El Greed

HisByzantineHeritage
 S12.50

i^llORTM' afrcr the tirsr copies of this work

were distributed, a new date l.l referring to

(ireco's youth came to light, which fully vindi-

cates the main thesis of this book and deflates a

theory perpetuated in most writing about the
Cretan painter. This information is incorporated
in the Addenda (pp. 15Sa and 15Sb).

L'nril now the first historically valid date in the

life hisror\- of 11 CIreco was 1570. w hen he was in

Rome as a twent\-nine-year-old painter. It was
uenerally accepted, on the ground of a suggestion
made some eighty years ago, that he came as a
lad to \enice, where he learned his trade. Al-

though no historical basis whatsoever existed for

this belief, nearl\- all writers on Fl (ireco would
have him around 1560 in the city of the Ooges
and in the studio of Titian.

After long observation and extended study,

Mr. Kelemcn came to the conclusion that El
(ireco's artistic concepts were formed in the

Rv/antine school of painting and that he modu-

lated his st\ le to satisfy the taste of the countries
to w hich he emigrated.

This book is the first to survey late Byzantine

art for the purpose of examining the problem of
the painter's Hwantine heritage. It recalls also the

historv and art of Candia. \enice. and Toledo,

providing an adequate background to Fl Greco's
work.

'Fhe author's research included visits to the

monasteries of .Mount Arhos, a personal study of
rccentlv cleaned B\/antine wall paintings in
Istanbul and a fortnight on the island of Crete,
photographing murals and ikons unknown out-
side their district.

The result is a revealing character study of an

enigmatic personality.

Fl Cireco's B>/antine heritage is borne out in

numerous comparative plates. Unmistakable
Bwantinc tradition appears in the portra\al of
various saints. composition can be
Byzantine
found in the features and pose of Christ in Bene-
diction, in the grouping of the sleeping Apostles
(Agon>- in the Garden), and in the attitude of

the two main figures in his Lamentation. The

Greco's Annunciations reveals that he
scries of Fl
II .^ ^ \\^ S^ \ (^ fin iitiiii II n nil nil.

50,.
returned in his later years to the Byzantine con- 'L .
.
I iiiiiiwl iniiLirt linmUAi;.
o ^ 5o^
cept of the scene, introducing the highly sym-
liirt liiui hurt i\m.

bolic Ikuning lUish and porrra> ing the X'irgin in

r^V
the Orthodox attitude of pra>cr. Unprecedented
^'^^
are his depiction of the soul of a layman carried
to Heaven in the form of a newborn intant

(covt'wiicd on hack flap)

AjA^lH I MIIMIVMH(i,^H^(I^UWmMi^y^tMMMU«H(tM(niVV^>'>>V»>inVW
jq

KMIWtTS;.. z.. .*'?:>i: '^xj^j^ «wi!:~':MMCftrr_;:7 . ..i;iiuiu«ni!;'«W3WWOTr«5anT(ja«iy^i»y«r!flB^

EL GRECO REVISITED
CANDIA VENICE TOLEDO
• •
 BOOKS by PAL KELEMEN

BATTLEFIELD OF THE GODS

Aspects of Mexican History, Art and Exploration
1937, 1939

MEDIEVAL AMERICAN ART

A Survey in Two Volumes
1943, 1944, 1946

BAROQUE AND ROCOCO IN LATIN AMERICA

1951

MEDIEVAL AMERICAN ART

New World, One- Volume
Masterpieces of the Edition
1956
EL GRECO REVISITED
CAJVDIA •
VEJVICE •
TOLEDO

PAL KELEMEN

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

J^EW YORK 1961
All rights —
resened no part of this book may be reproduced in any
form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a
reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a
review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper.

First Printing. Text © Pal Kelemen 1961

The Macmillan Company, New York

Brett-Macmillan Ltd., Gait, Ontario

Illustrations printed in Italy

Text printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress catalog card number: 61-13343

TO MY WIFE
 PREFACE

In the first decade of our century, Europe appeared a civilized continent. In most of the world

there was peace, and it seemed as if it would be a lasting condition. Exchanges between coun-
tries in science and the humanities were Hvely. No travel passport was necessary except for

Spain and Russia. This was the period in which the idea of this book came first to my mind.
Perhaps here some personal history might be in place.
Years before I graduated from Latin School, Impressionist painting had gained a wide follow-
ing in my native Budapest; also, a considerable number of works by El Greco were accessible.
El Greco fascinated and puzzled me. I was drawn to his unconventional color combinations,
his unusual composition, and was puzzled by a strange tenseness in his painting. I could not fit

him entirely into either the Venetian or the Spanish school. Somewhat later, when I studied
the beginnings of Christian art and got away from the routine chapters of art history, my
perplexity gradually gave place to understanding. At that time I was writing and translating
poetry and had published essays on music, literature, and the arts. One of my favorite
pastimes was visiting the Magyar National Museum of Fine Arts, which was then barely
a few years old and not only utilizedmodem exhibition techniques but even was equipped with
a type of air conditioning. Though I had my favorite paintings, I made it a habit to walk slowly
through the halls of Byzantine and Gothic art and so work my way up to the Itahans. I liked
to stand before an early panel and look beyond, into another room where the Venetian canvases
glowed. I tried to identify them by learning their characteristics through my eye. The guards
knew me and let me lean close to observe details. I still recall vividly some of those pictures,
their composition and tonality, and I remember too the patterned or plain wall coverings in
rooms where I sat long. Going home on the sunny side of a broad avenue, I had the feeling of
coming from a banquet.
Scholarly interest and connoisseurship were oriented nearly exclusively toward Western art.

The and America were little appreciated. Even that vast world,
great civilizations of Asia, Africa,
the Levant, where Christ was bom and his teaching gained the first followers, was neglected.
The biblical lands had belonged for centuries to the Ottoman Empire. They were not easily
penetrated, and when explorers were able to visit one or another region they found the Christian
monuments in ruins, mosaics and murals damaged or erased. The records of their voyages are
mostly without clear illustrations.

•VII-
 PREFACE
The Hungarians do not belong either racially or linguistically to the great European famihes.
The Latin saying Ex oricnte lux ( Light comes from the East has not lost for tliem its deeper
)

meaning, while in other countries of the Western world scholarship has overemphasized the

arts of Italy and France and isolated itself from those inventive, vigorous, and sophisticated
civilizations which gave Europe nearly all its humanistic values. Most of Western Europe has

created a history for its self-justification and self-glorification. Faulty to a high degree, it shows
now a tarnished glory, and the consequences of its philosophy are erupting in many parts of
the globe. If an analogy can be offered, the spreading tree of the humanities has not received
perceptive and balanced attention; no honest tree surgeon would treat, even pamper, a few
upper branches of an oak without examining the trunk, the roots, and the upon which it
soil

feeds. Hungarians, being descendants of Mongol tribes, their relatives long submerged in the
flood of Asian migration, had a and a will to understand the cultures of the Levant
curiosity
and even those that lay East of the broad belt of Mohammedanism.
World War I, which many in the Western world had believed impossible, commenced, and
by August 1914 I was in uniform and beyond the Carpathian Mountains. There, where the
fertile Polish plain meets the foliaged valleys of Moldavia, I saw wooden churches in archaic

design, with graceful open towers on their peaked gables. The ominous tolling of their bells
started a panic of flight, and people vdth sleepless eyes —
in carriages and peasant carts piled
high with bedding, packages, sewing machines, perambulators, bird cages —stared at us who
rode in the opposite direction.
Later, under an arbor of shells flying across the Lower Danube, we floated one night in a
broad barge to the Serbian shore near the fortress Semendria, built to defend Christianity against
the Turks. The sky streaked with flame, the heaving stream, the angular outline of the citadel
would have been inspiring to a colorist painter, except that the lethal yellow will-o'-the-wisp
flames leaping up, now here, now there on the other shore, meant that villages were burning
and that the spectacle was war. The next day we began a long ride south in the valley of the
Morava River, where fragrant fruit trees offered their harvest. The onion-domed small churches
became familiar —another region of the Orthodox world. Built of carefully laid stones, their
sturdy proportions gave them a winning aspect. The few narrow windows kept in perpetual
dusk the painted interiors. From the heartland of Macedonia to the Bocche di Cattaro and
Dalmatia was a stimulating change. Here the somber modulations of the Slavic hinterland
were replaced by the smiling architecture of Italianate cities opening on the Adriatic Sea.
Sturdiness was exchanged for subtlety of craftsmanship. The earthen terraces supported by
stone walls, built up and repaired through generations, bespoke men who knew how to defend
the handfuls of soil perched on the mountainsides not only against the torrential rains but also
against the weapons of their enemies. Finally Friaul and the Veneto offered a vast open-air
museum of Western art from pagan Roman remains to Rococo villas, their gardens bursting
with the impact of spring.
By the end of the year 1918 it became evident Golden Age was an illusion it was
that the —
the twilight of an irretrievable epoch. Hate, revenge, and ignorance carved up Europe, creating
the vacuum into which first Hitler and later Stalin marched. But my lucky star, which had
brought me through more than four years of war, was still over me. I could go on studying and
traveling. I even visited Spain —then anything but fashionable —more than ten years before
their civil war began. With an excitement as for no other journey, I prepared myself. I read
everything I could put my hands on about Spanish art, especially El Greco. I learned the lan-

•VHI-
 PREFACE
guage. In manifold ways the Spanish experience was unsurpassed. The long still sat on his
throne. In Madrid one Sunday afternoon I stood all alone on the vast square of the Puerta del
Sol. It looked as if the city had suddenly died. But it was only a great day for the bullfight. Even

all the streetcars were at the arena, out of town. In the sunny city of Seville, beside the splendors

of art, we tasted a variety of wines nightly in the bodegas, where cask rested beside cask,
decorated with labels that read like romantic poetry. The Granada Palace Hotel in its unsur-
passable location was nearly empty; in the mezzanine the faded green tables stood abandoned,
and the roulette wheels with which unfortunate Alfonso XIII tried to lure moneyed tourists to
the country were still and dusty. Cordoba's more than uncomfortable hotel drove me out into
the streets. I found a compensation in the cool interior of the cathedral, once the grand mosque.
There I witnessed a great musical High Mass in was dazzled by the velvets, laces
all its pomp. I

and the silver, gold, and jewels among which the priests moved, somnambulant, unreal
silks,

as oversized wax effigies. In the streets was dismal poverty and in the houses utter squalor.
Not much later, in the Dolomites, on a trip which was planned to bring me once more to
Venice, I met an American girl Uving in Europe with her parents to study music. We were
married in Florence and took up residence there —a fitting vantage point from which to observe
how from Byzantine, Romanesque, and regional elements. Western Europe created — — late its

national styles. began writing a study of El Greco that had been occupying me for some
Here I

time. However, a number of other books were to precede it.

In October 1932 we came to the United States for what was planned to be a six months' visit.
After weeks spent in the museums and Hbraries in New York, we rented an apartment in Boston
where I continued my work, in the Fine Arts Museum. In their transplanted murals of a Catalan
chapel I felt an indeterminable relationship to El Greco. While visiting across the Charles
River, one late autumn Sunday, I saw the art of America before Columbus exhibited on several
floors in thePeabody Museum. The pieces lay on gray-painted bare shelves in more than Puri-
tanical presentation which was not conducive to bringing out their strange, powerful beauty.
Nevertheless it was for me the opening of a fascinating chapter in the history of art, about which
little was known either here or abroad. The next day I went around again, this time with the

director of the museum. I urged my host to have a comprehensive illustrated survey written of
the architecture, sculpture, weaving, metalwork, and other accompHshments of this sunken
world; and I was persuaded to carry out myself the project that I had proposed for an American
scholar. In April 1933 we were in Yucatan and later in Mexico. What I saw there strengthened
my conviction of the unique importance of pre-Columbian art. In a short interlude, havang
just visited Maya temples, I returned for a time to El Greco — to the magnificent exhibition of
the Cretan's work gathered by the Art Institute of Chicago for the World's Fair of 1933. In
subsequent travels from Mexico to Bohvia, the Baroque and Rococo of Latin America unfolded
another splendid subject which clamored for publicity and more understanding. Long before all
this, the initially reluctant visitor had become of his own choice a contented citizen.

Nearly twenty-five years passed before I returned to my project on El Greco. Lecturing and
other assignments took me to Europe repeatedly, and from Spain to Turkey I could follow at
leisure the path of my interest.
Byzantine art, long misrepresented, if not ignored, in Roman CathoUc and Protestant coun-

tries as an example of degenerate Christianity, shines each year more radiant through the reex-
amination made possible partly by a more enlightened attitude and partly by better facilities
for travel and photography. From the fairy-tale naivete of Ethiopian rehgious panels to the

•IX-
 PREFACE
complexity of Russian icons with their tight-Hpped saints, from the domed basihcas of Con-
stantinople, vvitli modem traffic swirling round tliem, to the inspiring, peaceful monasteries of
Sinai, Athos, and their sister houses, not only a religious expression but also a spiritual experience
can be drawn. But the enrichment comes all too belatedly for the Western world to benefit
from it fully, because of the deluge of diflFerent religions and philosophies of the peoples of
Asia and Africa, in which all white nations and the entire Christian community are in danger
of becoming a muffled minority.

I hope that no harm came to my book because of my delay in concluding it. Wherever I

traveled, I encountered numberless expatriates, exiles, immigrants, emigres, refugees who for
one reason or another had left their native lands and had to make a Uving among strangers
whose language was different from their mother tongues and whose customs were alien to
their upbringing. In 1909, when I stood before my first El Greco, the movement of peoples by
the tens of tliousands was higlily unusual and their behavior —one may say their psychology
— little observed. Fifty years later, many a reader has merely to look across his corridor or his
lawn to see a human being who was bom and reared thousands of miles away. Fifty years
added maturity to me and wider knowledge to my subject. The answers to some of the ques-
tions that I posed in my youth came to me in the intervening years.
This book, originally the dream of a very young man, is then the result of a long period of
gestation. For me a book is still much what it was fifty years ago when I began to browse in
bookstores. Many such stores had a hushed, devotional atmosphere, where something of a
communion took place with great authors who knew their craft and honored it. The printed
page carried the dignity and prestige of a responsible human being and bespoke the spark that
was divine.
It was and spiritual enrichment to be able to visit so many places some
in itself a visual —
—
repeatedly that are mentioned and reproduced here, and to exchange ideas with scholars,
connoisseurs, and just people. Alas, some of them are no longer among us: Bernard Berenson,
whose interest in my work and hospitahty I enjoyed from the time that I was myself a resident
of Florence; Hans and Erica Tietze —
although for years in America, their generous human
comprehension remained in the best Austrian tradition; Nicholas G. Lely, Greek diplomat,
witty conversationalist, first civihan governor of the community of Mount Athos; Gregorio
Maraiion, enthusiastic and erudite Spanish historian of Toledo and El Greco.
Because space does not permit individual mention of all the officials of various governments,
imiversities, museums, and libraries, as well as the many ecclesiastics, archivists, photographers,
and connoisseurs in many countries who facilitated my work, I express my gratitude to them
in summary.
There is another group whose assistance was of such measure that individual credit is due
them: in England I benefited from the supreme knowledge of Arab art and architecture of
K. A. C. Creswell (formerly of the Egyptian University, Cairo) who furnished also some rare
photographs. Geoffrey Webb (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments), authority on
Romanesque and Gothic architecture, clarified problems in this field. With Jocel>Ti Toynbee
(Cambridge University), expert in biblical archaeology, I discussed the entirely inconclusive
findings of the excavations under the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. Natahe Jimenez Cossio
(Oxford), daughter of the author whose monograph first brought El Greco into the right focus,
 PREFACE
offered pertinent iniormation from her late father's iinpubHshed notes and her own valuable
observations.
In Istanbul: CHo Papadopulo and Mazhar Sevket Ipsiroglu (National University) provided,
respectively, the Greek and the Turkish historical backgrounds of that unique city. Paul A.
Underwood, E. J.
W. Hawkins, and Laurence Majewski, aU of the Byzantine
Carroll Wales,
Institute, accorded us admission during the restoration of Kariye Cami and have been generous
in furnishing data.
In Atliens: Demetrios SiciHanos (former Ambassador to the United States), a discerning
connoisseur, shared some of his experiences with us and faciUtated our work in closed private
Manohs Chatzidakis (Benaki Museum) and Anne Hadjinicolaou (Byzantine Mu-
collections.
seum) were helpful in many ways in their important institutions. To Helen Stathatos and A. D.
Loverdos my thanks for permitting us to work and photograph in their exquisite collections,
and to Angelo G. Procopiou (Polytechnic Institute) my gratitude for valuable assistance.
In Crete: Konstantinos D. Kalokwis (Archaeological Musemn, Herakhon) reviewed the whole
field of restoration of murals on the island and gave us all relevant pubHcations. Nicholas
Stavrinidis (Municipal Library) shared with us his vast knowledge of Venetian, Turkish, and
Cretan archives, often far beyond his official hours, during our two weeks' stay. In Macedonia:
St\'hanos Pelekanidis (Department Monuments) with devoted and indefatigable
of Byzantine
energ>' guided and advised us. Michael Papamanzaris (Mayor of Kastoria) opened the city
and its histor}- to us. Eleanor and Henry Hope Reed (American Farm School) were gracious

hosts and offered the use of their jeep and an expert guide to the Peninsula of Athos. Joyce
Loch, benefactress of the village of Prosforion on the confines of the Holy Mountain, provided
comfort and wise council.
For a number of years Helly Hohenemser, Rome; Hanna Schramm, Paris; and Rudolf Bedo,
Budapest, assisted us with dependable research material. Helen Pandelalds, New York, besides,
acted as our interpreter in Crete and Macedonia. Gratitude is due staff members of the
United States State Department and Information Service in various cities abroad, especially
Maro Hole\a, Cultural Assistant, who was constantly in touch with us from Athens. Fern Rusk
Shapley (the National Gallery of Art) and Marvin Ross (Dumbarton Oaks, Washington) have
shouTi helpful interest in the preparation of this volume. In New York, personnel of the Library
and Photographic Divisions of the MetropoHtan Museum of Art, the Frick Reference Library,
The Hispanic Society- of America, and particularly the staff of the Arts and Prints Departments
of the New York Public Library, were most accommodating.
Various authorities kindly consented to look over different parts of the manuscript. Chapter I
was read by David Talbot Rice (University of Edinburgh), widely known Byzantologist and
coauthor of a book that appeared decades ago, pointing to the locale of the birth of Western
painting; Chapter II, by Pandelis Prevelakis (Superior College of Fine Arts, Athens), inspired
poet of his native Crete and author of two books on his famous sixteenth century compatriot;
Chapter by A. Hyatt Mayor (the Metropohtan Museum of Art), whose vast knowledge of
III,

is imparted, whether in word or wTiting, always with grace; Chapter IV,

various periods of art
by Beatrice Gilman Proske (the Hispanic Society^ of America), expert on the plastic arts and
general cultural values of the Hispanic world. The second part of the book was read by the
following: Chapter V, James A. Notopoulos (Trinity College, Hartford), distinguished teacher
of the classics and recorder of the oral tradition of his ancestral land; Chapters VI and VIII,

•XI-
 PREFACE
Elizabeth du Cue Trapier (the Hispanic Society of America), a renowned lifelong scholar of
Spanish painting, with several outstanding contributions also on El Greco; Chapter VII, Julius
M. Moravcsik (University of Michigan), promising tliird-generation representative of a family
of biblical and Byzantine scholars. Although many of their suggestions were gratefully followed,
the responsibility for the text of this work rests entirely with the author.
David Rogers made the artistic M. Morrow, with pains-
layout of the illustrations. Florence
taking attention, carried out the typing of the complex manuscript, and Helen B. Hartman,
for the third occasion, has compiled my Bibliography and Index and given editorial help.
There is still one person whose unfailing help and cooperation throughout the decades has
made this work possible. Her name appears on a separate page of this book.
Pal Kelemen
Norfolk, Connecticut
August, 1961

xn
 CONTENTS
PREFACE vii

I. BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD 1

II. CANDIA 32

III. VENICE 48

IV. TOLEDO 70

ILLUSTRATIONS PI. 1-56 foUowing 81

V. THE GREEK DIASPORA 83

VI. SIXTEENTH CENTURY EMIGRE 94

VII. A LIBRARY 104

VIII. ENIGMATIC PAINTER 114

POSTLUDE 154

CATALOGUE OF ILLUSTRATIONS 159

BIBLIOGRAPHY 162

INDEX 172

ILLUSTRATIONS PI. 57-112 foUowing 176

 •I-

BYZANTIUM
WAS
A WORLD
Two continents on two tongues of land face each other across the Bosporus, where the Sea of
Marmara and the Black Sea form a narrows. Six centuries before Christ, Greek colonists settled
there under a leader named Byzaz and called the place Byzantion —now
more famiUar as
Byzantium. It developed into an important harbor for the shipment of wheat from the Black
Sea to Athens and beyond. In a.d. 330 the Emperor Constantine removed his capital there from
Rome, and created a city which for more than a thousand years stood as a center not only of
commerce but also of Christian culture.
Constantine was bom in the Balkans. As a general of the Roman Empire, he fought in Gaul
and Britain. In a military campaign in the spring of 312, Constantine had a vision. The Chi Rho,
the Greek monogram of Clirist, appeared in the sky, accompanied by the admonition in Greek,
"By this conquer." Thereafter he favored the Christian rehgion, and the sign became his per-
sonal device.
To Constantine, the site of Byzantium, surrounded by the lands of early Christianity, may
well have seemed more propitious Rome, where the pagan gods had still a
for his capital than
large following. In Constantinople the Hellenic heritage that was preserved in Syria and Egypt
came to flower. The Greeks have always been a nation of mariners. Greek was the common
tongue of the Mediterranean world, though Latin remained for some time the oflBcial language
of the administration. Many colonies of pagan Rome whence valued trade flowed lay in the
eastern Mediterranean and never spoke Latin. At least up to the end of the second century of

—
the Christian era, the inscriptions in the catacombs even of Rome pagan or Christian, and
—
those of the large Jewish colony there were largely in Greek. When Christianity began to
spread, the Gospel was translated from the original Aramaic, a Jewish dialect, into Greek. Thus
language was a major factor in disseminating the teachings of Christ through the known world,
while at the same time Greek philosophy aided in formulating the new religion.
The emperor gathered at Constantinople all talent to make the new capital supreme. In Con-
stantinople the great engineering and architectural achievements of the fabulous East were
utilized. The city set the patterns of taste also in jewelry, ivory- and enamel-work, and other

crafts. Manuscripts of ancient and modern authors were carefully copied and multiplied. Con-

stantinople was known as "the City" not only throughout the empire but also throughout the
 EL GRECO REVISITED
medieval world. Istanbul, as the Turks renamed it, means also "the City." And when Greeks
today use tlie word "polis," they mean Constantinople.

The western part of the ancient Roman Empire from Britannia — to Dacia, from Germania
—
to Hispania weakened through the disintegration of a centralized administration, staggered
under the various waves of barbarian invasion. In the Byzantine Empire, since the time that
Constantine estabhshed his capital up to its fall to the Turks, uninterrupted contact was main-
tained with those lands beyond the eastern borders of Cliristianity, already famed as fabulous,
sophisticated in more than one way. In the Byzantine Empire, Christianity achieved body and
character. The expression "Dark Ages," if justified at all, applies only to the westward lands
of Europe.
The Byzantine emperors embodied the supreme authority of both state and church. Approval
of appointments to the rank of patriarch (bishop) depended upon the emperor including —
the choice of the Bishop of Rome. From power date the "apostolic rights" of later
this early

sovereigns, of which more will be said later. From Byzantium also stems the custom of bestow-
ing medals on those who had proved themselves especially worthy of commendation. These
were usually crosses of silver, with the head of Christ on one side and an expression of the ap-
preciation of the emperor on the other; distributed at religious festivals, they are forerunners
of the Victoria Cross, the Leopold Cross, and many others.
The bishops or patriarchs at the head of the council represented Alexandria, Jerusalem,
Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome. When voting in council among the ecclesiastics, the Bishop
of Rome cast the first vote. This privilege became a prerogative, and in later centuries, when
schism developed, it was a ground for claims. At the start of the controversy, the Orthodox part
of the Christian world was the larger in territory, more numerous in believers, and more in-
fluential. Not only the geographical situation of the four bishops residing in the East but also
the different mentality represented made the Bishop of Rome the rallying point of op-
position.
Meanwhile, from the Arabian Peninsula, the standard-bearers of another rehgion and an-
other civilization rode forward victoriously. The rise of the Mohammedan Arabs in the seventh
century also shook the Byzantine Empire, which lost Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Under a central-
ized rule, the Arabs developed impressive knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and
medicine. They absorbed much of classical Greek and Jewish culture; Moslem and later Byzan-
tine profited mutually from each other's architectural achievements. All this the Arabs were to
transmit directly into Spain, Portugal, Sicily, in succeeding centuries, and indirectly into France
and more northern lands —reviving the interest of Western Europe in the almost forgotten
civilization of the Greeks.
Though the Byzantine Empire did not suffer so much
Europe from the migration of the
as
peoples, it had to wage long wars to maintain its position. The emperors came to depend for
their armies on the feudal lords, who grew into a powerful caste. At the same time the Orthodox
monasteries, in possession of "miraculous" icons (from eikon, image) that drew masses of
pilgrims, extended their influence over the common people and gained immense power which
could be turned against the emperor. Beginning with the early eighth centur\% for more than
a hundred years iconoclastic edicts forbade the worship of images and decreed their destruction,
in an attempt to deprive the religious authorities of their most effective means of propaganda.
In the end, however, the position of the monasteries may have been strengthened by the
resistance centered in them. The popes of this time never accepted iconoclastic decrees, and
 )

B\X\XTIUM WAS A WORLD

always defended the cult of images, tlius increasing the incentives of schism. Continually
growing differences between the Ortliodox and Roman denominations over matters of dogma
harassed the once "Universal Church."
When Charlemagne (ca. 742-814) established his empire in Western Europe, though he
gready increased the authority- of the Roman Church, the relationship between Eastern and
Western empires remained on the whole amicable. Contact with Constantinople contributed
greatly to the re\i\al of arts and letters in his realm. Gold-, ivory-, and metal-work, as well as
book illumination, achieved a high standard. The Palatine Chapel at Aachen ( Aix-la-Chapelle
was adorned with columns and bronzes, Byzantine in style, looted from Rome and Ravenna
during Charlemagne's campaigns in Italy.

Between mid-ninth and mid-eleventh centuries, the Byzantine Empire reached another of
its several cultural peaks. The Bulgars and Moravian Slavs were evangehzed; Kiev attained

metropohtan briUiance. In Constantinople the arts came to a new flowering upon the revoca-
tion of iconoclasm. New buildings went up. The universit}-, founded in the fifth centur\-, was
reconstituted. Trade throve. Special quarters were assigned to various foreign commercial
—
groups die S}Tians, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, Bulgarians, and the representatives of ItaUan
cities such as Amalfi, Pisa, Venice, and Genoa. From them, the influences of Byzantine art

radiated throughout East and West.

Nations balanced precariously between the two powerful spheres of influence tried to keep
on good terms with both. The youthful Kingdom of Hungary, recently Christianized, was im-
portant because of its dominating position Danubian Valley. Pope Sylvester (reigned
in the

999-1003) sent a crown to its first ruler, St. Stephan of Hungary. A second crown came from
Constantinople as a gift from the Byzantine Emperor Michael VTI, w'ho ruled from 1071-1078.
The Hungarians, conscious of their need for the friendship of both powers, blended the gift
into a single crown which has as its solid lower half the piece from Constantinople, upon which
as a second tier the peaked elements of the papal gift are soldered. Important is the fact that
both the pope's gift and tliat of the emperor are so similar in spirit that experts were long puzzled

in solving which part came from where. For the ^^'est had not yet found its own style. ^^
Pflgrims from aU parts of the world had sought tlie Holy Land, since St. Helena, mother of
Constantine the Great, went in search of the sacred rehcs in 321. By mid-seventh centiuA^ Jeru-
salem was in Moslem hands, but for some centuries, through negotiations, pilgrims were let in.

Then, in a new surge of Moslem power, the Temple of the Holy Sepulcher was destroyed.
Clamor arose througliout the Christian world, and in the late ele\-enth centur\^ the First Crusade
began its cumbersome course. The participants wore a cross as badge on their helmets, armor,
shirts, sometimes e\'en on their horse trappings —and from the Latin crux, crucis, the word
"crusade" was coiaed.
Constantinople was the rall\dng point. Many thought the occasion propitious for the healing
of the schism between the two branches of Cliristianity. It was also the first time that masses
of people coming from Western and Central Europe stood face to face with the wonders of
Byzantium.
\\'hile the motive of the crusades was noble, economic interest and human rivalry- all too
soon became predominant. The estabhshment of tlie Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1100 marked
a turning point in the balance of power in the Mediterranean. The Franks now controlled the
heartland of Mediterranean trade as weU as the Holy Cit}-. The various religious orders —best
knoNMi among them the Templars and the Hospitalers —who backed the crusades, had to finance
 EL GRECO REVISITED
armies and navies. They came to possess banks, land, and finally grew into commercial com-
panies.
The great centers of Levantine trade were Acre in Galilee (now
and Famagusta on
in Israel)

the island of Cyprus. From there the spices, sugar, oils, fruits, silks, rugs, and velvets poured
into Venice, Pisa, and Genoa, on ItaHan ships, by-passing the controls of Constantinople, to be
dispersed throughout Europe. One of the most frequented trade routes led from Venice over the
Brenner Pass, down the Rhine as far as Bruges; and prosperous cities still mark this route.
Rivalries arose among the participating nations; newcomers were unwelcome, as the feudal
lords jockeyed for power. Christians confessing the same faith fought one another in the foreign
land, sometimes causing more casualties in the Christian camp than the Moslems. The situation
was further complicated by the fact that Constantinople looked upon the liberated territory
as part of her lost empire and its European lords as her vassals.
At this time the Seljuk Turks, possessing great mihtary skill, had brought a new energy and
vigor to the Moslem world and had begun to penetrate into Asia Minor. They defeated the
Byzantines decisively in 1071 and recaptured Jerusalem in 1197. Two new crusades were un-
successful in hberating it.

A fourth crusade was organized to proceed from Venice against the Moslems in Egypt, at-
tacking Jerusalem from the south. Although the pope hoped to direct the struggle again into
spiritual channels, the feudal leaders prevailed and the force of the crusading armies was di-
verted against Constantinople, which by that time had shown too plainly its disdain of the
West. The city was captured in 1204 and mercilessly plundered of its treasure. A northerner,
Baldwin of Flanders, became the first Latin emperor of that Orthodox Greek world. Venice
had its reward when the Venetian Morosini became the patriarch, with allegiance to Rome.
It is as if a Protestant bishop had been placed in the chair of the cardinal at Notre Dame ( for the
Roman Church regards the Orthodox as schismatic, but the Orthodox looks upon the Roman as

heretical). The Doge of Venice added a sahent part of the Byzantine Empire to his domain,
including the island of Crete.

In art and architecture, much that Ein-ope now takes for granted as its own originated in the
Near hundred years certain buildings are still extant to bear testimony. In
East. After fifteen
Persia, Egypt, and Syria, where working in brick and stone had ancestral tradition, tlie arch
had early taken on a pointed form. Pointed arches constructed in mud brick occur in buildings in
Egypt as early as mid-fourth century after Christ. Brick was easier to handle than stone, and
many daring forms could be created with the aid of wooden supports that were removed when
the mass had solidified. By the eighth century, cities such as Baghdad, PalmvTa, Samarra, Ankara,
all had buildings with pointed arches.^ Similarly, the transverse vault is found in a fourth cen-
tury building, and the ribbed ogival vault was not uncommon by tlie ninth.'*^

To keep the historical continuity, the illustrations will be discussed later in this chapter.
itself borrowed from a number of styles of the Near East. By the end
Byzantine architecture
of the sixth century had achie\'cd a highly individual blend of Greek and oriental elements.
it

In the regions of the Byzantine Empire, basilicas ( from the Greek basilic, kingly ) rose, rectangu-
lar buildings divided into nave with side aisles. Otlier t)^ical Byzantine ground plans were

—
based on the dome. Though the Romans after thorough contact with the Near East con- —
structed domes, they were never successful in placing a dome on a square or polygonal base.
 —

B\'Z.\XTIUM WAS A WORLD

This must be declared a S\Tian invention.^ The expanse of the Byzantine dome on pendentives,
with its many windows to Hghten the structure and illuminate the interior, has never been
dupHcated.
The greatest of the Byzantine domes, that of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople,
which will be discussed somewhat later in detail, was consecrated in its present form in 561.

The church of St. Sophia in Thessaloniki, built probably in early seventh century (the mosaics
were put up in mid-ninth ) was one of the earliest buildings to use pendentives in the construc-
,

tion of a dome at the crossing. St. Mark's in \'enice, begun in 1063, was modeled strictly on
Byzantine precepts, and exerted a great influence on the architecture of Western Europe. The
much-eulogized dome of the cathedral of Florence, commenced by BruneUeschi, was not com-
pleted until 1431 and not furnished with its lantern until 1471 after the first cupola had col-

lapsed in building; at that, it is not a true dome but a vast octagonal cloistered vault.
It was a S>Tian- Arabian custom to inscribe a building with the names of the architect and
those who contributed to its erection, as well as with the date. The great freedom in the treat-
ment and the cinquefoil derive from the brick and stucco which the
of moldings, the trifoil
Levantines used with virtuosity*. The style we know as "\'enetian Gothic" was first practiced
in buildings of the Arabic Near East.
The Romanesque was de\eloping in Europe when throughout the Byzantine Empire
st\'le

from Cairo to Damascus, from Constantinople to Thessaloniki, and even in some Itahan towns
— splendid buildings stood, tall and crowned with shining domes. Influences from Byzantium
helped the West greatly to ennoble its was the ambitious and
cumbersome architecture. It
technically advanced Romanesque which prepared the ground for the next epoch. Such char-
acteristics of the Gothic as the ribbed \ault, the groined vault, can be found in Romanesque

architecture: even the flying buttress was present in those centuries, though kept neatly under
the roof.
Charlemagne's builders at Aachen drew on the Lombard skill, which in turn learned much
from Constantinople and the Byzantine of Ravenna, at one time in close touch with "the Cit\'."

St. Mark's in \'enice has a ground plan derived from the church of the Holy Apostles in Con-
stantinople. Also, in France, Saint-Front at Perigueux foUows the same five-domed plan. Over
an even greater distance, the eleventh centur\' west front of Lincoln Cathedral in England,
with its entrance portals recessed in three tall archways, appears to have been modeled on the
contemporary' facade of St. Mark, just then in building, which in turn is closely connected with
the Koimesis church in Xicaea -
—destroyed in the Greco-Turldsh War about 1922.
Little attention has been paid to the influence of that area of North Italy where the long
fingers of the lakes reach from Lombardy into the French, Swiss, Austrian, and Slavic-speaking
lands. The cathederal Como, for instance, is a stunning document in stone of the various
of
changes in architecture from Romanesque to Gothic to early Renaissance, and contains elements
that came from the Byzantine and went by way of \'enice to the West. The three-aisled church
of Sant' Abbondio, also in Como, manifests still more the great but Httle-pubhcized contribution
which this region made in transmitting st\ies.
The early rehgious orders in Europe employed master masons, frequently lavTnen, who by
mid-eleventh century were constructing imposing buildings. The maestri comucini, the master
masons of Como, learned and corporations, and their work can be traced
their craft in colleges
as early as mid-seventh centur\\ They were itinerant masons, and through their journeying
 EL GRECO REVISITED
carried the high achie\ ements of their homeland in a broad swath from France to the Balkans

so powerful that the Lombard style is often identified as comacine. Their activities continue
into the Gothic epoch when other regions also began to exert powerful influences.®^
—
Even less known than Como are its neighbors Morcote, Lugano, Locarno, and across the
Alpine \alleys —
for their role in handing on the achievements of these artists and craftsmen
into Central and Western Europe. An amazing wealth of architecture, sculpture, and mural
painting can be seen behind the remnants tucked away in local museums, which a handful of
dedicated persons have rescued in bits or caught in pictures from the wholesale destruction of
nineteenth century "advance." This was no provincial school or cultural backwater, but a firmly
established center, which on the channels of growing commerce could and did spread far into
transalpine lands.®" The tradition is preserved in various later examples. A great figure of Clirist
in Majesty, the Pantocrator, fills the apse ceihng of a number of churches, as in the Byzantine
world.
The crusaders came to the Levant in full force in late eleventh century, when Near Eastern
technical achievements had become architectural tradition and were applied more generally
over the vast area than appears today. With the crusading armies came their mihtar>^ engineers,
their armorers, as well as scribes and draftsmen who recorded in word and picture what was
of interest and value to Western Europeans.
To separate clinically one epoch of architecture from what existed before and came into
being afterwards is a sterile pastime. People built, not to express spiritually lofty ideas but be-
cause they needed bigger and better buildings. The development of an architectural style is

a slow process — of outside influences, of experimentation, adaptation, and of change.

In the Gothic, the structural soUdity of former periods was relieved through a more highly
developed use of the pointed arch and through ribbed vaulting. The flying buttress, placed
outside the building to counterbalance stress, served to relieve the walls of weight and per-
mitted better illumination —a practical constructional element which the nineteenth century
sentimentalized with all other particulars of the style.
While the Romanesque was in considerable part spread through the work of the Benedictines,
in a number of countries the Cistercian order is closely related to the development of the
Gothic." This order, which was not founded until mid-twelfth century, gathered power from
the prosperity of its agricultural enterprises, its animal husbandry. The order spread into various
lands, coinciding with the maturing of the Gotliic style. But this architectural development
could become a reahty only by benefiting from all that went before.

Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis in France (ca. 1081-1151) has left an account of the rebuilding
and enlargement of the church in his care and its treasures. It is a eulogy to his own great feats.
In circles where the cult of the French Gotiiic still reigns unabated. Abbot Suger is gi\'en dis-
proportionate importance in the history of this style. It is characteristic, however, that an
Italian Roman Catholic encyclopedia mentions him only as a cleric who scrisse qualche opera e
molte lettere —wTote some works and many letters. . .
.^ An objective reading of Suger's para-
graphs will reveal that he inquired repeatedly of travelers who came from Constantinople
whether his church was as beautiful as, and whether his treasures compared with, those of the
Eastern metropolis. ^^ The mere idea shows baffling pro\'inciality —that his one building could
compete with the vast complex of churches and the immeasurable riches of the Byzantine
capital.By early twelfth century tlie Near East had become a meeting place of Western European
nations who sent home their wounded and sick; contact went on for decades tlirough reinforce-

•6-
 :

BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD

ments which contained also numerous civilian observers. Whatever this abbot gathered in
the twenty-nine years or so of his rule was infinitesimal compared to the splendor of the im-
perial city, of the world's wealth was concentrated.^^ Long before any of the
where two-thirds
crusades, a treasure-trovewas amassed in Constantinople which could be plundered by fellow
Christians for centuries and each time still yield further riches. Considering that the coming
and going of the crusaders was continuous, at Abbot Suger's time the exchange was more than
a century under way to the abundant profit of the hesitant art and architecture of Western
Europe.
One of the rare surviving architectural manuals —alleged by some to be the only one before
the fifteenth century — is the sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt dated between 1225 and 1250.
Even this appears to be fragmentary. It consists of random pages, 6V4 by lOVi inches, contain-
ing sketches of figures, rehgious scenes, architectural details, studies of persons in movement.
Villard seems to have been present at the construction or enlargement of various French
churches. Among the drawings there ai*e also details which do not refer to France — for example,
the picture of a round window of a church in Lausanne. Further, to one of his sketches he adds
"Once I was in Hungary, where I remained for a long time; I saw the paving of a church made
with this design," His trip to Hungary must have been a matter of importance because a differ-

ent hand added to the sketchbook in the fifteenth century, "This is the man who was in
^"^
Hungary."
At that time Hungary was a great kingdom, not only militarily powerful but also leading in
the arts and humanities. The first reconstruction of the metropolitan church of Cambrai in
France, important in the history of French Gothic, was made possible by a donation from St.
Elisabeth of Hungary. She belonged to the Arpad d>Tiasty, founders of that kingdom which
stretched from the Polish plains to the Dalmatian shores on the Adriatic. EUsabeth was most
religious, and after her marriage to a Landgrave of Thuringia in Germany, she spent much of
their fortune on good deeds. Both her father and her husband participated in crusades. Here
again is a direct connection with the Near East —by way of Hungary and Germany, to France.
Modem investigation is bringing about a revaluation in the history of art, as in other human-
istic disciplines. The civilizations of the Near and Far East are only now beginning to come into
focus, and the nineteenth century misunderstanding of the Gothic is in process of being cleared
up. The word Gothic is derived from the Goths, barbarians from the North, and up to mid-
nineteenth century it implied something uncouth, in bad taste. Travel books from eighteenth

and early nineteenth centuries use the word exclusively in a deprecatory sense. In the Italian
language it has that meaning even today. Around 1860 the many early French churches were
full of additions from the Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassic, and early Victorian periods, pre-

senting Uving documents of centuries through which the buildings had stood witnesses to the —
variety of taste. Under the influence of a group of powerful nationahstic architects and critics,
seeking in the intellectual past of their nation compensation for mihtary defeat, the "restora-
tion" of these cathedrals began. Most of what was created in the intermediate four hundred
years —
was ripped from the interiors side altars, pulpits, organ screens, confessionals; and
similarly the exteriors were "restored" according to what VioUet-le-Duc and his group thought
a thirteenth century Gothic cathedral ought to look like. Although opposition arose, and many
dignified writers and personaHties, among them Anatole France, protested against this falsifica-
tion, the work went on. It is now slowly being realized that those "reconstructed" buildings

show a style which is synthetic and unreal.

