the Byzantine period. Important offerings are also the encolpiums made of semi-precious stones, which the faithful hung on their chests as amulets since the early Christian era.

The reliquaries of the Vatopedi Monastery impress with the variety of shapes (cross, cross-reliquary, medallion form, double-faced or simple icon, box-reliquary), the materials of their construction (gold, silver, bronze, steatite, jasper, ivory) and the techniques of their construction, revealing the glory that characterized the Vatopedi Monastery and the high role it would play in Byzantine society of the 14th and 15th centuries. Another large category of relics is made up of the sacred vessels, that is, the vessels used for the celebration of the Divine Mysteries and especially with the mystery of the Holy Eucharist and which are permanently placed on the Holy Altar. Since the 9th century, they have been made of precious materials and decorated with luxury, resulting in many of them being plundered during the raids of pirates and crusaders. Those that have survived are impressive with the variety of their techniques and styles, in which one can discern both the influences of great art and of each era separately.

Also preserved in Vatopedi are gold, silver or silver-gilt inlays of icons, holy books, mainly gospels, and the brass inlay of a double-leaf door. The inlays of holy icons, the so-called “shirts” or “aprons”, are a type of dedication, known from the Middle Byzantine era, which shows the piety of the faithful and at the same time contributes to the “realization of the moral radiance of the holy icon”. In the Vatopedi Monastery there are inlays from the early 14th century that combine a variety of techniques, such as perforated relief, with or without enamel, exergue and low relief or flat relief with lacquered enamel, while at the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th the wire technique prevails.