 EL GRECO REVISITED
when Constantinople was retaken from the Franks by the Byzantines, it was evident
In 1261,
thatbetween the two reUgious denominations an almost unhealable rift existed. The Greek
Church had remained throughout the Middle Ages true to its ancient character. When the
Orthodox faith became estabUshed and other countries, the language of the
in various Slavic
service remained Greek and then the texts were translated into the respective
for a time only,
tongues. Thus the Russian, Macedonian, Serbian, Romanian to mention only a few could — —
follow the liturgy better than the iUiterate French or Bavarian peasant who understood no
Latin. In the West, as early as the thirteenth centur)% the peasantry' in \arious countries showed
signs of restlessness. The corruption of the feudal masters —whether baron or bishop—produced
such movements as the Waldensian and the Hussite long before the Reformation.
In the face of Moslem advance, now spurred by the virile and aggressive Ottoman Turks,
various attempts were made toward a rapprochement and mutual defense. Between the years
1369 and 1439, three Byzantine emperors visited the West. In 1439 the Council of Florence was
convened, attended by both Orthodox and Roman plenipotentiaries. The Byzantine emperor
John \TI Palaeologos came with a large group of important personages, including the Patriarch
of Constantinople. But tlie discussions did not serve the Cliristian cause; the Orthodox patriarchs
refused to ratify the concessions demanded by the West in return for a united crusade. The
most \aluable record of this heated bargaining is the murals painted by Benozzo Gozzoh in the
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi of Florence some twenty years later. Here, in the guise of the \isit of

the Magi to the Christ Child, the conclave of the emperor, the patriarch, and young Lorenzo de'
Medici is portrayed with jewel-like clarity and unique storytelling charm.
The Western ci\'iHzation still works with opinions that were formed
histor)^ of the arts of

when was under Turkish rule and when research in Near and Far East
the Byzantine Empire
could not be more than sporadic and sketchy. Most historians, informed by overwhelming West-
oriented sources, speak with deprecation of a decaying Byzantine Empire. An empire which,
despite having to fight enemies from all sides, including their own Christian brothers, remained
a militarypower to be reckoned \Wth until its fall, and nevertheless enriched the Western world
for more than a thousand years with its spiritual, intellectual, and artistic achievements, pro-
—
viding the spark for the Renaissance what "decadence," what "stagnation and decay"!
While the Romanesque and Gothic were evolving in the West, great developments were also
taking place in the Byzantine world. The brilliant wall mosaics (such as at Hosios Lukas, Chios,
Daphni, Thessaloniki, and Constantinople), the murals, ivories, enamels, and metalwork. and
—
the book illumination all testify to the \italit\' of the arts of this period. But the two worlds
were drifting apart. The schism of the churches, the acrimonious rivalries in trade put up in-
creasing barriers. The West became less familiar \\ith the East, and after the Turkish conquest
memories died, so that by the eighteenth centur\-, when Gibbon \sTOte his Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, the picture he gave of the Byzantine world was essentially a false one.'**

The Turks in their masterly campaign had by-passed the massive bastions of Constantinople,
crossed the Bosporus, and subjugated the Balkan lands, thus separating the East from the West
in Christendom. Finally, they dared the conquest of Constantinople and after a protracteditself,

siege the city fell to Mohammed II in 1453. Witli the fabulous capital in the hands of the Turks,
the Byzantine Empire as a pohtical unit went down to its end. The Turkish rulers have some-
times shovvTi a more humane attitude toward the Christian population than Wee versa. Smaller

places of Christian worship, where no crowds could gather to conspire against the ruling power,

•8-
 BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD
and the chapels in fields and on hillsides could be used. The large churches were expropriated
by the Turks, and many received an addition of the minaret, that slender, gracefully joined
tower from which the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. As the Moslem religion prohibits all
figurative art, the mosaics and murals were whitewashed or broken down, the religious para-
—
phernalia disposed of if not already hidden away by the Orthodox population. The monu-
mental complex of the imperial residence fell into ruins. Buildings, terraces, and stairways were
used as quarries. One of the marvels of the world, the church of St. Sophia, was transformed into
a gigantic mosque. The city's tactical position offered a springboard for the military and com-
mercial advance of the Ottomans into the Western world.
The century which brought the downfall of Byzantium had not yet ended, when a boy was
bom, allegedly of Christian Armenian-Greek parentage, who was brought up as a Turkish janis-
sary. Sinan, as he was called, became the unequaled master of Moslem architecture and

related arts in the briUiant epoch of the Osmanli sultans. He no doubt studied the St. Sophia
of Constantinople; but he also saw much of Near Eastern architecture and he created a
style of which the and grandeur only now when travel and photography
unity, elegance, —
—
make it possible to study his work as a whole are beginning to be widely appreciated.
Under Suleiman the Magnificent, called Lawgiver by the Turks, a thorough rebuilding
of Istanbul began. And soon new mosques, not less in size or grace than churches of the
Byzantine epoch, decorated the horizon of that majestic city, with their dehcate tilework and
their domes vibrating in the hazy sunshine. Sinan was also a remarkable military engineer.®
He participated at the siege of Rhodes in 1522 and later in the victorious campaign when the
Danube was forced. He directed the earthworks in the battle at Mohacs in Hungary, when the
road to Vienna was laid open ( 1526 ) The Hungarian king Lajos
. ( Louis II ) , who perished in
that battle, was married to a sister of the Habsburg Charles V; thus the Turkish menace thrust
at the heart of theHoly Roman Empire. It was Suleiman's ambition to complete the subjugation
of Central Europe, but he died during the campaign. The Turks did not penetrate beyond
eastern Austria, but halted to consolidate their overextended line of supplies.
The Greeks who remained in Istanbul after the conquest withdrew to the shore quarter and the
hills on the southern edge of the Golden Horn. Here they formed a tightly woven community,
known as Phanar, which received many privileges from the first. The Moslem conquest and the
vicissitudes of Prankish rule had long engulfed the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem. The patriarch of Constantinople became the sole head of the Byzantine Church,
the administrator of all Orthodox Christians under Turkish rule.
The collection of tithes in distant provinces was in the hands of Greeks from Phanar, and
seemingly they handled their office so efficiently that the Turkish administration had them col-
lect the taxes as well. In Romania, even after it became an independent kingdom in the last

century, the collection of taxes was still entrusted to the descendants of Phanariot Greeks. The
successful management of the various tax moneys might explain the presence, even in recent
years, of very wealthy Greek bankers and shippers in Cairo, Damascus, Smyrna, Sophia, Bucha-
rest.

Even if the Orthodox patriarchs had acceded to the demands of Rome and the West had
joined in full force against Ottoman might, it is doubtful whether a final victory over the Turks
could have been achieved. The terrific momentum Moslem onslaught probably could
of the
not have been stemmed. And the Orthodox world, having bargained away its individual culture
and spiritual unity, would have foundered in the aggressiveness of the West.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Although as a pohtical unit the Byzantine Empire became a memory, its influence was by that
time profoundly established in Greece, Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and beyond, as well
as in the Near East. In the occupied Hellenic lands patriotism and religion, fused into a spiritual

flame, kept language, literature, and art alive until —within the past century —freedom was
regained.

The fortifications of Constantinople underwent one major enlargement and many repairs in
the course of the centuries. But certain sections still present much the same appearance as when
Emperor Theodosius II, in mid-fifth century, enlarged the city and consequently strengthened
the fortifications {Pi. lA). The bulwarks were massive enough to repulse attacks by Huns, Avars,
Persians, Arabs, Bulgars, and Russians successively, and even held back the Turks for a long
time. There were two walls, some thirty-six feet high. The inner one was built of cut stone and
brick, five or so courses of each alternating. As reinforcement in each were ninety-six towers,
spaced some 165 feet apart, tliose in one wall alternating with those in the other. Then came a
moat between high escarpments. This massive construction had ten gates, the grandest of which
was called the Golden Gate. Legend says that it was walled up after the Turks took the cit>'
because of a prophecy that through this gate would enter the reconqueror. But from the stone-
work it appears that it was filled in in preparation for the crusaders' attack in 1204. The vast
network of fortifications stands today in melancholy ruin; but the gates still have power enough
to strike back at truck fenders when careless drivers come too near to them.
The church of St. Sophia —Holy Wisdom— in Constantinople was erected by the Emperor
Justinian to replace an earher basilica, and was dedicated in 537. Its plan is daring and original.
Over the central square, a dome one hundred feet in diameter rests upon huge arches with pen-
dentives at the comers. It took a little over five years to complete the church, which was for
centuries the largest in the world. The Byzantine system of construction, alternating courses
of brick with mortar almost as thick, was not suited to such rapid work.^^ The mortar dried
unevenly and some of the arches buckled. An earthquake in 553 may have damaged the struc-
ture; another, four years later, caused the dome to fall. When it was rebuilt, it rose 180 feet above

the ground. The church was justly called the newest "wonder of the world." Its delicately pro-
portioned walls are one of the glories of architecture.
This superlative building did not stand alone. Between 527 and 536, the church of SS. Sergius
and Bacchus was erected, as well as the churches of St. Eirene and the Holy Apostles, each
representing an exquisite variation in the development of Byzantine architecture and art. The
five-domed plan of the Holy Apostles was copied in St. Mark at Venice.
St. Sophia today (Pi. IC), despite the minarets and Turkish buildings that surround it, stands
apart tlirough its supple construction. The incredibly flat dome, its drum pierced by forty open-
ings, appears bubble-light. The vast space of the interior is enclosed with the least possible
sense of confinement, producing an atmosphere warm and colorful and at the same time uplift-

ing.The many windows give the interior an even and noble illumination. Tliroughout the
Romanesque and Gothic this goal was striven for, but it took tlie West seven hundred years
more to achieve it.

Among the various impressive architectural remnants of the Near East, a few examples have
been chosen to illustrate the early dates of the edifices and the skill of workmanship.
The Egyptians were among the earliest followers of Christ's teaching. The converts, known as

•10-
 Bl^ANTIUM WAS A WORLD
Copts, were in communion with the neighboring Ethiopians, likewise Christianized in very-
early times. Murals and manuscripts of the latter land preserve a strong touch of the Coptic
manner, and some Abyssinian churches were hewn out of Hving rock, probably influenced by
Eg>^tian technique from pre-Christian times. In the Sudan, south of Egypt, where mighty
monuments of the Pharaohs are now endangered by the building of the Aswan Dam, the figures
of Christian saints are found on the walls of pagan temples among the gods of the earlier rehgion.
In the ruins of a Coptic monastery near Aswan {PL 2A), founded in the fourth century, the pow-
erful arches, the remnants of tunnel vaulting, and the carved decorations give an idea of the
regional type of construction in clay and stone.
At Til Keuy, thirty miles southwest of the city of Kayseri, which was once the capital of Cap-
padocia, in Central Turkey, he the ruins of the church dedicated to St. Andrew, built in the sixth
century (
Pi. 2B ) The
. large, weU-dressed stones make possible a wide span. It was a two-aisled
mortuary church with some twenty tombs under the floor of the north aisle. Originally it seems
to have been a basihca with columns and a flat roof; a painted inscription survives from this
earhest structure.^- The region was a prosperous province under Byzantine rule. It is tragic
that such influential accomplishment must be judged from such fragments.
The monastery church of St. Simeon the Styhte {Pi. 2D), some thirty miles northwest of
Aleppo, Syria, was erected on the site where the hermit saint died in 459. The stonework of the
basihca shows assurance, even elegance, achieved with fine metal tools; highly feared sword
blades were fashioned in nearby Damascus. The massivity of the construction is lightened by
the use of free-standing colunms in the archway, and by the grace of the cornices, moldings, and
other sculptural decoration. It is a building of unusual plan, with four basilica-like bodies radiat-
ing from a center, where the column stood on which the saint had spent much of his contem-
plative life. While some authorities date the building from early seventh century, others would
have it more than a hundred years older. It stood near a road that was important from a mihtary
point of view since Hittite times and tliat Arabs, Egyptians, and crusaders used as a battleground.
By the end of the tenth century, it feU victim to the continuous strife that raged about it.
The population of the large area and Palestine before World War II com-
known as Syria —
—
prising the bibhcal territories of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea was among the first to convert
to Christianity. By the early years of our epoch, Syrian culture had developed to a height and
originahty that affected the entire Mediterranean world. Even their earUest buildings for Chris-
tian worship show considerable deviation from the classic style. The Omayad Mosque, the
"Great Mosque," in Damascus ( Pi. 2C ) was originally the church of St. John the Baptist, begun
by Theodosius I in 375 on the site of a Roman temple and apparently making use of its classical
columns. It was considerably rebuilt in the eighth century to turn it into a mosque. Here was
venerated as a relic the alleged head of John the Baptist, which disappeared after the cru-
saders ransacked the area. Now two French churches, Soissons and Amiens, claim its possession.

Looking back tlirough the perspective of history, it may appear that while the Moslem bene-
fited from the intellectual and practical achievements of the "infidel," he also gave much. Ramla
or Ramie, in Israel today, is an Arab foundation dating from the early eighth century. The name
is derived from the Arabic rami, meaning sand. Situated on the way between Jerusalem and
the ancient port of Jaffa, it was a city of great importance even after the advent of the crusaders
at the end of the eleventh centmy. An Arab historian describes it as "well-built, its water good
and plentiful, its fruit abundant, commerce prosperous, its bread . . . the best and the whitest."

•ll-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Among its monuments, the hospice was a Byzantine foundation, the great mosque
historical
from the twelfth century was originally a crusaders' church, and the tower from the fourteenth
is Moslem.

The cistern of Ramla (Pi. 4C), built under the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid in 789, is a sub-
terranean structure with strong retaining walls and a well-preserved pavement. It was laid out

into six aisles, covered by tunnel which spring from low lateral pointed arches and are
vaults
reinforced by higher transverse arches.^ Each vaulted bay was pierced by an opening some
two feet square, so that twenty-four people could draw water at the same time. A staircase led
down to the bottom of the cistern. In this case posterity showed appreciation, in surrounding
the structure with a public garden.
Alone in Syria, eight other well-preserved examples of such cisterns can be found. In Con-
stantinople, where an adequate water supply was paramount in case of siege or drought, every
reign built new cisterns, some open, some covered, whether for palace, mansion, monastery,
or church. Over thirty of tJiem exist today, showing great variety of construction. Many of the
bricks used in the cisterns were stamped in mid-fifth century, others in the time of Justinian,
and the upper courses show the monograms of Byzantine stonemasons.^^
Another clear forerunner of the Gothic is the Nilometer in Egypt ( Pi. 4B ) datable through,

its inscription at 861-862. Travelers from various lands remark that the rise or fall of the water

level was the object of daily concern, and served as the usual opening of conversation in Egypt.-'
The Nilometer, on Roda Island near Cairo, was a gauge. It consisted of a tall graduated column
rising from a stone-lined pit. The waters of the Nile flowed in through three tunnels, making

possible continuous observation of the level. The four sides of the stone pit are strengthened
by arched recesses, their pointed arched vaults resting on a pair of engaged colonnettes. Care-
fulmeasurements reveal that the arches have been struck from two centers one-third of the
span apart; thus they comprise what Gothic architects called, much later, "tiers points." ^

Although relatively near the heartland of the Byzantine Empire, the Kingdom of Armenia
cannot be considered a mere offshoot of the civilization that centered in Constantinople. The
racial history of the Armenians is different; the pre-Christian centuries brought them in touch
with other cultures. When a national church was estabhshed there, as early as 303, the Greek
language was replaced by Armenian, a national alphabet introduced, and the Bible translated.
Much fighting occurred with the Arabs* rise in the Near East, and early in the eighth century
the Armenian katholikos, or supreme head of the church, intervened for peace between the
Armenian princes and the Arab caliph. Late in the following century, the country freed itself
entirely and for nearly two hundred years enjoyed unusual prosperity, although it was divided
into various kingdoms. Throughout Greater Armenia the ruins of innumerable monuments,
irrigation works, churches, and palaces still stand as tokens of the native virtuosity in con-
struction.
The church of Achthamar {Pi. SA) was on a small island in Lake Van. The
built in 915-921,
plan is a square with four buttressing niches projecting from it and so forming a cross. One of
them constitutes the apse, and the others, tiny side chapels. Adequate lighting is achieved by
windows in a high octagonal drum that houses the cupola. These features are later encountered
in the Balkans also. Especial interest lies in the fine handling of the stone and in the sculptured
rehefs that adorn the whole of the exterior. Stylistically these sculptures embody the influence
of Sassanian Persia. Three encircling friezes of animals, hunters, grapevines and pomegranates

•12-
 B\^AXTIUM WAS A WORLD
stand out as if f onned with a cook>^ mold. The ston' of Jonah PL 3C ) gives a clear idea of the
(

stontelling chairn of this work. In the medallions, local saints and heroes appear, as well as

evangelists and biblical characters.^'

Armenian painting can best be studied today through the numerous book illustrations, which
show influences varying between the Byzantine-Greek, the Persian, and the work of neighboring
Syria —
such as the Rabula Gospels from the sixth century (see Pi. 62A). Remnants of wall
paintings are extant at Achthamar and even in some forerunners from as early as the seventh
century. Besides apostles and church fathers ( Pi 3B ) here are also faded remnants of scenes
representing the Visitation, the Nativity, the Entry into Jerusalem, among others, rendered \Wth
an immediacy that is close in st}-le to the carving. From this plate it can be seen that the church
structure, with its semicircular niches, suave domes, and pleasant transitional members, was
far more subtle than the exterior shell would indicate. Though the interior of the church at
Achthamar was apparently covered with wall paintings, the vicissitudes of nearly a thousand
years have taken a hea\y toll of them. Perhaps e\en this much survives only because the build-
ing stands upon a lonely island, completely deserted. The adjacent royal palace is just a pile of
stone. Dangerously near the Russo-Turkish border, it sees \isitors ver>' seldom. It is an abode
only to the sea birds that nest there undisturbed.
The cathedral at .Ani occupies a still more advanced architecture
striking place in the highly
of Armenia {Pi. 4A). Ani Hes north of Achthamar, indeed about halfway from Lake Van to
Georgian Tiflis. Built between the years 989 and 1001, it is a cruciform domed church, con-
structed entirely of fine dressed stone. The side aisles are roofed with barrel vaulting. Although
not of monumental size, its interior is imposing because of the harmony of proportion. Pointed
and stepped arches rise from powerful clustered piers, supporting a dome on pendenti\es. Re-
cessed pilasters are placed against the north and south walls. Small semicircular niches enliven
the apse. The same elements as seen here were used in other contemporary' churches of the
region. Arches and cross ribs to bear the weight of the stone web were common.^' The small
double-arched windows (even triple sometimes) famihar from the later Venetian Gothic are
found in Armenia constructed in stone. ^^ One is strongly reminded of the early Gothic of West-
ern Europe, with the difference that these forms appear here much earHer. When Achthamar
and Ani were in construction, the Cistercian order did not exist.
It is recorded that, when the dome of St. Sophia in Constantinople was damaged by earth-
quake in the late tenth centur>% the architect of Ani was called in to make the repairs.

Besides the possession of the Holy Sepulcher and control of trade routes, the Holy Land of-
fered highly attracti\e and desirable property for the crusaders to occupy. To consohdate their
position, well-defended bases were necessary, where men and war materials could stand at call.
Such fortresses —
were garrisoned by their feudal lords a practice that tended to strengthen
local units and weaken the central power. Krak des Chevahers {Pi. 5A), a fortress begun in the
early thirteenth centmy, belonged to the Knights of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of
Jerusalem, better known was
as the Hospitalers. This order of lay brothers originally formed
as a sort of medical corps to serve the sick and wounded of the crusades. Their hospital at
Jerusalem could accommodate two thousand patients, and was remarkably modem in its friendly
service, excellent diet, and indi\idual care. Their success brought tremendous wealth. They
owned banks, land, trading houses, and exercised sovereign rights as a feudal entity that extended
far beyond the frontiers of the Holy Land.

•13-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
The great fortress housed about two thousand men. It stands on a height in North Syria near
the Lebanese border, dominating the important inland road from Aleppo to Damascus, and
seems impregnable with its double row of massive walls, one peering above the other, divided
by a moat. Just as in Guatemala the Maya Indian and in Peru the Incas' descendants con-
structed churches and palaces for their Spanish masters, here also thousands of local laborers
must have been impressed to erect this fortress with the necessary speed. It duplicates in Une
and construction methods a number of Arab fortresses in the area. Clearly visible is the device
known as machicolation that can be traced to Arab architecture. The machicolation is a corbeled
parapet at the top of a building, with openings in the floor through which the defenders can
see the foot of the structure and drop various unpleasant objects on the heads of attackers.
The device, apparently derived from the projecting latrines of S\Tian tower-houses, does not
appear in Western Europe before the end of the twelfth century. Examples at Norwich and
Winchester England date from 1186-1193 and somewhat later in the town halls {signorie)
in
of Florence and Siena.^
— —
To local stonecutters and masons masters of their craft must be attributed also the grace-
ful yet thoroughly sound "Gothic" arched passageway PL 5B The fortress of Krak des Che-
(
.

valiers was taken in 1271 by the troops of the Sultan of Egypt. Driven from the mainland, the
Hospitalers moved to Cyprus, then to Rhodes, and later withdrew to Crete. Finally Charles V,
Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, granted them the island of Malta (1530); hence they are
known today as the Knights of Malta.

Of all the centers of architecture, culture, and thought in the Near East, Constantinople, the
Byzantine capital, was the most important. The churches that were built there were of all

periods,and extremely numerous. Some, such as St. Sophia, were constructed within the time
span of a few years and have kept their character for almost a millenniimi and a half; others
have undergone many changes across the centuries. An example is the church known today as
Kariye Cami, St. Saviour in Chora (Pi. IB), meaning "in the fields" or "outside the walls." Thus
the structure here must have antedated the period in which the land walls of Theodosius
first

(see PL lA) were constructed. Ruined in its earliest form by an earthquake, it is believed to have
been rebuilt by Justinian, only to be destroyed by another temblor in the mid-sLxth century.
It was again rebuilt a century later, and a number of important personahties were buried tliere.

During the iconoclastic period the monastery attached to it was suppressed, and the church
must have suffered. Restored in the ninth centur>% it had again fallen to ruin by the twelfth;
then, in its fifth version, it was rebuilt more or less on the plan visible today. Although damaged
during the Frankish domination, the church and monastery buildings were brought back into
condition by Theodoros Metochites, then chief treasurer of the empire and confidant of tlie

Emperor Andronicus II of whom we shall hear again. Theodoros built an aisle across the north
side as a mortuary chapel (at the right) and had it decorated with the wall paintings which
are of special interest to us. BrilUant and lively mosaics depicting the lives of Jesus and the
Virgin cover the walls of the two narthices. According to a Greek chronicler, the work was
finished before 1321. Later, Theodoros and died there as a monk in 1331.^
fell into disgrace
The murals of Kariye Cami are thought to have been executed by the same anonymous master
who designed the mosaics of the narthices. The tlieme is the Triumph over Death. Christ in
Limbo is represented in the apse ( PL 75 ) a figure of superlative power, lifting Adam and Eve
,

out of the kingdom of Hades. The delineation of Christ's figure — expression, pose, and his gar-

.14.
 BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD
ments —was by this time firmly established, and characterizes him in Byzantine art through
the centuries. The text above, Anastasis, signifies the Resurrection, embodying also the sense
of the Redemption of Mankind.
The Turkish official under whose jurisdiction the buildings fell after the conquest may have
had some appreciation of their beauty and artistic merit. At any rate he did not have the deco-
rations torn away; instead they were covered with thick coats of whitewash, so that recent care-
ful restoration has revealed them almost in their pristine hues. With its immediacy, storyteUing

power, and mural demolishes the oft-repeated assertion of the dull, convention-
fine colors, the

ahzed character of Late Byzantine art. It gains importance when we consider that Kariye Cami's
mosaics and wall paintings were set up in the very years of Giotto's mature output.

The capture and pillage of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 was a blow from which
the Byzantine Empire never fully recovered. Although by 1261 the Greeks could reenter their
capital, the Peloponnesus was divided among the Franks, with some Greek lords holding out
against them and Venice in firm possession of strategic harbors. In an effort to consohdate their
holdings, the Franks estabhshed a string of three fortresses on three heights across the peninsula.
One of these is the site of the present Mistra {PL 12A). But the power of Byzantium was again
on the rise, and the emperor finally won command over the heartland of the Peloponnesus.
It is recorded that an old town of Mistra, some two miles southwest of Sparta, was important
in the twelfth century for its production of silken webs "finer than the spider's" —largely the
work of a Jewish colony there. Reestabhshed on a sharply sloping hill, enlarged and embellished
by the Palaeologos family some 150 years later, Mistra became known as "the wonder of Morea."
Constantine XI Palaeologos, the last Emperor of Byzantium, was brought up there and ruled
for six years before he left to be crowned at Constantinople and to die fighting the Turks on
the ramparts of his capital. The region around Mistra survived the holocaust until 1460. Then
the Turks garrisoned a fortress on the summit, and the cosmopolitan httle city sank into neglect
and ruin.
One chmbs steep and narrow paths, passing buildings that are sometimes no more than piles
of stones. Through glassless windows, broken roofs, and fissured walls, animals crawl and birds
fly in and out. Yet in at least seven churches the great performance of Late Byzantine mural

painting can be observed.^^

The church of Peribleptos, the Conspicuous, perched at the edge of a bluff, dates from the
second half of the fourteenth century {Pi. 12C ) Its interior is frescoed from ceiHng to floor, and
.

glows hke a jewel box. In the apse, the Virgin in the aspect of the Mother Church is seated with
the youthful King on her knee, on the typical throne of a Byzantine sovereign {Pi 128). At each
side the tasseled ends of the "imperial purple" ( that is, crimson ) cushion are clearly to be seen.

Angels flank the scene. Plate 13 shows the left side of the apse, where different compositions are
separated by a narrow dark-red band with white edging. Nearest the eye is the scene of the
Supper at Emmaus. The table is covered with a tasseled and embroidered cloth. The toyUke
architecture is draped with a curtain to indicate an interior, as is traditional in Byzantine iconog-
raphy. Above this scene, Mary, surrounded by the apostles and flanked by two archangels, wit-
nesses the Ascension. Despite what the building went through, the colors are warm and well
differentiated. The trees, conventionahzed and far from realistic, make one think of the work
of Fra Angehco and Benozzo Gozzoh in Italy nearly a century later. In the arch of the apse,
Christ in a circular aureole is carried upward by four magnificent angels in shining colors; a

•15-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
rosy red and a vibrant yellow shading to orange stand out. The subject matter and, to a great ex-
tent, the sequences of the murals are all established elements of Late Byzantine painting, and
occur nearly unchanged —even in icons, or portable holy paintings —into the nineteenth century.
"Conservation and restoration" were done here before modem methods could be applied.
In the last years the murals are getting more attention, as their outstanding importance is being
realized.

The call to spend one's life in contemplation, celibate and sohtary, is as old as mankind's
striving to fathom the mystery of divinity. Long before Christ, highly organized monasticism
existed in India and other parts of Asia. Buddhistic religious practices are in many ways fore-
runners of the Christian, such as the tonsure of monks and priests, the adoption of uniform
garb, the establishment of monasteries on mountaintops, or in remote valleys. The service in
the temple as communion with God, the chanting, the accompaniment of music, the use of the
prayer wheel and of bells and incense, pilgrimages, the veneration of rehcs and holy images,
are all pre-Christian, Even the rosary is found in the Buddhist rehgion. From the om nmni
padme hum to the Pater Noster is not a long way.
In the arts, also, Christianity took over much from the great previous religions. The glory
or halo of light about the head of a holy personage, the aureole or the almond-shaped jnandorla
enveloping the whole figure occur in ancient depictions. Particular colors are reserved for a par-
ticular occasion or saint. Heaven and hell, demons and furies, miracles, are all represented in
pictures and in carving before Christianity. Angels, as heavenly guardians or vdnged ministers
of good, appear in Buddhist art several centuries before Christ. In a scene of unusual poetic
feeling, on a sculptured stele, the young Buddha is shown leaving his home at dawn; four
winged angels uphold the legs of his horse so that he can depart without awakening his

parents.
Christianity went through its formative phase in the Near East. Christian monasticism stems
from Egypt, where it first took the form of retirement into solitude. The wilderness around
Mount Sinai was a favorite place for hermits. An ancient caravan road crossed the wedge-shaped
Sinaitic Peninsula, trodden by countless multitudes between Palestine and Egypt. This region
had the reputation of sanctity since antiquity. It is recorded that the heathen Arabs celebrated
a moon feast there to "Sin," who was a moon god also in Babylonian times. The mountain itself

figures as setting for Elijah's ascent, for Moses' vision of the Burning Bush, and for the delivery
of the Ten Commandments into his hands.
Once, the peninsula was better wooded, and numerous Christian hermits lived in its many
caves. Later they gathered into communal groups under austere rules, which were first laid
down by St. Basil the Great in the fourth century. Soon the necessity arose to erect quarters
to protect the monks from harassment by the Arabs and to accommodate pilgrims to the holy
mountain. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian built the first monastery and church in the mid-
sixth century, surrounding the place with a fortification. When, some three hundred years later,

the bones of the martyred St. Catherine of Alexandria were deposited there, the monastery
took on her name.
Besides its Judaeo-Christian associations, the place was venerated also by the Moslems. Ac-
cording to tradition, a monk at Mount Sinai wrote dovm the Koran at the dictation of Moham-
med the Prophet, who was unlettered; and Mohammed, who always evinced admiration and
•16-
 —

B^-ZAXTIUM WAS A WORLD

respect for cultural accomplishments, granted a charter to the monks in gratitude, assuring
them the safety of their Hves and property from his followers. From Mount Sinai, Mohammed
is beheved by some Moslems to have been carried aloft to Heaven on the back of a great camel

which left its footprint on the peak.

As the schism between the two Christian denominations became marked, in the mid-eleventli
century, and amidst the engulfing conquest of the Moslems, the monasterv' of St. Catherine at
—
Mount Sinai served as the link between the bibHcal lands at that time no longer in Christian
—
hands and the rising civihzation of Western Europe. Up to the fifteenth century the Roman
Catholic hierarchy accepted the popularity of the Coptic saint, and the pilgrims of that faith
going to the Holy Land stopped there also as at an important shrine. A sketch from that time
shows on the mountain a Saracen mosque, the church of Elijah, a church "where the Law was
given to Moses," the church of the "garden of the Blessed Catherine" with its well of miraculous
water, and the monaster^' dedicated to her. In 1483 Felix Fabri, a Swiss monk from the Domini-
can monastery in Ulm, Wiirttemberg, made the pilgrimage, and in his old age described his
visit to Mount Sinai. Although he had been taught to regard the monks of St. Basil as without
virtue in the eyes of God, he was deeply moved by the holiness of the spot.^^ We reahze from
his pages what chasms of bitter resentment, petty grudge, and unrelenting suspicion separated
the two denominations of Christianity.
The monks Mount
Sinai received income from local sources, especially in the form of
of
offeringsfrom the pilgrims, and could count on subvention from various daughter houses,
notably communities on Rhodes, C\-prus, Crete, and Corfu, even after all but the last had fallen
to the Turks, The charter "sealed by the hand" of the Prophet was renewed in the early sixteenth
century by the Ottoman sultan and, although not always honored, was nevertheless important
in preserving, in a number of lands, branches and dependencies dedicated to St. Catherine of
Sinai.

The monastery at Mount Sinai has a tremendous rehgious radiation, even after one and a
half milleimiums of existence in an Arabic country. And the most important monasteries in
Greece, those at Mount Athos and Meteora, looked toward it for orientation, as the keeper
of the oldest Christian tradition.
As at Mount Sinai, caves and other natural shelters attracted hermits to the small peninsula
of Mount Athos in eastern Macedonia. There, on a tongue of land some thirt\' miles long and
eight miles at its oddest point, twenty monasteries with their appended hermitages are func-
tioning even today — a unique agglomeration of rehgious bodies. The Holy Mountain Aghion
Oros in Greek — rises nearly seven thousand feet at the end of the peninsula. Its associations
reach back into legendar>' times. It is a "weather breeder" of fierce, sudden thunderstorms and
incalculable winds, which defeated Xerxes' navy in 491 B.C. The Christian legend has it that
the ship on which the \'irgin sailed with St. John for C>'prus was blown out of its course to
Athos, then the abode of ancient gods. When she stepped ashore, the idols shattered. Before
leaving, she blessed the place and called it her garden, devoted to contemplation. Since then,
entrance is forbidden to any other woman; not even female animals may cross the boundar\-.
Here, in the protection of idylhc forests, surrounded by the changing green-blue depths of the
Aegean Sea, those religious men found peace as early as the fourth centur^^ By the tenth centur>'
they had grown so numerous that Athanasius organized for them the first monaster)^ or —
"community," as it is called, reflected in its Greek name La\Ta —
the nucleus of what became

•17-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
a republic of monasteries. In the eleventh century the Byzantine emperor gave further privi-
leges and donations, and the Holy Mountain became a fountainhead of spiritual power and
religious art. At its highest period it had forty monasteries, with a multitude of inmates. Today,
with only half the religious establishments, their numbers are constantly shrinking.
The monasteries fall into tw^o classes, the cenobites, who live in communities under strict

rules administered by a single head, and the idiorrhythms with an elected leader, whose lives
are freer and whose discipline is less severe. Besides these, there are the hermits whose abodes
are scattered throughout the peninsula; they are free to follow the dictates of their "inner rule."
When Thessaloniki feU to the Turks (1430), Mount Athos saw its first Moslem ofiBcials. But
these left the holy men in peace and respected their privileges. Isolated from the suflFering

and death which war brought to wide areas, Hbraries could be gathered, with works both copied
and composed there. Many of the finest murals at Mount Athos were executed in the second
half of the sixteenth century, when the Greek mainland and the rest of the Balkans had long
been under Turkish rule. However, the uprising of the Greeks for a national independence
( 1821 ) brought the monks also into the and they gave shelter to Christian fugitives.
conflict,

A Turkish army of three thousand men occupied the peninsula and housed in the monasteries
for nine years. Four-fifths of the monks fled; the old buildings began to decay. Many art pieces
and books were hidden or taken away, but tlie murals continued to deteriorate. The cultivated
lands, ohve groves, and gardens began to revert to wilderness. At Chilandari, once one of the
wealthiest monasteries in art and worldly goods, only three monks remained as caretakers.
One can imagine what they availed in the vast complex, in which soldiers and their women
were living, cooking, washing, and disregarding —even perhaps trying to desecrate —the painted
images of the "infidels." In the last quarter of the nineteenth century an economic upswing,
the result of independence achieved in a number of Balkan countries, and lavish gifts from
Russia contributed to a wave of restoration. But by that time much of the original medieval
character of the monasteries had already been lost. Even skillful and trained restorers —rare
indeed at that time —could not have saved many of the details.
Thus the monasteries at Mount Athos saw the flowering of Byzantine mural painting, and
contributed toward it considerably. But they also saw their treasures pillaged and soiled.
Now, in the present day, with a sparse and ignorant younger generation vv^hich cannot carry
on the great tradition, the future looks far from bright.^^
The east side of the peninsula has a mildly rising terrain, and the establishments reach
down on even ground to the water's edge. Since shipping and fishing were important, we often
see service buildings near the shore, where boats could be sheltered when the fierce wind blew
the waves to a perilous height. As were all monasteries of the Middle Ages, those on Mount
Athos were provided with fortifications against pirates and other raiders attracted by the treas-

ures accumulated there. One of the earliest establishments, Vatopedi {PL 6A), still displays
its sturdy bleak citadel-like walls. Expanding in later centuries when
was more friendly, life

it made use of the outer walls as foundations for further construction. The upper stories were

frail, usually built of wood, and fell prey to frequent fires. The large court (Pi. 7 A) has an ex-

tended pavement, trodden smooth by the feet of monks and pilgrims through many centuries.
The lead-covered domes of the churches have the outline of St. Mark's in Venice. Fountains of
pure water welcome the traveler.
The katholikon, or main church {Pi. 7C), placed as usual in the center of tlie courtyard,

offers a display of taste ranging from inspiring manuscripts and finely chased enamels of the

•18-
 BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD
thirteenth century to factory-made chandeliers of the nineteenth. The gifts of powerful donors
had to be exhibited; this is why so many lamps so many churches.
in so many styleshang in
Note the magnificent candelabrum at the right, resting on crouching lions, so characteristic of
Eastern Christianity. The Hon was known from life by the early Christians of Africa and Asia
Minor, and was reaHstically rendered, while the West long represented it rather as a dog with
a human face. As a backdrop to the scene stands the elaborate iconostasis, hung with icons and
curtained in velvet, which screens the altar from public view. In the tall, narrow, domed stand
at the left center, that particular icon is exhibited which has bearing on the day or season.
Flowers, blessed by use in the service, are strewn on the floor after special ceremonies.
The trapeza, or refector)^ {Pi. 6B), has plain stone slabs as tables, but the walls are richly
painted with rehgious subjects. Life-size figures of the Virgin and the Angel of the Annuncia-
tionoccupy the two niches, separated by the masonry bay. In the upper left is the Feast of
Abraham, at the right the Last Supper. In the large curvature of the bay Mother and Child
sit enthroned, surrounded by apostles and saints. The wall paintings were periodically "re-
freshed" —sometimes aU too effectively — and dating and authorship are thus rendered un-
certain. For other illustrations from Vatopedi, see Ph. 66C and 88B.
Lavra, the earHest and largest of the foundations, also went through many changes. The
passageway to the church, now enclosed in nineteenth century glass of dubious taste, displays
a mural of the Last Judgment {Pi. 9A). The monstrous maw of Hell swallowing the wdcked is

frequently encountered in Late Byzantine painting. The categorical divisions with their ex-
planatory text, the harsh coloring, and the foDdoristic flowered frieze running the length of
the benches show how benevolent but crude "reconstruction" can eradicate vestiges of earlier
centuries. ( Pi. 65B and C.
See also
Also on the east side of the peninsula stands Iviron {Pi. lOA), another of the larger and more
important monasteries. It was founded in 980, traditionally with the approval of Athanasius.^^
It was in its harbor that the Virgin's boat is said to have found refuge from the roaring storm.
The thickly wooded even today, that rise behind the complex, offer a wide view of the
hills,

Holy Mountain, which is often wreathed in clouds. Since wood was the only material at hand
for cooking and heating and even for much of the building, fire has done much damage here,
as among most of the monasteries on Mount Athos. But the great gate tower stands in medieval
massivity.
Lord Curzon who visited Iviron in 1831 judged the monastery to be even larger than Lavra
or Vatopedi at that time, and called it a fortified town.-^ (See also Pi. 24B.) Curzon spent
some time in the library, and noted an octavo manuscript of Sophocles and a Coptic psalter
with Arabic translation, as well as superb specimens of Greek manuscripts from the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, the works of SS. Chrysostom and Basil, and a large folio New Testament
executed in magnificent calligraphy, its red velvet binding an art piece in itself. His rather
cursory statistics mention some 5,000 printed books, 2,000 manuscripts on paper, 1,000 manu-
scripts on vellum —
many of them immensely thick quartos, as much as 18 inches square and
6 inches through. Considering the destruction of time and the diminishing number of monks,
it is reassuring tliat the Greek Ministry of Religion and Education, through its Archaeological
Service, has classified and inventoried the Iviron Library as one of the most important on Mount
Athos today. -^ There are still close to 1,400 manuscripts and 15,000 printed books on hand,
many of them first editions; the overwhelming majority of them are in Greek, but Russian and
other Slavic languages, Latin and West European tongues are also represented.

•19-
 )

EL GRECO REVISITED
The most imposing position on the west coast is held by the monastery of Simopetra {Pi. 8A).
It stands on fortress-hke abutments on an isolated rock, its height greatly accentuated by the
steep clifiFs tliat fall away below it. Since its foundation around the mid-fourteenth century,
it has been several times laid waste by fire, and little could be saved from earlier days. Even its

katliolikon is without wall painting. Altogether some two dozen monks live in this romantic
but forsaken abode, mostly Greeks, some from Asia Minor.
The monastery of Grigoriou Pi. 9C was founded in the late thirteenth century by Gregory,
(
)

a monk from Mount Sinai. The present building, constructed with donations from a Moldavian
prince (Romania), is of late eighteenth century, and its frescoes date from about the same
time, with recent "refreshings." ^^ Its compact outline is more like that of a palace than of a
fortress; modem cement piers like elegant columns support the superstructure. The painstak-

ingly constructed terraces grew vegetables, olives and other fruits for the use of the monks.
( Many of the monks never tasted meat, and allowed themselves fish only on special feast days.
Beyond, stretch the rocky bluffs of the west coast, heavily wooded in patches and, owing to the
absence of grazing animals, luxuriant with the rare wildflowers of the seasons.
The monastery of Panteleimon {Pi. 8B), or Russiko, as it is popularly known, is built on a
gentle slope and is one of the largest establishments on die peninsula. It was founded by
Russian monks, as the name implies. Walking its streets, one has the impression of being trans-
ported to a nineteenth century Russian town as described by Gogol and Turgenev. The gilded
sheen has faded from the onion domes. Exteriors and interiors show the melancholy marks of
decay. But they are reminders of the great attraction that this place had for the Russians
still

before World War At one time Russian monks outnumbered the Greeks on the peninsula.^
I.

The refectory, enlarged at the end of tlie nineteenth century to seat eight hundred monks, was
not sufiBcient to accommodate all the rehgious at one serving.
Several four- and five-story modem buildings line the shore, where the numerous Russian
pilgrims who came by way to or from the Holy Land could lodge. The Athos monks
boat on the
in their free time carved crosses and other rehgious objects of wood with an admirable deli-
cacy, in a special style; what is sold today is less than a shadow of the craft. The visitor is re-
ceived in a vast, once-magnificent audience hall, the walls hung with the dusty portraits of
Russian and Balkan rulers. As the amenities of welcome are being offered, one can notice that
the velvet of one's armchair is split and that the lace doily on the table falls to shreds at a touch.
The monumental dining hall once catering to the pilgrims is now locked, and sea birds flying in
and out of the broken windows bring the only life to it. The pier is in dire need of repair, and
the frail old gatekeeper merely waves one goodbye, lying pale on his sagging divan.
The monastery of Dionysiou, founded by Dionysius of Kastoria,
in mid-fourteenth century
has the patina of ages upon it, as one of the very few that for centuries has had no destructive
fires within its walls. A steep stone-paved walk leads upward from the sea to its one gate, which

could have served a medieval castle. From the narrow dilapidated balconies, supported by
aged struts, an inspiring panorama opens across the water toward the west, where Mount 01>Tn-
pus stands {Pi. lOB). In the refectory {Pi. IOC and D) the monks sit before rigorously scmbbed
wooden tables on benches without backs. The crude cabinet under the pulpit shows the simple
taste of the last generation. In strong contrast is the golden Rococo pulpit with its perforated

pattern of vines. On the lectern, shaped like an eagle with spread wings, lies the book which
is read aloud during the meal. The monastery is said to possess unrestored murals by the

Cretan painter Zorzi from the mid-sixteenth century.^^ Among more frequently encountered

•20-
 Bl'ZANTIUM WAS A WORLD
subjects {PL IOC), the Ladder of St. John Chmacos depicts, with a hght touch and vivacious
detail, the progress of the monastic soul toward final salvation. Climacos, bom in Palestine

in the late sixth centur>% was a monk at Mount Sinai and for a while a hermit in the Arabian
Desert. He wTote a classic work on ascetic philosophy called The Climax or Ladder of Perfec-
tion,hence his nickname.
As a special favor the abbot conducted us down into the foundations to see a chapel in the
earhest part of the structure. After descending several flights of very narrow stairs, in pitch
darkness, by a wa\ering candle flame, we found ourselves in a tiny room with a simple wooden
iconostasis half empty of icons —and whatever wall painting was visible was shockingly bright
and new.
We arrived in late afternoon at Dochiariou, the last of the monasteries visited. Luckily the
big gate was still open, but we had to wait for the evening service to come to an end. The
mellow voices of the monks had an overtone of lament; the a cappella singing gave the tradi-

tional melodies an eerie timbre as they floated out over the courtyard where we sat on a
bench. The katholikon is a tall, majestic church, said to be the largest on Athos. We were
admitted as the candles were being extinguished; smoke floated in the air mixed with the musky
aroma of incense. The bearded old monks were leaving, some of them in whispered conversa-
tion. The \ast interior with its rich iconostasis is painted throughout — ^walls and ceiling —said
to be the work of Cretan painters from the second half of the sixteenth century.
Today, the most authentic paintings can be found high in a dome or a gallery, preser\^ed by
the protected position and out of easy reach of a restoring brush. The awe-inspiring Pantocrator,
Christ in Judgment, in the dome ( PL 9B), is placed with great skill so as to show no distortion

from any point. The colorful folds of the garments contrast with the expressive, majestic face.
Under Him, the heavenly hierarchy form a circle, and their proportions and color harmonies
make His figure seem still more elevated above the church floor where we stand. As the parting
sun strikes into the loft)- lantern, the cupola glows with golden warmth and color. One under-
stands the constant inspiration, the pride of belonging there that emanates from the abbot. As
he speaks of historians who pre\iously \isited the monastery, his eye scans lovingly the sea-
scape and the dark mountains iridescent in the sunset.
Before the peninsula joins the mainland, it narrows to a strip of land something over a mile
wdde, across which tlie Persian king Xerxes undertook to drive a canal. A low stone wall closes
oS the cehbatic retreat of the monks from the outside world; and just beyond on the western
it,

shore, a village of some ninety small houses, called Prosfori, lies, clustered around a medieval
building which gives the popular name P>Tgos (the tower) to the place. Once this was an out-
post of the monaster)^ Vatopedi, and it is still the last point where women and female animals
may go PL (
7B). In its present form the tower was built by Andronicus H ( 1260-1332 ) , but
it has been suggested that it stands on an earher foundation. It served as living quarters for
the wife of the Byzantine emperor while he was doing penance on the Holy Mountain. Sun-
shine falls through long cracks in the masonr}*. The tower has an inner structure of wood,
probably not much \ounger than tlie stonework. Through its open windows vistas are framed
emerald clarity pebbles, fish, and the crumbled
into idylhc landscapes. Below, the sea reveals in
walls of a submerged settlement several yards below the surface. Today again a noble lady is
hostess there, benefactress of the whole xlllage. Spartan-furnished rooms, \\-ith a candle set
beside the rough bedstead, await those who return from that unique experience a visit to —
Mount Athos.

•21-
 —

EL GRECO REVISITED
In 1839 a French glass painter and art collector, A. N. Didron, while stavdng at Mount Athos
noted that altliough the dates of the many murals extended tlirough centuries, certain religious
scenes were repeated almost exactly. Frescoes were being painted at the time of his visit.

One monk spread fresh plaster on the wall; the master —without the use of a cartoon or model
sketched the composition. A pupil filled in the outline with colors, while another gilded the
halos or lettered the inscriptionsand still another executed the ornamentation. Beginners were
set to grinding and mixing colors. If any question arose, the solution was sought in their "Primer

of Painting," a much-thumbed manuscript which they said was three hundred years old. The
manuscript was credited to one Dionysius, or Denys, monk of Fouma, who in turn credited his

master for the knowledge. Tr)^ as he would, Didron could not acquire the painter's vade mecum,
which the monk called "his eyes and hands." So he chose what appeared the oldest and best
edition and had it copied at the monastery. It was published in Paris in 1845.-^
It must be pointed out tliat was held to be as much the revelation
the Byzantine artistic canon
of truth as was the Holy Writ, and therefore all repetitions and multiphcations had to adhere to
tradition. It was not the aim to entertain or delight, but to instruct and edify. Naturalism was
irrelevant. In Byzantine art a scene was not presented from a single \isual angle; one section

—
might be looked at from above, another from below with the purpose of obtaining emphasis
and guiding the eye. The often repeated gestures stem from the language of hands which
came down from ancient Greek drama. ^° Denys's "Primer" is based on the ruling of the Council
of Nicaea that the structure of the painting is not the invention of the painter, but must pre-
serve the statutory rules and traditions of the Universal Church. The first section of his manu-
script gives technical directions on how to prepare the materials. The second describes the
scenes to be represented, giving their protagonists and the symbols which identify them. The
third section instructs the painter what scenes should be assigned to what part of a building;
and the last lays down details for the depiction of Jesus, the Trinit\% Mar>% and the saints, their
expressions, gestures, garments, and the proper colors for various occasions. Thus it is clear
that the painters of Mount Athos, though rarely innovators, were the guardians of the Byzan-
tine iconographical tradition. Since traveling students came to them and Athonite painters

journeyed far and wide, this artistic tradition was long upheld, and spread throughout much
of the Orthodox world.
Tliree death scenes {PL 11) demonstrate that while following the vade mecum of Orthodox
painting, the personalit>' of the painter nevertheless comes through. Athanasius the Athonite,
founder of Lavra, was bom in Trebizond ( ca. 920-1003 ) When he died, he was abbot general
.

of sixty communities of hermits and monks, all on Mount Athos. It is only natural that his life

as a paragon should be painted again and again. The Death of St. Athanasius {Pi. 11 A), at-

tributed to a painter of tlie Cretan School from the early sixteenth centur}-, follows the strict

principles which ruled Byzantine painting at the time. The saint is seen lying in state within
the walls of his monastery, surrounded by his followers who are crowded into a tight arc of
figures. In the background, scenes of his early life are depicted— the study of holy books in
a hermit's cave, consultation with an ancient st>'lite saint on his column who is being fed by
means of a basket pulled up by a rope. In the upper left comer an angel carries Atlianasius'

soul in the form of an infant to Paradise. In the center a sixteenth centur\- church is represented
—not, as would be historically correct, one from the tenth century. Other paintings from La\Ta
are shown on Pis. 60C, 62C, 65B.

• 22-
 BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD
Very similar in composition is the Death of St. Ephraim, at Dochiariou {Pi. IIB). This popular
hermit who died about 370, was a native of Mesopotamia, the head of a school, and
saint,

later a monk who devoted his days to wTiting. His work, written in Syrian, was translated early
into Armenian, Greek, Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopic. In the mural, which was executed in 1568
by a painter of the Cretan school, Ephraim Hes in the open. The semicircular mounds indicate
hills. An icon is laid on his breast, as with Athanasius. Tall candles bum at his head, and a

priest swings a censer while a fellow monk leans down to catch his last words.
A mural by an Athonite painter showing the same subject {Pi. IIC) extends along the ex-
terior wall of thechurch of Paraskevi ( Holy Friday ) in Siatista in western Macedonia, on the
important trade route that leads into the Danubian Valley. It is dated 1611. The scene follows
estabhshed rules, but a certain loosening of the composition is noticeable. Monks, light- and
dark-cowled, flock to pay their respects. An aged man is carried in on a ladder. Note the figure
on a mule and the old man with a bundle over his shoulder (right) that appear also in the
earher composition. As in other versions, his soul is carried to Heaven in the form of an infant.
Here some fifteen feet of wall are given to concentrated storytelling. Many details are not
clearly separated, and blend into a tapestry-like composition; the "message" seems somewhat
subordinated to the decorative effect. Colors are monotone —white, brick-red, browTi, and
black. The row of saints in the lower section, carefully differentiated in type and labeled, are
medaUion-like in appearance because of their great halos. A red strip edged in white separates
the two subjects, a method encountered in other parts of Macedonia, as well as on the island
of Crete. Another section of these murals can be seen on Pi. 97 A.
This arrangement in death and burial scenes remained popular, and occurs even on small
icons in many lands into the nineteenth century. The prototype is the composition prescribed
for the Dormition of the Virgin (see Pis. 15C and 19A).

An idea may have been gained by now of the high standard of painting in places of great
importance and culture and in the isolation of monasteries, where the art could be preserved.
But the simple folk of the villages also cared much that their places of worship should be worthy
of their rehgion. In unknown, unimportant, and seldom visited regions, icons and murals are
preserved which testify to this ideal.
Macedonia, a land with a long and great historical past, gave birth to such different personali-
ties as Alexander tlie Great and Mustafa Kemal. To draw its borders would be difficult, because
in various periods the demarcations differed. The Macedonians —with territory now divided
between Bulgaria, Greece, and Yugoslavia —had enough historical, national, and religious iden-
tity to force Belgrade to acknowledge a separate Macedonian Orthodox Church, which has an
archbishopric at the ancient town of Ohrid although recognizing the Serbian patriarch in the
capital. The region was trodden by numberless folk driven away from their birthplaces. Al-
though separated on the north by mountain ranges, it was not far from the Danubian Valley,
the source and goal of much of its commerce. It shows the impact of Roman, Orthodox, and
finally Turkish influences that met on its ground. It took over many cultural traits from Greece,

but even today Greek Macedonia is regarded as "foreign" territory by the Athenians.
While the Roman visits either of Peter or of Paul are far from clarified, Paul's presence in
Greece, Macedonia, and Crete is documented in some detail in the Bible. The Apostle to the
Gentiles preached in Thessaloniki in the winter of 49-50 of our era. He founded a church in

•23-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Thessaloniki for which he had a predilection, and in his Epistle to the Thessalonians there is a
special reference to the women of the city. He spoke in Greek, spreading the Gospel in the
common language of the eastern Mediterranean.
Most of Macedonia came under Turkish rule in 1371 and by 1407 was irretrievably lost. Large
tracts of land were bestowed upon Ottoman chiefs, and they in return furnished soldiers for
the Moslem forces, drawn from the population on their properties. The Orthodox religion was
kept up stanchly by the peasants, aided by the local priest. His life differed little from that
of his farming neighbors. By Orthodox rules he should marry and have children (only the
monks are celibate). And just because he lived like the villagers, in his little whitewashed
house with its roofed porch, looking out upon the everyday life of the community, he grew
intimate with the joys and sorrows of his parishioners. The Christian rehgion was generally
tolerated as long as it was not conducive to visible national demonstrations against the Turkish
overlords. As few larger cities existed, there were few places where the population was dense.
For the Christian behevers, small clan chapels or village churches suflBced. Much feuding
went on between the pashas and the Porte, and the surveillance of the population was sometimes
lax, sometimes eased with bribes. By the eighteenth century the local governors had become
practically independent —which meant on occasion still less rigidity in keeping the established
rules.

The manors of the weU-to-do were enclosed within walls, and comprised bams, sheds, various
outhouses, as well as dweUings. It was not difficult to disguise the family chapel that had

nestled among these, often so small that it could hold no more than ten or twenty. A porch
might be placed around it, over which the old roof was skillfully extended, or a lattice before
it, reaching to the eaves. Some twenty such concealed churches can be found in the town of
Ven-oia alone ( the biblical Beroea ) Ayios Christos, one of the earliest, contains frescoes signed
.

Kalergis —
and dated 1315 among them two kneeling angels which, through the weightlessness
of their bodies and the grace of their design, compare with those of the fifteenth century
Baldovinetti (see also PL 23). Other churches date from the sixteenth century, while some
murals seem to be from the mid-seventeenth and were refurbished as late as 1804 and even
1858 —witnesses to the persistence of these people.
West somewhat off the present road, on an elevated incline of a hill
of Verroia lies Siatista,
that leads to a pass, stiU used by pack trains of mules. Sections of the exterior mural
mountain
of the church of St. Paraskevi are reproduced on Pis. IIC and 97A. The interior shows the pride
which the wealthy community took in its place of worship. The elaborate woodwork was once
heavily gilded, as were the backgrounds and halos in the murals. It seems that after an uprising
against the Turks, the Christians, in fear of losing the pride of their town, smeared the church
interior with charcoal dust — available in abundance here, where charcoal is burned. Only spots
of the gold of a halo and a few glimpses of lively coloring glint tlirougli the smoky layer, await-

ing expert hands to reveal the beauty of the decoration.

Where the borders of Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia meet, there are httle-disturbed river
valleys wnth sheep grazing along the shores, delightful lakesframed by rugged mountain ranges.
At a distance, the town of Kastoria, on a hilly peninsula, shimmers like a mirage across its lake.
On entering the place, one sees immediately the lively tempo of an energetic mountain people.
Owing to its geographical position, Kastoria has been a flourishing commercial center since
pre-Roman times. The towoi takes its name from the Greek kastor, beaver, which abounded in

•24-
 BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD
the region.The tradition of working fur remains a main source of wealth and craftsmanship
today.The prosperous merchants built opulent houses, sometimes three stories high, and spent
much on their decoration. Typical are the deep bay windows, richly carpeted and strewn with
velvet and embroidered cushions, the lace-like wood carving, the flower-painted paneling, and
the patterns in colored glass. The use of gilding and white lacquer shows that the mode of the
Baroque and Rococo was known here also.
Altogether more than sixty painted churches and chapels are found in and around Kastoria.
The steep hillside is dotted with small stone buildings commanding a magnificent view {PL 14A),
and only the initiate will recognize them as chapels by the tiny shell-like apses. They date
from the tenth and eleventh centuries to the seventeenth and even later.^^ Many can be ap-
proached only up rough footpaths or mulepaths. Unfortunately, few of the population are
aware what national and art-historical significance such edifices have. This writer called on
the Metropohtan of Kastoria. After tlie —the offering of a
customary courtesies fruit conserve,

the ouzo (native brandy), the tiny cup of Turkish-style coffee — mentioned theI damage to
murals and icons from the careless placing of tapers and candles. The tall, bearded bishop,
erect in his high chair, leaning on his silver-topped staff, fingering a jeweled cross on his breast,
answered in deep-toned indignation that he could not accept criticism of the way his flock chose
to worship. Icons often suffer also from a yearly washing by the devout with rosewater, wine,
or a mixture of water and vinegar. While the cleaning might brighten the colors for a time,
in the long run it dulls the picture.
The church of Anargyri is one of the largest in the town, a three-aisled basihca, dedicated
to the mendicant "healing" saints —best known of whom are Cosmos, Damian, and Panteleimon
{PL 14B). Dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries, it is constructed mosdy of brick, with
some stone and heavy mortar in between, laid in a decorative pattern. The narthex, or vestibule,
is like a separate wing across the front of the building, behind which rises the high clerestory

that lights the nave. Remnants of frescoes can still be discerned on the exterior walls. Inside,
covering walls and ceihng, the entire Orthodox repertory of saints and scenes is on display.
Because of its somewhat remote situation, the paintings have suffered httle and are now being
cleaned by a new method which does minimum damage to the original lines and colors. For
details of the murals see Pis. 22B, 23C, 82B, 95C.
The former monastery and pilgrim shrine of Mavriotissa is idyllically situated at the tip of
the peninsula, under enormous plane trees {PL ISA), about haK an hour's walk along the shore
from the center of the town. Two chapels were joined here; the larger and taller, with an apse
(right), dates from the eleventh century, the smaller from the sixteenth. Traces of exterior
murals remain {PL 14C). The door at the left leads into a large bare narthex, with a mural of
the Last Judgment {PL 15B). Worn and faded though it is, it has not been defaced or glaringly
repainted. The Saviour sits enthroned as judge, flanked by the Virgin Mary and the Baptist as
intercessors and surrounded by the company of apostles and the blessed. Below Him are the
Cross, the Dove, and the Book, symbols of the Godhead, likewise enthroned and guarded by
—
archangels. Two figures kneel at the foot some say the donors, others Adam and Eve as
symbols of redeemed mankind. A river of fire descends from the foot of the Throne, and arch-
angels with long spears are thrusting the wdcked into the curling flames. A comparison with
the vast mosaic of this same subject at Torcello near Venice shows revealing similarities {PL
15D). The dates of these two Judgments are close to each other: the mural is assigned to the

'25'
 —

EL GRECO REVISITED
end of the twelfth, the mosaic to early thirteenth century. The former shows in various decora-
tive details the tradition and feeling of mosaicwork. Both seem to have been drawn from an
Orthodox protot)^e.
The inside of this same wall is occupied by murals of the Crucifixion and the Dormition of
the Virgin. The latter scene {Pi. 15C) follows the traditional arrangement wliich served as
model for death and burial scenes of other saintly personages in Byzantine art. One sees the
apostles gathered about the bier —Peter, with a censer, at the head, Paul at the foot. Another
figure leans down to catch the last words —legend has it that she spoke again after expiring.
Christ himself takes up her soul as a white-clad infant whom angels reach dowTi to receive.
The inclusion of the —
two figures in front of the bier the importunate Jew and the punishing
angel from a late —
legend ^places the painting as not before the end of the fourteenth century.

Not only in Macedonia but in other Balkan lands, frescoes, whitewashed for generations, are
now being uncoNcred, revealing how generally and how well the craft was practiced even
after the fall of Constantinople.
\\^hile in the wide areas of the Orthodox faith, the religious service was conducted in the
language of the country, paintings used a visual language that was understood e\erywhere.
Slowly each country de\'eloped preferences in its manner of painting, but greater differences can
be observed in the architecture.

Bulgaria, a neighbor to Byzantium, fell in 1396 to the Turkish power and remained under
it until 1878. After the first centiuy or so, the occupation lost much of its rigor. As elsewhere,
the Turkish administration was lenient in matters of religion, so long as it did not become osten-
tatious. The church in Bulgaria was placed by the Turks under the patriarch of Constantinople.
A remarkable example of the persistence of tradition is the monaster)^ of Rila, Bulgaria {Pi. 16B),
which is situated in a picturesque gorge surrounded by forest-clad mountains that rise to some
eight tliousand feet. The largest and wealthiest of Bulgarian monasteries, Rila, was founded
in the mid-fourteenth century —the square tower is datable at 1335 — and remained an active
center whence rehgious stimulus and artistic influence could be dispersed throughout the
land.-® It is known that connections were kept up with the Athonite monasteries, some of which
were sustained by contributions from the Bulgarian people. Indeed, today Chilandari has more
Bulgarian than Serbian monks.
This complex shows well how monastic architecture, leaning on the tradition of Mount Athos,
has been adapted in the hands of regional craftsmen. Like neighboring Balkan monasteries,
it is built of stone, with some brick, rubble, and mortar, smoothed over with plaster, and white-
washed. Since the monastic principle was that of seclusion, the attractive face of the establish-
ment looks onto the star-shaped court {Pi. 16C). A great fire destroyed most of the complex
in 1833. The Turkish authorities permitted rebuilding under the stipulation that the old di-
mensions be kept. Today it is impossible to judge whether this dictum was strictly adhered to
but what now stands (the picture was taken in 1932) is certainly imposing. In the foreground
is the browTi- and white-striped church, t>^icaUy Byzantine in line, with a number of little

domes sheathed in metal. The interior {Pi. 16D), finished around 1847, displays exquisite carv-
ing and sumptuous gilding. Where there is no woodwork, the walls are bright with murals.
The sometimes skeptical visitor is nearly always assured that ever\-thing in these old buildings
is unchanged, but the sight of a monk repainting a section of the chiuch atrium (
Pi. 16 A ) contra-
dicts the statement. Damaged and faded sections were all too often freshened by persons who

•26-
 BYZANTIUM WAS A WORLD
lacked the understanding of how to conserve without changing. The familiar subject of the Last
Judgment, so obviously "restored" {Pi. 17 A), loses nearly completely the medieval concept in
its modem garb. ( Compare Pi. 15B and D. )

On the northeastern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains lies Moldavia, a former principality.
The monastery of Sucevita, founded at the end of the sixteenth century, is the largest of thirteen
monasteries there with churches painted outside and inside {PI. 17C). Its square ground plan
still recalls a medieval fortress. The massive block of the living quarters has little architectural
refinement. The style of the church itself harks back to wooden prototypes, which preceded
masonry construction in the timber-rich region. The tendency was to keep all religious build-
ings modest, and often chapels or churches were sunk a half-story into the ground.
Religious estabhshments received not only subsidy from their patrons but gifts such as jewelry,
illuminated manuscripts and, later, printed books. The imagination of the regional painter was
fertilized by these and later by woodcuts which were produced in the land throughout the
Turkish occupation. The painters were often monks, but the names of itinerant lay craftsmen are
also recorded, some of them said to have come from Macedonia.
The outside apse of the church at Sucevita shows an extended shingle roof, reminder of the
tradition of the wooden churches {Pi. 17 B). Painted panels in the arched surface alternate
with those placed on the wide pilasters, giving through the different levels a play of sun and
shade. Represented on the exterior are: the Heavenly Host, the Child Emmanuel, the Virgin,
bishops, martyrs, and hermits. Such wall paintings also commemorate historical events, in-
cluding the fall of Constantinople.
Extremely effective is the representation of the Spiritual Ladder of John Chmacos, painted
St.

in 1582 {Pi. 17D). Angels nudge the monks forward in their upward climb, the wedge-shaped
wings give the composition rhythmic emphasis. Each rung of the Ladder represents a virtue,
and the humans who reach the top are received by the Lord at what looks like the open trap-
door of a hayloft. The paintings were retouched in 1882 in a "barbarous way'V^ again only the
upper sections, diEBcult to reach, preserve in patches their older flavor.
Besides murals, the painters also fmnished icons on wood and, from the eighteenth century
on, holy pictures on glass. These, hanging in a peasant house, with their vivid colors gave a
room and at the same time were a declaration of Orthodox faith. Talented
religious touch to the
hands carved benches and other church furniture. Unavoidably, oriental and Turkish motifs
were mixed in, lending the work strong folkloristic flavor.
Across the border toward the east lay tlie vast territory under Russian dominance. This
country also was converted to Christianity from Constantinople.
Its twelfth and thirteenth cen-

tury art and architecture, as much as remains, show strong Byzantine influence. But, as the
country's power grew and the Gospel was spread in the language, the Russian arts and crafts
took on more and more national characteristics. While the general plan of a church or the
composition of a holy painting reveals the common ancestry with other Ortliodox lands, from the
fifteenth or sixteenth century onward Russian art wrote its own history.

Serbia, an old kingdom, is the nucleus of present-day Yugoslavia which comprises also Slo-
venia, Croatia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, Dalmatia, Montenegro, and a part of southern Hungary.
Belgrade, the capital, stands at the great bend of the Danube, where the river turns at right
angles and flows eastward. The history of the Serbians is perhaps the most turbulent of all the

•27-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Balkan Always excellent and courageous fighters, with Slavic fanaticism for what they
States.
thought was had to struggle for independence under cruel pressure, on one side
right, tliey

from Venice and Hungary serving Rome, and on the other side from the Byzantine Empire
representing the Greek Church. By the mid-twelfth century Serbia was a unified nation and
had estabhshed a dynasty that reigned for nearly two hundred years, a continuity rare in those
times. By the thirteentli and fourteenth centuries, their Orthodox monasteries and churches
show national spirit and style.

From the first onslaught of the Turks in the mid-fourteenth century, the Serbs aUied with
the Hungarians to stem the advance. But the constant squabbles and scheming among Chris-
tians weakened the Serbian position, and in 1371, on the field by the Maritsa River, the first
decisive defeat was delivered by the Turks. A few years later the disaster at Kossovo took the
flower of Serbian aristocracy and miUtary leadership. Nevertheless, for seventy years, by pay-
ing tribute to the sultan, Serbia was able to maintain a government under its own rulers. A
nmnber of alliances with Western powers were tried unsuccessfully, and in 1459 the country
was fully occupied by a large Turkish army. Some two decades later Turkish dominance of the
Balkans was complete. The only fragments of land to retain independence were the city repubhc
of Ragusa, today Dubrovnik (see Pis. 34B, 35A), and the tiny mountain principahty of Mon-
tenegro. Under Suleiman I, the Turks resumed their relentless forward march north along the
Danubian plain. After the battle of Mohacs, Hungary's power was also broken. Between 1550
and 1648, when the West was fighting its wars of religion, the Ottoman Empire extended its
power from the northwest Carpathian mountain range of Hungary to the Adriatic shores of
Hercegovina with a gigantic hinterland through Asia Minor and along the coast of North Africa.
Although the land was submerged in a Moslem sea, the Serbian Orthodox Church kept the
national spirit alive. In 1557 the Grand Vizier, Mehmed Sokolovic, a native of Hercegovina,
revived the patriarchate of Pec (Ipek); and while the nation's Hterature virtually ceased to
exist, Serbian was spoken by the local beys and pashas during the sixteenth century and freely

used in correspondence between the Porte and Ragusa and some Hungarian princes in the north.
The church at Sopocani {PL ISA) began as a burial chapel for the Serbian King Uros I, who
died as the monk Simeon at the monastery of Chilandari, Mount Athos, in the mid-thirteenth
century. It was first a simple single-nave church; later a chapel was added, surmounted by a
small cupola. The semicircular apse is characteristic of buildings in Byzantine style. Greatly
damaged by the Turks, the church and the monastery attached to it were deserted for a time,
but its frescoes are now well restored and are considered by many the finest example of Serbian

art of that period.^®

The Dormition of the Virgin {PL 19 A) shows the typical Byzantine composition. Christ
stands at Mary's bier, holding her soul as an infant in His arms, amid tlie grieving apostles.
Above, in accord with Byzantine practice which combines various episodes of a stor>' within
one picture, the apostles are seen being transported by angels in cloud boats to her bedside.
Christ is seen again in a mandorla in Heaven. The grouping has rhvilimic grace; tlie colors are
characteristically mild and harmonious. Ocher, green, and violet predominate, and parts of the

background were once gilded. The coloring brings out the varietv^ in the folds of tlie garments.
The postures and gestures, as well as facial expression, communicate sorrow.
On the curving wall of the apse, a touching array of saintly witnesses attends the Mass (
Pis.

18B and 19B). The text on their scrolls is in Cyrillic lettering.

Pec was the seat of the Orthodox patriarchate, and its first metropolitan church was built

•28-
 ) )

B\X\XTIUM WAS A WORLD

in the early thirteenth centur>% dedicated to the Holy Apostles. \\'ithin a few decades churches
were added to left and right, thus achieving more breadth than length in the complex ( PL 20C .

Each of the additions is different enough in detail to be noticed, but together they form a har-
monious unit. The low apses have a friendly curve, as do the roofs, giving the whole a look
of joviaht)-.
The frescoes, originally from the mid-thirteenth centurv', have been restored and are darkened
again by the smudge of tapers, candles, and incense. Even so, the archangel and the warrior
saint represented here {PL 20A) convey the sense of energy and readiness. Their weapons re-
cord mid-thirteenth century armature. Note in the figure on the right the bow, the mace, and
round target shield slung over a shoulder. In a parallel representation, in the church of Peri-
bleptos in Olirid, the painter has put his own name and tlie date on the arc of a bared sword:
Master Michael, 1295. The presence of fierce warriors inside the church is not to be wondered
at, when we know tliat Pec was chosen for the patriarchate after an earher site had to be
abandoned as too close to enemy territor)^

In the courtyard of the convent of Studenica, founded at the end of the eleventh century,
King Milutin had a httle church built in 1314 which was named for him: the King's Church
{PL 203).*^ It has pleasant proportions, and its relationship to the space in the court and con-
ventual buildings worked out deUghtfully.
is

With the church of Gracanica {PL 21 A) a more advanced ground plan comes to the fore.
Erected in the first haH of the fourteenth century on tlie cross-in-square plan, it has a central
cupola v^ith pendentives and four lower domed structures at the comers. Narthex and exo-
narthex (left) were added some years later. The outside walls are a colorful combination of
stone and brick, while for the interior arches only brick was used. Although much ravaged,
its elegant hues could be restored to good advantage, and it stands today as a masterpiece of

Byzanto-Serbian architecture.
The monaster\'-church of Mileseva is set among pine forest and pasture land. Founded about
the first third of the thirteenth century, the church was restored in the sixteenth century, when
its narthex and lateral chapels were added {PL 21B). The triple apse is unusual in form. The
murals, dating from about 1237, are remarkable even among the fine harvest which this century
produced names of the painters are preserved but only
in the countn-. In this rare instance the —
as Dimitri and Christophorus. In where Duccio, Giotto, and their contemporaries are
Italy,
heralded as precursors of the Renaissance, Httle can be found more expressive or better painted
than the radiant and eloquent angel at the tomb of Christ {PL 21C).
Ohrid, on a lake of the same name, is near the border where the Greek and Serbian sectors
of Macedonia meet .Albania. The church of San Jovan Kaneo is the pride of the small fishing
community that h\-es on the shore ( PL 22 A It was built at the end of the thirteenth century
.

on the cross-in-square plan, with an octagonal cupola, and amazing decorative skill is apparent
in its brickwork. One is reminded of some of the small churches at nearby Kastoria in Greece

— curiously enough, also a lake region. Another, much larger and more important, church, St.
Sophia, stands in Ohrid, where besides numerous objects of fine Byzantine craftsmanship, out-
standing murals of the eleventh centur)- have been restored, which will be discussed shortly.
Approaching Manasija, which was built in the early fifteenth century {PL 24A), one is struck
by the similarity of the massive walls and towers to some of the Athos monasteries, especially
Iviron (see Ph. 10 A and 24B). In the Athos protot>Tpe, hving quarters were added on top of
the original walls and windows opened in the medieval masonr>-. But at Manasija, the walls \^-ere

•29-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
left in their forbidding plainness, surrounded by a moat and closing in the compound as origi-
nally planned. The church vvitli its smooth stonework presents a contrast to the somber aspect
of the citadel
— "a delicate nut in a powerful shell."
^^

Among the murals within this church, the warrior saints (P/. 25B) are especially well known
— and with right. Full-panoplied, with lances, arrows, and swords, they are on the point of
going into action. For some, there may be an echo of mosaic tradition in the variety of decora-
tive detail.
The fifteenth century Mercurius from Karyes, Mount Athos {PL 25C), is related to the
warriors on the Serbian wall. Here again costume and armament are deUneated with much
attention to detail. This work was recently ascribed to the legendary Manuel Panselinos and
placed a century earUer. In the fresco of Pippo Spano ( Pi. 25 A ) by the Florentine painter Andrea
del Castagno, we have a Western version of the warrior of the mid-fifteenth century, and some
elements in this figure, such as the curved sword and the fringes of the shirt, show similarity. But
in the spirit there is a marked contrast. The truculence and swashbucklering of the mercenary

are here individualized, while in the Byzantine renditions the individual has been elevated
to the hero-saint.

In Pi. 22B and C two scenes of the Ascension are compared. The latter, in St. Sophia of Ohrid
in Serbian Macedonia, is said to have been painted before 1056. Here seven rainbow colors
form the circular glory which is embraced by four angels. The majesty of Christ's figure, the
ingenious arrangement of the rich folds of His garb, and the weightlessness of the whole com-
position command The angels seem to cleave to the outer circle;
respect in such an early work.
their draperies are floating in space, as if wafting them upward. The same theme was rendered
in Greek Macedonia about the same time ( PL 22B The glory here is the almond-shaped man-
) .

dorla, in four colors. Very recent discoveries in Byzantine murals in widely distant places prove
that the stars were part of the original composition, often glimmering with gold. The folds of

Christ'sgarments are exquisitely drawn. Here the angels are loosened away from the geometric
contours of the mandorla, giving the feeling more of upholding than of floating, and the wings
are designed to stand away from the central figure.
A cloud boat (
PL 22D ) from the Dormition of the Virgin at Sopocani is shown here in detail

(see also PL 19 A). There is an interesting differentiation of the two figures, the intellectual

apostle and the celestially sweet angel. The wings are not arranged "realistically" but for decora-
tive necessity. The cloud boat is drop-shaped, rounding toward the earth; its scalloped upper
section emphasizes the heads and wings.
The wings of the kneeling angel at Ohrid again are adjusted to the design (
PL 23A ) and made
—
especially impressive through fortunate coloring from white to blue to gold. Note the live
movement of the figinre, in his sweeping obeisance.
Both standing angels {PL 23B and C) carry long thin staves; they are attending Mother and
Child who are pictured in the apse. The angel on the left comes from a church built in the mid-
twelfth century, in Kurbinovo, near Lake Prespa, Yugoslavia. He has a nervous, fluttering
quality and Byzantine attenuation. The swirling folds and wings strengthen the impression of
hovering above the earth. The other angel, hke as he is, in the apse at Anargyri, Kastoria, is
more stable in effect. The undulating garments and the delicacy of the gesturing arms make the
figure seem to sway like a lily.

•30-
 B\X\XTIUM WAS A WORLD
These examples from a little-knov-Ti area of Christian art, demonstrate amply, in their variet\'

of detail, the spontaneit\\ coloristic appeal, and ston-telling power of Late Byzantine art.

The world of the Orthodox faith, once larger than that of the Roman Church, was ravaged
by centuries of Turkish occupation. But even harassed and persecuted, rehgious acti\'ities went
on. For rehgion meant life to the nation, and where life was, there had to be also rehgion. .An
easing occurred in the Balkans when the declining Turkish power retired beyond the borders
of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Refurbishing of old and construction of new rehgious estab-
lishments went hand in hand. A nimnber of monasteries were built in Croatia alone, just across
the Danube from where Serbia was still occupied by tlie Turks. These buildings reflect taste
and techniques of the se\-enteenth and eighteenth centun.- West, although the iconography
adhered in general to the B\'zantine tradition.

The process of Westernization can be observed in Orthodox churches in whate\er part of

Europe or .America they may stand. The casual stroller may not e\en notice that he passes an
Orthodox church. But within, the congregation listens still to gripping B\-zantine chant and a
service that harks back to the earhest years of Christianity'. The church is for them an island on
which they stand proudly, restating their loyalt\' to a civilization from which the \\'est borrowed
so much, when Byzantium was a world.

31
 • I I •
II

CANDIA

Homer praised it at the dawn of history —the fair rich island called Crete in the midst of the
dark blue sea,washed by waves on every side, with countless men and ninety cities from the
harbors of which the dark-prowed ships were borne forth by wind and wave. Islands such as
Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete, lying as they do on the waterway westward from the Levant which
in turn had access to the Far East, were steppingstones for commerce and travel. Touched by

ships from afar, they profited from such contacts since earliest times, yet many were able to
keep tlieir individual cultures to a high degree. Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, with their complex and
stunning arts, as well as the islands in the Mediterranean, are proof of this.

Crete was more than an island; it was the cradle of a civiHzation. No land of Europe has an
older history. When Western Europe was inhabited by primitive hunters and the people in
the Danube Valley were groping with the beginnings of agriculture, Crete, from about 3000 B.C.,
had produced an art and architecture fascinating to archaeologists and laymen alike. From the
Minoan civilization which reached its zenith some fifteen centuries before Christ, enough re-
mained for Sir Arthur Evans in the early twentieth century to reconstruct the great palace-city
of Knossos in a valley surrounded by olive groves, wheat fields, and vineyards. In their knowl-
edge of natural history, geometry, mathematics, hygiene, the Minoans compare favorably
with contemporary Babylon and Egypt. Other sites, excavated or in process of excavation,
attest also to the ancient greatness of the island. Crete lay comparatively near across the water-
way from the delta of the Nile and also from Haifa. Not only ships but also ideas traveled
from these harbors. The Levant boasted efficient —unknowTi
Europe with estab-
highways in —
lished stations for nightly rest. In this epoch the landlocked cities of the mainland were of
limited importance. Although earthquake and fire destroyed Knossos some twelve to fourteen
centuries before Christ, Cretan civilization did not perish. Cretan influence is evident in the
Near East in the fourteenth century b.c. Colonization from the mainland began, and Aegean
coins dating from the fifth century show that lively intercourse was still going on.
The fighting quality of the Cretans is praised in legend and epic. A thousand years before
Christ, Cretan men were famed as masters in handling the bow. Their fractiousness was some-
times turned against one another, and clans were enmeshed in fratricidal quarrels. But at the
appearance of outside enemies, all rallied for the common cause.
When in 66 b.c. CaeceUius Metellus made the island a Roman province —an important

•32.
 CANDIA
station in the network of a vast empire, with Gortyna (Gortys) in the south as the capital
Crete lost its autonomy forever. Though stone was the main building material there, the
abundant timber of the island was invaluable for the construction of galleys and trading ships.
Through the millenniums deforestation went on, with the Venetians and Turks doing their part
also, and today the vast, barren mountainsides bear witness to the robber economy of foreign

powers.
One of the sources of Cretan pride is their consciousness that they were Christians long be-
fore most of Europe had even heard the Word. The island's unabated connections with Egypt,
Palestine, and S>Tia, where Christianity gained its first foothold, furnish explanation why Cretans
were converted so soon. Apples from Crete were standard items in the market of Jerusalem at
the time of Christ. The ship carrying the Apostle Paul to Rome wintered at the island. A small
memorial chapel near the town of Sf akion ( marks the spot where according to legend
Sf akia )
the ship was driven ashore. The first Christian church was erected in Gortyna, and Paul's com-
panion Titus became the first Bishop of Crete, and died there around a.d. 96. Gortyna lost

its prominence Today it shows remnants of the ancient fortifications, the

in later centuries.
ruins of temples to Isis and Serapis, and a palace of the Roman governor; a considerable part
of a large Christian basilica is still standing, dedicated to St. Titus and dating from the fourth
century PI. 27B .^^ It is revealing of the vicissitudes of Cretan history that the alleged head
( )

of the saint is now preserved as a rehc in the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice.
In the last years of the fourth century Crete became part of the Byzantine Empire, and stood
with her. Its Christianity was nourished from Constantinople, and the traditions of the Greek
Orthodox Church prevail among the population even today. Fragments of mosaics have been
discovered in early basilicas at various points of the island, and marble and stone ornaments
show the close connections with the Byzantine capital.
In the ninth century the Arabs occupied the island, and it became headquarters for pirates.
Its position made it ideal for fast sorties into the main stream of shipping, and its small harbors
were used for the hide-and-seek of pursuit. At this time the capital was again moved to the site
of an ancient northern port which the Arabs named Rabt-el-Khandak, or moated fortress. In
961 the Byzantine general Nicephoros Phocas, of Cretan descent, liberated Crete, and for nearly
250 years it again belonged to the Byzantine Empire. Then, with the capture of Constantinople
by the Franks, it was allotted to Venice. The capital became a principal Venetian stronghold,
and its name was Itahanized into Candia. With the dawn of independence in the mid-nineteenth
century, the ancient name Heraklion again came into use.
Crete was for Venice a vital point in the net of her extended commerce. The maritime trans-
port was severely controlled. But just as happened where
in the Latin American colonies,
Spanish and Portuguese authorities permitted the goods of other nations to sHp into American
harbors, Cretan merchants made many ducats through deals on which no duty was paid.
There were enough Itahans among the officials, the army of occupation, sailors, merchants,
agents, and professionals to mitigate the feeling of the transient Venetian of being in an ahen
land. Many buildings and institutions reflected the Venetian spirit and talent, especially in
harbor towns. The curv^ing breakwaters, with their heavy stone bastions and crenelations and
the stone-vaulted berths for ships, resembled those in towns in the Veneto and along the Dal-
matian coast, then also under Venetian control (PL 26). The city walls with their massive
earthworks and impressive proud gates were rebuilt and fortified and again strengthened by
military engineers in the service of the doges. Many noblemen in high posts on the island built

.33.
 —

EL GRECO REVISITED
palazzi with balconies, finials, and other stone decorations, displaying proud coats of arms
all as if lifted out of the ambience of the Canal Grande. From this time too come the heraldic
tablets of generals, commanders, governors who were connected with Cretan history, all of
whom hved tlie luxury life by grace of the Council of Ten of the Repubhc. Some Cretan
churches, even in tlie provinces, show a late Venetian Gothic or Renaissance style. The Lion of
Venice was a familiar emblem everywhere, though it is a question how welcome by the Cretans.
Candia had its own two-storied loggia with graceful Renaissance arches, classical columns,
elegant balustrade decorated wdth statues, so Venetian that it could have stood along the
Piazzetta somewhere near the Basihca of St. Mark. The main square of Candia displayed an
octagonal fountain with Venetian lions. Khania, developed by the Venetians as a foothold
in the west of the island, is even more Venetian in character. Foreign merchants were en-
couraged to settle there instead of in Candia, where the Greek population was restive.
The central administration in Venice, according to the custom of the time, leased the power
over Crete to Venetian nobles, and only when became critical did the Senate in-
the situation
tervene in an endeavor to bring order and justice. The commanders of the Cretan garrisons
were mercenary soldiers, not always native citizens of the repubhc, who gave generally efficient
service to the government which paid them the from the Venetian-controlled
best. Soldiers
mainland were preferred — Croats, Slovenes, Dalmatians, Istrians —
also Bulgarians, Germans,
Serbs. Being on foreign ground they had more cohesion as a mihtary unit than the natives,
whose and parental hearths lay just beyond the hills and who fought only when they
villages
felt the cause was just.

Greeks and Latins could and did live peaceably side by side for long periods. In some in-
stances. Orthodox and Roman Cathohc services were performed at different altars in the same
church, as was the practice in certain churches in Venice at one time. After all, both services
are based on the hturgy of the Mass. Differences in creed and administration did not much
affect the general population except in times of stress. Unfortunately, then the clash of na-
tionalism acerbated the rehgious issue. Rome, more than Venice, insisted on attempting the
"conversion" of the Cretans, and it should not be forgotten that the Venetian senators se\eral
times explained to the Vatican that they had to act first of all for the welfare of the republic
and then as Roman Catholics —which throws a new light on the familiar phrase Siarno venezi-
ani, poi cristiani.

The Cretans were deprived Orthodox bishops for long periods, and Latin services
of their
were offered in their churches. To function at all, the metropohtan had to have the full ap-
proval of the Venetian authorities. The Cretans were subjected to the forced maintenance of
the Roman clergy. Roman monasteries and nunneries were founded and drew income from tlie
land. By the mid-fourteenth century Franciscan, Augustinian, Dominican, Serviti, Crocfferi,
and Benedictine friars and numerous nunneries were estabhshed there. All the orders tried
to stay near towns as it was not safe for them in the country.
A special effort was made to lure the population into the Uniate Church, which held services
in the language of the land but accepted the authorit)' of the Roman Catholic Church, ccmi-

ceding the disputed points of doctrine. Highly educated Uniate priests and propagandists who
spoke Greek spread through the island. They circulated books and read proclamations from
the church steps, emphasizing that tliere was really no difference betsveen the two factions,

at the same time mocking the simple village priests as uneducated and uninformed. ^"^
Para-

.34.
 CANDIA
doxically, some Venetians became Hellenized and changed religious allegiance, as was also the
case on the Venetian-held island of Cyprus.
The Italians marshaled all the blandishments their highly developed art could present to
—
draw the folk into their fold an art which had much enticing charm and was triumphant in
the Western world. Statues and figural decoration were lavished on the churches the Roman
Rite raised on the island. Many of the clear-toned bells that rang over Crete came from Venice.
The museum in Khania has two fine examples of Italian bronze casting, dated 1589 and 1590.
They bear garlands on their edges, and the surfaces are used for scenes in relief, of the Cruci-
fixion, the Holy Mother, and figures of the saints. There was always room in the composition

for the coat of arms of Venice, with the Hon resting his right forepaw on the Scripture not —
quite symbolizing the truth.
The Cretans expressed their resistance with the means at their command. Many left their

children imbaptized until an Orthodox priest could be found to perform the ceremony. Their
art, the murals especially, became a demonstration of nationality and faith. Everything Italian
was looked upon vAth. suspicion, as bom of the passion for material beauty, redolent of a reahsm
entirely aHen to the Orthodox faith. Especially after the Council of Florence, the Cretans re-
acted vigorously against the agitators who were misinterpreting the issues involved. One of the
chief poiats of division between tlie two denominations is the disagreement over a phrase of
the creed: whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (as held by the Orthodox) or
from the Father and the Son. The Cretans asserted their faith in nimierous murals that present
the Trinity in strictly Orthodox interpretation.^^ Although, as we shall see, the icons were more
open to trends from the West, it is worth noting that Italian influence appears in Cretan wall
painting as a reverberation, after Venetian occupation had ended and the Turks took over as
rulers of the island.

Another declaration of loyalty can be found in the signature labels, the painted cartouches
still visible in various churches. Disregarding the fact that the island had already been for
centuries under Venetian rule, one tablet is inscribed: "renovated during the reign of Andronicus
the Palaeologos, by . . . unworthy bungler.
[name], Hving in ." Another, dated 1446,
sin, . .

reads: "renovated and recorded during the reign of our most pious king John Palaeologos
Emperor of the Romans. ." Sometimes the name of the wiie or the mother of the Byzantine
. .

emperor is included on the painted tablet. The sponsor is more often chronicled than the
artist, and sometimes an entire family is mentioned as having contributed for the construction

of some chapel.^^ The dates sometimes run beyond the fifth millennium before Christ, as many
are reckoned from the hypothetical age of Abraham.
Venice had risen to her zenith and was with right called the Queen of the Adriatic. She had
the power to engage in a successful struggle with her Christian rivals, such as Genoa and
Milan, and she had amassed riches and consolidated connections upon which she flourished
until the mid-sixteenth century. It was in this epoch that Venice began to attract a gay and
easy-hving society. Gambling houses and bordellos multipHed. Some of the courtesans became
pubhc figures and attained considerable political influence so much so that the Council of —
Ten decided to expel them from the city. Many then settled in Candia, augmenting there the
mundane atmosphere of luxury and leisure. But tlieir stay was not long. The Venetian authori-
ties realized that with the courtesans gone, vice was growing more uncontrolled. So they were

recalled, the favorites received back their palaces, and other restitutions were granted. The

•35-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Venetian archives of 1580 reveal more than eleven thousand courtesans as officially hcensed.
Though sections of Candia presented to anyone who knew Venice many reminiscences of
that city, beyond lay the Cretan town, where the Candiotes, in spite of restrictions, preserved
their own life, spoke their own language, and worshiped in their own Greek Orthodox churches.
The churches were unostentatious; services were held before the iconostasis on which painted
panels were mounted, presenting episodes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin and the
saints. Otlierwise the buildings had Httle furniture and no statuary.

Tliroughout the centuries that Venice was in control in Candia, riots, rebellions, and sub-
versive activities made the life of the Venetian administration uneasy. Usually the leader of
the trouble disappeared into the mountains or across the water. The Venetians tried at first

to be on good terms witli the aristocratic families of Crete, but following an insurrection in the

early years of occupation privileges were curtailed and some

were confiscated. Shortly
estates
afterward, the Duke
of Candia and a number of Venetian nobles perished in a revolt which
within three years had spread over the entire island. In 1341 another rebeUion arose, insti-
gated, as often, from Constantinople, and the authorities required seven years to restore a
semblance of order. The second half of the fourteenth century was no less full of disquiet.

Twelve thousand men were sent in to quench the smoldering revolt. Throughout the fifteenth
century similar disturbances attest to the intransigence of the Cretans. On one occasion, when
the Venetian administration applied too much pressure on the Cretan youth for military service,
more than five hundred famiHes, among them many of the nobihty, left the cities for the
mountains, thus slipping beyond reach. Messengers for the Venetian authorities passing through
the Cretan hinterland carried a white flag to declare their peaceful intentions; and officials

very often made use

of the same device to assure their safe passage from one region to another.
The una vera guerra di Candia ( a real war of Candia ) was the expression, into
Italian phrase
the nineteenth century, for any endless, acrimonious feud.
1453 ) that at the capitula-
Cretan troops fought so valiantly in defense of Constantinople (

tion the conqueror permitted them to leave with their armor and their flags an honor seldom —
accorded the defeated. The Turkish grip now extended over the Levant and into nearly all

the harbors of the eastern Mediterranean; soon the Greek mainland also was occupied. From
then on, Crete gained importance. New refugee families arrived, bringing not only capital and
new commercial connections but also the high standards of metropoUtan culture. Venice in-

vested much in strengthening the island, and the following period was a very prosperous one,
though still marked by imrest.
The were a special breed, even among the Cretans who called themselves "the best
Sfakiotes
of the best Greeks." They were a mountain folk who wore their beards and hair long and
otherwise were distinguished by their carriage, their costume, and their weapons. Their fierce
independence was promoted by their isolation at the southern end of the island behind a nearly
impassable mountain range. The name derives from the Greek sphakia, implying a region of
ravines or gorges. At the nucleus of nearly every rebeUion were the Sfakiotes — and the \dllages

beyond the mountain range offered ready shelter for tliose who had to stay in hiding. From here
a movement originated that Crete should be governed by Cretan natives. Though for a time

the Venetians were forced to accept the conditions, they bided their time to change the situa-
tion. In 1570 the son of one of the most powerful Sfakiote families fell in love v\ath the daughter
whose property was near Khania. Three hundred and fifty men and a hun-
of a Venetian citizen
dred women came dowTi from their mountain fastness to celebrate the wedding. At the end

•36-
 CANDIA
of the feast they were set upon and made prisoners by a Venetian force of seventeen hundred
men with a hundred and fifty riders; the captives were divided into four groups, taken into
four separate townships, and hanged there. The Venetian commander then arrested a number
of the remaining best Greek famiHes of the region and burned their property. The twelve most
respected of the men were hanged, while four women who were with child were cut open
before the assembled population, as a warning that thus would those be rooted out who defied
the Republic of Venice. It was decreed that any outlawed Cretan would receive amnesty if
he appeared before the authorities with the head of his father, brother, cousin, or nephew; it was
not asked that a father deUver his own son.^^ Barbarous as this seems, it should be remembered
that the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day occurred even later (1572), and in France. It also

was planned on the occasion of a wedding, and it has been estimated that in the subsequent six
weeks some fifty thousand people were killed.
Rhodes fell to the Turks in 1522. The pirates of the Algerian corsair Barbarossa, who was at
the same time a Turkish admiral, were harrying Mediterranean shipping and repeatedly raiding
Crete. Chios fell in 1556 and Cyprus, also a Venetian colony, in 1571. The same year the Turks
attacked Crete from Suda Bay, burning Rethymnon and ravaging the wheat fields of Khania.
With the Turks standing near Vienna also, the pressure of Ottoman power was for the Venetians
no longer a distant threat but a colossal conflagration, burning in their direct neighborhood.
The salient points of Crete were refortified. New vaulted berths were built to hold the galleys,
and casemates were constructed for the storage of gunpowder and arms. The city of Candia re-
ceived additional stone ramparts and the walls and bastions were strengthened and heightened.
A large part of the able-bodied population of young men were impressed into service in the
Venetian galleys, and the peasants were commandeered to forced labor on the earthworks.
The guarding of the fortifications of the "Kingdom of Crete" was intrusted to the so-called
militia, professional soldiers amounting to 3,000 to 3,500 men, who were stationed in eight forts

on the island. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, the militia had become dismayingly
demoralized. An attempt to recruit Cretans to form a reserve army remained largely an edict
on paper. It is understandable that they did not rally with enthusiasm to the Venetian flag, even
at the approach of the grand Turkish assault on their own island, and that the saying became
current, "Rather the turban of the sultan than the tiara of the pope."
Pohtical conditions continued to deteriorate, and in the last decades of the century emigra-
tion of Cretans to Istanbul and other Turkish-held territory reduced the island's population from
270,000 to 190,000. After all, they were going to Hellenic cities, with large Greek-speaking
populations, where also there was a great demand for art as an expression of Greek Orthodox
sohdarity.
Nevertheless, Crete held out longer against the Moslems than any other outpost of Venice,
indeed until 1669. When the Turks were finally estabhshed on the island, the Orthodox faith
became again the leading Christian denomination there. What was unheard of under the Vene-
tians, some of the privileges of the metropoUtan were reinstated; he was even permitted to

ride a horse again as a civic as well as religious leader. The island remained a Turkish possession
until 1898, when it was granted autonomy of a sort. In 1913 it joined Greece.
With the passage of time, the changes in trade routes, and the achievements of modem
transportation, Crete might seem out of the way and of little importance today. But its con-
tinued strategic value was made evident in the last war, when Nazi German parachutists de-
scended upon the western end near Khania in 1941. It is estimated that 80 per cent of the German

.37.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
shock troops were lost, owing to the fierce defense in which the civihan population took a
valiant part. But the occupation forces stayed until the general situation of the war forced
their evacuation early in 1945.
A visitor to Crete today can see clearly the scars of age-long struggles and the marks of
the immense and individuality of its people. Khania's harbor still has strong Venetian
vitality

echoes. In a main position on the quay stands a vast Turkish mosque, only recently trans-
formed into a museum. Rethymnon retains some minarets and large mosques. In the last war
the jagged mountain range no longer protected Sfakion, that nest of continuous rebellion. On
the promontory above the little harbor, the houses stand shattered, roofless and windowless,
from the heavy fighting in World War II when the British forces were Hterally pushed into
the sea before the Nazi German armies. The Sfakiotes made the enemy pay so dearly that they
returned in force with tanks, and "pacified" the countryside in twenty-five days of pillage
and murder. Nevertheless the war memorial to the German parachutists, a brazen eagle with
extended talons, has been left standing on the road to Khania. As Cretans told us: Monuments
make one remember.
Everywhere is evidence that for Crete her religion during the centuries of occupation was
tlie flag of her soul, the anchor of her intellectual balance in a storm in which she was tossed

from one owner to another, from one nation to another, always strangers, never benevolent.
—
For Crete, religion became the repository also of the language the language in which the
nation's soul lives. The Cretans, inheritors of the earhest form of Christianity, became, after the
fall of Constantinople, the guardians of the Hellenic tradition. Popular literature flourished on
their island from the tenth century, and chivalresque poetry can be traced back to the four-
teenth. Didactic poems, satirical tales, historical epics, and love songs were written in the lan-
guage of the great Classical Age; drama, both comedy and tragedy, was created and produced
in the tradition and idiom of Euripides. Such Orthodox Hterature as the Acts of the Mart^TS
and the lives of the saints led directly into the religious novel. The continuous literary produc-
tion was not confined to the written and later printed page. The custom of recitation transmitted
the Homeric epic until the present day. Men of the island still improvise ballads, treating the
legends of the Middle Ages, into which they have woven references to the cruelty of Venetian
and Turkish overlords, to the struggle for independence, and lately even to the air-borne invasion
of Crete by the Germans.

An exact count has never been attempted of the number and chapels witli
of churches
murals in Crete. A count in the early twentieth century estimated about 800.^^ Since World
War II wrought its havoc, some 580 have recently been declared worthy of presers^ation and
study. The earliest date found on a Cretan mural is 1225, and the last 1523 possibly 1550. —
After Turkish occupation no new murals (increasingly rare) or restorations were signed or
dated.*^^ These buildings never had mosaic decorations. Mosaic, which in earlier centuries

added so much luster to Byzantine architecture, became rare by the fourteenth century.
Prerequisite were expert craftsmen, much time, and great affluence. With the imperial treasury
and other sources of patronage at low ebb, mural painting came to tlie fore.
The Cretan murals take on special importance after the fall of Constantinople and the oc-
cupation of the Greek mainland. Crete, the largest island free of Turkish occupation, became
a workshop for Late Byzantine art that would continue for two hundred more years. Many
Greek refugees who fled there for safety were well educated, with high spiritual standards

•38-
and artistic training. There was a constant replenishment of inspiration from manuscripts and
books.To the end of the fifteenth centm^-, signs of contact with Constantinople continue and
even become intensified.
Cretan mural painters were active not only on the island but elsewhere, especially in the
monasteries of Sinai, Athos, and Meteora. Their joumexing produced a new "acme" in those

establishments, many of which were enlarged and refurbished at this time. Notable is the work
of Theofanis the Cretan, a monk, who with and brother painted murals at Meteora
his father

around 1523, at La\Ta and elsewhere on Mount Athos between 1536 and 1564.^' Their in-
fluence is met in other Balkan lands and in Russia.
The Cretans' loyalt>- to tlieir artistic tradition helped them preser\-e their national character.
Rehgion was fortified through art and art through rehgion. In their places of worship were
continuously affirmed the greatness and exquisite provenience of their nation. Dining the
entire period that Crete was occupied —over 450 years by the Venetians and nearly 250 by the
Turks —they clung to the tradition of their ancestors. It is significant that in spite of unremit-
ting pressure, not a single Uniate is today in Crete. \Mien Crete was hberated and the Turkish
troops were evacuated, the last of the Roman Catholic clerg}- left the island. The population
worships as a body in the One, Holy, Cathohc and Apostolic Orthodox Church.
As on the Greek mainland, in Crete the country-side is dotted \viih. tiny stone chapels put up by
family groups and farm communities in the wheat fields, at the edges of oHve groves and vineyards
{PL 27 A). The Turks disapproved large buildings where the population could gather in num-
bers and foment unrest. Tradition has it that the small chapels where only one family could
be accommodated were preferred by the menfolk, who did not want their women in the prox-
imit>' of the males of other clans. Often no larger than a spacious room, all these buildings
have their Httle apse and barrel xaulting. The earUest preserve remnants of an iconostasis or
altar screen of masonr}-; later, wood was used, but many of these disappeared for firewood in

—
World War 11. Today few of the chapels are locked and there are no signs of recent vandahsm,
no names or dates scratched on the walls, no painted features defaced. The worst cracks have
been filled in with plaster and the earthen floors are swept clean.
Generally the interior of these structures —walls and vaulting —was covered \\'ith murals.
Often the exterior also was painted. Even in the early twentieth century- the buildings on other
Greek islands also are reported to have been bright with exterior murals.
Monks, priests, and itinerant craftsmen were the painters. They were not expected to create,
but to repeat — to preserve the established pictorial tradition, which was laid down in such
painters' handbooks as the manual of Denys of Fouma. Stencils were sometimes used to guide
the performance. But in many must have worked freehand in the murals
cases the painter —
we have seen we have never found an exact rephca. Through rigorous training and much repe-
tition of the same subject, he was able to enlarge or reduce a composition according to the

wall surface at his disposal and render the features of Christ and the saints so that they were
always recognizable. The posture of the body and the gesture of the hands also spoke a uni-
versal language.
Sometimes even a small chapel followed a more pretentious design, as that of the Twelve
Apostles just outside Sfaldon on a hill looking toward Africa {Pi. 32A). Gables at the two ends of
the na\e suggest a peaked roof. But the inside shows barrel vaulting, buttressed
by the thick
side walls.The windowless dome-on-square is supported by half-domes over the tiny low side
chapels and the apse. Our tiring journey there was undertaken because we had heard that the

•39-
 .

EL GRECO REVISITED
building was painted tliroughout exterior and interior. Alas, to cover serious war damage the
population had whitewashed it aU.
Better fortune was encountered in the shrine of St. John at Komitades not far away ( Pi. 32C).
One of the earliest still standing, it is built of stone and rubble, roofed with large rough tiles
with the remnants of a stone "roof comb" which was once decorative as well as utihtarian.

Colorful majohca bowls in the "pediment," which have lost long ago their luster, still proclaim
the tradition of the Levant. The small narthex has fallen in, but the only entrance to the chapel
with its sturdy stone uprights and hntel stands firm. The entire vaulted interior, including
the ribs, is painted (
Pi. 32B ) On the entrance
. wall, the Crucifixion is depicted with mourning
figures gatliered under the Cross; on the ceiling, well preserved, Demetrios on his white horse.
Toward the apse ( upper section ) episodes from the life of John the Evangelist are still discern-
ible, and a kingly figure, his jeweled robes and crown picked out with white dots reminiscent
of mosaicwork. By the door a painted cartouche declares the murals to be the John work of
Pagomenos in the year 1313. It is not known whether Pagomenos was a native Cretan, but his
name occurs on \arious signature tablets from 1313 to 1347. His work is individual, characterized
by free gestures and a "curly" hne.
Similarly in a forsaken situation, and almost beyond repair, is the tiny chapel at Drakona in
western Crete, dedicated to St. Stephen the First Martyr. Here, in a mural near the entrance
door,Anne and Joachim are seen bringing the Virgin to the Temple {PL 31B). Mary stands
among the group of maidens beneath a vase-shaped lamp topical of the fourteenth century,
wliile the bearded and haloed high priest with his crescent-moon headgear can be seen at the
upper right. As in the mural just discussed, buildings, furniture, and drapery are depicted in
some detail. Unquestionably the finest work is preserved in the figure of Anne as she stands
beside her husband. The rosy-red of her garb retains the mildness of shading and translucency
of tone associated with painting in tempera. Her ex-pression is tender and immediate. One
leaves regretful that the brutal cracks in the wall will soon put an end to this hidden
treasure.
Each village had at least one church, usually a more pretentious rectangular structure built
entirely of stone with a round apse at the east end and a barrel vault over the nave. When more
space was needed, a second rectangle might be placed beside the first —with its own apse and
nave and frequently its own name —and openings broken tlirough the adjoining walls (
Pi. 30C )
Examples sur\i\e where e\'en a third church was joined to these, as in the monaster}^ church
of the Dormition, less than a mile north of the village of Kritsa (Pi. 29 A), where the north
nave is dedicated to St. Anthony Abbot and the south, to St. Anne. The good-sized dome on
pendentives —a cautious structure without openings — is probably a later addition. ^^ To sup-
port this and the three stone vaults, all built at different times during the fourteenth century,
thick buttresses have been thrown against the outer walls and a minimum of windows con-
structed. As is general in such edifices, the murals can be viewed only by the sunlight reflected
across the floor from the doors and filtering through the slits in the apse.
Except for a few square feet rubbed oS^ by the shoulders of those who sat on the masonry
benches along the walls, the murals are in good condition, having been recently expertly cleaned.
They present perhaps the most complete repertory' of biblical scenes and favorite saints in
present-day Crete. In each of the apses stand the four Church Fathers of Orthodox rite, al-
ways recognizable, though each group shows the hand of a different painter. The four arch-
angels of the Ascension are depicted in the dome; the t\Tnpanum has the Twelve Prophets

•40-
 CANDIA
dressed in dark tones. It is notable that the garments are painted in one color, such as red, and
shaded in another —dark blue—a typical Byzantine practice.
The detail of the Ascension shown here (
Pi. 29B ) is from the left wall of the central nave.
At the left stands an archangel in admonishing pose, his expression full of solemnity. Of the
six apostles, Peter and the youthful John are especially well preserved, vi^hile the four others
show the damage of the centuries. Even so, the first named tell the whole drama the older —
man looking up in awe and also in sorrow, his left hand on the scabbard of his sword, his right
extended far heavenward as if he would try to foUow the miracle. John is portrayed in the
classical tradition as a serene, beardless youth. The irregular overlapping circles of the halos

are unconventional in placement and heighten the feeling of tension and excitement. Compare
the more hieratic presentation at Mistra {Pi. 13).
The wall paintings of Kritsa are dated 1354-1355, but some work in the church comes from
a century later, and recent cleaning has revealed signs of previous frescowork in a different
style. There are two painted tablets, giving the names of the donors man, wife, and children, —
and the year (partly effaced), in one case even the nickname of a son and the information —
that they are "confirmed" Orthodox. Burials in the church are inscribed from the end of the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. ^^
About the time of our stay on Crete, a French moving-picture company came to the island
to make a film which was shown in the United States as He Who Must Die. It was based on
The Greek Passion by Nikos Kazantzakis, himself a Cretan, and since it is a tale of Turkish
persecution, soldiers and extras were needed to wear the uniform with fez. But even for short
hours and in a play, no Cretan was willing to masquerade as a Turk. Finally Americans from
the nearby air base helped out. During filming, the Turkish flag had to fly over the simulated
mansion of the Turkish commander. Each day, when the "shooting" was finished, the villagers
turned out to make sure that it was hauled down.
Even the monasteries in Crete were generally unpretentious, accommodating only a hand-
ful of monks —
not the massive stone complexes of the West, overlooking their large domains
like feudal castles. Monasteries of small dimensions are extant in Potamies in eastern Crete,
Valsamonero, Vrontissi, and Kritsa among others. Gouvemotissa (the Ruling One, the Queen),
for instance, at Potamies accommodated probably less than a dozen monks and had a court-
yard not broader than that of a normal farmhouse {Pi. 30 A). Its small church has a ground
plan in the shape of the Greek cross and was once adorned with murals both outside and inside.
The cupola with its graceful blind arcade is a superior achievement. Within, the dome is not
shallow, as appears from the exterior, but springs from the base and is greatly Hghtened by
the eight taU windows that reach almost to its apex. Note the quatrefoil above the door. The
narrow vertical slit illuminating the apse might have been closed with a thin slab of alabaster
or other translucent stone; since glass was rare and expensive, oiled animal skin, spanned
tightly, was also sometimes used. Over the arch to the sanctuary the words are inscribed, Ldvete,
fdyete (take, eat), a reference to the Sacrament. Again the procession of church fathers ap-
proaches the altar from two sides, dignified attendants at the service. Represented here {Pi.
30B) are Gregory and Cyril. The elongation of the figures and also the decorative spotted
outlines hark back to mosaic tradition. As the buildings became higher, the figures were made
taller, taking advantage of the available space. Although recorded as of the fourteenth century,
the murals appear to have been retouched at a later date.
The monastery of Gonia stands on a promontory overlooking the picturesque Kolimbari Bay

•41.
 —

EL GRECO REVISITED
in the western part of Crete (Pi. 31C). Founded in the early part of the seventeenth century
late in \'enetian rule — it shows larger dimensions than earlier establishments. Here a large
panel, curved to fit a bay in the refectory, represents the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
an appropriate subject for monks who live mainly on bread, fish, and oil {Pi. 31 A). It is in-

scribed: the work of Konstantin Paleopapas in the year 1643. It still has remnants of the
gilded background traditional in icons — probably a harking back to the mosaic. On the other
hand, the general composition shows considerable familiarity with Western art. The scene has
characteristics of later Cretan painting which is better known to us through the hagiographers
of Venice. Christ's figure is dominant; in the distance the disciples are seen distributing the
victuals. All the figures use their hands in eloquent gesticulation. There is uniformity in the
rendition of the feet. Paleopapas also signed a large Crucifixion in the monastery church.
When we remarked on the choice collection of icons in the church, we were told that in
1821, during the war for independence, the icons were carried to Trieste for safekeeping, and
remained there for eighty years. When World War II endangered the shores, they were taken
to Pola, and had been brought back only shortly before our visit.

The portrayal of important saints keeps to Orthodox tradition through centuries. Michael
is the leader among the archangels. His name means "like unto God" in Hebrew, and he is

described as the Captain General of the Host of Heaven. He is depicted as young and hand-
some, his clothing dazzling in richness and color. Resplendent wings rise from his shoulders.

He carries a flaming sword, a shield, and often a pair of balances, for it is he who is supposed
to weigh the souls of men at the Saviour's command on the Day Judgment.
of
Three favorite saints of the Byzantine world appear in the damaged mural at Platanias,

Crete {PL 33A). Michael stands on the dragon of evil and holds a scroll and a medallion of the
young Christ. St. George, venerated in East and West as the model of knighthood, rides a
brown charger at the left. Demetrios, after him the most famous mihtary martyr of the East,
is mounted on a white horse and holds a slender lance. Compare the warrior saints on Pis. 20A

and 25. The steeds may look rather like carousel animals to us, but tlie rich trappings and
carefully groomed manes and tails, together with the riders' highly dignified bearing, make
a full and decorative effect. The line which separates the one figure from the others, cutting
into the raised hoof of the white horse, shows how careless and damaging repainting can be.
From the heavy hair to the elaborate battle dress and the menacingly upright sword, the
figure from the distant Macedonian heartland of Kastoria, Greece {Pi. 33D), is easily recog-
nized as Michael also. In this sixteenth century version, his wings are like epaulets and he
carries the scales in his left hand. Here he is placed in a semicircular arch a challenge to —
the painter's command of spacing and proportion. A better known example from Formis,
South Italy {Pi. 33C), was executed in the eleventh century for a Benedictine monastery in

which finely painted murals are preserved. This figure also is placed in a lunette with great
skill, the gracefully curving wings filling the entire space. The authorship of these murals was
disputed for a long time by those who would like to disparage Byzantine art and minimize
its influence in Western lands. But the discovery of an inscription referring to the painter, in
clear Greek cursive script, has finally settled the dispute.-** Here the archangel carries a
lance —a mark of the work's early date. From his left hand curls a scroll bearing his motto.
Again placed in a semicircular space, in a church in Athens {Pi. 33B), is a figure similar
in many details, such as the stem expression, the thin line of the nose, the small tight mouth,
as well as the heavy crown of hair. The wings are spread to imposing effect, and the folds

•42-
 CANDIA
of the garments have much variety, enhvening the w^hole picture. But here there is no weapon.
The hands are exquisitely drawn; the right is raised in the gesture of blessing. This is Christ
Himself, identified by the letters in the aureole —the omicron omega nu (I am that I am),
which was spoken out of the Burning Bush to Moses on Mount Sinai. The inscription reads
"The Angel of the Most High," and just below is the monogram of Jesus. This mural came
recently to hght when, at tlie excavations of the Agora (the market place) in Athens, the
ancient church was restored by American archaeologists.

The last date found on murals in Crete has been deciphered as 1523, possibly 1550. Slowly,
wall painting was discontinued. But the development of icon painting went on. The icon was
movable, while the mosaic and the mural were fixed. Fragments remain to indicate that early
churches had masonry iconostases that served the mural painter as an outlet. With the introduc-
tion of wooden altar screens, the painter's work was transferred more and more to transportable
panels. An icon could be ordered in a particular size and subject at a studio or monastery;
when carried to the village its reception sometimes amounted to a religious procession. Symbols
of faitli in those times of increasing vicissitude, icons could travel, they could be hidden, and,
as all small objects, theyhad a personal nature. The mural painter was under constant control
and had from the standard tradition. The icons were broadly mar-
httle inspiration to deviate
ketable, and it was natural that they were more prone to influences from wider fields. Within
the small space, a compHcated story could stiU be told; thus the icon and the page of the il-
luminated manuscript are related. With the dechne of hand-illuminated codices, after the in-
vention of book printing, the miniature painter often turned his talent to the icon. Indeed, in
the sixteenth century icons began to influence the mural painters, and details from icons ex-
ecuted at Mount Athos and Meteora have been found on church walls in Crete.
A striking blend of the Byzantine and Western influences is seen in the icon of Haralambos,
a saint popular in the Orthodox Church {PI. 28C). Haralambos was martyred in Anatolia
toward the end of tlie second century, when that part of Asia Minor was a Roman province.
Various incidents of his death and apotheosis are represented on the panel. The crowned ruler
sits on a gilded throne within the walled city. The saint's last moments are comforted by angels

who bring him the wreath of martyrdom. At the edge of Eternity, where a cluster of cumulus
—
clouds forms a kind of tlireshold, his soul again represented as an infant flanked by two —
angels, is received by Christ. The Holy Ghost hovers above and, in commanding position
over all, God the Father sits alone. Various choirs of angels surround him, and fine-lined
gilded rays radiate downward from his figure. The compartmentalization of the scenes, the
gold background, and the rose-colored depths of Heaven are Byzantine, while the landscape
in the foreground, the richly detailed costumes, and the architecture show Western, strongly
bookish, influence. The icon hangs in the old Cathedral (Little St. Minas) in Heraklion. It

is dated 1758, and the painter is named as George Kastrophylax —whose work is found at
Mount Sinai as well as in Crete. *^ The same saint is depicted on a large votary icon in the
former monastery dedicated to St. Catherine of Sinai in the Greek quarter at Istanbul {Pi.

112C). Beyond the large figure of the saint we see his coronation as a martyr. The work is

signed: "Hand of Dorotheus, monk of Peloponnese," and on the scroll is written "Prayer (or
offering ) of the servant of God, Constantine the monk" —evidently the donor. The date is 1736.
While both Byzantine and Western influences can be detected, the exquisitely patterned tex-
tiles might even be of Turkish inspiration.

•43-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Heraklion today —Candia in the sixteenth century — is framed by the remnants of mono-
Hthic bastions and gigantic walls, rising from moats filled with the drift of centuries(PL 26).
The west gate is entirely Venetian. Ruins of the first belt of fortifications are extant, but were
superseded as tlie city grew. Inside the town many vestiges of recent Turkish occupation re-
main, but the resplendence Venice encouraged has been effaced by time and indifference.
When Crete gained her independence, the Roman Catholic Church withdrew entirely. The
church of Mark with which the Venetian colonists thought to honor their patron, today serves
St.

a very different purpose. Begun in 1239, destroyed by the earthquake of 1303, again rebuilt ele- —
—
gant with loggia, five arcades, and campanile it was transformed into a mosque by the Turks.
Today the companile's stones have been carried away and the building has become a mo\ing-
picture theater. Other Roman churches are barracks, depots, offices, garages. The site of the
Franciscan monastery was found ideal for the new Archaeological Museum. As one walks
through the ancient city, stones of different provenience, sometimes with marble surfaces, used
heterogeneously in recent masonn,', are reminders of ancient magnificence.
There are indications that certain Orthodox monasteries on Crete nurtured generations of
especially able mural and icon painters. To
them "schools," in the sense of groups whose
call

performance can be sharply defined is somewhat forced

styUstically, especially today, when —
few murals remain in their original state. The itinerant painters and the icons themselves car-
ried the protot^-pes of various modes o\er a wide territor^^
Valsamonero, with fine murals dated 1431, was a center of painting, also Kritsa and Vrontissi
in rural communities. In Candia, theology and painting were among the subjects taught at the
monastery of St. Catherine, a dependent of the See of Mount Sinai. In the Byzantine world it

was not necessary to belong to the feudal higher class or to the clergy, or to be subvened
by them, to receive an education. If a youth had ambition and talent, he could advance him-
self in a number of fields, in the democratic tradition of classical Greece.
The monastery of St. Catherine was destroyed by the Turks. The present church of St.
Matthew is the repository of that Orthodox tradition which St. Catherine once represented.
There is no longer a school of painting there, but the establishment preser\es a variety of
icons, a number of tliem portraving the saintly patroness. The iconostasis (PL 28B) contains
large panels, bordered by smaller ones of the Twelve Feasts of the Church. Dragons at the
foot of the Crucifix symbolize the defeat of the Apocah'ptic beasts through the Redemption.
Even in the capital, the churches, except for the New Cathedral, are of small size, and one is

not lost in them, intentionally dwarfed by the tremendous mass of architecture. In such a
church a special intimacy is established with Divinity, and one feels strongly the archaic power
of the religion.
The old MetropoHtan Church does not hold more than some three hundred persons. Christ
is depicted on a large icon in central position on the iconostasis ( PL 28A ) wearing the crown ,

of Heaven. The Baptism, the Raising of Lazarus, the Crucifixion, and the Descent into Limbo
or, in the Orthodox concept, the Resurrection —
can be recognized on the small panels. The
fifth frame, at the right, is empty. Here belonged the Transfiguration. In search of this panel

we visited an old icon painter who had taken it to his workshop for repair. Luckily this old man
still had reverence for the ancient art and was spending hours in study and contemplation

before touching it; but what will happen in a generation or so, when another cleaning and
restoration are necessary, one would rather not think. Especially noteworthy is the fine gilded
woodwork of the altar screen, as frame; the entwined eucharistic grapes and die flying angels

•44-
 C.\NDIA

over the door are carved with Baroque freedom. A markedly narrow rectangular panel above
the opening represents the Lamentation over the Body of the Dead Christ, a favorite subject,
always placed on an important point of the iconostasis.
Only one row of wooden benches runs around the walls of the old church. The community
stands during services, even those that last for hours. While we were photographing the icons,
we witnessed a baptism. One bearded priest filled the chahce-shaped font with \yarm water
and poured in warm oil, testing the temperature expertly with fatherly concern. A second
priest, wearing an apron-like mantle, his lace-bordered sleeves turned back, held the naked

child over the font, as mother and godparents stood by with hghted candles. The ser\ice
was chanted throughout, and the velvet\- young voices of the priests filled the stone vault with
music full of majestv^ and love. .After the baby was immersed and the baptismal blessing given,
it was dressed in new clothing and carried in a procession around the font, while the chanting

resolved into a jo\-ful melody. Standing in the semidarkness of a comer, one thought that this

same ceremony might have taken place more than four hundred years ago, the infant receiving
the name K\Tiakos —
Domenikos.
For out of this cultural and reHgious background, filled with fierce national pride that was
based not only on the classic past but also on his Hellenic education, emerges the elusive
shadow of a young man who later, as El Greco, became one of the most enigmatic figures in
the histor\- of art. The young Candiote, bom in 1541, grew up when the oppression of the
occup>ing power threatened his people and perhaps himself with bodily harm. At the same
time, increasing appreciation of Cretan painters in the Mediterranean world might have spurred
him to try his fortune beyond his native island. It is known that he went to Venice. His ship
followed the route of ancient mariners and, barely underway, he could already see how various
nations were adjusting to the turbulent times.
As the boat left the Sea of Crete, the ancient island of Cvihera came into sight, legendary
seat of Aphrodite. Then the island of Zante or Zakintos, once a favorite place of the emperors
of Constantinople and since 1482 a \'enetian possession. Though the towTi life bore the strong
imprint of \'enice, on the land the ancestral Orthodox faith persisted. Nearly aU the population
spoke Greek as well as Italian and were patrons of Greek hterature and music. On the nearby
slopes of Mount Skopos stood the old convent of Panagia Skopotissa. There was a colony of
hagiographers on the island.
skillful

At the northernmost end of the Ionian Sea, where the Itahan boot and the shoulder of the
Greek mainland form a narrows, the Strait of Otranto, Hes KerkvTa, ItaHanized into Corfu,
praised by poets for fabulous beautv". It was probably on Corfu that the legendary' meeting
took place between Xausicaa and the most romantic of all wanderers, Ulysses. South of the
towTi of Corfu, beyond its classical ruins, an inlet forms a veritable lake, and a breakwater
leads across to the convent of Vlachema {PL 34A). The nearby island of Ponticonissi, also
called Mouse Island for its small size, completes a landscape over which sentimental travelers
have raved through the ages. The \'enetian fortress with its double ramparts still encloses a
lab\Tinth of whitewashed houses. Although repeatedly attacked by the Turks, the town re-

mained in Venetian hands and sensed as a refuge for Greek scholars.

There were a few good harbors on the rugged shores of Albania, but the Turks had ruled
there for a centurv". Therefore the captain of the ship probably steered toward the Bocche di
Cattaro. where beyond the narrow gate of bluffs a lovely sheltered bay awaited. While in
deep winter snow hes on the highest peaks, the landscape along the shores is dotted with digni-

•45-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
fied villas surrounded by semitropical gardens. Here the Greek language was still understood,
but among themselves the natives spoke either the Venetian dialect or Serbo-Croatian.
A number of churches along the coast served the Roman Rite, not so much honoring the
power of rehgion as the religion of the power; in the mountains where the Slavs lived, the
Orthodox faith was dominant.
Fartlier north lay the coastal RepubUc
Ragusa (Dubrovnik now, from the Slavic for oak
of
tree ) where the Slavs kept a small independent city-state flourishing, even after Serbia beyond
,

the mountains was overwhelmed by the Turks. Ragusa was governed by patricians, burghers,
merchants, and shipowners, who elected a rector as their head for a limited period. Ragusa
was
able to free herself from Venetian protection as early as the fourteenth century. Slavery was
abolished in 1417, on the grounds that it was "disgraceful, wicked, and abominable." Though
Ragusa was within the powerful area of the Roman Rite, the Inquisition never made greater
inroads than the burning of three books. The ruling class was ready to discover and reinterpret
for its own use the humanistic culture of Venice. The mansion of the rector ( Pi. 34B ) built at ,

the end of the fifteenth century, is strongly Venetian in its feeling. The leaders were fluent
in Itahan, but their wives, servants, and the peasants spoke only Serbo-Croatian. Thus the city
was anchored in a patriotic and healthy ground. It also harbored a large colony of Greek
refugees. Ragusa, with its repeatedly strengthened fortifications (Pi. 35 A), was one of the
great medieval centers for the distribution of merchandise from the Levant. It issued its own
currency, which the Venetian Repubhc honored. It is one of the few states which refused to
be disheartened by the opening of the ocean routes to India and the Americas, and it con-
tinued to send out its "argosies" (that is, ships from Ragusa) until, in an unwise alliance with
Spain, its last squadron was lost with the Armada.
The next large port on this unique coastland was Spalato (now had the best harbor
Split). It
on the rocky coast, and a number of commercial roads led to it from the hinterland. It was
raided by the Avars, Goths, and H^ms, and at different times was a vassal of Hungary, Venice,
Bosnia. In the early fifteenth century the was a Greek who had a Serbian
Duke of Spalato
hymnbook written for him in Cyrillic characters. In 1420 the place was ceded to Venice and
was thereafter managed as a colonial town, though the population contained the strains of
various nationahties.
The was originally tlie palace of Diocletian ( 245-313 ) and its ground plan is that of a
site ,

Roman camp, almost square, with four gates, and four streets meeting in the center of the town.
Diocletian was himself a Dalmatian, and built the place for his retirement. He brought in
Anatolian and Syrian craftsmen who blended fantasy and grace of hue with the precision of
Roman design. The floor level of the main church was once the vestibule of the palace. The
inner court or peristyle (Pi. 35C) is today a piazza where cafe tables stand. An unusual pic-
turesque record was made by Robert Adam, architect (1728-1792), father of a Neoclassic
style in England. The young Scotsman journeyed to Italy to study classical architecture but
was disappointed by the little that remained. The stones had been carried away for recent
structures and for roads. Half-ruins were being used as mass quarters. Then he heard about
a building still extant in Spalato in Dalmatia that covered more ground than the Escorial in
Spain and had the added importance of having been built as a private palace. He sailed across
the Adriatic, and although at first arrested as a spy he managed in five weeks, with the help
of three other draftsmen, to accumulate sufficient measurements and sketches to produce a
work of lasting value. It was published in London in 1763, an exquisitely produced album

•46-
 . )

CAXDIA
from which the illustration is taken [PL 35B). The engraving has detail and romance enough
to satisfy any armchair traveler.^''

In tlie old days unfa\orable \^-inds, danger of corsairs, or the news of pestilence raging in

the next port might cause a boat to \"eer west and seek Ravenna, whose harbor once could
accommodate 250 ships. A dozen churches in Byzantine st}-le stood in Ravemia to remind the
traveler of the past glories of the place. Honorius, retreating from tlie Visigoths, transferred
tlie imperial court there in 404. His sister Galla Placidia, who was regent from 425 to 450,
built a church there in fulfillment of a religious \ow, after a \oyage to Constantinople. Ravenna
was residence of the Goth Theodoric, and was restored to the Byzantine Empire under Justinian.
The church of San Apollinare in Classe [PL 36D^, some tliree miles from the cit>^ dates from

that period and gi\"es e\idence of the dominant Byzantine influence which spread to many
parts of Europe. At Ra\enna, Greek mosaicisii blended the style of early Constantinople \\-ith

regional influences. The majestic mosaic in the apse shows a higlily s\Tnbolic representation
of the Transfiguration. Below it stands St. Apollinare, the first Bishop of Ravenna, in prayer,
\\ith upraised arms and open palms, in the t\-pical theomeni attitude of the Orthodox Rite,
kno\Mi in tlie West as orans.The sheep represent the apostles. Later, Ravenna's harbor silted
up. The cit}' lost its importance. Life became stagnant, and tlius the place remains the most
Byzantine of Itahan to\Mis.
But if tlie ship's course had been uneventful, the ob\ious harbor to land in was Parenzo
(Porec j, on the Istrian Peninsula. In the upper comer of the Adriatic, coastwise traffic becomes
heavier, hauling cargoes that range Even recently
from stone and timber to wine and oHve oil.

each boat sailed under the special protection of the patron saint of its home port, whose image
it carried on its lofty lateen sail. The figure was sometimes fifteen feet tall; George or Deme-

trios was portrayed in full upon his rearing charger. Like \'enice. Parenzo was built up

as a place of refuge when the wave of migrating peoples swept down upon northern Italy.
In the fourteenth centur\' it had a population of some three thousand, but at the end of the
sixteenth centur>^ it was devastated by pestilence and reduced to a mere three hundred. With
the passing of the epidemic, the city was repopulated by refugee Albanians, Dalmatians, and
Greek-speaking people, especially from Crete, who kept up their Orthodox religion. Here stood a
spacious basihca [PL 36 A) built also in the sixth century by tlie same architectural team that
was active at Ravenna, with which it has much
common. The exterior mosaics are today in
in
fragments. A mosaic of the \'irgin and Child, attended by white-robed saints and angels, fills
the vast shell of the apse PL 36C Abo\-e the arch, Christ sits in judgment, flanked by the
t .

aposdes. Parenzo suffered more than Ra\"enna, as its Byzantine monuments re\-eal. The walls
of the basihca are co\"ered with canvases of a late period and doubtful \alue. The once-elaborate
mosaic pavement was replaced with duU stone slabs, as also in Ravenna. Superior craftsmanship
went to Venice, where there was affluence enough to keep up Byzantine perfection, even in
the pavement PL 36B ( )

The last lap of the long voyage entailed the least danger. \Mien all was readied, the anchor
could be hfted and the harbor left behind. The wind bit into the sails of the ship, and a new-
pilot stood on deck to guide it among the shoals of the Lido into wondrous Venice.

47
 •Ill-

VENICE

From the air Venice looks like an inundated city. Colored patches of sea grass wave beneath
the shallow water of the lagoon. The irregular clusters of houses on their hundred islands seem
afloat. The white stone bridges form a broken pattern over the murky waters of the innumer-
able canals. On the piazzas paved with bleached stone slabs, carved wellheads gape black,
that once supplied water for the city's needs. The various greens of the vegetation mingle with
the gray and white of stone and the mellowed rose color of brickwork.
The fascinating mixture of land and water long attracted book illustrators and map makers
to show the city from above. Jacopo de' Barbari's magnificent woodcut, made in 1500 and
measuring over four feet by nine, remains one of the most important views as well as the
most efi^ective of the city (Pi. 37). Even at that time, the commercial value of such a story-
telling document was grasped, and a German merchant living in Venice at once purchased

a four-year copyright for its publication. The city spreads out like a flattened hand with fingers
extending toward the east, where a long sandbar guards it from the open waters of the Adriatic.
The Canal Grande traces its familiar S. The population at that time, estimated at somewhat over
150,000, did not overcrowd the city as it does today with more than two and a half times that
number. Many garden patches are visible. The low-lying sandbanks are empty, with an oc-
casional boat drawn up upon them. Yet many of the monuments that make Venice what it
is today stood there in 1500. The buildings facing the Canal Grande aheady display the Byzan-

tine, Venetian-Gothic, and Renaissance styles side by side, which later accommodated also

the Palladian and the Baroque in splendid harmony. The only bridge that spans the main
artery of the town is wood, with a center section that can be lifted for the passage of ships
of
(visible in the lower left on Pi. 37 A). For the magnificent Rialto Bridge of stone was not
built until nearly a century later. Many of the big churches, each with its campanile, or bell
tower, can be recognized among blocks of dweUing houses. While full attention was paid by
the draftsman to the island of San Pietro at the entrance to the arsenal, to the Giudecca on
the south, and the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore at the entrance to the Canal Grande, the
focus is on the Ducal Palace and the Basilica of San Marco. In the foreground, hea\y masted
vessels clog the harbor, withan empty space along the quay at the end of the Piazzetta where
gondolas ride. A gigantic Neptune is mounted on a monster dolphin. His left hand holds a
chain to harness the animal, and his right, a banner proclaiming the port to be his residence.

•48-

I
 VENICE
From thewoodcut to a detail painted by Titian sLxt\'-six years later no change can be
observed {PL 39B), and today we see practically the same \-iew. The Piazza di San Marco,
elegant open-air reception room, flanked by the Procmratie, is easily traversed in imagination.
On the map there is an inconspicuous church at the west end, where Napoleon had the Procu-
ratie Nuove built to close the space with homogeneous architecture. And one misses the church

of Santa Maria della Salute with its opulent scrolled decoration so t}"pical of the high Baroque
in mid-seventeenth century \'enice.
The city's —
was her Bery heart of power at once an armorv' and a fortress which
arsenal
protected her from the side of tlie open sea. Its battlemented walls, strengthened by fourteen

towers, had a circumference of some t\vo miles. The three official keepers of the arsenal had
to hve ia the houses pro\ided for them nearby throughout their term of something less than
three years. Each magistrate was on duty for fifteen days, during which time he was responsible
with his head for the safetv' of the establishment. He slept inside the fortification and guarded
the keys of the arsenal in his room. Only one passage led out of the compound, an impressive
Gothic portal framing a massive iron gate.
In the arsenal were manufactured weapons, cannon, and munitions, and here were tlie

depots for army and na\y. It had facihties to take care of a fleet of 45 heavy warships and their
accompanying smaller craft, in a large square water-bay with hangar-like sheds that could
be closed (visible in the upper left on Pi. 3SA). Here also were the shipyards, the dr\' docks,
ropewalks, model rooms, and warehouses. The weekday scene was one of roaring forges, billow-
ing smoke, and tlie clangor of toil. The workmen, the arsenalotti, had their own guild, and

considerable privileges were accorded them. Sixteen thousand men were employed as ship-
builders, and 36,000 seamen manned the various craft. There were as many as 11,000 of the
mihtary gathered when the fleet was in port. The surrounding area had peaceful open spaces
where vegetables were raised.
Sometimes 10,000 logs of walnut were floating in the basin. With the Dalmatian mountains
and the Alps near the Veneto under the control of the repubhc, vast wood-producing areas
were at their disposal. The Juhan Alps and the Croatian Karst also were hea\aly forested at
that time. The demand for wood was insatiable. xA.s well as for the repair and construction of
ships for commerce and for battle, wood was needed for docks, sheds, and w^arehouses, for
the numberless bridges and drawbridges, even for the piles which, driven into the mushy
ground, sustained the splendid buildings of the cit\'. Trees were felled in ruthless disregard
of future devastation.
Near the was provided where public gondolas were berthed. Here
arsenal, a sort of "garage"
also rested the Bucintoro, official barge of the doge —
a monumental showboat, gilded, up-
holstered in red velvet, and adorned with polychrome statues. Its deck was of ebony, and its
eight\--four oars, touched with gold and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, flashed as it sped out
into the lagoon to meet the vessel of some visiting sovereign. It paraded in the yearly celebra-
tion when the doge dropped a ring into the water to s\Tnbolize the mystic marriage of the
cit)' witli the sea. Alas, the more resplendent the Bucintoro became as time went by. the

more curtailed was the power of Venice over the seas, and in the end the performance was not
much more than an excuse for a festa.
Venice grew into a town in the fifth centors- as the coastal population found refuge there
from Attila's invasion of northern Italy. In later centuries, Venice herself was to become the
—
conqueror of vast territories not as the Mongohan horsemen \\ith swift and head-on attack,

•49-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
but by de\ ious and shrewd diplomacy, with recourse to foreign mercenaries and condottieri. At
the height of her glory, at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth cen-
turies, she could boast a commercial fleet of three hundred large ships and tliree thousand
smaller vessels. She was dominant not only on the Adriatic and the Aegean but also as far as
the Marmara and the Black seas, Venetian warehouses were estabhshed in Eg)^t and on the
Levantine coast, at Thessaloniki and Constantinople, and even in harbors of the Black Sea.
Rhodes, C>'prus, Crete were under her power, and Apulia and Sicily in the south served her
interests. The commerce of Venice provided all that Europe desired: cloves, cinnamon, mace,

ginger, and nutmeg from the East Indies; ebony from Indo-China; ambergris from Madagascar
and musk from Tibet; pearls, rubies, lapis lazuh from Ceylon and India; muslins, silks, and bro-
cades from India and Cliina; sugar from Eg>^t; perfumes and rugs from Arabia. From the nearer
Mediterranean slopes came fruits and wines, and the city itself was famed for its textiles
and glass. All business transactions were supervised by an official of the republic. The weights
and measures used in trade were regularly checked, and duty was exacted on merchandise both
entering and leaving the city.
The highest section of the island group, the Rialto ( Rivo Alto ) was the first area inhabited,
,

and it remained the nucleus of the vigorous sprawling city ( Pi. 38B ) The merchants of various
.

nations were assigned quarters where their goods were gathered and expedited and where
each group could find safe and congenial lodging.
The Germans had a mercantile estabhshment, or fondaco, there as early as the twelfth cen-
tury. This substantial building lay directly on the shore of the Canal Grande, just across from
the Rialto, at the foot of the connecting bridge. Merchandise was stored on the ground floor
at the quayside, and above, even in that early version, over fifty bedchambers accommodated
the merchants and travelers. The foreigners were under the strict rule of their own chief of-
ficers. At the "third was locked up for the night and could not be opened except
bell" the place
for a new arrival. From various Germanic lands and the Low Countries, printers, shoemakers,
bakers, weavers, wood carvers, lutemakers, goldsmiths, and armorers were resident in \^enice.
They had their own churches. Their inns, restaurants, and other places of entertainment were
oflF limits for Venetians.
In 1505 the Fondaco de' Tedeschi was rebuilt on a still grander scale following a devastating
fire.As the use of marble, mosaic pictures, and statuary was restricted by law to the fa9ades
of special buildings, the Germans employed Giorgione, who with his assistant Titian painted
the exterior wdth noble allegories in lavish color. Though the centuries have obliterated these
murals, sketches still Such decoration was by no means exclusively Italian; Rubens
survive.
painted the outside of his house at Antwerp with mythological scenes and allegories.
Private ships were not permitted to trade in ports to which \'enice sent her fleet. \'essels
were built and equipped by tlie repubhc, then auctioned off to tlie merchants. These still had
to be licensed before taking on cargo, and they sailed under state regulations in command of

a Venetian. A respectable share of the profits fell to the state. Goods destined for the North
had to be carried on barges to the mainland, reloaded on pack trains for the arduous journey
across the Alps. Nevertheless the trafficwas so profitable at the time of Diircr's visit in the

early sixteenth century that a weekly post was kept up with German lands.
Fondachi were maintained by various Italian cities, and some Eastern nations, such as the

Armenians, also had establishments there. The Riva dcgli Schiavoni at the east end of tlie

•50-
 VENICE
city was the quay of the Slovenes and Dalmatians, where foodstuffs, wine, fruit, wood, and
other articles from the Adriatic Coast were traded.
The Ottoman Empire also had its representatives in Venice at that time. In 1621 the elegant
palace of the Duke of Ferrara, overlooking the Canal Grande, was purchased by the republic
and put at the disposal of the Turkish merchant guild. Since then the marble-veneered building,
with ten open arches and decorative finials, was known as the Fondaco de' Turchi. The Venetian
merchants in Constantinople had to pay for their ground privileges, and the Signoria of the
repubHc charged 130 gold ducats' daily rent to the Turks. As the Turks were infidels, the
windows had to be walled up, and the rooms were lighted only from the courts. A Venetian
warden locked the doors at sunset. No women or children were permitted, and no Moslem
was allowed to lodge elsewhere.
At the turn of the seventeenth century Venice started into an eclipse from which she never
emerged. America was open, and her riches were pouring into Portugal and Spain. Though
reduced by Enghsh, Dutch, and French corsairs, the goods, even as loot, reached European
markets. Arabian sea raiders, running out of North African bases, took a heavy toU of Mediter-
ranean shipping. Improved navigation to Africa and Asia had changed the map of world
trade.
Meanwhile, the century-old enemy, the Moslems, were stiU gaining ground. To stem their
advances, Venice, Genoa, the Papal States, and Spain allied for a campaign, gathering over
three hundred ships. The supreme command was put in the hands of John of Austria (1545-
1578), who was the natural son of the HolyRoman Emperor Charles V by the daughter of a
wealthy citizen of Regensburg. A Turkish fleet of about equal strength encountered the al-

hes off Lepanto (in Greek, Navpaktos) and was forced to retire with great losses (1571).
Europe was jubilant. The triumphant admirals and captains, returning from the battle, were
lionized. Te Deums were offered, mass amnesties were granted, and bonfires were lighted.
Each ally claimed it as his special victory.
But the price was costly. The Turks had lost a navy, but the Christian powers lost island
after island, foothold after foothold in the Levant. The sultan had just secured Cyprus, which
was held until the twentieth century and even today is the object of contention. Dynastic
and corroding suspicion among the allies broke the Holy League again
jealousies in Spain

and they were unable to consolidate their advantages. In 1573 Venice pur-
into rival factions,
chased a separate peace from the Turks, trebling the indemnity for the Ionian island of
Zante, her lifehne to the East, which was called "fior di Levante."
For a period in the sixteenth century the sultan formed an alliance with France and per-
mitted only the French to sail under their own colors in his waters. Other great powers were
forced to fly the French flag at a price, and even the proud Venetian lion was hauled down from
mastheads. Then came a respite and better times for the republic. The sultan Murad HI (who
ruled 1574-1595) took a Venetian known as Sultana Safie as his only wife. She furnished him
with beautiful slave girls, accepted bribes, and influenced relations favorably at the Porte with
her native city.

When in 1204 Venice had deliberately diverted the might of the Fourth Crusade against
Constantinople, she may have beheved that she was reducing her greatest competitor. But
the Eastern outpost of all Christianity was fatally weakened thereby. While frantic effort was
made to stem the Turks when they already stood well in Europe, the vahant tradition of the

•51-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
great condotticri, such as Gattamelata and Colleoni, had been squandered, and there was not
much left of the spirit that had brought the republic to her zenith.

Venice was one of the earliest republics of the modem world, governed by a chief magis-
trate with the title of Doge or Duke, assisted by a Cabinet, the Council of Ten,and a Senate.
At first the doge was elected for life by popular vote; after the early sixteenth century he was
selected from among the cit>''s patricians by the two councils for a two-year term, to discourage
dynastic ambitions. Similarly, democratic principles forbade wealthy families on the occasion
of a baptism to invite patricians or high officials as witnesses, because was feared that the it

famihes would become too powerful if closely allied. A

ceremony between
part of the marriage
important families had to be held in tlie Ducal Palace, to assure publicity and enable the
Senate to have full knowledge of the new connection; the religious rite became quite a secondary
matter.^^
The Ducal Palace, with its pink and white fa9ade resting on two rows of lacy Gothic arcades,
looks in two suneys the lagoon and tlie quay. Its western fa9ade
directions. Its southern face
looks into tlie Piazzetta, where the Council of Ten could obsene the movements of the
citizens. The roof was laid out in a garden, \\'ith trees and perfumed shrubber\-.^^ The luxurious

palace, of which only a few rooms were the pri\ate domain of the doge, has gone through
frequent additions and alterations since the eleventh century. It remains a lasting testimonial
to the glor\' of \'enetian architecture, sculpture, and painting.
Adjacent and connected with the Ducal Palace is the Basilica of San Marco, which con-
stituted the doge's pri\ate chapel. Its beginnings go back to a period before exact historical
data is available. After a great fire, reconstruction and enlargement were begun in the eleventh
century. Designed by a Greek architect in the shape of a Greek cross, it is said to have been
modeled largely upon the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, with a great central
dome and equal arms, each croNMied by a dome. The addition of a narthex across the main
front and a vestibule on the north side brought the ground plan to form a square. The bubble
shapes of the domes, sheathed in metal, were once heavily plated with shining gold, as was
the custom in Constantinople {Fl. 39A).
The Orthodox warrior saints Theodore and George were the early protectors of the cit\-.

The figure of the former, now standing on a column on the Piazzetta, was originally a pagan
statue, a piece of booty, recarved to represent the patron of the fisherfolk in Venice. These
tsvowere relegated to second-class rank upon the arrival of the relics of the EvangeUst St.
— —
Mark, which the stor\^ has it were whisked out of Alexandria by three enterprising Venetians
in a tub of pickled pork, a meat repulsive to the Moslems.
The brick structure of the basilica was faced \\ith marble plundered from Byzantium, alabaster
from Arabia, porphvry from Eg\-pt, and embellished with columns, capitals, and statuary from
Greece and her ancient colonies. Later additions of Venetian Gothic and Renaissance orna-
ments do not dilute the Byzantine-Romanesque aspect of the building but only enhance its
unique individuality'.

The main portal of St. Mark were once gilded

four bronze horses closely identified with the
and stood in the Hippodrome of Constantinople when the cit>' was sacked in the Fourth Crusade.
Some sources say that they were not original even to the Hippodrome, but were of classic pro-
venience, brought from Greece. \\'hate\er the truth, they did not come to rest in \'enice.

Napoleon — greatest looter of modem histon,- before Hitler —had them placed on top a small

•52-
 VENICE
triumphal arch beside the Louvre to honor his own victory. Much Napoleonic treasure (Sten-
dhal was one of the plunderers ) had been sent to the provinces and made to disappear —which
accounts for some masterpieces in French provincial museums today. When the Congress of
Vienna ordered France to restore the artistic loot, deceptive tactics did not enable the French
government to retain the four bronze horses. The French made the excuse that they had no
craftsmen skillful enough to dismantle them without damage, but Italian experts went to Paris
and brought back the horses intact.
At the time the bronze horses were taken from Constantinople, a colossal bronze equestrian
statue of a Byzantine emperor (see PL 66 A) stood nearby which remained there even after
the Turks took the city. Nearly a century later, about 1530, a traveler reports seeing the broken
pieces carted away to a foundry to be melted down into cannon. It is interesting to speculate
why tlie Venetians left such a masterpiece unmoved. One reason may have been its monumental
size, which made it too difficult to dismantle and transport; another, the ingrained aversion of
the Venetians to the cult of personahty. They made no exception even for one of their own
heroes, Bartolommeo Colleoni ( d, 1475 ) . When the great condottiere bequeathed Venice ample
funds to erect a statue to himself "on the Piazza San Marco," the Council of Ten cleverly
circumvented his wish by allocating space for Verrocchio's magnificent monument in the Campo
San Marco, a small square some distance from the heart of the city.
Few of today's visitors to the Basilica of St. Mark
aware of the immense Byzantine
are
heritage accumulated there, upon which the art and culture of Venice drew. Church plate,
jewelry, rare textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and early printed books lie imphotographed, un-
There are no less than thirty-two chalices in the Treasury, all datable in the tenth
investigated.
and eleventh centuries, all loot from the sack of Constantinople, some of silver, some of onyx,
adorned with jewels and enamel medallions of the saints {Pi. 41C).^^ Many Byzantine objects
were placed in Gothic or Renaissance mountings, thus obfuscating their true origin.
The main altar of St. Mark is free-standing, as was customary in the early church. Behind
it, the Pala d'Oro, or golden altar screen, glitters with Byzantine enamelwork, in silver gilt

with plaques of gold encrusted with precious stones and pearls {PL 41 A). Eighty-five panels
arranged in horizontal rows present scenes from the Scriptures and figures of saints. The lower
section, with the Pantocrator (Christ in Majesty) and the Evangelists {PL 41B), was ordered
from Constantinople in 1105 by the ruling doge. The upper section was plundered from the
Byzantine capital in 1204, probably from the church of the Pantocrator. Gothic frames and
decorations of Venetian workmanship were added in mid-fourteenth century.
Brilliant mosaic compositions adorn the exterior of the basilica, and ^vithin, the entire ceiling
— —
domes and vaulting is tapestried with them {PL 40). The art of the mosaic comes also
from the East. Examples survive from Mesopotamia and from Egypt as early as 3500 b.c. The
technique began with tlie placing together of bits of marble, glass, bone, and other suitable
The Greeks, who adopted all manners of art, improved the technique,
material to form a design.
so that it could be used on a large scale. By the mid-sixth century of our era new vibrancy
and elegance were gained by the use of gold leaf, compressed between two layers of glass.
In the Greek manner, the colorful pieces were tilted at irregular angles, bringing out high lights
and and eliminating glare. The Italians, adapting the Roman manner of
subtleties of shading,
laying mosaic floors, set eachrow flush with the next, producing an even surface, often with
marked sheen. In Byzantium, mosaic decoration is associated with imperial privilege and
wealth; httle evidence has been found up to now of mosaics in small or provincial places.

•53-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
The mosaics of St. Nhirk in Venice show both traditional and later styles. The work, executed
by Greek mosaicisti, is known to have begun as early as the tenth centur^^; fragments from the
ninth exist, but most of the panels date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Repairs
and additions continued all through the Renaissance. As late as 1836 mosaics were still being
put up. Great Venetian masters, such as Tintoretto and Veronese, furnished designs for St.

Mark's mosaics, and these have a three-dimensionality and a painterly effect not previously
encountered. It is known that Titian went to the basilica to study the early mosaics when
contemplating a new composition.'^
In the mid-sixteenth century St. Mark's square was paved with bricks set on edge in a herring-
bone pattern and was bordered by booths selling glassware, lace, beads, and rehgious articles.

The market also was held in the piazza, with meat, fish, poultry, and fruit in abundance, as
well as sausages and herbs. Jugglers and mountebanks had their stands there. The residences
of tlie nine procurators, who with the doge made up the presiding Council of Ten, were erected
on the two longer sides during the sixteenth century and were called from their occupants
the Procuratie. Ample colonnades sheltered senators, patricians, and merchants from bad
weather as they made tlieir daily promenade. A vast relief map of the world as it was then
known was on display, showing the many ports touched by the ships of Venice. There con-
gregated bankers, brokers, manufacturers, and the agents of foreign houses who had their
counters nearby. An early traveler reported that St. Mark's lofty bell tower was showing signs
of weakness, but actually it did not fall until 1902.
\^enicewas one of the first cities to have communal lighting. In the tvvelfth century oil
taperswere placed on poles where the traghetti, or ferries, functioned. Their flickering light
was multiphed on the vibrating water. Lamps were set at dark comers of the narrow passage-
ways, where an image of the Virgin or a saint, often with some flowers before it, served to

distinguish the different quarters. Night watchmen were employed at least a century before
such service was introduced into any other European city.

An power of Venice is often overlooked. As its com-

additional factor in the growth of the
mercial enterprise expanded, the whole community became increasingly interested in distant
lands. Not in vain was it the Venetian Marco Polo (1254—1323) who went to explore an easier
trade route to the Far East. The printing of maps and the publishing of books, many of which
enlarged geographical knowledge, became an early profession in Venice. The interest with
which Venetians took part in the events of the expanding world is indicated by the fact that
two years after Seville had published a letter of Cortes on his conquest of Mexico, Venice had
a translation in print.
Books were printed from woodblocks before the end of the first millennium in Japan, China,
and Korea. Movable type appeared in China in the mid-eleventh century. In Europe in the mid-
fourteenth century, image prints and playing cards were produced from blocks. Indulgences,
printed on single sheets from type cast in a mold, bear the date 1454. The unscrupulous sale of

such mass-produced letters of pardon was one of the abuses against which Luther remon-
strated.
Two Germans set up a press in Venice in 1469, and soon the city became an important
center of printing. By the year 1500, printers to tlie number of 155 were established in the

city,among them craftsmen from Scandinavia and Germany, employing engravers to decorate
and illustrate their books. From that early date on, Venetian books became collectors' items.
In 1484 a Greek printing press began activity in Venice, joined by three other Greek establish-

•54-
 —

VENICE
ments by the end of the centur)'. The number of Greek presses grew rapidly, with additional
craftsmen coming from Crete. Editions of most of the Greek classics were brought out in Venice.
The famous press of Aldus Manutius functioned there from 1495. He originated the itaUc lower-
case letter t}^pe, to which itahc capitals were added later. Roman capital letters were taken
from the abundant Roman monuments in Italy. Greek was the language of Manutius' house-
hold. To promote Greek studies he founded an Academy of Hellenists which spoke Greek and
had Greek rules. His descendants continued the firm and also became dealers in rare books.
The Aldine Press brought out the first Greek Bible in 1518. The last Greek book printed in

Venice on a rehgious subject bears a medaUion of St. George and the date 1850.
Other cities also were active in publishing works in various languages. The first psalter in
Greek and Latin was printed in Milan in 1481. What few would expect — a psalter in Ethiopic
appeared in Rome in 1513 and a New Testament in Syriac in Vienna in 1555. In 1498 the
Venetian Senate granted Ottaviano Petrucci the privilege of printing music for twenty years,
forwhich time the city enjoyed the monopoly of that very important craft.
Book production required paper which sometimes came from afar. As the reams were vo-
luminous and heavy, they were moved more easily by ship than overland. Similarly, for the
ready product, transport by ship was preferable.
Even before Venice became a city of printers, the Senate had in its possession a number of
rare and hand\\Titten illuminated books —notably the manuscript hbrary of the poet Petrarch
and the legacy of BasiHus Bessarion (1395-1472). Once titular Patriarch of Constantinople
and an illustrious scholar of Greek letters, Bessarion had accompanied John VII Palaeologos
to Italy in the hope of bringing about a union between the Greek and Roman Churches; he
was persuaded to remain there, where the pope invested him with the rank of cardinal. In a
new land and in the service of a new master, Bessarion remained to the end of his life a re-
nowned disseminator of Greek culture and, nineteen years after the fall of Constantinople, he
died at Ravenna —that most Byzantine of the Byzantine towns in Italy. In 1518 the Venetian
Senate created a Chair of Greek, stating that instruction in Greek would be necessary to com-
plete the education of aU Venetian youth, whether patrician or plebian. Eighteen years later
they instructed one of their favorite architects, Jacopo Sansovino, to design a library to stand
opposite the Palace of the Doges. The building was in construction when young El Greco
wandered about Venice; today it is known as the Libreria Vecchia or the BibUoteca Marciana,
and houses a unique choice of manuscripts and early printed books.

Like various other European powers, the Repubhc of Venice was sovereign cittd apostolica
e santa. Its church was a national church and its patriarch was the heir of St. Mark —for the
Venetians he was peer to that other bishop who sat on the throne of St. Peter. At the head of
the administration stood the doge, equal with the cardinal or archbishop. In Europe at that
time apostohc rights were wielded by the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, Hungar)% Poland,
France, and Spain, to mention the most powerful. This meant that their persons were holy,
and any affront against them brought death as punishment. They stood
sacred, in\iolable,
hke gods above the people, and their wish was command. Where the ruler was holy and
apostohc, no decree of the Vatican was valid until the sovereign had approved it. In smaller
matters this was of little consequence; but in aflFairs of higher policy and personality' the royal
veto effectively crossed the pope's intentions. In witholding acknowledgments, bargaining for
benefits, the holy and apostolic ruler could make the pope wait on royal approval to the end

•55-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
of the life of one or the other. This acted as counterbalance to the assertiveness of the Vatican;
tlie idea of papal infallibility (decreed in 1869) would have met an energetic demur.
Nowadays it is difficult to visualize such authoritarian power, since vdth the exception of the
King of the Belgians all Roman Catholic rulers, from Portugal to Austria, have been swept
from their tlirones. One of the last and most striking demonstrations of autocratic influ-
ence occurred in the case of Cardinal Rampolla (1843-1912). When Rudolf of Habsburg,
son of the Emperor Franz Josef, killed his mistress and himself in Mayerling, Rampolla, then
secretary of state to the Vatican, deniedhim full religious honors at the funeral. Franz Joseph
refused to accept the ruling, and his son was laid to rest with pomp in the Habsburg family
crypt. Years later, when the pope died. Cardinal Rampolla was the favorite candidate as his
successor. But the emperor, using his ancient prerogative the veto, instructed the three cardinals
of his monarchy to blackball Rampolla. Although only one obeyed, Rampolla lost the election.^
W' hile the Republic of Venice had no royal line, the Council of Ten adopted for themselves
the prerogatives of the holy apostolic despots. The Parrochia Primaria, seat of the highest
ecclesiastical dignitary of the repubhc, the church of San Pietro di Castello, was situated on an
island near the arsenal, separated from the town by a broad canal ( PL 42C ) As mentioned be- .

fore, the spectacular Basilica of St. Mark was the personal chapel of the doge; and only after

Napoleon conquered North Italy and reorganized the administration did it become the seat of
the cardinal.
The republic surrendered to no one her ancient rights and privileges. The Council of Ten
inspected the religious houses in Venice, and no "foreigner" — that is, outsider —was admitted
to the hierarchy. The and monasteries had to be
superiors of convents Op- natives of Venice.
pression and favoritism were equally frowned upon. Parish priests were elected by the parish-
ioners and their names sent to Rome to be confirmed. The republic refused to send its nominee
for the patriarchy to the Vatican for examination, and he received the symbols of his office

from the hand of the doge. Ecclesiastics were not permitted to hold state office. The Council
of Ten tried aU criminals, even clerics, and if any official or ecclesiastic sided against the re-
public he was expelled and his property confiscated. Whenever a pope interfered in some dis-
pute, the Council refused permission to make his edict public. When the pope excommunicated
the doge, the councilors, and all the citizenry of Venice, the republic sent its officers to tear

down the proclamations that were posted on the churches. The religious personnel in the
city continued to offer Masses and to perform services until peace was declared.
Many phases of Venetian life were developed on Byzantine customs, and perhaps the Hel-
lenic tradition was responsible in part for the republic's independence when in council with
other European nations. One of the points on which Venice laid herself open to outside criticism

was her tolerance of various nationalities and faiths within the city. An English traveler in
the sixteenth century noted that no one bothered in Venice "if a man be a Turk, a Jew, Gospeller,
a Papist, or a believer in the Devil, nor does anyone challenge whether you are married and
whether you eat flesh or fish in your home." The doge and were regarded by many
his council

in Europe meddling of the

as the greatest protagonists of natural liberty against the political
Vatican. This naturally brought the accusation of a leaning toward the Refonnation, to which
the doge replied, "We are as good Christians as the pope, and Christians we will die."
Jealous of independence, the republic would not allow the Jesuits or other religious or-
its

ganizations to maintain educational institutions either in Venice or in Padua. On the other hand,
a very high level of secular education was achieved there, almost miique in that period. The

•56-
 VENICE
cit}' sustained a college for young men aspiring to civil service; there were a number of private

schools and state grammer schools, one in each precinct. For, as in the Hellenic world, the

repubhc ne\er considered learning the prerogative of ecclesiastics.^"

The Dominicans were unpopular in Venice and, though the Inquisition was permitted to
fimction there from 1542, was under the supervision of three Venetian patricians. Their task
it

was to protect the citizens from arbitrar\- action, and they could change any judgment, even
when it concerned a priest. The Holy Office was not granted a separate building like those —
menacing massi\e palaces in Spain and the Spanish colonies but met in rooms accorded to —
it in the Ducal Palace. Any ordinance it wished to publish had to be submitted first to the

Council of Ten. Its prison and pohce were under state super\-ision, and inquisitors and chan-
cellors were required to be Venetian subjects. As accusations of witchcraft and blasphemy

were tried by the Council of Ten, a large group of offenses was taken away from the jurisdiction
of the Inquisition. The stake was never Hghted in a Venetian piazza.

While the fondaco served the commercial interests of Venice, another institution, the scuola

—one of the most original facets of \'enetian —was

life concerned with social welfare. The
scuola embraced the functions of a lodge, a guild, a trade union. Within its semireHgious or-
ganization, it dispensed charit)', arranged insurance, banked savings for its members, binding
them into a proud and responsible communitv' group. On occasion, the scuola even provided
money and ships for the aid of the repubhc.
There were six up to the mid-sixteenth centur\\ Among these con-
scuole grande in \'enice
fraternities the Scuola de San Rocco is most notable today, not so much for the distinction of
its members as because of the paintings preserved there, mainly from the brush of Tintoretto.

These gigantic canvases were in a deplorable state when Ruskin saw them in the last centur>%
but tliey and the whole building were restored for the Tintoretto exhibition in 1937 and con-
stitute since then one of the prides of the cit\\

When the guild of San Rocco had completed its new Renaissance building (1553), they
were honored, as they recorded, "to have the excellent painter Maestro Tiziano of Cadore leave
a record of his incomparable skill in our School." Titian dehvered a large picture for the as-
sembly haU but never went beyond this token. Some years later the guild decided on a com-
petition,and a number of painters, Tintoretto among them, were invited to submit drawings
dealing with the glorification of the patron saint. In less than three weeks, Tintoretto appeared,
not with a sketch, but with a full-size canvas which he put into place as a gift to the guild,
with the assurance that was accepted he would add all the finishing touches. It was vibrant,
if it

true in proportion, and sufficiently finished to be judged by the committee. Fift\--one votes
were cast in favor and twenty-one against. For seventeen years more, Tintoretto worked on
the decoration of the guild hall. His gigantic feat must have been quite a sensation in the city
of sensations, when young El Greco hved there.
During the sixteenth centurv- the number of minor scuole in Venice increased immensely,
until more than two-thirds of the population belonged to one or another. Some embraced
members of various crafts, some honored a patron saint. Among the foreign population the
organization of the scuole was advantageous both for the members and for the republic. While
some foreign communities were permitted to reside near the center of the city, others were al-
lotted space on more outlying islands. The .Armenians, early refugees, had, besides a church in
the city, a monasterv- on the island of San Lazzaro, once a leper colony. Its hbrarv' contains many

•57'
 —

EL GRECO REVISITED
illuminated manuscripts and early books; its printing shop functioned through the centuries
and even today is one of the main sources of Armenian religious literature. In 1516 the Jewish
population, who had been living scattered tliroughout the city, were concentrated behind w alls
on another island, and gates were locked upon them A
cannon factory was estab-
at midnight.
hshed there gietto in Italian. Some believe that die word "ghetto" may derive from this.
Later, Jews were permitted to settle in the district of the kitchen gardens. The most notable
of the five surviving synagogues was built by the architect of Santa Maria della Salute, for the
refugee Spanish and Portuguese Jews. A confraternity known as the Scuola Spagnola belonged
to the establishment.
In the eastern part of the town, almost exactly between the arsenal and Riva degli Schiavoni,
stands tlie Scuola degli Schiavoni, tlie lay foundation of Slovene, Serb, and Dalmatian residents,
dating from the mid-fifteenth century. For the small upper room they occupied at that time,
Carpaccio (from 1502 to 1511) painted the stories of St. Jerome and St. George. Some forty
years later amore spacious building, designed by Sansovino, was erected, and the Carpaccio
paintings were transferred to their present site. Nearby is the Ponte della Paglia (straw) where
—
the barges laden widi hay and straw used to unload at that time horses and mules had a
place in Venetian life.

The Greek quarter two city blocks east of the

lay stiU nearer the palace of the doge, only
Piazza di San Marco, but separated from the "inner city" by gates which were locked at night
to safeguard the homes of the procurators, senators, and patricians. Walking past the Parrocliia
San Zaccaria, in a narrow of the way, one can stiU see the stone uprights and lintel, with the
empty iron hinges embedded in the masonry.
The Greek colony in Venice goes back into medieval times. Countless Greek merchants and
mariners made Marco and other churches.
a good hving there. Greeks set the mosaics of San
They were skilled in the glass industry, another craft that came from the Levant. They were
employed as panel and miniature painters, as engravers on copper and wood, as illuminators
and copyists of books. The community was constantly increased by refugees adept in
various professions, fleeing from the Turkish advance in the East. Other Greek craftsmen in-
cluded gold- and silver-smiths, workers in enamel, the decorators of signs, flags, and coats of
arms, the embellishers of military shields. Some made playing cards, masks for carnival; they
gilded and colored leather panels widely used in interior decoration; they bound books and
fashioned furniture.
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, the Greek colony, hitherto permitted to practice
their Orthodox rites in some eight churches of Venice and also to harbor Greek monks, were
restricted to the use of a side chapel in a church dedicated to San Biagio." The structure stands
on the quay of Schiavoni where boats arrived with their Greek sailors and travelers; today it

serves the military and marine personnel as well as the population clustered around the aisenal.

Even now traces of its Byzantine atmosphere remain: a miraculous icon of the Madonna with
Greek text, probably brought from the sack of Constantinople, and a painting of St. Catherine
of Sinai, another immediate link with that fountainhead of Orthodox religion. In addition, some
of the lamps are characteristic of tlie Near East.
On the threshold of the sixteenth century, permission was granted for tlie establishment of
a Greek scuola, which at that time had 250 members and was dedicated to St. Nicholas, patron
of seamen. In 1511 a petition was submitted to the Venetian authorities to erect a church ex-
clusively for the practice of the Orthodox Rite. In the application, the Greeks in Venice pointed

•58-
 VENICE
with pride to their service to the repubHc: they not only had taken a responsible part in the
industry- and commerce of the citv- but had furnished hght ca\alr\' troops under the command
of a \'enetian nobleman; they Hsted a number of Greek, notably Cretan, heroes. Thirteen years
later tlie permission was granted them.^^ First a small building went up in which services could

be held. By 1539 the first stone for a large edifice was laid, erected by Sante Lombardo from
designs by Sansovino, and so notable in execution that Banister Fletcher includes it in his

History of Architecture as "a marvel of marble work, both within and without." On Pi. 38 A, it is

the church with bell tower nearer the center, on the left edge.
The exterior of the church of San Giorgio dei Greci ( St, George of the Greeks ) does not differ

much from otlier contemporar}- churches of \'enice. It has a well-proportioned dome and a
slender separate campanile [PL 44A). Its graceful Renaissance fa9ade of stone is adorned
with mosaic medallions and three pediments over the entrances. The church is surrounded by

a wide paved yard, onto which other parish buildings open. Before it passes one of the in-
nmnerable canals of Venice, the Rio dei Greci, overlooked by a high wall with a stone coping
and elaborate iron grillework. The interior is more unusual in \'enice, as it adheres closely to
Byzantine protot^-pe. There are no benches in the aisleless inner space which is covered with
a central dome, but a row^ of finely car\ed stalls encircles the walls. The building has the
Orthodox sanctuar>' with three apses closed off by an imposing iconostasis [Pi. 45B). Richly
embroidered gold brocade curtains the three gates of the altar screen, and the icons are en-
crusted with silver ornaments and darkened by the smoke of tapers, candles, and incense. Even
now the church is illuminated only by candles. In the vault of the apse, a gigantic mosaic of the
Pantocrator seems to lean outward, obhterating the Limits of its frame.
The imposing edifice was dedicated in 1561, although it was not yet fuUy ready. In this
decade El Greco is beHeved to have arrived in Venice. Another ten years were required before
the dome was finished. In connection with it, a Messer Andrea is mentioned, who some would
like to think denotes Palladio. A Giovanni di Cipro (from C\-prus) decorated the cupola. Some
was painted by the Cretan Michele Damaskinos, renowned as a painter both in
of the interior
his homeland and in \'cnice. Tintoretto's name is on record as consultant in various matters.
The sHm campanile was begun toward the end of the century by a builder recorded as Bern-
ardino Angarin, apparently not an Itahan; the words angaro and angary both are of Greek
origin, the former referring to pyroteclmics, signahng with fire, the latter to one in charge of
means of transport, including ships.
requisitioning
The Greek colony then numbered some four thousand souls, among whom fourteen hundred
were fully hterate. A Council of Fort>- regulated their Manousos Theotokopoulos, pos-
affairs.

sibly the brother of El Greco, was twice nominated for body but never was successful in
this

election. A superior magistrate, the kastaldo, who held office for seven years, headed this
group. He was responsible to the \'enetian administration for the moral, social, and financial
^^^
Life of the colony, and was ex-officio procurator of the church.

The religious personnel were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Near
the side door of the church is the tomb of Gabriele Seviros, who as first bishop presided for
thirty years over the Greek colony [Pi. 45 A). He is said to have been a friend of Manousos

Theotokopoulos. Besides the bishop, the \igorous colony supported tvvo archimandrites and
a deacon. The choir with two cantors was so famous tliat foreign visitors were ad\ised to at-
tend a service in order to hear tliem. The Greek community sustained a school, their own
hospital, and for a time even a convent. Many of the schoolteachers were refugees. Emphasis

•59-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
was laid on the study of Greek and Latin classical literature and the preservation of the tenets
of the Ortliodox faith. The list of illustrious professors extends into the eighteenth century;
some were invited to Western universities. One Tommaso Flanghinis, a lawyer from Corfu,
and president of the confraternity, planned a college for the Greek community, which began
functioning in 1665 and ceased only with the arrival of the Napoleonic armies in 1797. Grad-
uates often went on to the University of Padua; some took positions as priests in the Greek-
speaking world. Many teachers were priests, and a number of these were trained as well in
— —
painting since this was regarded as a pious act working in the tradition of the monasteries
of Mount Sinai and Mount Athos. Numerous professional painters who were not clerics hved
in Venice, coming mainly from Cyprus, Crete, Zante, and Corfu (PL 44B).
The hagiographers, or saint portrayers, were not restricted in their activities to the Greek
community. Their products were spread out for exhibit on the Rialto Bridge and in the nearby
streets, center of busy commercial life, together with those of the Itahan madonneri, hack
painters of Madonna pictures. The work may not have shown much individuality, but it satis-

fied popular taste at a small price. Sailors —and the Greeks were notably sailors since pre-
historic times —
were among the best purchasers of icons. Thus the Byzantine protot)^es trav-
eled Greek merchants could buy a souvenir of their Venetian stay in traditional style. And
far.

many a Venetian patrician, contemporary of Titian, preferred in his private chambers icon-like
panels with gilded background, tapers burning before them.
Certain characteristics were traditional: the figure of Christ or the saint represented was
placed in the foreground and was usually larger than any other in the composition. The human
figure was always fully clothed in ample garments, never emphasizing the body underneath.
Especially for Christ and the Virgin, the coloring was prescribed; frequently a contrasting
color was used Gold backgrounds were favored. Gold high lights were often ap-
for shading.
plied to the folds of drapery, and radiating gilded lines made up the halos or emanated from
the figures (see PL 61B). Mountains were indicated by chestnut-colored rocks piled in parallel
layers and highlighted in white. Clouds were small conventionalized interwoven balls. Curling,
spiraling waves represented the sea. Buildings and trees were stylized as for a theatrical decor.
The storytelling was often delightfully straightforward and simple. For a long time, the com-
partmentalization of various scenes on one panel betrayed the Byzantine origin of a painting
even when other details followed contemporary Western style.

By and woodcuts were circulating throughout Eiu-ope. Naturally, the

that time engravings
—
Orthodox painter, especially in Venice, was stimulated by these for selectivism was part of the
age. He had also mastered the technique of painting in oil, although icons were chiefly executed
in tempera on panel. The many-sided interest of the Byzanto- Venetian painter is evident in
the case of Thomas Battas of Corfu, resident of Venice, who bequeatlied to his pupil Emmanuel
Tzanfoumaris a collection of etchings and engravings and tript>'chs ( 1599 ) .^^
as well as icons
The best known of the Cretan painters in the Venice of that period was Michele Damaskinos,
whose activity falls between 1570 and 1591. His icons were in great demand. He also executed
murals in the church of San Giorgio dei Greci, and it is recorded that the community contem-
plated having him decorate their entire building. In 1581 he sold his collection of prints and
engravings, which included some by Parmigiano.^^ Appaiently he returned to Crete, where he
died a few years later. Of Damaskinos too it is said that he was willing to work according to

the wishes of his patron, in strict Byzantine style, or in the contemporary Italian manner,
or in a blend of both.'*^ About this time, painters began to sign their panels —partly perhaps
•60-
 VENICE
because they had become export articles and the prestige
"name" brought a higher price.
of a
Damaskinos always signed in Greek, frequently adding "the Cretan" and the words "creation"
or "poem." His icons can be found in Corfu, Zante, and Mount Sinai, as well as in Venice and
Crete.
Cretans were in majority among the Greek residents of Venice and probably also among
the hagiographers who worked there. The Cretan Joannis Vlastos, besides painting icons, ex-
ecuted some of the mosaics in San Giorgio dei Greci in the early seventeenth century. Eight
"portraits" of Byzantine emperors by George Klontzas (active between 1590 and 1609) are
now in the Marciana Library of Venice; work shows the
his influence of Western engravings.
The Lambardos family, originating in Rethymnon, brought forth three excellent painters, of
whom Emmanuel (datable 1598-1632) is the best known (see PL 97B). Another artist family
were the Moskos, of whom Ehe went from Crete to Venice and in 1645 to Zante. A Joannis
Moscos signed a panel with the date 1711.
Emmanuel Zane (1610-1690), bom in Reth>Tnnon and coming to Venice by way of Corfu,
was a priest at the church of San Giorgio dei Greci and a composer of hymns and psalms, as
well as a painter. His icons ( see Pi. STB names of the donors who commissioned
) often bear the
them. A painter brother, Konstantinos, is also documented. The panels of Zane and his circle,
painted in a blend of styles, are of the type that have been confused v^th the early work of
El Greco.
Theodoros Poulakis, from Khania, seemingly was especially proud of his origin, and to the
signature of his icons (dated 1666-1692) he sometimes added "from the famous island of Crete."
At that late date he painted only in tempera, using golden backgrounds and golden gleams in
costumes and halos. In his later years he went to the Ionian islands and died in Corfu.
From Cyprus came Joannis C>^rios, a priest at San Giorgio dei Greci at the end of the six-
teenth century. The Tzanfoumaris family were from Corfu the best known of whom was —
Emmanuel, mentioned above, also a priest at San Giorgio. Some of his icons traveled as far as
Mount Sinai. He painted a Death of Ephraim, today in the Vatican Gallery, which retains the
Byzantine compartmentalization, as seen on Pi. IIB and C, although it is otherwise executed
in a more Italianate manner. It was not infrequent for a priest to sign only his first name. One
instance is "Priest Victor" whose activity faUs in tlie second half of the seventeenth century
and who is said to have signed in several languages; more will be said of him in the chapter
on El Greco's paintings (see PL 111 A).
After the faU of Crete, Zante and Corfu gained importance as outposts of icon painting.
Their output shows the increasing influence of the Italian and Western manner, lacking the
Orthodox cohesion and the fierce spirit of Crete. By the end of the seventeenth century, some
of the painters of the Ionian islands had oriented themselves definitely toward the West. In
the churches of Zante icons in a wide variety of styles were preserved until a recent earth-
quake destroyed nearly all the collection. A book published in 1935 lists 258 names of Byzantine
painters who were active after the fall of Constantinople, still working in the traditional style.^^
The last date found on such an icon in Crete is 1796. This wTiter photographed a panel in the
Loverdos collection in Athens signed and dated in Greek letters 1834. In Venice the latest
Greek text and date on such a painting is 1866.^^
By the nineteenth century the Greek colony in Venice
had shrunk, and wdth it the output of
Byzantine panels. In 1834 the community counted about four hundred members and employed
two priests. The Greek government contributed a small subvention, but the colonists were

•61-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
unable to keep up tlieir hospital, the college, or the printing plant. In the early 1930's the
Greek colony consisted of some 120 souls, mostly old and invaUd. No regular services had

been held San Giorgio dei Greci for years; for important occasions a visiting priest was called
in
in. In the chapter house the stairwell and the big assembly hall, with its stalls of fine wood,

were full of paintings hanging amid cobwebs and layers of dust. But the forlorn financial situa-
tion did not permit emplo)inent of more than a sexton who was same time janitor, and
at the
the interest of the frail old man in the pictures was understandably small. Grime and neglect
marked the and the adjacent storeroom, as we tried to find traces of earlier
archive, the library,
activity. Many windows, once laid in an elegant pattern of leaded frames, were cracked or lack-
and through the openings pigeons came and went to pester the tourists on the
ing altogetlier,
Piazza di San Marco. Pigeon droppings produced grotesque streaks and false high lights all
down the Renaissance fa9ade. It is admitted that the once-rich library was nearly completely
reduced. After the occupation of the Napoleonic army, the confraternity was impoverished.
Treasures disappeared, and what came in later as replacement was not near the previous stand-
ards. Considerable change may have occurred in the collection of icons at the same time.
Very few families of the small colony had clung to their icons, and many panels had been
deposited in the Scuola. In 1947-1948 an inventory was published which Hsts 231 paintings
in the possession of San Giorgio dei Greci.®^ From the material at hand can be traced how the
hagiographers adopted more and more the manner of the Venetian popular painters, although
with a certain time lag. Thus their paintings from the se\^enteenth century are strongly remini-
scent of the output of the studios of Tintoretto and still more of the Bassano family, of whom
three generations painted biblical scenes in an ingratiating style.
By the mid-1950's the Greeks numbered less than fifty and, though some income from rents
on property was still forthcoming, the community could not have survived had not one wealthy
family from the outside strongly subvened the church. In recent years a Hellenic Institute
of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies was begun, with measures for the cataloguing and
preserv^ation of the paintings, producing a marked betterment in the general conditions.

The guilds in Venice maintained a magisterial register in which all historical events were
reported. The Scuola degli Schiavoni still proudly displays its "Mariegola," the constitution or
mother-rules, in exquisite binding decorated with precious stones. In it the moral obligations
of the confraternity are set dovvTi, thecommunal Masses to be attended, and the charitable
works to be undertaken, as well as the amount of dues exacted from each member. The Scuola
dei Greci also has such a register, and while it contains thirty pages referring to the period
1560-1570, El Greco's name has not been found.
Except in one or two cases, the dates on icons in the Scuola dei Greci begin in the last two
decades of the sixteenth century; the majority of the paintings date from the seventeenth
century, extending into the eighteenth. Up to the end of the sixteenth century any dates re-

ferring to the Greek community are scarce. Among icons and archival material great gaps
exist. The best-known near contemporary of El Greco in Venice is Michele Damaskinos whose
records in that city fall between 1577 and 1586. As the first document that refers to El Greco
is a letter dated 1570, when he was already in Rome, and in 1577 he signed a contract for
work in Spain, would appear that he came and left Venice too early to be included
it in the

records of the reorganized Greek community. Earlier records might have been lost in the

move to the new, splendid establishment. But most losses — especially among the early docu-
ments —probably occurred in later centuries as the colony deteriorated.

•62-
 VENICE
Byzanto-Venetian icons were in continuous demand, and favorite scenes were painted again
and again. A number of such pictures could be mistaken for early work of El Greco, especially
when the subject has been somewhat retouched and a doubtful signature in Greek redrawn.
If then an "expertise" is included, we have an explanation for the many "early El Grecos" of
questionable artistic merit now appearing on the market. On
museums such the other hand,
as those in Vienna and Paris, basing their conclusions on recent research, have put new labels

on paintings which were attributed to El Greco thirty years ago, ascribing them now to followers
of the sixteenth century Venetian school.

Venice harbored deep into modem times a center of medieval Byzantine tradition, yet the
city was also most advanced and in a style that was the forerunner of Impres-
in oil painting
sionism. On the threshold of the Renaissance, Western Europe had made a unique contribu-
tion to the technique of painting, mixing oil with the pigments and applying it to canvas spanned
on a stretcher. In countries where the cHmate does not vary much between the humid and the
dry, wooden panels lasted a long time. But in Venice, where snow Hes for days in winter and
the sea water rises into the churches, while in summer burning heat bakes the buildings,
paintings on wood and walls deteriorated rapidly. Oil paint appHed to stretched canvas proved
the ideal medium for Venice's climate, while in Florence and elsewhere in Italy, panel and
canvas, tempera and oil, were employed side by side for decades longer.
Venice produced through five centuries a unique roster of masters —inventive, individual,
and brilhant —a sequence unequaled anywhere else in the world. When her power was dechn-
ing, her art and architecture came to fullest flower. In the spirit of the Renaissance, secular
paintings were created for decorative effect and the enjoyment of the eye. Classical fables,
the adulation of heroes — local as well as —
legendary were fashionable. The nude favored in
Venetian painting became generally acceptable.
For many, Titian is the most Venetian of all painters, the painters' painter. His life ( 1477-
1576) was the life of Venice, spanning nearly a century of its most brilliant epoch. Neverthe-
less, though all possible sources have been investigated, no biographical data has been found
concerning him up to his thirtieth year. Here a parallel to El Greco can be drawn, who was
twenty-nine when the first trace of his activity appears. By the time Titian reached forty, his
name was known in the courts of Europe. Charles V was his patron and he was made a Count
Palatine and Knight of the Golden Spur. In 1531 Titian settled in a fashionable district called
Birri Grande. From his window he could see the rugged Dolomites where he had roamed as a
boy. His garden stretched along the water's edge, and in the evenings the lagoon was filled

with boats, pulsing with music and song. As Titian grew older, his wisdom and kindliness
were well known. A contemporary visitor describes an evening with him, with artists, scholars,
and wits gathered about him; a banquet was laid, and beautiful women drifted by in their
gondolas. When Titian died of the plague, the property fell on bad days. Today the Fonda-
mente Nuove is a drab section of the town, with workers' flats, and the great painter's house
is preserved only in an eighteenth century engraving {Pi. 42A).
Titian was a culmination of the Renaissance. Tintoretto ( 1518-1594 ) was the fulminant ex-
pression of the Baroque. When Heniy III, King of France, paid a visit to Venice (1574), Tin-
toretto, an established master, painted a triumphal arch for the occasion.'*^ He dressed himself
as one of the doge's bodyguards and made sketches when the royal guest boarded the state
barge, the Bucintoro. Then he presented the \'isiting monarch with a ready portrait but re-

•63-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
fused the knighthood ofiFered to him —he was bom a Venetian, and no foreign decoration could
add to his status. In 1574 Tintoretto with his family moved to the Fondamente dei Mori, where
he worked until he died some twenty years later. Tliis house also is today in a rundown district
of Venice {Pi. 42B), but at least one can stand before it, trying to visuahze the great master
as he delivered his huge canvases to the nearby church of Madonna dell' Orto, where he was
later laid to rest.

From Titian, El Greco may have learned a virtuoso colorism and technique; from Tintoretto,
a certain dithyrambic quality. Some of his early work shows a certain resemblance to the can-
vases of the Bassano family. They were favorite Venetian painters and repeated their religious
genre subjects, such as the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Eg\^t,
over and over again. It is in manner comes near to
these subjects that El Greco in his Italian
them. Several paintings in the retrospective Bassano exhibition, held in Venice in 1957, were at
one time attributed to El Greco. However, on closer inspection, the Venetian painters show a
different concept of three-dimensionality, a more practiced and subtle hand in composition.

Ruskin says that the source of Venice's glory should not be sought in the power of her arsenal
or in tlie pageantry of her palaces but at the altar of Torcello's basilica. Nine hundred years
ago Torcello was a thriving community. The residence of the first doge was established there.

Then life gradually ebbed away, and Venice herself came to ascendancy. Santa Maria Assunta,
the main church Pi. 43 was founded in the seventh centur>% rebuilt in the ninth and eleventh
( ) ,

centuries. It is long and narrow, Hke the early basilicas we have seen in the Omayad of Da-
mascus, in Parenzo, and Ravenna ( see Ph. 2C, 36C and D ) . The episcopal throne is set against
the apse wall facing the congregation, as the judge sat in the law court that served as model
for early Christian churches. A mosaic of the Virgin and the twelve apostles overhead {Pi. 43C)
probably dates from the first decades of the thirteenth century. On the west wall, a vast
mosaic from about the same time, now restored and in parts renewed, presents the Last Judg-
ment with archaic symboHsm and involuntary humor ( Pi. 4SB ) In iconography it is very close
.

to the mural in Mavriotissa, Kastoria, which is dated a Httle earlier (see PL 15B). The base of
the iconostasis consists of marble panels with Byzantine peacocks and flower vases in relief.

The upper section, supported by classic marble columns, is a masonr\' wall decorated w'ith
frescoes — another Byzantine practice, also found in Crete. The adjacent church, dedicated to
Santa Fosca and dating from the eleventh century, is built entirely of brick on an octagonal
ground plan. Here the roof drawTi down to cover arcades resting on marble columns simi-
is —
larly in Byzantine tradition. Roman and Byzantine marble statues, capitals, objects of bronze,
wood, and glass from buildings now defunct are exhibited in the former Palace of the Council.
Torcello has been called "the mother of Venice." Today it is a shadow town, scarcely populated
— a melancholy enchanted spot, with its lonely cypresses reaching into the cloud-streaked sky.

The sixteenth century traveler from the North to Rome passed tlirough the city's massive
wall by way of the Porta del Popolo, the People's Gate. Inside it lay the Piazza del Popolo, a
great unpaved space, framed by the food kitchens, the inns, and other buildings of trade
folk catering to travelers {PL 463). The piazza was remote enough from the center of the
city to be used for the execution of brigands taken in the countryside. Among nondescript
houses stood the modest Renaissance church of Santa Maria del Popolo, where a young monk
of the Augustinian order, named Martin Luther, offered Mass upon his safe arrival from his

•64.
 VENICE
native Germany in 1510. Little more than a decade later, he was excommunicated, and Charles
V, who had tried to avoid a reUgious split in his empire, also turned against him, assured of the
pope's support in his struggle with Francis I of France.
The next pope, Clement VII, a Medici of illegitimate birth, was more an Italian prince than
the successor to the Apostle. He had perhaps the fate of his native Florence in mind when he
maneuvered between the two monarchs. But in 1527 his wavering policy brought the emperor's
army to the gates of Rome. Their commander was killed in the early stages of the siege. Lead-
erless, unpaid for days, demorahzed by the collapse of all defense, the Spanish and German

mercenaries fell upon the city in an orgy of horror unprecedented even in those times. The
holocaust went on until citizens and conquerors alike were decimated by pest and famine.
The pope with twelve cardinals hid in the stables of the Castel Sant'Angelo, disguised as peas-
ants. Only the Swiss mercenaries stood by them and fought until all but a handful of guards

were dead. As a reward, native Swiss exclusively, wearing a picturesque sixteenth century
uniform, today make up the Papal Guard.
Both pope and emperor realized that the time had come for reconcihation. The tide of the
Reformation was sweeping Europe, and Turkish might had driven to the very heart of
the Continent. Ransomed from captivity, the pope promised to call a general council to deal with
rising Protestantism, and placed the imperial crov^oi on the head of Charles V. But the juggling

and scheming for worldly power continued. Besides the pope, such superb statesmen con-
fronted one another as His Apostolic Majesty the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles
V and later Maximilian II; His Most Christian Majesty of France, Francis I; His Most Catholic
Majesty of Spain, Phihp II, after the abdication of Charles, his father — all with authoritarian
rights.

In an amazingly short time after the fatal year 1527, Rome showed the work of rehabilita-
tion. A bevy of noted architects, and craftsmen gathered in the city. Florence
sculptors, painters,
was fading, Venice weakened; Rome burgeoned imder the new pope Paul III (ruled 1534-
1549 ) of the powerful and notorious Farnese family. A rehgious and political metropolis with
,

renewed revenues asserted its majesty before Europe. And this opulence, in ostentatious
—
churches and pretentious palaces, is a main characteristic of Rome today where among colos-
sal structures little people swarm the streets in tiny cars and on motor scooters, dwarfed by
the boastful stone piles of bygone centuries.
Coinciding with the rebuilding of Rome, the traditional Renaissance concept was going
through a transformation. A new hveliness of line and ebullience of proportion characterize
the Baroque. Certain writers like to date the Baroque from a single Roman church —Gesu,
founded in 1568. was actually a wave of taste not restricted to one city, made possible
But it

by advanced technique of construction and by the urge of the architects to experiment wdth
design, stimulated by such architectural handbooks as those of Vitruvius, Serho, and Palladio,
which were wddely distributed through the development of printing.
Perhaps the largest-scale manifestation of this spirit was the rebuilding of the Basilica of
St. Peter —
a project under way for many years {PL 46A). The ancient basiUca with its open
colonnaded forecourt, dignified by the patina of centuries, splendid v^dth shining gold mosaics,
had to give way to the monumental scale of the age. First the builders, honoring tradition, made
a plan based on the Greek cross; later it was changed to a Latin cross. As the new basilica was
planned to be far larger than the old, the surrounding terrain had to be newly graded. Soil and
subsoil were thoroughly disturbed. Pagan and early Christian architectural remnants disap-

•65.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
peared or were broken up. Some of the piers necessary to support the massive walls and the
vast cupola cut through a cemetery that contained, besides pagan tombs, Christian reburials
from the third century. Rough and dressed stones were reused, obUterating what clues might
have existed compounding a puzzle for modem archaeologists.'-
as to the identity of the burials,
Pope Paul III gave tlie septuagenarian Michelangelo full power to pull down or alter whatever
stood in his way. But neitlier of them lived to see the edifice near completion. From the laying
of the cornerstone to the dedication of the colonnade that enhances the square, nineteen popes
held oflBce.

The grandiose building enterprise continued through a crowded and turbulent period in
history. The Council of Trent 1545-1563 fell in this time. Charles V had urged it to clarify
( )

pressing matters with the papacy — to settle the religious dispute, to reform ecclesiastical abuses,
and finally to inspire a new crusade. The papacy strove to proceed against Protestantism with ut-
most severity, while the emperor, though a devout Roman Catholic, sought means to heal
the schism which was to alienate powerful Protestant German
and tear his empire apart.
allies

In this period war broke out again between the papacy and Spain and was hurriedly mediated.
The Inquisition was reconstituted in Rome, and the first black list of books was issued, banning
the works of Petrarch, Ariosto, and otlier giants of literature; printers and publishers fled to
Switzerland and Germany. At this time Jews were segregated and forced to wear yellow caps.
One Medici pope arrested the nephew of his predecessor for heresy. The fulminant spirit of the

Renaissance was quenched, the enthusiasm for the classical disparaged. Michelangelo's nudes
in the Sistine Chapel were repainted with drapery. Meanwhile, work on the basilica went
on.
Pope Gregory XIII (ruled 1572-1585) reformed the calendar. He rehired Palestrina who had
been dismissed by a previous pontifi^ because he was married. The Polish people, divided be-
tween the Orthodox, Lutheran, and Roman faiths, were finally committed to the last, when
this pope, asked to mediate the succession, chose a Roman Catholic king. The massacre of St.
Bartholomew's Day was instigated in France by Catherine de' Medici, mother of the French
king Charles IX. For this mass murder of Hitlerian proportions, the French queen received the
congratulations of the Catholic monarchs and the pope commanded Te Deums to be sung,
bonfires to be lighted, and had a commemorati\e medal issued.
Meanwhile, work on the basilica went on. It was not finished until 1629. As the expression
of Roman Baroque on a colossal scale, it has an amazing, almost improbable, subtle balance.
Proportions are brought to harmony, colors to polyphonic cadences; the individual elements
do not re\eal their gigantic size until particular attention is focused on them. The cherubs, far
larger than a man, on the colored marble holy-water receptacles do not lose their hvely charm
and earthy appeal. This mastery of proportion comes equally into expression in Benimi's colon-
nade which encloses the eUiptical piazza, an overwhelming display of stairs, terraces, columns,
and statues. Bernini's magic worked also to create an optical illusion. The square itself is only
slightly larger than the Piazza del Popolo at the other end of the city; engineers have figured
—
out tliat it could hold no more than eighty thousand people a contrast to the hundreds of
thousands sometimes reported in the newspapers.
New palaces and manor houses for the leading families offered splendid projects for the
architects of the period. As early as 1514, Pope Paul began a towTi palace, employing at
III
least four of the architects associated St. Peter, among them Michel-
with the construction of
angelo. Stones of pagan Rome, brought from the Coliseum and the Theater of Marcellus, went

•66.
 VENICE
into the structure. The rear of the palace looked toward the river Tiber from an open loggia.

Although it was not completed before 1586, many rooms were in use much earher.
Pope Paul III provided munificently for his several natural children and their offspring. A
grandson, Alexander, elevated to cardinal at the age of fourteen, became a celebrated patron
of the arts. Julio Clovio (1498-1578) lived in the Famese Palace as an old man, having entered
the service of the family in 1540.
Clovio was renowned as a miniaturist. Photography was unknown and the sending of large
portraits was circumstantial, but a miniature could be carried about easily. Charles V, his sister
Mary, Queen of Hungary, and his son Phihp II, as well as the Emperor Maximihan, all owned
portraits and illuminated books from Clovio's hand.
In the year 1570, the elderly miniature painter addressed a letter to Cardinal Famese with
the request that he instruct his major-domo to provide an upstairs room in the palace for the
temporary accommodation of a young Candiote painter, "disciple of Titian." It can be assumed
that El Greco painted Clovio's portrait at this time {PL 57A). It reveals the young Cretan as
already a painter of considerable stature, and carries his full signature. A delightful detail has
recently been pointed out: Clovio is depicted holding a volume of The Offices of the Madonna
in his hand, a work executed by him for the Cardinal Famese, which is today in the Pierpont
Morgan Library."^
The painting had its own travels. The Famese family became allied with the Habsburgs
through marriage, and later also with the Bourbons. At the change of dynasties in Spain, a
descendant (later Charles III of Spain) was named viceroy of the Two Sicilies. The Famese
—
Palace thus became Bourbon property it is now seat of the French Embassy in Rome. Some
of the Famese treasures, scattered among various residences, were transferred to the viceregal
palace in Naples, including the famous Titian portrait of Pope Paul III and also the portrait
of Julio Clovio. After Italy was united, the Bourbon-Farnese property fell to the state and the
Clovio portrait was hung in the Naples Museum. It was long considered a self-portrait of Clovio,
until a Greek connoisseur identified the painter from his full signature in Greek, hitherto dis-
regarded: Domenikos Theotokopoulos kres epoie.

In El Greco's time, Rome, vigorous center of diplomatic and religious activity, was expanding
rapidly. New buildings went up in outlying sections as roads were improved. The street run-
ning around the base of the Pincian hill, from the Piazza del Popolo to the Piazza di Spagna,

was widened in the mid-sixteenth century and a fountain erected, fed by the abundant water
that flowed from the hillside. Pure water was particularly prized in the city, as the aqueducts
had been brought to final ruin by the sack of Rome. On top of the fountain a statue of Silenus,
son of Pan, was placed. The folk called it a monkey, "baboon," hence the name Via Babuino.
—
In this district were the settlements of various foreign groups as witnessed by street names
referring to Lombards, Slovenes, Bretons, and Portuguese. The Piazza di Spagna {Pi 46C)
took its name from the palace of the Spanish ambassador. It is a section of Rome traditionally
favored by foreign travelers. Once merchants, money-changers, agents for tradesmen, and
students gathered here in inns and taverns and exchanged gossip. The Caffe Greco was an
international meeting place where, in the nineteenth century, the American landscape painters
Frederick Edwin Church and George Caleb Bingham, among others, met their European
colleagues.
This district must have had a rustic atmosphere. One section was known as the Orti di

'67'
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Napoli, the kitchen gardens of Naples, suggesting that tliere were vegetable strips cultivated
by Neapolitans. The is more complicated. By the end of the fifteenth century,
story, however,
a large Greek refugee group had settled in southern Italy. After all, in ancient times that area
was part of Magna Grecia, and even today traces of Greek dialect persist in the local idiom
and in many family names. Another wave of Greeks arrived in the mid-sixteenth century. But
the Viceroyalty of Naples, which also included Sicily, was then part of the Kingdom of Aragon;
with the unification of the Spanish lands, persecution was increasingly meted out to all who did
not belong to the faith of Spain, and many Greeks preferred to move again. The population of
the Orti di NapoH in Rome was largely Greek.
The farsighted Pope Gregory XIII made a special effort toward assimilating the foreign
population in his realm. In the Via Babuino, where the Greek tongue was widely spoken, a
large church and seminary were estabhshed for the Uniate faith which keeps much of the
Eastern Orthodox Rite but accepts the authority of the pope. The denomination is known also
as Greek Catholic. The church was consecrated in 1577, and dedicated to St. Athanasius, a
favorite saint of Greek Orthodoxy.
But for a considerable time there had been a spiritual home for the Uniates where Greek
tradition was kept aHve. Only thirteen miles from Rome, in the Alban hills, stood the monastery
—
of Grottaferrata, founded in 1004 before the schism had come to a head by St. Nilo from —
Calabria in southern Italy {PL 47A). Unfortunately the Badia Greca, or Greek Abbey, held a
commanding position of great strategic value, and was harried by warring factions through the
ages. It was fortified at the end of the fifteenth century, and moats were dug in front of its
medieval walls {PL 47B). The church portal carries Greek inscriptions, and some sections of
the apse are decorated with mosaics of purely Greek workmanship from the eleventh century.^®
On the surface of a marble baptismal font of still earlier date symbolic fish circle. Some authen-
tic Byzantine murals survive in the interior, inadvertently preserved by a magnificent Baroque
gilded coffered ceiling which Cardinal Alexander Famese had erected over them in 1577. In

the seventeenth century. Cardinal Barbarini undertook considerable alterations that further
impaired the original Byzantine aspect of the church {PL 47 C). Nevertheless, if this interior

is compared with that of the basilica at Parenzo ( Porec ) ( see PL 36C ) a

, relationship can be
seen.
A seminary is still functioning at Grottaferrata with a vast and famous library, containing
among many other titles about a thousand Byzantine Greek manuscripts. An almost complete
collection of Byzantine music from the greatest period is said to be unique. ^^ Refugee youths from
Turkish-occupied territory came to Grottaferrata, as well as later to the seminary of St. Athana-
sius in Rome, because of their most up-to-date libraries and complete corpus of Orthodox
theology. When the youths were graduated, many of them disappeared, to turn up again in
countries under Turkish domination —they had gone back into the service of their ancestral
faith.

Even today a handful of Basilian monks Uve in this idyllic place. The service is still cele-

brated in Greek. A paleographical school, which functioned when Cardinal Bessarion was head
of the monastery in the mid-fifteenth century, is still maintained, for the copying of manu-
scripts in ancient style. Oddly, some bilingual publications of very early works, in Greek, Latin,

and Italian, are prefaced by indulgences from eighteenth and nineteenth century popes. The
bearded librarian remarked with resignation that few visitors came to see their treasures.

•68-
 VENICE
El Greco's figure in Rome is less evanescent than in Venice, with the evidence of Clovio's
letter and portrait, besides various other paintings assigned to his "Roman period." Among
these, a full-length figure of an armored Knight of Malta is included, signed with El Greco's full
name. The picture once carried a posthumous text, naming the subject and giving the date
of his death, 1586. Recent cleaning revealed that the large Maltese cross on the cuirass —an
anomaly from an armorial point of view —was also a later addition. While the portrait shows
considerable talent, it lacks the maturity and assurance in that of Clovio. The Knights of
Malta, originally known as the Hospitalers, were established in Venice by the thirteenth century.
They soon had a church and, for a time, a hospital situated near the Riva degli Schiavoni. The
order renewed a commercial treaty with the repubhc in 1423; much of their activity depended
on the cooperation of that maritime power. In the second half of the same century. Cardinal
Bessarion gave them special privileges in the granting of indulgences. A new church was
erected in the early sixteenth century, described as "a miracle of marble and other magnificence."
Shortly afterward the Knights published an index of prohibited books. Ranuccio Famese and,
later, Alessandro Famese were priors of tlie house in Venice, a spacious and elegant estab-

hshment of great beauty, with a garden displaying rare varieties of plants and flowers. At this
—
time the title of prior was amended to Gran Priore, the result as the chronicler says of the —
megalomania inspired by "Spanish ideas, which had begun to insinuate themselves every-
where." ^^ Gentile Bellini's well-known depiction of the Corpus Christi Procession in the Piazza
di San Marco (1496) gives a faithful cross section of the Venetian population. Germans and
Turks appear, mulattoes and Arabs, in their specific costumes. Across the Piazza walks a Maltese
knight, with the identifying cross on his flowing robe, followed by his page. Indeed, El Greco's
portrait might have been painted just as well in Venice.
In the Rome of El Greco's time, emigres and refugees were in goodly number. Teachers,
and craftsmen found employment with
painters, printers, copyists of manuscripts, librarians,
the many wealthy patrons. The gatherings at the Famese Palace were
called a veritable academy
of humanists. The young Cretan was not the only Greek residing there.
The palace stood near the Piazza di San Pietro, and the young El Greco doubtless observed
the building activities going on there. Possibly he visited among the Greeks in the Via Babuino.
He might even have made the short journey to the Badia Greca and discoursed in his mother
tongue with those who were related in spirit —more conscious that they were Greek than that
they were Uniate or Orthodox. Scholars, artists, and craftsmen were being attracted to distant

Spain. Whatever the reasons that made El Greco decide to continue westward, he was one
molecule in the wave.

•69
 .

•IV-

TOLEDO

On my first visit to Spain in the early 1920's, the riimbhng that presaged the devastating civil

war was inaudible, especially to one whose inclination was not toward pohtics but toward the
arts. I traveled with a young man of my own age whose main interest was music. On the narrow-
gauge local train to Toledo, in an old-fashioned coach with the doors to each compartment
on the outside, my friend was reading Eduard HansHck's criticism "s\Titten after the premiere of
Tristan und Isolde, chuckling at the rage with which that leading \'iennese critic censured
Wagner's "cacophonic unmusical score." I also smiled, because I was reading my Baedeker
in its then latest edition of 1912, in which Carl Justi in his art-historical introduction devoted
167 lines to Murillo and nine to El Greco, saying: "In Toledo appeared that odd Greek Do-
menico Theotocopuli, or El Greco, a pupil of Titian. His Christ on Calvary in the sacristy [of

the cathedral] shows a power of spirited characterization and modeling and a genius for color-
ing which awoke great expectations. Unfortunately he lapsed all too soon, out of his mania
for originality, into that incredible affectation which . . . was pampered by the pubhc's taste.

Only in his portraits did he catch, as few, despite all his pretenses of forced genius [Kraftgenie],
the unique individuahty of the Castihan hidalgos and the Toledan beauties."
Arriving in Toledo, we stepped outside the tiny railroad station and saw the cit\' on its

granite bluff across the Tagus. The few passengers soon dispersed. Half of them were priests,
who were driven away
mule-drawn caleche with a fringe on top, the long ears of the dusty
in a
animals flapping through their straw hats. The stationmaster was ready to lock up the building,
since no train would be moving until late evening.
As we stood there in the crisp September morning, I remembered the admonition of Baedeker
that it was advisable to have a guide, as much time could be lost in the labvTinth of streets.

Looking around, I noticed a sickly ten- or twelve-year-old boy standing a few steps away, his
inflamed eyes fixed on us. When I spoke to him in Spanish, his thin face broke into a smile and
he courteously responded that he was local-bom and could take us wherever we wished. So
we crossed the bridge of Alcantara, passing tlu-ough its Baroque and medieval gates (
Pi. SOB )

The water below was not deep, but in the shadow of the bluff it looked unfriendly and murky.
We began to climb the dusty road, overtaking some plodding donkeys laden with boxes
and sacks. Amazing to us was the lack of public transportation, but then the narrow steep

•70-
 TOLEDO
medieval streets often made impossible even the passage of a mule. We headed toward the
cathedral.
From nowhere can the \"ast complex be seen in its fullness. Much that was important had
crammed itself into this area since medie\al times PL 50A The majestic interior was nearly i ) .

void of people, and its melancholy muteness was gripping. Its florid Gothic revealed a glorious
ston.-. The tapestries, velvets, and laces were all there — the statues dressed in rich clothing,
the rugs, the chairs, many of them veritable museum pieces. Grilles and railings shone with
the gold and sil\-er of the .\mericas. At the comers of certain pews, colorful processional stand-
ards and gilded lanterns were fixed.

We were the only foreigners. With a handful of Spanish \isitors we went into the tesoro to
see the briUiantly embroidered, pearl-decorated, gold-braided chasubles and dalmatics, the
chalices of gold and silver, the monstrances, crosses, cruets — all masterpieces of the jeweler's
art, locked behind dust\- glass cases and illuminated by two dull electric bulbs. .\nd there also
was what I expected — the statue of St. Francis by Pedro de Mena. Even.- fold of the bro\Mi
cassock, mildly falling,had its reason, and from under the hood the pale face looked into space
\^-ith subhmated gaze. I had knowTi it for years from reproductions, and now I could admire it;

the emaciated. unsha\"en priest was patient, even bene\"olent. Later we wandered along the
amhulatorio, be\Wldered by the richness and nobility of the architectural detail. Statuan.'
and painting were composed into towering retables. their gold shimmering in the languid
candlehght. The Gothic in other countries can be lean and cold: here it has a tropical warmth
and fla\-or. We were amazed to see a chapel dedicated to the Mozarabic Rite, that ancient
form of Christian hturg\- which antedates the Latin service in Spain and to wliich part of
the population clung even after the Hberation from the Moslem, although it was held in
the conqueror's language. Up to the mid-nineteenth centur\- six parochial churches sen."ed
the Mozarabic Rite. The catliedral chapel, more than a centur\- in building, was completed
with a cupola in tlie early seventeenth centur\- by El Greco's son. after the painter's death.
The sacristan rattled his keys. Noontime meant closing.
As we stepped out into full sunshine from the cool semidarkness. our eyes needed some
seconds to adjust. Only then did we notice that our little guide was still \^ith us. following a
step behind. He took us to a modest eating place, and we gave him some money for a meal.
He asked if we had foreign stamps, and we tore some off the letters in our pockets. Later,
through the starched lace curtains of the dining room, we saw him sitting on the curb in the
shade across the street, sorting out liis stamps.
I am glad I have seen that Toledo with its centur}--old patina — so different from the plun-
dered, mutilated cit>-, bustling with tourists, to which I came again and again afterward. On that
first \isit the cit>- must ha\e looked as it had to the painter Marie Bashkirtseff fort\- years earUer,
when that neurasthenic, tubercular Russian girl wTOte in her journal: ''Toledo
is all on the

height. Hke a citadel, and resembles certain improbable backgrounds of da \'inci or even
Velazquez. It is a Moorish city, with the walls and doors battered man-elously picturesque . . .

courts and mosques turned into churches and daubed with whitewash. \Miat is seen when the
—
whitewash has crumbled off arabesques with their colors still bright. Spanish churches . . .

are something that cannot be imagined. Ragged guides, vehet-robed sacristans, strangers and
dogs promenade, pray, and bark, and all has a strange charm. . . . The cathedral is a prodig\'
'*
of elegance, of richness, and above all hghtness."

•71-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
It was Theophile Gautier's Un Voyage en Espagne, wTitten some forty years before her visit,
tliat caused her to come to Spain. Strange that she, a painter, did not note the paintings of El
Greco whom the French romantic wTiter mentions twice. In connection with the Crucifixion
in the cathedral of Burgos by "Domenico Theotocopuli, called El Greco," Gautier says: "an
extravagant and singular painter, whose pictures might be taken for sketches by Titian, if

they were not easily recognizable by certain affectations of angularity and violent negligence.
... In order to give his paintings the appearance of being executed with great energy of touch,
he occasionally throws onto the canvas splashes of incredible impetuosity and brutality, with
slender steely hghts gleaming through the shadows hke sabre blades. AU this does not prevent
El Greco from being a great painter. . . . He was also an architect and a sculptor, that sublime
trinityand a briUiant triangle which is often to be found in the firmament of the highest arts."
Gautier praises two of El Greco's pictures in Toledo and calls him "a strange extravagant painter
who is hardly knowTi outside Spain. . .
." Incidentally, the French wTiter and his friend bathed
in the late afternoon in the Tagus, then had to hurry "so as to arrive before the closing of the
gates. . .
." '® This was in the year 1840.
Indeed, El Greco was then unknowTi outside Spain. Spain itself was Httle known in the eight-

eentli and nineteenth centuries, for it was not included in the "grand tour" of the cultured
traveler.

an unanswered question why El Greco should have chosen to settle in a city which had
It is

aheady lost much of its importance and from which, with the expulsion of the Jews and the
persecution even of converted Moors, a well-educated and wealthy layer of the population
had been dispersed. As the capital of Castile, which then became the heart of the Five King-
doms, Toledo was predestined to become the capital of the united Spanish Kingdom. Philip II

moved there from Valladolid. But the tensions between the

monarch and the prince primate
of the church who had his residence there caused the king to remove his seat once more, to
Madrid in 1561. The new site had the advantage of lying in a more central position; since it
did not have the historical pretensions of Burgos, Valladolid, or Toledo, various court factions
were neutralized.
With the departure of the court, an exodus commenced which depopulated the cit\' that
already had many empty houses. Not only tradesmen dependent on court patronage the —
coachbuilder, confectioner, ladies' hairdresser, the barber, the tailor, the shoemaker —but also
many artists and craftsmen found their chance for a better future in the growing new capital

on the shore of the Manzanares. In Toledo remained, besides the powerful and numerous
ecclesiastics, a group of aristocracy and gentry who preferred the old town to new Madrid

or to the stifling rigor of the Escorial which Philip was already building. A number of them be-
longed to the anti-Phihp faction. The dramatist and poet Lope de Vega declared that if the
court moved back to Toledo, he would go to \'alladolid.
Of the intelligentsia, a goodly number was wearing the cloth. When El Greco settied in
Toledo, to the city proper belonged the cathedral with its large retinue, twenty-five parochial
districts, twenty-nine monasteries, six great churches, nine chapels and hermitages, and four
religious colleges. In the vicinity stood eight basilicas, ten monasteries, hospitals, asylums for
the aged, and other institutions, supported mainly by religious confraternities.^^
Toledo represented an ancient tradition. It contained within its walls monuments from the
Visigothic, Arabic, and Christian past of Spain. The powerful intellectual climate was an in-

heritance that had come down through the centuries. In the seven hundred years of Moorish

•72-

^^
 TOLEDO
occupation of Spain, the Hebrew and Arabian scholars, especially of Cordoba and Toledo,
guarded and disseminated the cultural heritage of classical Greece and the Orient. Thus, be-
fore the Renaissance, Hellenic culture and philosophy were fed into Europe largely through
Spain. Among which the ancient city excelled were those producing superior
the industries in
tiles, exquisite silk fabrics often decorated with threads of gold and silver, and the legendary

—
Toledo sword blades crafts which were introduced by the Arab conqueror and perfected dur-
ing the centuries of his occupation.
Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, with his cosmopolitan background and connoisseur-
ship in the arts, might have been a better patron of El Greco than his son, PhiHp H. Charles
was a foreigner to Spain, bomGhent (1500), and educated in Belgiimi under the wise
in
tutelage of his aunt, Margaret, who was vice regent there. He did not visit Spain until he was
seventeen years old. By that time much of his nature and character was formed. In the tradi-
tion of European monarchs, he commanded a number of European languages, though he spoke
them with an accent. His endeavor to understand his subjects in all his lands made him es-
teemed, even beloved throughout his vast empire. ReveaUng of the diflFerence between father
and son was the scene in the Hall of the Golden Fleece in Brussels, at the time of his abdica-
tion (1555). Charles was moved to tears, as were many of the assembled nobles, as he made
his farewell speech to them in their own tongue, transferring the regency of the Low Countries
to his son. Philip stood beside him, haughty and dour. His reply, after a few words in French,
was read by a bishop in Flemish, and must have made a chilling contrast.
Philip, bom in Valladolid (1527), was Spanish-educated, Spanish-oriented, and Spanish-
limited, and he could not make himself sympathetic to the many nationahties in his father's
realm. He had only one ambition: to be monarch of Spain. His upbringing had made him himior-
less, stiff, often morose, and always suspicious of anyone with whom he could not converse

in Spanish, the only tongue he commanded. His domain, besides Spain and the boundless
colonies in America and the Philippines, comprised the Low Countries, the Aragonese in-
— —
heritance in Italy Naples and Sicily the Burgundian inheritance, the Franche-Comte, and
the Duchy of Milan. Philip did not want to Hve in the Low Countries, nor had he any love for
the Germanic lands, many of which by that time were solidly Protestant. From his father he
inherited also conflicts with England, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal. He was deeply
involved in trying to restore the power of the Roman Catholic Church where the Reformation
had already gained foothold.
Despite the incalculable wealth of "the Indies" in her control and Philip's unflagging attempts
to reform the administration, Spain was bankrupt by 1570. The vitality of the national economy
was being exhausted through many years of grandiose enterprises that brought no financial
return. A census taken in that year reveals that a quarter of the adult population of Spain was
in the clergy —312,000 parish priests, 200,000 clerics of minor orders, and 400,000 friars. In
the diocese of Calahorra alone, in the north near Bilbao, lived 17,000 clergy. During the forty-
two years dropped from ten million to eight million. ^^
of Philip's reign, the population
Fateful events abroad added to the disintegrating economic conditions in the land. The
headquarters of the Spanish treasure fleet from the Americas, Seville and later Cadiz, on the
Atlantic coast, were somewhat out of reach of the Turkish navy and grew into very wealthy
ports of Westem Europe. But on the long voyage across the Atlantic the Spanish fleet was prey
to English and Dutch freebooters and miscellaneous pirates. In 1587 all the shipping in the
harbor of Cadiz was burned by Francis Drake, and again, in 1596, the fleet of the Earl of Essex

•73-
 —.

EL GRECO REVISITED
sacked the city and destroyed some 40 merchant vessels and 13 warships. Between these two
dates falls the destruction of the Spanish Armada, one of the great debacles of naval history.
The magnificent assemblage of 130 vessels with 7,000 sailors wasand some 17,000 soldiers
outmatched by the English-Dutch forces, inferior in nimiber, through superior seamanship and
a luck}' wind (1588). And this was accomplished by English sailors wearing civilian garb; for
it was not until the mid-eighteenth century that the Admiralty put officers and men into uniform.

Philip's most successful and faithful commander in chief was the Duke of Alba ( 1508-1583 )

It was this battle-scarred commander who subdued the pope's army and stood at the gates

of defenseless Rome threatening another sack ( 1557 ) . When Philip moved to deprive the Low
Countries of their constitutional rights, to quench the subsequent rebellion he sent in Alba.
The Spaniard's first action was to lure into his camp the Counts Horn and Egmont whom he
took prisoner and had beheaded. After months of terror —which spread beyond the Protestant
camp —he could send his king the famous boast: "All is tranquil in the Low Countries." Later
he reclaimed die crown of Portugal for Pliilip II. No wonder Spanish history knows him as el

Gran Duque. In the Palacio de Liria, Madrid, the present residence of the ducal family, there
is a wide variety of family portraits. But none has the piquant aptness of a statuette less than

two feet high. Rather a caricature than a portrait, it shows a Quixote-like tall, emaciated knight
— unmistakably with the features of the Gran Duque de Alba driving his lance into a three- —
headed hydra. The first head is that of the sultan with characteristic curling mustache and
turban; the second is the Protestant EHzabeth of England in a white ruff with a tiny crowTi;
—
and the third to whom our host called especial attention is the pope in his religious garb—
and triple tiara.
—
Various portraits can be drawn of Philip II for one the conscientious, hard-working, pious,
and child-loving ruler. Another would present him as an autocrat bigoted, cruel, unforgiving, —
—
and arrogant who would leave his accompanying courtiers without condescending a gesture
or word of dismissal.
Phihp's many conflicts poisoned his relations with his family. His loveless attitude toward
his own son resulted in the murder of Don Carlos. He was suspicious of his blond, good-looking
half-brother John of Austria, and jealous of his successes on the battlefield. He tried to keep
him out of Spain as much as possible, and sent him to the Netherlands as governor after the
recall of the Duke of Alba. With little support from Philip in either men or money, John of
Austria administered his post with singular justice but died in Belgium in less than two years.
It was his desire to be buried at the side of his imperial father in the Escorial, who also had
left instructions to this effect; and PhiUp could grant this wish without much risk. After a
funerary ceremony in Belgium, the body was cut into three sections, packed in saddlebags,
and smuggled across inimical France. One wonders whetlier a ship could not have been spared
to bring home the remains of the hero of Lepanto, so that his last trip could have been over
the water which had brought him
and fame.
victories
In building the Escorial (P/. 45B), Philip II planned a memorial for his father, Charles V.
From the idea of a tomb-chapel grew that monumental, melancholy, monastic barracks which
became Philip's residence. The story goes that from Madrid he watched with a telescope
"stargazing" was then the hobby of princes —
the progress of building. His private chambers
in the Escorial were so arranged that he could see from his bed the priest officiating at Mass
in the church {Pi. 49), the yellow light of candles, the clouds of incense rising into the stone

•74-
 —

TOLEDO
arches. As Philip lay dying —and it took several weeks —Masses went on unremittingly in the

cathedral, and his eyes could rest on the crucifix on the high altar, ^^^hen in 1804 Lady Holland,
noted for her travel reminiscences, visited the Escorial, she saw two monks kneehng in the
choir, and was told that ceaseless prayers for the soul of Philip II had been observed since his
death, the friars being reheved e\er>' six hours day and night. ^-
The Hst of artists active at the Escorial shows more Itahan than Spanish painters. Before
the great influence of Italy on the artistic life of Spain, artists from the Low Coimtries set the
standard. While Greeks were also employed in the library of the Escorial, as well as in a number
of otlier Spanish learned institutions. El Greco is the only painter of Byzantine tradition in
that time who left an imprint in tlie country.
Many cities of Spain were enjo)TQg a Uvely artistic life. Murcia, Valencia, Granada, Barcelona,
as well as cities of the north, had notable and all Andalusia, profited greatly from
studios. Seville,
the opening of the Americas. The wealthy reHgious orders and the aristocracy were good chents
of artists and craftsmen. The captains of vessels going to the colonies of the New World took
orders for paintings, statues, and sometimes entire retables, and also sold works on commission.
Contracts to tliis effect survive with such well-kno\Mi names as Ribera, Martinez, Zurbaran.
The new capital Madrid attracted many artists. Murillo in the seventeenth century painted holy
pictures for a pittance for the market booths at Seville before he became a celebrity.

The Spanish people, first in the long wars with the Moors and later in battle beyond their own
borders, developed a high degree of individuaUty. Sons returned from distant campaigns in
which the Spanish foot soldier was proving himself one of the best. From the New World came
not only treasures but hardened and widely traveled men. The Spanish folk were perhaps
not very fiterate but they had and personahty. And they witnessed
intelligence, experience,
even though perhaps disappro\-ing —how life whether among the pagan
moved in other lands,
redskins of Mexico or the Protestants in the harbors of the North Sea. Vast energ\^ and great
spiritual power, characteristics of this sovereign land, were released, after centuries of Arab

occupation.
The king and the highest ecclesiastical authorities had the diEBcult task of channeling these
energies to their advantage. Feudahsm was fighting to preserve its prerogatives; the Roman
CathoHc Church, that had faced the necessity of a radical reform too late to save its unity,
had to clamp down on any action which further endangered its authority. One answer was the
reconstitution of the Inquisition to stamp out any deviation of faith; and all means to this
end were justified.
Although the Inquisition was to a certain degree a national institution maintained by the
Dominican order in each land, the pope was nominally its head. The papal legate, or nuncius,
— —
had as he has today full diplomatic immunity and precedence over every other diplomat.
His luggage, which could not be examined by any authorit)-, thus could contain directives,
information, blueprints for conspiracy, and gold in mint. The wealth of the Inquisition in
Spain was enormous. Half of the total revenues of the land went to tlieThe wealthiest
clergy.
of all was the Cardinal of Toledo with a yearly income of 150,000 gold ducats as Grand In-
^^
quisitor and, as "Prince of the Church," 300,000 more from the ecclesiastic chapter of Toledo
— at a time when a live sheep cost only a few pennies.
The Inquisition was the first totalitarian organization which, with the credo of man's salva-

•75-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
tion, acted with ruthless cruelty. Its methods call to mind those of present authoritarian powers.
There is little, from physical torture to the "terror of the midnight knock," which is a new
invention.
Altogether there were nine inquisitorial tribunals in Spain —Toledo, Zaragoza, \^alencia,
Murcia, Logrono, Granada, and Cuenca, rivaling in zeal those at Seville and Valladolid. All
too soon the system began to work with informers, professional and voluntary spies who, as
they were allotted a share of the spoils, would stoop to any depth. The accused was kept in

solitary confinement, often in dungeons, on rotting bread and slimy water. He was subject to

various tortures. He was kept in ignorance of the accusations against him and had no recourse
to counsel. The trial was secret. His accuser was unnamed, and he was not allowed to confront
him. Even if he should die during the trial, secretaries were at hand who acted as witnesses
to his "confession." He was left in ignorance of his fate until the day of tlie auto-da-fe the —
"act of faith" in which the sentences pronounced by the tribunal of the Inquisition were carried
out. Punisliments, when not death by various dread means, were the confiscation of all prop-

erty, imprisonment —
usually under inhuman conditions —
condemnation to the galleys. Milder
penalties, for foreigners, were gagging, prohibition to leave Spain, and best of all exile. If — —
by some fortune the accused was acquitted, he was not allowed to speak of his experiences,
for to reveal the secrets of the Holy OfiBce was punishable by death. As it was the custom to
sequester the property of an accused until the verdict, a man miglit emerge free, to find his
goods dispersed and his family in penury.
Only four months after the liberation of Granada from the Moors, the edict was issued ex-
pelling the Jewish population whose leaders had been friends and treasurers of kings and
aristocrats. There was no longer need to concihate minorities; the oppressed became oppres-

sors. "Pure Christian blood" —proof of the "undefiled" ancestry of any Spaniard, called limpieza
—was a main condition for any public position. Persons who washed their hands before meals
or sometimes bathed could be accused of being Moriscos, following Moslem customs. As late

as the seventeenth century a special midwife had to be present at a birth in any family of
Moorish or Jewish ancestry to see that the infant was not put through a washing which might
be regarded as ritual. Cardinal Francisco de Mendoza y Bobadilla (d. 1566) was outraged when
the purity of blood of his own nephew was questioned, and wTote a pamplilet Ioionmi as "El
Tizon," the brand mark, claiming that all the grandees and lesser aristocrats of Spain had
Jewish or Moorish blood.
By the mid-sixteenth century the Lutheran "heresy" had become the main target of the In-
quisition. Since the principles of the Reformation were spreading rapidly throughout Europe,
in 1559 Philip II ordered all Spanish youths studying at foreign universities to return home
within foiu- the confiscation of property, and the loss of citizenship.
months, subject to exile,

Excepted were the universities Rome, Bologna, Naples, and Coimbra in Portugal, where the
at
church still had fuU control. As a result, the University of Alcala is said to have had some
12,000 students, and Salamanca, 14,000 in the late sixteenth centur>'. In 1572 it was decreed
that no Frenchman could be appointed as teacher. This is the year of the massacre of St. Barth-
olomew's Day.
The Dominicans and Jesuits were the censors of books. Latin Bibles were in circulation, correct

in text but, according to the Inquisition, with heretical commentaries. Every book printed in

Spain had first to be examined by a royal council. To prevent alterations after the "imprimatur,"
or permission to print, was given, every page of the manuscript had to be signed by a secretary-
 TOLEDO
of the royal chamber. When the book was ready, two printed copies had to be returned for
comparison with the checked book was supposed to display not
original. In principle, ev^ery

only the name of its author but also the hcense number, the printer, and the place of publica-
tion. In case of a new edition, the same regulations stood. Thus it came about that in Spanish

archives there accumulated a backlog of valuable reports and manuscripts, some of them still
"undiscovered." Six thousand condemned volumes were burned on a single occasion this in —
a country where book printing was otherwise lagging. Even Phihp II named an outsider as his
"royal printer," Christopher Plantin in Antwerp, who brought out rehgious books for Spain
and the which were the royal monopoly. Plantin issued the first basic
colonies, the sale of
botanical book of the Spanish realm 1576 ) There is a strong suspicion that Protestant trea-
( .

tises also were printed on the Plantin Press. Lutheran s>Tnbols were allegedly discovered in

woodcuts of the Passion brought in from France. Though the loading of ships was strictly con-
trolled, demijohns in which water and wine were taken on were found to be padded with

Protestant hterature, which reached the New World. Penalty of death and confiscation
some of
of property were decreed for pubHshing or even printing prohibited books.
The Spanish Inquisition stretched rapacious fingers far beyond the geographical borders of
the kingdom. Castaway Enghsh sailors, captured near the Canary Islands, were tried as heretics.
Some of these escaped burning by declaring themselves converted; others managed to flee.

Even after Belgium had won autonomy, the Spanish Inquisition tried to cancel privileges of
the Guild of Weavers there, but the Belgian craftsmen rose against the suppression of their
rights and stood their ground successfully. Nor were the mighty exempt. The Hospitalers, re-
treating from the Turkish advance, left Rhodes and came, by way of Cyprus and Crete, to
the island of Malta, which Charles V had ceded to them. Though the Grand Inquisitor of Spain
tried to extend his authority over them, the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta (as they
called themselves by that time), claiming an older sovereignty, refused to admit any agents
sent by the "foreign" Holy OfiBce.
Persons who are today venerated as saints did not escape suspicion. St. Ignatius of Loyola
(1491-1556) was twice imprisoned at the beginning of his career, accused of heresy. Teresa
de Cepeda, later St. Theresa of AvUa (1515-1580), was accused of misconduct and several
times denounced. Her work Conceptos de Amor divino, which today is regarded as most re-
vealing of her sanctity,was proscribed by the Inquisition. In 1576, when El Greco may have
been aheady in Spain, the Archbishop of Toledo himself, Bartolome Carranza de Miranda
(1503-1576), a representative at the Council of Trent, was imprisoned for heresy and con-
demned to perpetual seclusion instead of death, since he was dying anyhow.
Dostoevski's parable of the "Grand Inquisitor," a chapter in his The Brothers Karamazov,
has pertinence. After visiting Rome and seeing the papal pomp contrasted with the poverty
of the population, the great Russian novehst has Jesus Christ return to earth just as the In-
quisitor General, a Dominican, Cardinal of Seville, is preparing to attend the burning of a
hundred heretics. Jesus tries to convince the cardinal that Christianity must work with means
other than the stake. But it becomes clear in the narrative that the clergy is less interested in
His teaching than in the perpetuation of their own system. In the end, the Grand Inquisitor
opens the door and bids Christ leave and never return.
In the history of art, the most celebrated inquisitorial case was that of Paolo Caliari Veronese
who was accused of sacrilege in Venice in 1573. The painting in question was a Last Supper
of monumental size. Though the central section is dominated by a dignified and ingratiating

•77-
 .

EL GRECO REVISITED
figure of Christ, the groups at the sides are profane. They contain hilarious, if not drunken,
persons, dwarfs, blackamoors and, above all, gaudy dress of German mercenaries
soldiers in the
recalling Lutherans. Veronese argued that the large surfaces had to be filled up in some way
and that in the Sistine Chapel in Rome his master Michelangelo represented Clirist and other
holy figures with almost no garments at all. To the lengthy theological examination, he replied,
"I paint pictures as I see fit and as well as my talent permits." ^ The painter was directed to make

changes, which he thought were detrimental to a work that he regarded as one of his master-
pieces. On the advice of a friend versed in canonical law, and without touching brush to can-
vas, he changed tlie title to The Feast in the House of Levi. This seemingly satisfied his ac-
cusers. In 1573 El Greco was most probably still in Italy and, considering how fast gossip
travels in artists' circles, he must have heard the details very soon. A somewhat similar episode
occurred in his owti career, as we shall see later.
Anotlier celebrated case involving an artist was that of Pietro Torrigiani, a Florentine sculptor
who studied under the patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Invited to England, he executed
the splendid bronze tombs for Henry VII and his Queen in Westminster Abbey {Pi. 53B).
Later called to Spain, he carved crucifixes and statuary for the monastery of San Girolamo in
Seville, among otlier works. A Virgin and Child from his hand was found so captiv^ating by the

Duke of Arcos that he ordered a copy of it, promising to enrich the Italian for the favor. When
the work was finished, the duke, scion of an immensely wealthy Andalusian family, sent two
servants laden down with coins. However, they turned out to be mere maravedis coppers —
of such little wortli that altogether they did not amount to thirty gold ducats. Enraged, Tor-
rigiani broke the statue into pieces. In revenge the Spanish duke accused the sculptor of blas-

phemy, and Torrigiani was delivered to the prison of the Inquisition in Seville. Examined daily
by one judge after the other, he was menaced v^dth severest punishment. But sentence could
not be carried out, for, in deepest melancholy, he ended his own life by starvation ( 1522 )
The Inquisition was active even in the distant American colonies where hostile Indians still
made life dangerous and the foundations of the Christian faith were barely laid. The Flemish
painter Simon Pereyns, a native of Antwerp, worked in Portugal, then in Toledo, and finally,
in 1556, attracted by Spanish promises, he went to the Mexican viceregal capital to furnish
paintings for the cathedral then in building. Not two years there, he was accused of blasphemy,
and suffered torture and condemnation.
Foreigners especially were under suspicion. In 1557 a sculptor recorded as Esteban Jamete
was accused of ridiculing holy objects and the holy religion; he was condemned to years in
—
prison and his property was confiscated. He was a Frenchman in his native land, Hamet de
Orleans. It was Spanish custom to Hispanize foreign names often beyond identification. The
Mander of Haarlem achieved fame with his book on paint-
sixteenth century painter Karel van
ing; was translated into Spanish and circulated even in the colonies as the work of "Carlos
it

Bexmandes, native of Hadem."

Still closer to El Greco's career in Spain is the case of Pompeo Leoni, widely acclaimed Italian
sculptor. His father, Leone Leoni, was a favorite of Charles V, and executed a portrait head of
Phihp II (Pi. 48A). Emy apparently caused Pompeo to be accused before the Inquisition of
voicing Lutheran opinions.*® Although in favor with the court, he was cut off from the outside
world, and when Charles V, in his last months, inquired after him, no one dared to tell him
that the Itahan was imprisoned. Deprived of royal intervention, Pompeo served a year's in-
carceration.

•78-
 A

TOLEDO
The Spaniard Alonso Cano, master of architecture, sculpture, and painting in seventeenth
century Spain, also came before the Inquisition, accused, as head of the confraternity of artists
and jewelers, of not taking part in the Holy Week procession. A fine of a hundred ducats or a
prison term was imposed. Today, when the innocent tourist watches the multitudes on the
Piazza di San Pietro in Rome at Eastertime —the friars, priests, nuns, school children, sodalities
and confraternities brought in by special transportation —he might remember that it cost Alonso
Cano a hundred golden ducats not to march in an Easter procession. The same charge was
brought against the painter Luca Giordano in the mid-seventeenth century. But he, a Neo-
pohtan, soon found a way to leave the coimtry, although the king tried to retain him.
Francisco Goya stood before the Inquisition in 1815, accused of painting indecent figures,
especially in his CapricJws. Only his royal patron Charles IV saved his life, though many of his
works were confiscated by the Camera Secreta.^" The institution existed until 1912. In 1958
a Spanish book appeared in which the Inquisition is interpreted as beneficial — justified because
it "preserved the cultural harmony of the country."

These factors must be taken into consideration when we review the life of El Greco in Toledo.
He is named as a resident of the city in various documents dating between 1577 and 1614.
In a parallel period, from 1575 to 1610, the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Toledo tried 1,172
cases. Of these, forty-seven were resident foreigners, accused of Protestantism; three persons
of Greek extraction were convicted of heresy. "Doubting statements of the catechism" was one
of tlie easiest accusations to lodge against a foreigner.^^ The questions of the Tribunal were

often directed in such a way as to confuse one who did not understand the Spanish language
well. It is remarkable that El Greco —who was often outspoken—was able to Hve through his
years in Toledo without being involved. The nearest he came to the Tribunal of the Inquisition
was in 1582 when he acted as interpreter for a less fortunate Greek, accused of Moslem practices.
El Greco Hved through the activities of eight Inquisitors General in Toledo. Brought up in
fierce love of liberty and a spirit of independence, the Cretan must have felt the oppression which
surrounded him. In comparison to what he saw and experienced in Toledo, the justice meted
out in Venice was mild.
All Toledo must have appeared strange to El Greco after the sun-bathed flat-roofed city
of Candia, washed with color. Venice in her oriental splendor was surcharged with enterprise
and lust. There, as in Candia, the sea determined the rhythm of life. In contrast, Toledo was
landlocked, windswept; for many weeks the sun seldom reached its dank, canyon-like alleys.
The cathedral of Toledo (
Pi. 51 ) , with its particular brand was very different from
of Gothic,
the architecture El Greco was accustomed to seeing in Crete and Italy. The Orthodox image
was the painted icon, purely two-dimensional, while here, entire carved structures of bibhcal
scenes rose inside the cathedral, gilded and many-colored, a veritable rehgious theater {PL
52B ) .
The side chapels with their rigid architectural tracery contained sculptured tombs like
those in the chapel of Santiago {PL 52C), documents of the cult of the dead different from those
that El Greco knew. To aU this came the solid surge of Spanish Baroque, presaged in the wood
earnings of Alonso Berruguete (
PL 52 ) where even in a relief, a restless three-dimensionality
,

is manifest.
More familiar to him might have been the architecture in the Moorish and the later Mudejar
styles. The Puerta del Sol PL 54B had the general imprint of military architecture, and could
)
(

have stood even in the Greek archipelago. The ingenious use of brickwork in the church of

•79-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Cristo de la Luz and its small size might have been reminiscent of Arab masonry in his home-
land (Pi. 54A). The virtuosity of the Levant in creating arches in brick he could see reflected
PL 55C ) Note the Arab inscription high up on the f a9ade. Legend has it that
in the interior (
.

when Toledo was reconquered by the Spaniards, a crucifix was discovered in a walled-up
niche in this building, with a taper that had burned through the three and a half centuries of
Arab occupation —hence the renaming of the little tenth century mosque as "the Christ of the
Light."
In tlie Jewish quarter stood the synagogue erected in the mid-fourteenth century largely
through contributions of Samuel ha-Levi who was treasurer to the Spanish king. The elaborate
carved ceiling was constructed from cedar brought from Lebanon, and Hebrew texts embel-
lished the richly stuccoed interior {Pi. 54C). Upon the expulsion of the Jews, it was turned
over to the Knights of Calatrava, a number of whom are buried there, and was later dedicated
to the Assumption of the Virgin. The parochial church of Santiago del Arrabal Pi. 55B ) and (

its thirteenth century bell tower have a Mediterranean touch. Note the ingenious adjustment to
the hilly terrain. The apse with the coffered bUnd arcades is closely related to Byzantine
monuments, whether in Sicily, the Venetian islands, or Macedonia {PL 55A). All these styles

produced a mixture, autochthonous to the city.

The quarters El Greco occupied in Toledo were once also associated wdth Samuel ha-Levi.
Sturdy and exquisitely worked arches from Arabian and even Roman occupation con-
pillars

stituted solid foundations for the later buildings. The quarter underwent many vicissitudes. El
Greco moved into a usable section of the sprawling complex and lived there until his death.
Soon afterward the district became a slum. The city of Toledo had reached extreme penury.
The city council reported to the king that entire streets were deserted, that a number of handi-
crafts had died out, and that real estate had become worthless. Collections for the royal treasurer

were being taken up from house to house, and collection boxes were passed in the street as in
a church.^** The situation did not improve as time went by. By the end of the nineteenth century,
the section in which El Greco had lived was in such a ruinous state as to constitute a danger,

and the authorities considered demolishing Just about that time, interest in El Greco was
it.

awakening. In 1905 the Marques de la Vega Inclan bought some of the old houses there and
had them restored to serve as the "Casa del Greco" {PL 56). Architectural embellishment was
added; stairways and rooms were made passable. Period furniture, statues, paintings, draperies
were and soon, wdth the munificent contribution of Archer M. Huntington, founder
collected,
of the Hispanic Society of America, further rooms were acquired for the Museo del Greco.
While these apartments are not the actual ones El Greco occupied, they give an atmosphere in
which one can visualize the painter amid his household.

El Greco left portraits of three cardinals, all of whom were also Inquisitors General of Toledo.
That of Caspar de Quiroga appears not to have been painted from life but perhaps from a
miniature or similar likeness. It lacks the sharpness of expression that characterizes El Greco's
work. Further, it is highly unusual for him to portray his sitter in profile; in all other of El
Greco's portraits the face is shown at least in three-quarters view. As Inquisitor General, Quiroga
had a list of prohibited books printed in Lyons, France, in 1573, one of the early Indexes of Spain.
The best-knovm figure of El Greco's inquisitors is that of Cardinal Fernando Niiio de Guevara
painted in full length as he sits in a stiff chair (
PL 57C ). It is a severe, unloving person who
looks out with scrutinizing eyes. His left hand rests in clawlike tension on the chair arm. as

•80-
 .

TOLEDO
if he were ready at and pursue another sinner. How much did the painter,
any moment to rise

kno\\-ing the dread methods of the Inquisition, speculate on the character and psychology" of
his sitter at a meeting of such different philosophies of Christianity'? What did he feel as he

outlined so clearly the apostoHc ring \^-hich so man\- had kissed, on the hand that with a \va\"e
could start the fire under the stake, what did he feel as he placed his signature hke a calling
card at the potentate's feet? Recent Spanish uTiters have remarked that the portrayal is un-
flattering; one calls it a prodigiosa caricatura}^'-
\'.
Painters and tlieir sitters often struck up rapport, such as that between Titian and Charles
One wonders what the \arious ecclesiastics talked of with the stranger, the Gricgo. who, in his
mid-thirties when he came to Toledo, must ha\"e spoken Spanish with a hea\y foreign accent.
Did they know tliat he had a number of prohibited books in his Hbran,-? Were they interested
in a world of which they knew Httle? Was the Greek painter cautious, with his wisdom and sense

of self-preser\"ation, not to incriminate himself?

^^'ith the third cardinal, Juan Pardo de Tavera, no dialogue was possible. He died in 1545,
before Greco's arrival in Toledo. It is recorded that this cardinal, also a Grand Inquisitor of
Toledo, spent vast sums of money on churchly buildings. His main beneficence was perhaps a
new hospital which was dedicated to St. John the Baptist in the first half of the sixteenth cen-
tur\'. -\s Toledo was aheady crowded, tlie new establishment was erected outside the forti-

fication walls. Its relati\ely simple facade [PI. 53C) with the quiet, slender portal encloses a
large classical patio. In the archives of the administration (PL 53A) fohos are preser\-ed which
show that .\rabic numerals were in use there when cumbersome Roman numerals were cus-
tomary elsewhere — another sur\-i\-al from the centuries of Moorish occupation.
Cardinal Ta\"era had li\-ed in ostentatious pomp and unusual luxur\', yet in some ascetic
gesture, or pose that he lacked human vanity, he refused to be portrayed, though surrounded
by painters and sculptors. After his death the hospital he had endowed wanted a memorial
of him, and commissioned El Greco to paint a portrait, fmiiisliing the cardinal's deadi mask
for the resemblance. Most
of El Greco's paintings were of biblical characters, whose physiog-
nomy Byzantine had long established. He had depicted Count Orgaz who died in the
tradition
fourteenth centur\-. But it was a different task to achieve a portrait of a near contemporary which
older residents of the cit\- might judge for its likeness. El Greco had to visuahze the face with
opened eyes. But he made the skin ashen, the cheeks hollow, and gave the eyes the gaze of
a ghost PI. STB(
)

Historians report among the extravagances of Ta\-era that in his retinue he always kept forty
pages, descendants of tlie noblest famihes of Spain. Whatever large staff had surrounded the
Grand Inquisitor —princelings,
peons priests, — they ser^-ed him no
longer. That dominating,
domineering figure was the equal of any mortal before tlie God whose powers
in scarlet silk
he had arrogated to himself while on earth. The civil war that caused so much devastation
wTOught particular ha\-oc in Toledo, and the Tavera portrait was badly damaged. Perhaps
—
some descendant of a maltreated peon as if paying back an old debt pushed his knife into —
the can\as, gouging the head. By now tlie painting has been restored, covered with a merci-
fully thick layer of \-amish, and hangs on the wall in the same building for which it was origi-
nally ordered. The face stares stiffly out on the \-isitor today — just as paUid and like a death
mask as before —keeping the insult of modem times to itself.

81
. i.-.i.anbul. Ruins of the Fortifications B. Kariye Cami
PLATE 1

St. Sophia

•awiHRiyvf:
 ^V:?- 'yes^j^r-

A. Near Aswan, Egypt. Ruins of Coptic Monastery B. Cappadocia, Turkey. Ruined Church at Til Keuy. 6th
PLATE 2

c. Damascus, Syria. Omayad Mosque, formerly D. Syria. Church of St. Simeon the Stylite.
Bvzantine Church. Earlv 5th C. Early 7th C.
 A. Turkish Armenia. Cathedral at Ani.
End of 10th C.

PLATE 4

B. Cairo, Egypt. East Pit of Niloineter. c. Ramla, Israel. Cistern uith Pointed Arches.
A.D. 861-2 A.D. 789
IW^^
^m 1-1 i.-FJlt- ..-uii^ff'

*«'.

•;' »i ,v . ti

'^liii

SSi. A.-
 ^•'7r^,

1 1 ( I

» •I I;

^'^i '.?***

^
n
-V

^«**

t---^j.^mra --L-rj^-i

A. Mt. Athos, Greece. Monastery of Vatopedi

PLATE 6

B. Vatopedi. Refectory

^aa8WPWwawWBWWBO'»BWWigcafesa**'»'*'»*»«'i''a »? M ^» wJ

IL A m m
ffl
^

M
^^B
i

IB II
1i? i
L-Ji^
A. Mt. Athos, Greece. Courtyard of Vatopedi B. Pyrgos. Medieval Tower
PLATE 7

c. Vatopedi. Church Interior

>>-. —=• - -^"^-lit*

A. Mt. Athos. Greece, Monastery of Simopetra
PLATE 8
A.Mt. Athos, Greece. LavTa
Passageway to Church
PLATE 9

B. Christ the Judge. Mural

Dochiariou. Mid-16th C.

c. Monastery of Grigoriou
A. Mt. Athos, Greece. Monastery of Iviron
PLATE 10

B. Dionysiou. View into the Aegean Sea

c and D. Refectory Murals. Dionysiou. 16th C.

A. Death of St. Athanasius.
Mural. Lavra, Mt. Athos. 16th C.
PLATE 11

B. Death of St. Ephraim.

Mural. Dochiariou. Mid-16th C.

c. Death of St. Ephraim.

Mural. Siatista, Greece. 1611
.^

^''ilin^

^'A.' IK. .

A. Mistra. Greece. General View

PLATE 12

c. Church of Peribleptos. Exterior

B. Apse Mural. Peribleptos. Mid-14th C.

Mistra, Greece. Church of Peribleptos. Interior. Mid-l4th C.
PLATE 13
 t (

u
X U
^
1— -C
1—
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3d
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a.
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<P I-
 A. Sopocani. Yugoslavia. Church Exterior
PLATE 18

B. Saintly Witnesses. Mural

« *
" *f?!ii
 A. Dormition of the Virgin. Mural. Sopocani. Mid-13th C.
PLATE 19

3. Saintly Witnesses. Mural

 A. Pec, Yugoslavia. Warrior Saints

PLATE 20

B. Studenica. Convent and Chapel

c. Pec. Triple Church

.^i:

«v
m »
"^tT-y-^

•^ -V.
^^^.,140^.
'M
t^^

1 ^••ft*i^-*> -wr*

vjt^
 f

A. Gracanica, Yugoslavia. Church Exterior

PLATE 21

B. Mileseva. Church Exterior

c. Angel at the Tomb. Mural.

Mileseva. 13th C.

II r
A. Ohrid. Yugoslavia. Church of S. Jovan Kaneo B. The Ascension. Mural. Anarg)Ti,
PLATE 22 Kastoria, Greece. 11th C.

c. The Ascension. Mural. St. Sophia, Ohrid. Before 1056

D. Detail from Dormition of the Virgin.

Sopocani. Mid-13th C.
 A. Adoring Angel. Mural. St. Sophia, Ohrid, Yugoslavia. 11th C.
PLATE 23

c. Detail of Apse. Anargyri

Kastoria, Greece. 11th C.

Standing Angel. Mural. Kurbinovo. Mid-12th C

 * •• 2^->

,'» •'"«».
c- ^ [if
A. Heraklion (Candia), Crete. The Fortifications in Late 19th Century
PLATE 26

B. Harbor View with Mt. Ida

A. Clan Chapel near Rethymnon, Crete
PLATE 27

B. Gortyna. Ruins of St. Titus Basilica, ca. 4th C.

 A. Kritsa, Crete. Church of The Dormition
PLATE 29

B. Detail of Ascension. Mural. Kritsa. 14th C?

\ .
y « "t-S 4tl mV% .i. 'iV" 1
 A. Potamies, Crete. Monastery Church B. Two Church Fathers. Mural.
of Gouvernotissa Gouvernotissa. Earlv 17th C.
PLATE 30

c. Cretan Landscape in the Mvron \'allev

t^ ' ^*<;'
-i»*.N:

'^^?5?55*'.^ .vf^Vi^
^ •
:-*.% L^f

'^^^.^
 A. The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, B. SS. Anne and Joachim m the Temple.
by Paleopapas. Gonia. Crete. 1643 Mural. Drakona. 14th C?
PLATE 31

Gonia. Monasten-
 If

kk^tf'Xis?

-**?

1- >,• < / ^ A

c/5

c/5 Et :^

I
 u
O

<7S

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r*
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i
73 ^
C _t/5

C3 "P
in ^
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(U ^
£ i^
^
Z)

Q ^
-7^
oj'
W) ^
CO
CO
O UJ
t— P^
c/i < ^
CO a. ;>^
A. Corfu, Greece. Convent of Vlacherna and Ponticonissi Island
PLATE 34

B. Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. Rector's Palace and Mint

c:. Split. Inner Court of
Diocletian's Palace
 \ Porec, Yugosla\ia. Basilica. Entrants K. Wnice. St. Mark. Detail or interior

PLATE 36

D. Ravenna. S. Apollinare in Classe.

( . Porec. Basilica. Interior. 6th C. Interior. 6th C.
Bird's-Eye View of Venice, by Jacopo de Barbari. Woodcut. 1500
PLATE 37
 A. Venice. Riva degli Schiavoni
and The Arsenal
PLATE 38

,•3

B. Rialto Bridge
A. Venice. St. Mark
PLATE 39

B. View from a Painting by Titian. 1566

Venice. St. Mark. Interior
PLATE 40

I
 mmiifm:'ir^

A. La Pala d'Oro. Altar Screen. St. Mark, Venice. ll-12th C.

PLATE 41

B. Christ in Majesty. Detail of Pala d'Oro. Late 11th C.

c. Byzantine Chalice.
Treasury of St. Mark. 10th C.
a
U

c3

4
C/3
-a

c <
CQ
A. Venice. San Giorgio dei Greci
PLATE 44

H. St. John the Baptist Proclaims the Redeemer.

Icon. San Giorgio dei Greci. 17th G.

J
 A. Gabriel Se\iros. First Bishop of the
Greek Community . \'enice. Late 16th G
PLATE 45

*2 B. San Giorgio dei Greci. Interior

 B. Piazza del Popolo in
Early 17th Century

c. Piazza di Spagna in 17th Century

A. Grottaferrata. The Greek Abbey
PLATE 47

B. The Abbey in Early 19th Century.

Engraving
 A. Bust of Philip II of Spain,
by Leone Leoni
PLATE 48
B. Escorial. General Viev

^^S&'

»^ '

L,y!jfcA
 A. Escorial. Monastery Church
PLATE 49

B. Monastery Church. Interior

 to

CO

> o
C "o

c <
c <
r- El
 ^^
'I

A. St. John the Baptist.

Wood car Xing by A. Berruguete.
Cathedral, Toledo
PLATE 52

B. Cathedral. Main Altar

c. Cathedral. Chapel of Santiago with Tombs

A. Toledo. Tavera Hospital. Archive
PLATE 53
B. Tomb of Henry VH and His Queen,
by Torrigiani. Westminster Abbey,
London c. Tavera Hospital. Main Portal
I. Toledo. Cnsto de la Luz
PLATE 54

i. Puerta del Sol c. Sinagoga del Transito

viitfvvrr"
M W i » m'»»» » m!w I
.^
1'v il'rj'f
 ...J

' l^^ >. ^sss^

A. Thessaloniki, Greece. St. Catherine B. Toledo. Santiago del Arabal

PLATE 55

c. Cristo de la Luz. Interior

'Casa del Greco'
PLATE 56

I
1

-- .riJ^f^-

jy.x.
..^^

%-
 •V-

THE
GREEK
DIASPORA
Even before the fall of Constantinople, Greek scholars journeyed \vest\vard, enli\-enmg interest in
the Hellenic culture, ^^'hether natives of Anatolia, S\Tia, Macedonia, or the heartland of Greece,
they were all reared in the climate of Byzantine civihzation, and identified themselves \^'ith it.

Manuel Cluy'soloras, a native of Constantinople, for instance, went to \'enice as early as 1394
to sohcit aid against the Turks, though \\'ith httle success, and a few years later was called to

Florence as a professor of Greek. In \'enice, Padua, Milan, and Rome, centers were being
formed to study Greek culture. A pupil of Chr}-soloras was among the first of many Itahans to
tra\el to Constantinople for the purpose of collecting Greek manuscripts.^^ The great Renais-
sance princes of Italy, whose ancestors vaunted their horses, their falcons, their knights, began
to \ie with one another for the possession of some exquisite volume for their growing hbraries

and for the copying of a rare manuscript.

As Sultan Mohammed closed in on Constantinople, the inhabitants fled in masses toward the
West. The cit\- that the Turkish army entered was a shadow of the once magnificent capital;
its population is estimated to have been no more than a hundred thousand. Although the cus-

tomary' atrocities were committed —

which were routine in that period and sur\ive on the largest
scale to the present day —
the conqueror put a stop to them before the destruction came near
to that wTOught by the vahant Christian warriors of the Fourth Crusade. Resolved to make

his capital great and beautiful once more, the sultan decreed that repairs begin; municipal

bazaars, baths, inns, and kitchens for the poor were constructed; and gardens with fountains
were laid out to re\ive the brilliance for which the city had been famous. .\1 though a number
of Christian churches were transformed into mosques, the new buildings were nothing to be

ashamed of, for the Ottoman Turks looked back on an old tradition of imposing buildings
cro\\Tied with gilded domes. As a statesman, Mohammed showed imagination and sagacity.
He invested the incumbent Orthodox patriarch with civil authority over aU Christians in his
realm, and assured them of religious freedom. Besides the Turks, whose influx was natural for
administrative, rehgious, mihtan,-, and commercial purposes, Mohammed permitted to settle
in his capital Jews who had become wanderers, expelled from a number of West European
lands. Armenians, S>Tians, and especially Greeks from Asia Minor were encouraged; craftsmen,
artists, and scholars were made welcome. Mohammed, himself a poet, desired his oapital to

be not only a fortress but a center of learning and culture.

•83-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Unfortunately, neither his successors nor various local caliphs shared his broad-mindedness.
And the westward movement, already following an established route, carried more and more
Greeks toward uncertain destinations. Some, however, remained in the Phanar section of Is-
tanbul on the southern shore of the Golden Horn, where their descendants still are today;
whoever has attended services in the patriarchal church there can see that more than five
himdred years of strife and even a recent massacre have not broken the Greek spirit. Alexandria
also continued as a great Greek center for centuries, and the graduates of its school filled im-
portant posts in many Greek-speaking communities.
Most of the Greek emigres did not know in what
what foreign language spoken
place, with
around tliem, they would close their eyes for the last time. Homeless, they carried with them
their pride in a thousand years of civilization. They received sympathy, homage was offered to
their scholarship, and many of them achieved high positions. In various Western cities at the
end of tlie fifteentli century, medals were coined in honor of distinguished Greek scholars. Their
conduct was that of balanced members of the society which surrounded them.
The Greeks called their dispersal diaspora. The word appears in the Greek translation of the
Bible in connection with the scattering of the Jews after captivity in Babylon. It signifies not
only a scattering but the scattering of the seed. Thus it was used again to denote the setting
forth of Christianized Jews in the Apostolic Age. Applied to the dispersion of the Greeks, it

carries the definite impHcation that they also had a mission. Wherever they lived, the majority
kept up their traditions. At the same time they showed an open mind toward tlie intellectual

achievements of the West. Their numbers were a guarantee against absorption. Nostalgia for
the lost homeland gave them cohesion. Their religious and social life fed on tradition and
memories. Further, correspondence with relatives, in other cities of the West or in Turkish-
occupied lands, made for sohdarity. Their mutual experiences as refugees or emigres soldered
them together into a unity which was a main factor in keeping tliem from melting into their
surroundings. The fact that for centuries such Greek colonies lived as separate bodies, whether
in Italy or in the Balkan States, explains the unparalleled homogeneity.
Besides the Greek colony in Venice, aheady discussed, a number of ports on the eastern
shore of Italy had large Greek Orthodox communities. Greeks had migrated there long before
the tenth century; the contribution of their broad cultural background to the development
of medieval Italy is a factor that is seldom given proper emphasis. ^^ From the port of Brindisi,
the Ionian Islands could easily be visited by a short trip across the Adriatic, and thus com-
munication with the Greek world could be kept up. Bari, the residence of the Byzantine gov-
ernor of Apulia in the ninth century, togetlier with Ancona, established refugee churches.
Reggio Calabria had numerous Greek colonists and a magnificent basilica in Byzantine style.

Its college enjoyed all privileges, and its protopapa, or chief priest, exercised jurisdiction o\'er

his own reUgious community. On the west side of the Itahan peninsula, the ports of Livomo
(Leghorn), Pisa, and Genoa had large Greek populations, whence further migration was pos-
Western Europe. Even the island of Corsica, an Ottoman province in the second
sible into

half of the sixteenth century, had its Greeks, and Malta still keeps up its Orthodox church.
The kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, later known as the Two Sicilies, present a somewhat
different situation. According to many, this area has as eloquent remnants of classical Greece
as Greece itself — in Paestum, Taormina, Siracusa, Agrigento. Some families have continued
from the original Greek colonies of Magna Grccia who first brought the Romans into contact
with Greek culture. Others descend from the Byzantine colonies of the sixth century and later,

•84-
 THE GREEK DL\SPOK\
while some came at the time of iconoclasm. During the Turkish wars in the fifteenth centun'

a group of -Albanians of Orthodox faith settled near Palermo, and their descendants still keep
up ancient traditions in di-ess and dialect. After the fall of Constantinople, o\-er two hundred
thousand more Greeks came to tliese regions as time passed. Their Greek origin survives in
\-illage and family names; in certain mountain areas a Greek dialect is still being spoken, mixed

witli Itahan words. Ha\-ing come imder Spanish authorit\-, and especially through the efforts

of Pope Gregor}- XIII, most of this Greek population became Uniate. The role of the Abbey
of Grottaferrata and of the seminary- and church of St. Athanasius in Rome have aheady been
mentioned.
Greek names are notably difficult to \\Tite as well as to pronounce, and many found on docu-
ments and in records in Europe are unidentifiable. A number of artists and craftsmen in Italy
received the appellative of Greco, tlie Greek. In the first half of the sixteenth centur}- a Vettore
Greco and a Domenico daUe Greche were acti\-e in \'enice, the latter working in the studio
of Titian. A Gio\'anni Greco is recorded at Cividale. northern Italy, at that time, and an Antonius
Basilakas was helper to Tintoretto and \'eronese for years. A Michele Greco was engra\-er
and painter in Rome toward the end of the sixteenth centun,-, and a Paolo Greco was the
teacher of Salvatore Rosa in Naples. In the same cit\- a painter, Jenaro Greco, was active in the

second half of the seventeenth centur\-. About the same time a chess expert in Italy. Joaquin
Greco, brought out a book on his subject. Vasari mentions an engraver of medals whose name
was Itahanized to -\lessandro Cesari but who was generally kno\Mi as II Greco. Gaetano Greco.
a Greek composer bom in Naples in the second half of the seventeenth centur\-, was a pupil of
.•Vlessandro Scarlatti and a teacher of Giovanni Pergolesi. How many famihes in New York even

today show Greek descent is e\-idenced in the Manhattan telephone book, which contains nearly
a hundred entries under Greco or Grieco.
Those who came from the West into Greece as administrators of the Latin occupation became
impregnated with Greek culture —the family Acciaioli, for instance, whose head was a Duke
of Athens. Though the family returned to Italy about eight}- years before the faU of Constan-
tinople, it e\-idently kept up its pride in the Greek language and culture. Donato Acciaioli.
bom in Florence, translated .Aristotle and Plutarch with the cooperation of his Greek tutor
-Arg\Topoulos. -Another scion, Zenobio, a Dominican in Florence, translated Hebrew and Greek
works ( h\-es of the saints ) into Latin. For a time he was hbrarian in the \'atican. The family
palace, standing near Florence on the road to Siena, is kno\^Ti as Monte Gufone. A few decades
ago it was acquired by Sir George Sitwell, father of the talented literan,- trio, who restored not
only the building but also the surrounding gardens. During World War II its stomi-battered
walls housed the masterpieces from the UfBzi and Pitti galleries, as well as other irreplaceable
art collections.

In a number Western countries. Orthodox communities existed under considerable re-

of
striction. Their churches had to be built in court\-ards, off and away from streets where im-
portant traffic flowed; towers and domes, if pemiitted at all, had to be kept so low as to re-
main inconspicuous; no bells were allowed. Nevertheless, intellectually, a congenial atmosphere
existed for the Greeks in many places, through the flourishing spirit of the Renaissance. The
Venetian Republic, especially after the loss of Crete, applied a less hea\y hand toward her
Greek Orthodox subjects. They were permitted to practice their religion, they retained their
rights, and status was given tlieir priests. As early as 15S2 the \'enetian Senate made protective
rulings that applied especially to the Dalmatian cities of Cattaro, Sebenico, and Zara, as many
•85-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Greek mercenary soldiers with their families resided there, some retired from, and some still

active in, the service of tlie repubhc.

Both Trieste and Pola on the Istrian Peninsula, which once belonged to Venice, had large
Greek colonies, li\'ing witnesses to the steadfastness of a suppressed people. At the time of Na-
poleon, Trieste alone counted over 1,200 Greek Orthodox residents, who sustained seventeen
priests, many them from Mount Athos, and kept up close connections with the Greek patri-
of
arch in Constantinople. The city oflFered a foothold also to Orthodox Serbian refugees. In Pola
a colony was founded before 1580, mainly by people from Crete, especially Candia, but also
from Cyprus and Apulia. That the widely scattered Greeks still feel close ties to the Orthodox
world is shown by the fact, already mentioned, that during the War of Independence in 1821
the icons from the monastery of Gonia in Crete were sent for safety to Trieste and, during
World War II, were safeguarded in Pola.
Of the Orthodox that moved toward the West, the earUest came mainly to appeal for help
against the Turks. Later came the intellectuals, then the merchants and craftsmen and the httle
people, many of whom aheady had connections there through family or friends. Since Russia
was converted to Christendom from Byzantium, it was natural that a number of the highest
ecclesiastics, nobility, and artistic eUte should be drawn to that vast territory, where, among

their corehgionists, they contributed greatly to the rehgious and intellectual life. One of the
finest Byzantine painters, known as Theophanes the Greek, is regarded as having set the stand-

ard of Russia's rehgious painting in the late fourteenth century. Within the next hundred
years Russia had absorbed various outside influences, regional characteristics became more
and more marked, and a national school made its appearance.
On the northern hmits of Turkish-occupied Europe, the lands belonging to the Himgarian
and Austrian crowns became hosts to many thousands of refugees. In the principality of Tran-
sylvania, in eastern Hungary, a bastion of Protestantism since earliest times, unusual tolerance
existed. A refugee scholar, Jacobos Palaeologos, was for years the head of the Unitarian College
in Kolozsvar (today Cluj in Romania). In the early seventeenth century, the Cretan Stavrinos,
also a refugee in Transylvania, wrote an epic poem in Greek on the vahant Moldavian prince
who erected splendid churches and monasteries in his principality (see PI. 17B and C). More
than 150 Hungarian place names either prove to be of Greek derivation or carry the adjective
"Greek" as prefix. In a number of instances, Greeks and refugee Serbians worshiped in the same
building until they were able to build their own churches.
The success of the Greek refugees can be mainly explained in that they worked in brotherly

partnership. Through their wide-flung connections they had the advantage of exchanging
correspondence, information, and trade that cut across borders. In Hungary alone, more than
twenty-five commercial companies existed who maintained commercial relations vdth West
and East, since they had the confidence equally of Christian and of Moslem authorities. During
the entire period that the Danubian plain was occupied by the Turks, Greek merchants trav-
eled from Moslem-controlled areas into the Habsburg domain and farther west. They were
known as skillful and reliable businessmen. Though scattered over many parts of the globe,
the Greeks were conscious of belonging to a great nation, and cherished the hope of return
to their ancestral lands.
As Greek scholarship rose in the West, it diminished in Turkish-occupied territories with
the increasing exodus. But as the prosperity of the refugees grew, they did not forget relatives
living under Turkish occupation. In the seventeenth century the well-established Greek colonies,

•86-
 THE GREEK DIASPORA
notably in Venice, took the initiative, subscribed money, and sent teachers back. Powerful
Greek schools were kept up by such contributions in Siatista, Kozany, and Moshopolis, aU in
Macedonia, and and Kastoria,
Istanbul, Jassy, Bucharest, Athens, Chios, Smyrna, Thessaloniki,
among many others. Over twenty-five Greek schools of high scholarly standing were supported
by the colonists residing in Hungary. Greek books were printed in a number of cities in the
Habsburg domain and sent as far as the shores of the Black Sea and even beyond, while Greek
presses in Hungary in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced more than a hundred
For a time both Vienna and Venice published Greek newspapers.
titles.

The stream of Orthodox refugees dwindles when followed into Western Europe, and the
tight cohesion of the group loosens. Their progress can be traced only haphazardly, mostly as
individual careers to be found in the records of the universities, Hbraries, in commercial con-
tracts, or even police registers. Generally in the Germanic lands, where Protestantism was
strong, the Orthodox emigres encountered few handicaps. ^^ France, after the fall of Gonstanti-
nople, took Greek refugees into the army as officers as well as common soldiers —probably
mainly as technicians. Records show some Greeks in the University of Paris, others in com-
merce. Around 1470, Louis XI invited Greek weavers to Tours when he founded the silk in-
dustry there, as they were very skillful in the craft. Charles VII gave pensions to a number
which are documented in the ledgers of the gendarmerie du roi. One of the pensioners
of Greeks,
was George Palaeologos, nephew of the Byzantine emperor who fell in the defense of Con-
stantinople.
A was that of Joannis, or Janus Lascaris ( ca. 1445-1535 ) who after the con-
typical career ,

quest of the capital was taken as a child to the Peloponnesus and thence to Crete. He later ap-
pears at the court of the Medici in Florence. A protege of the great Bessarion, Lascaris was
instrumental in the purchase for the Medici library of more than two hundred Greek manu-
scripts from the sultan in Istanbul. At the downfall of the Medici, during the invasion of Charles

VIII of France, Lascaris followed the French king to Paris, where he lectured in Greek. Re-
turning to Venice as an emissary of the French king, he was called by the incumbent pope, a
Medici, to take charge of the Greek college which was planned for Rome, and he founded a
Greek printing press Meanwhile Francis I of France invited a group of Greek
in that city.
scholars to organize, catalogue, and study the contents of the library at Fontainebleau. The
catalogue, finished in 1552 by Constantin Palaeokapa, lists 546 Greek manuscripts. The keeper
of this hbrary, under Francis I and three subsequent kings, was the Cretan Angelos Vergitzes,
known in France as Ange Vergece, an expert copyist who bore the title of Grec du Roi. He
later designed a famous letter type. His Cretan-bom son, Nicolas, spent his entire life in

France and was curator of the hbrary at Fontainebleau.^^

Instrumental in bringing the "new learning" to England, specifically Oxford, was the English
physician and humanist Thomas Linacre ( 1460-1524 ) best known as the teacher of Erasmus
,

and personal physician to Henry VIII. Having accompanied the ambassador of Henry VII to
Italy in hisyounger years, he took the degree of doctor of medicine at the University of Padua.
He made friends with a number of Greek refugee scholars and is said to have been among the
first Englishmen to study Greek in Italy. Among Greeks who were active in England were

John Serbopulos, employed as a regular copyist of Greek manuscripts in the abbey at Readmg,
and Demetrios Cantacuzene, who held the same post in London. The distinguished scholar
Andronicos Callistos, bom in Thessaloniki, was called to the University of Paris from Italy
and thence to London.

•87-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
The Byzantine libraries of classical works were the largest and most complete in Christendom,
and without the meticulous work of the Byzantine copyists probably much of our classical
heritage would have been lost. The monastery of St. John the E\angelist on the island of Patmos
once owned six hundred manuscripts of the greatest bibHcal importance. Many found their
way to the West during the centuries. Similarly, the various monasteries at Mount Athos served
as fountainheads of historical and religious authority. Though the vandahsm of the Fourth
Crusade and the Turkish conquest destroyed many precious works that had been brought
together in Constantinople, innumerable volumes remained. Quantities of these were sold to
buyers from the West, principally Italian, when the Turks occupied the city. Refugee families
sold their books to contribute to their li\elihood. As late as the seventeenth centur\-, Byzantine
manuscripts still lay about Istanbul, and the sultan honored the ambassador from Spain with
a valuable selection. ^^
In Europe, only a few years before Constantinople fell, Johann Gutenberg had brought out
the first printed Bible 1436 or 1437 produced from movable tv^e. And the printed page served
( )

the spread of Greek culture in the Renaissance at an accelerated pace. Tedious lettering with
a quill pen was no longer the only means of distributing the thoughts of distinguished philos-
ophers in a wider The printed and bound book was easier to handle, and chapters could
circle.

be scanned in a short time. Ideas which up to then had been concentrated on scarce hand-
WTitten pages could pro\-ide new stimulus with the new technique, in new areas. The first
Greek book was issued in 1476 by the press of Constantin Lascaris —probably the elder brother
of Joannis Lascaris just discussed —
where he acted as tutor in Greek to the daughter
in Milan,
of the Sforza duke. Well known among
Greek scholars in the West is Leon Alatris, or
later
Alatres, Latinized Allatius and Italianized Alacci, who was bom on the island of Chios in
15S6. Noted for his remarkable memor\', he was translator and commentator of numerous
Greek authors, editor in chief in Rome and Paris, .\llatius became librarian of Cardinal Barber-
ini in Rome and later held the same position in the Vatican.
In the first two decades of the sixteenth century, Greek books were printed outside Italy in
Erfurt, Wittenberg, Tubingen, Strasbourg, Leipzig, Basel, Vienna, Xiimberg, Augsburg, and
Cologne. In 1513 the first Antwerp and Louvain; in 1517 in
Greek printed books appeared in
Paris; Cambridge, England, followed in 1521; Cracow, Poland, in 1529; and London in 1543.

.\s for Spain, in 1499 Cardinal Jimenez, Archbishop of Toledo and founder of the imiversity

in Alcala de Henares, invited Demetrios Dukas, a Cretan, a member of the Academy of .\ldus
Manutius in Venice, to and establish a printing shop for Greek books. The first
come to Alcala
imprint of his Spanish shop in 1514 was the tale of Hero and Leander. The same year Jimenez
brought out the first polyglot Bible, with Hebrew, Chaldean, Greek, and Latin texts. Another
Cretan, known only as Andreas of Crete, was numbered among the first professors at the imi-
versity. In Salamanca, the university's Plateresque fa9ade, bmlt in the mid-sixteenth centur)',
has a medalHon of Ferdinand and Isabella in the center, wath an "homage" inscribed on the
frame —not in Spanish, but in Greek. That Greeks were settled in Spain in larger groups than
is realized today can be seen in the fact that a village called Griegos still exists with a popu-
lation of about five hundred, in the municipality of Teruel in Catalonia, a region internationally
known for its remarkable Byzantine-influenced Romanesque murals.
Data, often stumbled upon, reveals wandering Greeks, educated or skilled in crafts, turning
up at an early date and in most unexpected places. Greek artists appear in Spain before El
Greco. In 1563 a Pedro el Greco is recorded as painter and poet active in Barcelona; he dec-

•88-

^
 THE GREEK DIASPORA
orated an organ case in Tarragona. Somewhat later a Nicolas Greco appears in Segovia as

painter and pirotecnico, having personally installed a fireworks display there with "serpents
and other animals of fire." He constructed and painted also a gigantic funerary monument at Se-
govia for tlie memorial services of Philip H.^ From a manuscript copied in Spain at Wilham H.
Prescott's expense for The Conquest of Peru, it transpires that Pizarro's commander of artillery on
that spectacular expedition was a Pedro de Candia, apparently a man of many-sided talents,
useful in such an enterprise. "Greek fire" was by no means the loftiest achievement of Byzan-
tium, but sailors and soldiers feared it as an early version of the flame-thrower, and a number
of Greek mihtary technicians seemed to have possessed the secret of its manufacture. Pedro
was one of fourteen who declared themselves willing to push on for Peru in ships that had been
constructed in Panama.On one occasion he went ashore as spokesman, in full dress with polished
armor and weapons. Later he supervised the casting of canon in Cuzco, high in the Peruvian
Andes, with a number of "Levantines" ( as Prescott calls them ) who were well acquainted with
such manufacture. They produced also firearms, cuirasses, and helmets, in which silver was
mingled with copper, of such excellent quality that "they might vie with those from Milan."
It would appear that Pedro de Candia was in the New World from 1524 to 1542 when he

was by another Spanish conquistador in a factional war. In South America, at the end
killed
of the sixteenth century, are found in documents artists and artisans with such names as Juan
Griego, Jacome Griego, and Juan de Gandia, and in Mexico a painter by the name of Marcos
Griego is recorded.
A Cardinal of Burgos, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503-1575), was Gharles V's Spanish
ambassador in Italy for twenty years, residing mainly in Venice. He was very much interested
in Greek literature, had a number of scholars scouting in Italy for Greek manuscripts, and
spent much money to have manuscripts copied from the Bessarion collection in Venice. In
the Ambrosiana Library of Milan is a catalogue, written in longhand, listing the Greek books
which were copied for In Rome, also, he employed a number of Greek copyists,
this cardinal.

who acted some of them from the island of Corfu, others from the Greek
as calligraphers as well,
mainland. Mendoza even sent a Greek scholar back to Thessaly and to some of the monasteries
of Mount Athos, to seek out and buy important Greek works for him. This cardinal also
took part in the Council of Trent. He had never been a favorite of Phihp II and was finally
banished from the couit to Granada, where he spent his last years in Hterary pursuits.
After his death, just about the time that El Greco arrived in Spain, his entire collection of
—
books was sent to the Escorial Library not an unusual manner of increasing royal treasure.
The books in the Escorial Library were catalogued soon after the building was finished.
The first list mentions thirty-five Greek manuscripts. It is interesting to note that the Byzantine
medieval epic poem Digenes Akritas came to light in the Escorial collection.^^ Some forty
Greek calhgraphers were active in producing copies for the library, according to a list that
contains not only the names of each copyist but also the copies that were made by his hand
for the Spanish monarch. Few of these men were from the Greek mainland; most were from
the scattered island empire of the Hellenistic world. Notable was Jacobos Episkopoulos, a
calligrapher who came from Germany and found employment at the Escorial. Other Greeks
estabhshed themselves as dealers in such manuscripts.
The first chief cataloguer of the Greek collection at the Escorial was Nicolaos Turrianos,
with the title from Philip II of Copyist to the King. He was also a miniature painter.^" The
Spaniards, with the standard practice of European countries, simplified his name for their

•89-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
own and from 1587 on he is often mentioned in documents as Nicolas de la Torre. He,
usage,
however, always signs his Greek name in Greek characters and adds in cursive script kres,
—
the Cretan indeed, in the same manner in which El Greco generally signed his paintings.
As we have seen, the pride of Cretans in their origin is variously preserved in signatures: a
Byzantine hagiographer who supplied an icon of the Virgin and Child for a church in Cairo
dated the work 1630 and signed it Angelos Kres; in Otranto, a large Greek settlement in south-
em Italy, the master of a busy studio of Cretan painters always signed beside his name the
Latin phrase Grecus Candiotus pinxit.
Many foreigners must have resided was there with
in Toledo, as long as the court of Philip II
its diplomats and attendant retinue. The fact that the cardinal prince primate also hved in

tliat city brought in others from distant lands. Among Toledo's industries silk weaving was

famous, and it is probable that Greek craftsmen were employed there, as was the case when
the French king established his factory in Tours.
If someone hved a quiet, simple life, it may be nearly impossible to find a trace of him be-

yond eventual vital statistics. Archives, even when complete, are necessarily limited to records
of birth, marriage, death, eventual contracts, suits, or criminal records. Among the intellectuals,
at least one Greek
is recorded as estabhshed in Toledo at the time that El Greco first set foot

there. This was Antonio Calosynas, also a Cretan, who achieved a certain fame as physician
and author. Some of his poems were written in honor of Santa Leocadia upon the return of
her remains to Toledo, her birthplace. For the same occasion, El Greco was commissioned
to erect triumphal arches, of which more will be said later.
By the last quarter of the sixteenth century, and on into the seventeenth, another ever-
growing group can be traced: Greeks and other nationals from the Turkish-occupied Levant
—
and the Balkans came to Spain as to various other European lands to plead for funds with —
which to ransom relatives and friends from Turkish captivity. They presented their appeals
to the archbishops of Burgos, Zaragoza, Seville, Granada; but they centered on Toledo because,
besides being the seat of highest rehgious authority,
it housed large establishments of the Trin-

and Mercedarian orders which were formed expressly to help redeem prisoners of the
itarian
Moslems. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the author of Don Quixote, was ransomed from
slavery in Algiers through the mediation of two Trinitarian monks (1580). Unfortunately the
archives of neither order survive, and thus the full picture of their activities in the redemption
of captives will never be known. By lucky chance a record of refugees who presented petitions
in Toledo in the years 1602-1608 was found in an extant register of the royal notary.^^ As they
were all foreign names, nearly all are distorted. Among others are listed:
Yanoda Bayboda [Voyvoda], prince of Moldavia [today Romania], to ransom his wife and
children.
Martheros, archbishop from "Acta Mar," Greater Armenia, for the ransom of various clerics
of his diocese. [This is Achthamar, which is discussed here under Pi. 4A.]
Dionisio Paleologo, bishop from the Ionian island of Ithaca.
Angelo Castro, bishop of Lepanto [Navpaktos].
Friar Niquiforo [Nicephorus?] of the Order of Orthodox monks were Basilian]
St. Basil [all

from the convent of Our Lady of Charity, province of Lepanto, asking alms to rebuild and
decorate his monastery destroyed by the Turks in taking that land.
Estacio [Anastasius?] Iconomo and Jorge his son, from the city of Arta, province of Lepanto
[a city in Epirus].

•90-
 THE GREEK DIASPORA
Jeronimo Cociinari, another bishop.
Estaphano [?] Jamarto, cleric from tlie Peloponnesus, to ransom his son and kindred.
Friar Sabba of the Order of St. Basil, from the convent of Santa Maria de la Iberia, Macedonia,
to ransom six brother monks and the treasures of his monastery. [This is the monastery Iviron
on Momit Athos (see Pis. lOA and 24B), one of the earliest fomidations there.]

Jorge Cocmiari, governor and native of the island of Spiro [Skyros in the Aegean], endeavor-
ing to hberate his wife and four children.
Constantino, a sea captain, to Hberate one child and some sailors.

Jorge de Atenas [Athens], to ransom six captives who are prisoners.

Tomasso Trechello from Nicosia, Cyprus, seeking ransom for his wife and son.
Miguel Zuqui and his son Demetrios, for his wife and children.

Further documents cast a little light on several of these figures. In one, the bishops Paleologo
and Castro named above give the power of attorney to Zuqui to collect whatever alms the
archbishop may grant to them; the paper is witnessed by Trechello.
As a resident of Toledo and a personage of some reputation. El Greco came in early contact
with various Greek refugees, and his name is connected with some of the persons on this Hst.
He and his son Jorge Manuel testify that they know the Athos monk Sabba and that his claims
are true ( 1603 El Greco is named as executor in the last will of Estacio Iconomo who had
) .

fallen gravely ill ( 1605 ) El Greco's serv ant-helper, the Italian Francisco Preboste,
. is vidtness to
the withdrawal of the power of attorney from Cocunari the same year.
—
Trechello of Cyprus whose name in Greek is Tsetselos appears to have been an old —
friend of Manousos Theotokopoulos, a member of El Greco's household who is generally ac-
cepted as the painter's older brother. lU unto death at the end of the year 1603, the Cypriote
handed down minute instructions to Manousos how to dehver the ransom for his dearest ones
if and when it should be received. Manousos himself was old and probably in poor health

he died late the following year. At any rate, he could not carry out his friend's last wishes.
The licenses authorizing the collection of alms fell past due without being used. Manousos then
applied for information about renewing them, using as witnesses Jorge Manuel and F. Preboste.
Shortly afterward he presented a new appeal in favor of those distant compatriots. Jorge Manuel
and Luis Tristan, a pupil of El Greco, witnessed this appHcation, in which Manousos' signature
reveals his debiUtated condition.
The above-mentioned enumeration of refugees constitutes a fragmentary record of only six
years. Neither before 1602 nor after 1608 is information available, a situation that is noted by
the few who had access to the historical archive even before the civil war, as "most singular."
El Greco was resident in Toledo for thirty-seven years. At the same rate, the refugees with
whom he came in contact might reach nearly a hundred. The name of Dr. Calosynas was al-

ready mentioned here, and it is recorded that in 1582 El Greco acted as interpreter before
the Inquisition for a compatriot named Michele Rizo Carcandil. Two other Greek refugees,
Constantin Phocas and Dr. Demetrios Paramoulis, witnessed his signature of the power of
attorney he gave his son a few days before he died in 1614. It cannot even be guessed how
many more refugees came and went in Toledo before El Greco arrived and after he died. By
chance, documentary proof was found in eastern Andalusia that, as late as the eighteenth cen-
tury, Greeks from Moslem-occupied countries were still going about collecting ransom money.
The lack of a comprehensive catalogue, still more an index, in most libraries and archives

.91-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
in Spain makes thorough research of many matters nearly impossible, including the role of
Greeks in tlie comitry. The war not only destroyed many municipal and institutional
civil

archives but, as aftermath, often produced frustrating furtiveness among the officials, in trying
to cover up these losses.
While the life history of today's refugee, if he achieves distinction, most likely will become
tJie subject of newspaper and magazine articles, if not a book, such pubUcity was nonexistent

in previous centuries. Later chroniclers wrote all too often from hearsay and anecdote, and are
imreliable.
One reason for the spottiness of published biographical information from the sixteenth to the
nineteenth centuries stems from the scarcity of paper. When Europe began the production of
rag paper, was an expensive process. By the seventeenth century the need was so great
it

that the population was encouraged to wear clothing made of linen, so that the discarded rags
could be used in the manufacture of paper. War is a major factor in the destruction of assembled
archival material. During the Napoleonic campaign, great losses occurred in the archives of
both the church and the chapter house of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice. Toledo also suf-
fered under the Napoleonic invasion, and the recent civil war brought especially savage de-
struction. When order was restored, the financial situation of the country was at a low ebb.
There was a shortage of everything, including paper. But good paper can be produced by re-

processing old material, especially old rag paper, a custom practiced in many countries. Paper
collections were undertaken in Spain several times in the last decades. The eager collector,
often spurred by a premium offered, found a treasure-trove in the archives of past centuries.
Many were no longer in their original locations but had been deposited in attics,
of these
basements, and in unguarded warehouses, if not in bams. From there to the pulp mills, the way
was short and simple.
Individual ignorance and carelessness were responsible for much loss. Franz Schubert left

an opera, Claudine von which was an autograph, kept in

Villa Bella, the only extant score of
the cupboard of a friend after the composer's death; Acts Two and Three were used piecemeal
by the servants of the old man, to kindle fires.^ Further, it has been found that old documents
and pages of books were sacrificed to strengthen the binding of newer books, by gluing together
layer upon layer, over which the end papers were then pasted. In one case, parts of a twelfth
century Greek liturgical text, a Georgian manuscript, a tenth century and an eleventh century
Greek text, a work in Arabic, and a Hebrew manuscript were all found pasted together.*^
Still another important reason for the disappearance of archival material has not received
consideration. Since the invention of gunpowder, fireworks became increasingly popular.
By the seventeenth century, the display of splendid fireworks became a standard part in the
celebration of victories, royal marriages or births, and other joyful occasions. Pyrotechnical
effects were combined with scenic and dramatic shows. Niimberg was the center for north-
em Europe, and in Italy each large city had its local craftsmen. A Bolognese pyrotechnician
was brought to Paris by Louis XV, and the success of the Italian's layout at Versailles made
fireworks quasi-obligatory at any self-respecting court. Essential to fireworks, whether fixed
on a wooden structure or projected as rockets, were a paper cap and a paper case. For these,
a reliable and durable paper was needed. The casings had to remain intact while the
fireworks went ofi^, and, especially in the case of the rocket, had to last until the powder
mixture had been consumed, and only then disintegrate in the air. The high-quality rag paper
of the old archives was ideally suited to the needs of the pyrotechnicians. By the eighteenth

•92.
 THE GREEK DIASPOR-\
centun.', archival and similar material, such as musical manuscripts, had grown to vast pro-
portions. Openly or clandestinely, such paper was pilfered for tlie fireworks maker. Fascicles
referring to foreigners, such as the Greeks in Spain, or \\Titten in a foreign tongue, such as the
records in San Giorgio dei Greci in \'enice, seemed of littie interest, and expendable. The
old paper proxided for the spectator momentary- briUiance, but its destruction over tlie years
has plunged into darkness social and biographical data of inestimable value.
Xo information is extant as to the rehgious life of the Orthodox or the Uniates in Spain.

It should be remembered that, since they came from an area diat has practiced Christianit)'
from earhest times and from a faith that was looked on by the Roman Church as schismatic
but not heretical, a different kind of suspicion was directed toward them than toward Protes-
tants, Moslems, and Jews. The rites of the Uniates which were encouraged by the \'atican do
not differ much from those of the Orthodox. But seemingly not even the Uniate Church was
ever estabhshed in Spain, though the practice of the ancient Mozarabic Rite was permitted.
The intransigence of Spain toward any other faith is manifest when we realize that only in the
second half of the nineteenth centur\-, and upon the strongest pressure from the czarist court,
was an Orthodox chapel permitted to function in Madrid, e\-en though it was intended only
for the service of the Russian Embassy. Recently, when the United States estabhshed Air Force
bases in Spain, an effort was made to force a ruling by which .American militar\- personnel of
all faithswould ha\"e to ha\e the sacraments of baptism, marriage, and burial administered
exclusively by a Roman Cathohc priest.
Blown by all \\-inds, washed by all waters, barked at by all dogs, the refugees of tlie Greek
diaspora had developed a strong sense of diplomacy, avoiding committing themselves when
it was not absolutely necessar}-. Cognizant of the ruthlessness of the ecclesiastic authorities in

Spain, the refugees doubtless kept to themselves and did everything that a mature philosophy
and their ex-perience as tra\elers dictated not to provoke enmit\- or even evoke attention. \Miile
their names occur in \arious documents, their acti\-ities, their entrances and exits go almost
unilluminated. Those who remained in Spain apparently adjusted to their surroundings. Those
who settled in countries where the Orthodox Rite was permitted or who went back to the
bibhcal lands of Greece returned to the bosom of their mother church.

93
 •VI-

SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
EMIGRE
With the arrival and departure of Greek refugees and others in transit in Toledo, El Greco
must have been weU informed about conditions in Crete. The ring of Turkish conquest was
steadily tightening around the island empire of the Venetian Republic. Venetian overlords
drove the local population mercilessly, not only to subdue their rebellious spirit but also to
force the maximum assistance in the fortification and defense of the island which also served
as a main naval base. Natives could at any time be drafted for the digging of trenches and the
construction of fortifications. In 1562 the Cretan men pressed into service in Venetian galleys
began a revolt in Retliymnon harbor, to which the population added strength in an insurrection
that lasted for nine years. In this period the population fell off alarmingly. Cretans continued
to migrate from the island, often even preferring Istanbul to their native land.
Under the prevailing conditions, it is small wonder that El Greco was not eager to return.
Nor were his successes in Italy apparently enough to satisfy him. He could not become a
leading painter among the many masters whose background and manner of painting were so
different from his own. He may have felt even more resdess in the atmosphere of Rome
at once pagan and Baroque and so alien to his Christian ideals as he had learned them in Crete.
Besides, the Turks were at the very gates of Italy. The island of Malta, so close to the Itahan
mainland, was raided as early as 1472, and many inhabitants were carried into captivity.
African Arabs ravaged it in 1551, and the great siege came in 1565. Although the Turks were
driven off after four months of fighting, Malta was the subject of vicious subsequent attacks.
Two faces of a harassed Venice must have been all too clear to Greek refugees the one, fully—
sovereign in the council of other great powers and liberal toward the residents of her capital,
the other severe in the administration of her colonies.
For many Greeks, Spain represented the most unyielding bulwark against the Moslem power.
Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico,accompanied the Emperor Charles V in a Spanish campaign
against the Turks. John of Austria, half-brother to Philip II, the hero of Lepanto, is said to
have cherished the ambition to hberate the Hellenic lands and rule over them. Spain also
sometimes combined forces with the Papal States stem the overbearing attitude
in trying to
of Venice, and sometimes used Greek scouts to foment disorder among the Venetian mer-
cenary troops, who comprised many of the Orthodox faith. ^°^
While he was in Italy, El Greco could consider going back to Candia or staying in the Byzan-

•94-
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY EMIGRE
tine area. But once in Spain, in his mid-thirties, with a household estabHshed, he must have
kno\Mi that another move was impractical. For a contemplative person such as El Greco was,
the landlocked cit>' of Toledo, witli its reduced tempo, its many-faceted art, and highly in-

tellectual atmosphere, might well have appeared attracti\e — especially after Philip II had
declined to employ him further in the Escorial. Pressed as Toledo was within the ring of its

fortif\-ing walls, the city^'s artistic opportunities were limited — the chance to set up a new
retable, to construct a chapel, or decorate some new structure beyond the city walls . His stature
was larger there than in Madrid or at the Escorial, where favored artists congregated in great
numbers and spun their intrigues.

Since the first monographs on El Greco were written, tAvo world wars and subsequent up-
heaval have made The early years
multitudes homeless. of the twentieth century saw first the
wane of Turkish power on the European continent and, after \\'orld War I, the disintegration
of three other large empires —Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Germany. In aU tliese, \arious
nationahties were hving one beside another, differentiated by language, rehgion, and custom
but held together by a centrahzed government. When these frames fell apart, forced and

voluntar}'movement of masses began. Bolshe\ism, fascism, falangism, and nazism persecuted

miUions. By the time Hitler became the master of the European continent, the migration had
grown into the hundreds of thousands. In Turkey, Kemal Ataturk forcibly evacuated a con-
siderable Greek population from his countr}-. In India, when the Hindu and Mohammedan
areas were di\ided, large-scale forced migrations took place. The struggle going on in Asia
and Africa shows what emotions are loosed in the mo\ement of peoples of different race and
rehgion. Today, when emigres, refugees, and exiles are hving in nearly all lands, the psychology
of the uprooted has become famihar.
Some echo of what an infant hears in the parental house wiU always remain, whate\-er change
occurs in its domicile; and the nation hves in its language. This writer spoke Spanish in Athens
and Thessaloniki \\-ith. descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in the sixteenth
century. Many grandchildren of the White Russians who left Russia in 1916 or later still speak
their ancestral tongue. Walking by a Chinese laundry or restaurant in the United States, few
of us reahze that we are passing an alien island. The wife of a French refugee archaeologist
who occupied a highly paid position in this countr\' told this wTiter, "I speak Enghsh here only
at the market." The Czech historian, a Hitler refugee, on leaving with his wife a part\- at his

American benefactor's, \^ith the hostess still standing in the door, wiU turn to Czech in mid-
sentence before the elevator has closed upon them. When Thomas Mann reached the United
States and was asked whether settHng in California, so far from his native land, would influence
his wTiting, his answer was, "Where my desk is, there is Germany. . .
." Igor Stravinsk\- has
hved for many few would Hst him as an American composer.
years on the Pacific coast, but
During the war a German refugee in La Paz, Boh\ia, urged us to buy prewar photographs of her
native Dresden, bitterly deploring the bombing of the cit\'. When I countered that London,
Coventry', .Amsterdam, and Belgrade also had been blasted, her answer was, "Aber they are
not German citiesi"

In the Greek, nationahsm is fused \\-ith an inspired religious conviction. He is by temperament

voluble, adventurous, and intransigent. He will sometimes admire the logic in an aphorism
more than cold fact. His loyalt\' to the family clan is strong. Many a brother in the United
States will not marr\- untH he has supphed a dowr\- for his unmarried sisters in the "old country."

•95-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
A Greek businessman who has made good in the United States will build a park, donate a
hospital, a school, in his native village, as physical proof of his loyalty to his Greekdom. In
Tarpon Springs, home port of sponge fishermen of Greek origin in Florida, there is a large
Orthodox church and, on the beach, a sign warning against deep water v^Titten only in Greek. —
Alter the last war a Greek friend of ours was assigned as ambassador to Holland. When, some
years later in Athens, we asked him how he had liked his post, his answer was: "The ambas-
—
sadorship was all right but it was so tiresome to have to travel back and forth to Rotterdam.
There are no Greeks in The Hague."

El Greco never failed to emphasize his Cretan birth —which

him meant the supreme among
to
tlie Candia especially had become
superior. In his youth, Crete stood at a high cultural level.
a refuge and repository of Hellenic culture. Cretan murals and icons carried on the Byzantine
tradition and embodied a profound spiritual content. Cretan romancers, poets, and dramatists
had begun a new literary epoch. This enlightened spirit went into the forming of his character.
El Greco was thirty-six years old when the first document calls him a resident of Toledo.
He must have had a certain nimbus of the much-traveled and experienced person about him,
and to his Spanish contemporaries, few of whom by order of Phihp II were permitted to travel
abroad, he must have presented a fascinating personahty. Greek was fashionable as a mark
of highest culture throughout Europe. His library contained a splendid choice of books,
among them the great authors of the Golden Age of Greece in the original. He must have been
sought out by ecclesiastics and intellectuals of the city, many of whose portraits he painted.
Francisco Pacheco, Spanish painter and arbiter of Spanish iconography for the Counter Re-
formation, who describes a visit with El Greco in 1611, reveals him to have placed philosophy
over and records that he had wTitten on art and philosophy. But the manuscript, which
art,

was most probably in Greek, was soon lost, uninteUigible to those who handled his property.
No record survives of his contribution to the intellectual life of Toledo during the thirty-
seven years of his residence there. Toledo had a university, though was on a smaller scale it

than those of Alcala and Salamanca. Theology, law, medicine, the arts, and Greek were taught
— all subject to censorship of the church. Toledo also had several "literary academies." Here

one should not think of nineteenth centur)^ institutions, with many rows of chairs set in a
bleak assembly hall. The academies of Toledo met in the rooms of a vicar of tlie cathedral,
the apartment of a count, a country mansion — known in Toledan vernacular as el cigarral for

the crickets that sang in its garden.

The great Spanish poet and playwTight Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, called Lope de Vega
(1562-1635), hved in Toledo for some time during El Greco's residence there, as did Miguel
de Cervantes Saavedra ( 1547-1616 ) There is no mention of El Greco in tlie \\Titings of those
.

two giants of Spanish literature or in the reports about them, although they are known to have
had mutual friends. Nor have any of El Greco's portraits been identified as representing them.
Cervantes, guest at a rustic Toledan inn at the edge of the city, was perhaps the most traveled
of El Greco's contemporaries in Toledo, participant of the battle of Lepanto which cost him
his left arm, fighter against the African pirates, and enslaved in Algiers for five years. But he
wrote in the vernacular, and his scene was genuinely Spanish. El Greco, who had brought
with himself the standards of an elevated classical world, may have found little in common
with this realist of Shakespearean caliber and earthiness. Similarly Lope de \'ega, although
he boasted a command of the classical poetic forms, WTOte his famous comedies in a manner

•96-

«
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY EMIGRE
to satisfy popular taste. While preparing for ordination as a priest (which took place in due
time), Lope de Vega Hved with a graceful comedienne in concuhinato y adulterio consentido.
It has been said that El Greco was theological-minded and ascetic; that the Toledan society

was refined, of aristocratic temperament, and devout; and that nowhere else could El Greco
have been understood, in a Europe which was "Protestant and paganized." However, it is
difficult to reconcile such assertions with the fact that El Greco also hved in concubinage,

acknowledging the son of this relationship only a week before he died.

Although El Greco was the only Greek whose name is lastingly connected with the history
of art in Spain, the hst is long of foreign artists and architects, especially Flemish and ItaUan,
who lent their talents to Spain before she achieved a fully articulate national school. More
Itahan artists than Spaniards took part in the construction and decoration of the Escorial.
Salvador de Madariaga, although an emigre for a quarter of a century, still hves in the chmate
of el milagro espaiiol, and writes that "Spain is the only part of the world in which the art

of painting has been continuously cultivated since the prehistoric cave-dwelling days. . . .

Painting as the soul's endeavor to capture and retain movement is a characteristically Spanish
art."^
The lines that constitute the imaginary portrait of El Greco are blurred by overemphasis
Some Spanish writers have put up so much national bunting around
of his Spanish characteristics.
him as almost to obscure his figure. Up to the threshold of our present century. El Greco was
— —
mentioned when his name came up at all as a foreigner, a Greek. In a catalogue of the
Prado, dated as late as 1910, he is classified as a painter of the "Italian School." ^^^
Now, since
his cult has begun, he is being presented as a Spanish painter, and his Cretan birth and for-
midable Byzantine heritage are hurried over.
A painter's life may be an open book, Uke Tintoretto's, who was bom, was active, and died
in Venice. The long distance El Greco traveled before he became known as a painter in Spain,
and the lack of reveaUng personal data even in Toledo, leave much of his life and personaUty
enigmatic.

Nothing is known about the woman who bore El Greco a son in 1578 except her name.
El Greco gives it when, in 1614, the week before he power of attorney to
died, he assigns the
Jorge Manuel as his son and that of Jeronima de las Cuevas. No document has come to light
to prove that he married her, nor has a registration of the birth or the baptism of the child been
found, although Jorge Manuel's own two marriages are registered. Titian, on the other hand,
married his consort, when she fell very ill, and legahzed his grown children. It is probable
that Jorge Manuel's mother was no longer in the household at the time of the painter's death,
since she is mentioned only ad passim, while provision is made for a servant, Maria Gomez, who
was with the family for twenty years.
Jorge Manuel was, hke his father, painter, sculptor, and architect, and he worked with his
father most probably from early youth. But he lacked the talent of the older man and the
cosmopolitan and eclectic background. From 1597, at the age of nineteen — just about the age
that his father is believed to have been when he arrived in Venice —Jorge Manuel assumed
considerable authority in the business of the atelier. ^^^ His name occurs in documents chiefly
as architect and sculptor, the designer of a number of retables. He died in 1631.
Jorge Manuel is a mellifluent name in Spanish; in Greek it carries considerable significance.
St. George is one of the principal saints of Greek Orthodoxy, patron of the Greek nation, and
 EL GRECO REVISITED
one of the fourteen Holy Helpers. In the Greek royal family there is always at least one George.

In Byzantine and later Russian art, the figure of George on a white charger, fighting the
St.

dragon, is one of the most popular subjects, whether on the walls of a medieval church or on
an icon. The Greek church in Venice is dedicated to him. Jorge Manuel may also have been
named for his uncle. Emmanuel is another favorite Greek name. Manos is the diminutive es-
pecially favored in Crete —and Manousos, a superdiminutive. This was the name of El Greco's
older brother who came to Toledo and lived with him, possibly for more than a decade.
In recent research in the Greek archives in Venice, the name Manousos Theotokopoulos ap-
pears in two petitions to the Venetian Senate and in the replies of that august body. In the
year 1572, the year after the battle of Lepanto, four Cretans, Spanopoulo of Sfakion, and Bas-
surati, Casavello, and Manusso (as he is spelled tliere) Theotokopoulos of Candia, offer their
services as privateers to the Republic of Venice to harass the Turks, requesting the grant of
galleys armed with artillery and sundry other weapons, for which they will pay, and submit-
ting a rate at which they will divide with the republic the prisoners taken for ransom. They
advance a bond in guarantee of the deal. In the subsequent consultation, Manusso and his
companions are recommended as valorous and experienced in this profession, from whom "use-
ful and fruitful service" can be expected. Thereupon the authorities of the Venetian arsenal are
ordered to deliver four galleys well equipped, and the price of the prisoners is set at fifteen to
twenty ducats apiece. The men are warned to keep outside the Venetian Bay and not to
molest any Cliristian property unless especially instructed to do so. In reply, the privateers
beg to be reheved of tiie responsibihty of repairing their own ships (for, in efficiency, the great
Venetian arsenal was above all competition), and in compensation they offer to deliver not a
quarter but a half of their prisoners to the Signoria, to which the authorities agree. '^^
This might be the same Manousos Theotokopoulos who is named in tlie records of the Greek
community in Venice in 1588 as a candidate for the Council of Forty which presided o\er the
Greek colony there. He failed of election. Three years later the records show he again sub-
mitted his name and again failed.
A tliird instance in which the name appears is in the Cretan archives in \'enice. This con-
cerns a Manousos Theotokopoulos who was tax collector for the repubhc in the city of Candia
from 1566 to 1583. It was not uncommon that such a fiscal agent, who obliged himself to pay
a certain yearly sum to the authorities for the tax monopoly over a given territory, failed to
meet his obligations. Manousos handled around sixty tliousand ducats in the seventeen years
and ended with a deficit of some six thousand. The sale of liis property brought only half the
amount, and he went to prison in default of the rest. Within an old fortification waU, today
in the heart of Heraklion ( Candia ) a vaulted, windowless chamber
, a section of the casemate —
— can be seen, which served the Venetian administration as prison for debtors and similar
offenders. According to the documents, Manousos soon fell ill and was granted house arrest.
After four years of such custody, in 1588 he petitioned the republic for twenty' years of grace
in wliich to raise tlie lacking sum, and seven months later he was accorded twel\e years under
^^
condition of "worthy guarantees."
Jorge Manuel indicates in a document that the Toledan Manousos, brother of El Greco,
was bom in 1529 or 1530. This would make him in his early forties when he proposed to under-
take the strenuous and daring role of privateer — if that be our Manousos. If it be tlie defaulting
tax collector, he would have been about sixty years old when he was released from Venetian
custody in Candia. Considering the highly unsettled situation on his native island, there would

•98-
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY l^MIGRE
have been little chance for him to raise the money there. It would have been attractive to the
aging man to join his yomiger brother who was estabHshed in Spain. Then if his efforts to
collect the money were misuccessful, he would be entirely outside the jurisdiction of the
Venetian Republic and still could enjoy his last years in a family circle among other Greek
emigres.
As previously mentioned, the name of Manousos occurrs also in the archives of Toledo
in connection witli the collection of alms to ransom the family of a refugee from Cyprus. He
transfers the hcenses late in October of 1604, because he is old and infirm. Two months later,

in the register of the church of Santo Tome is an entry that "Manuel griego" died, having
received the sacrament.
Francisco Preboste, an Italian painter, trusted assistant and household servant, is recorded
home, together with Manousos and Jorge Manuel. In some contracts,
as living also in El Greco's
Preboste was authorized to finish a project in case of the master's death. The famous art em-
broiderer Pedro de Mesa received a shipment of pictures on canvas and other objects from a
"Dominico Griego" in May by Preboste, for sale at the Seville art market. Seem-
of 1597, sent
ingly an accoimting was delayed, because somewhat later a Juan Agustin Ansaldo, native of
Genoa who was hving in Seville at the time, received a power of attorney signed by El Greco
and Preboste, to take over those pictures which had not yet been sold and get the cash for
the objects already disposed of. The transaction is not only revealing of Preboste's role in the
administration of El Greco's affairs but also of the routine of the atelier. Like typical emigres,
the Cretan and the Itahan did not seek out a Spaniard but another foreigner as a person of
confidence. In 1604 Preboste gives his age as fifty. His name appears in a number of documents
between 1576 and 1607. Luis Tristan, a Spanish pupil of El Greco's, seems to have been active
in the ateher from 1603, at least until 1607.
One wonders what languages were spoken in commanded
the household of El Greco. Preboste
Itahan best, and Jorge Manuel, bom in Toledo, most probably spoke only Spanish fluently. The
Cretan master preferred his native tongue. It has been said that he fell into Greek when anyone
present spoke and that he cursed in Greek; he probably counted and prayed in Greek.
it

In one's twenties, as El Greco was when he lived in Venice, one does not easily change the
habits formed in childhood, especially those involving his inner hfe. The Spaniards who spoke
Greek with El Greco sought occasion to practice the language, and their conversations were
probably of academic interest, high-flown and often remote in subject. From the behavior of
present-day emigres and refugees, analyzing and weighing their adopted land, we can surmise
what El Greco discussed with his compatriots in their vernacular, practically a secret tongue
in Toledo, when they sat in his house with the shutters closed for the night what they praised, —
what they disparaged, how they devised plans for various eventualities and for mutual help.
And when the actual matters had been discussed, how reminiscences of the homeland revived
their spirit! The word "nostalgia" comes from the Greek nostos, the return journey home, and
algos, pain.
El Greco had several altercations about the payments due for his paintings. This alone was
not unusual. Payments were very often delayed and reduced from what the artist claimed or
even had definitely contracted for. Such giants as Michelangelo and Titian were notably
involved in collecting their due. The latter wrote a number of letters to Charles V and Philip II
to urge themsend him the price of paintings already in their hands. Artists in all periods
to
were concerned to have a steady income instead of the fluctuating sums that occasionally fell

•99-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
to them for tlieir work. Tintoretto requested from the Venetian Senate that an annuity of about a
hundred ducats — part of tlie returns from a brokership in the Fondaco de' Tedeschi be assigned —
to him pa\Tnent
as for his vast canvas of the Battle of Lepanto."® It is illuminating of El Greco's
character he—
tliat as a foreigner —had the moral conviction and the courage to take his claims

to tlie law court and fight for his rights, in one instance appealing to the king, lq another
tlireatening to take the matter as high as the Vatican.
In view of the experiences of various foreign and even Spanish artists before the Inquisition,
El Greco's first lawsuit is reveahng of his intransigence, on the occasion when he came the clos-

est to a brush with the Holy OflBce. In 1579 he delivered his painting of the Disrobing of
Clirist for the Cathedral of Toledo (see Pi. 58B.) As was the custom, experts were appointed
by both parties to set a value on the painting. They, as well as an arbiter later called in to settle

the dispute, agreed on a price the cathedral authorities felt was excessive. At this point the
church officials brought in theological objections to the composition: other heads had been
placed higher than tliat of Christ in the arrangement; the three Mar\'s were put in the left

foregroimd close to the figure of Christ, when in the Scripture "they stood afar off." El Greco
was summoned to the mayor of Toledo ostensibly to argue the price of the painting, but the
case soon turned to the imcommon grouping was the first time that
in the biblical scene. This
he had stood before authorities in a foreign country who were keeping a wary eye on new-come
ahens, and he showed amazing acumen. He said that he was unfamihar \\'ith the Castihan
tongue and asked for an interpreter. (He had lived two or three years in the countzy. ) He
requested a transcript of the proceedings. When he was asked why he had come to Toledo,
he said he was not obhged to answer the query. Although he was instructed to change some
details of the composition, the fact remains that was finally accepted as originally painted.
it

Further, the composition was seemingly so well Hked that around seventeen versions of the
subject were executed, some the work of his ateHer.
In the case of the Burial of Count Orgaz (see Pi. 68 A), the two experts who examined the
finished painting put a higher evaluation on it than the price originally agreed to. The church
officials contested the change, and the intractable painter appealed from authority to authority,

tlireatening to turn to the pope himself. When the quarrel began to take on exaggerated
proportions. El Greco was persuaded to accept the original terms if paid within a short time
(15S8).
Another suit developed from the painting of St. Martin and the Beggar in which an expert
was brought in from Madrid to assess the value of the work. And El Greco finally received the
amount he had originally asked.
At the turn of tlie century. El Greco contracted to execute an entire retable, even to the
gilding of the woodwork, for the chapel of the Hospital de la Caridad at Illescas. The town of
Illescashad considerable importance at that time. Halfway between Toledo and Madrid, it
served as an overnight station for travelers. As seldom as the king went in those years to the
old Castihan capital, nevertheless a massive and sumptuous casa real was maintained for
—
him at Illescas which has become a sorry sight today. In litigation o\er his pa\Tnent, El Greco
again opposed powerful antagonists, and again, when outside authorities were called in, they
vindicated him.
While El Greco's unusual and in some ways rebellious character is illuminated in the fore-
going cases, the most significant was his behavior in a matter also identffied with the Illescas
retable, that resulted in a miique \ictory for tlie painter. At the time of Phihp II, it was the

•100-
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY EMIGRE
custom in Castile to exact a tax of 10 per cent on every item which was sold in any business
a forerunner of our modem sales tax —
and this was applicable to every product, whether a piece
of art, a strip of velvet, a chair, or the eggs and salad in the market place. Each time an article
changed hands, the 10 per cent was again was so much resented that the com-
collected. This
munities arranged with the finance authorities to pay a lump sum annually, which in 1581
brought in, for Castile alone, a quarter of a miUion gold ducats. Nevertheless Spain was already
bankrupt. It should be recalled that the nobility and the clergy were tax free in those days. The
privilege of these groups was one cause of the many upheavals in the history of feudal Europe,
which hved on an authoritarian basis. In certain lands, up to the revolutions of 1848, the noble-
man and the priest did not even pay the few pennies required for a ferryboat passage or for
the toll at a bridge. Thus the entire burden of taxpaying fell on the "lower classes."
When El Greco was called in 1600 to work at Illescas, the local tax collector came to him also
for his due. The Cretan and refused to pay. He
protested, declared that he did not wish to
sell

his paintings but that as long as the tax suit remained undecided he would pawn them to the
particular party, keeping his rights of ownership. For, the sales tax being levied only on what
was sold, if the paintings were merely loaned no tax would be due.^^ He carried the suit up to
the Consejo de Hacienda in Madrid which decided in his favor. The actual documents of this
litigation have not been found, but his successful arguments and the decision in his favor before

the tribunal are repeatedly cited in the claims of artists after him. Aside from the monetary
loss which such a tax involved, the artist felt it degrading to be classed with the merchant and

the peasant.
Besides various suits concerning his paintings, El Greco appeared before the tribunal of the
Inquisition in Toledo (1582) as an interpreter for a Michele Rizo Carcandil, a tailor from
Athens, who was accused Moslem customs. It was at this hearing when, according
of following
to rule, the interpreter or the witness had to give his personal data, that he made the deposition
that he was a native of the city of Candia. Lately, on the basis of a publication by a Greek
writer, a smaU village near the Cretan capital has been proposed as El Greco's birthplace.
However, since more than once the painter declared himself "natural de la ciudad de Candia,"
there is no reason why his statement should not be accepted. Also in connection with an ap-
pearance in court on a later occasion, the year of his birth was established as 1541.
The name Domenikos Theotokopoulos is preserved on El Greco's canvases, where always,
up to the last instance, he signed in Greek characters. In the documents concerning him, the
name is simplified and Hispanized. Although Manuel Cossio has done more to give El Greco
his due than any other single person, he also fell into the standard practice. In his pioneering
monograph, he brings the signature in Greek, in which even those not familiar with the Greek
alphabet can see that both names end in os, and translates them as Domingo Teotocopulo.
Cossio says that in his book he will call the painter Dominico TheotocopuU, as El Greco signed
when he used Latin characters. But Latin characters were employed by the Cretan only when
—
signing contracts and other business papers ephemeral occasions for him, compared to his
artistic works. Cossio lists a number of misspellings and distortions to demonstrate the trouble

the amanuenses had with the strange Greek name. As he suggests, the simplified spelling was
adopted to help the scribes who, able to write only in Spanish, could better grasp an Itahanate
name, such as CelHni, Bellini, Robusti. Foreign names are very often changed when they pre-
sent the slightest contrariness to the character of the tongue; in the English-speaking world,
the name of the former rulers of the Holy Roman Empire is generally spelled Hapsburg, al-

•101.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
though it is correctly Habsburg, derived from the original seat of the family, Habichtsburg.
So careless were the church authorities that in the church register of Toledo, the brothers
Manousos and Domenikos Theotokopoulos go down merely as Manuel and Dominico griego.
El Greco's last signature appears on the power of attorney giv^en to his son a week before he
died. The document is very often called a "testament," which has given rise to misunderstand-
ing. In it, Jorge Manuel, as his universal heir, is given power to make and execute his father's

last will. The introduction proceeds in formal phrasing: ". stretched upon my bed, ill with . .

the infirmity which it has pleased the Lord our God

sound mind and to give me, being of
normal understanding, holding, believing, and confessing and confess all that as I do, I believe
which beheves and confesses the Holy Mother Church of Rome and in the Mystery of the Most
Holy Trinit)', in which faith and behef I declare to Hve and to die as a good, faithful, and
Catholic Christian ."
. . —
obviously a standard formula set down mechanically by a scribe.
The stricken man himself had so little strength that his signature is weak and incomplete, a
trailing scrawl. The document is witnessed, not by any of his distinguished Spanish friends,
but by two Greek emigres ( named in the chapter on the Greek Diaspora ) Seven days
. later the
following laconic entry appears in the church register: "Dominico griego died without making
a will after receiving the sacraments."
Upon these two documents —the opening phrases of the power of attorney and the words
of the church register —the often-repeated claim based that El Greco was a believing, practic-
is

ing Roman Catholic. Yet, in view of what has already been said of the psychology of the Greeks
of the diaspora, the conventional phraseology written by alien hands offers no real proof.
Having li\ed several decades in the strictly controlled religious atmosphere of Toledo, El Greco
would have complied at least externally with general custom. His Hving depended largely upon
his connections with the ecclesiastics, with a number of whom he stood in friendship. Anyone
who has seen the last sacrament administered to a semiconscious person or at a fatal accident
can judge the vahdity of the standard entry in the church register, wTitten by someone who did
not even trouble to spell out the dying man's name. If the Cretan wanted a Christian burial
at all, he had no altemati\e but to conform to the only existing church in Spain. And there would
have been no reason for him to refuse the sacrament, a consolation to any Christian.
If El Greco had had tlie physical and mental agility and the will to formulate a testament in
his own words, the text would have revealed a mind nourished on Aristotie and the Greek
classical tradition. His contemporaries repeatedly praise his high thinking and outstanding
intellect. He must have known, being beyond the seventies, that death could not be far off.

In his last years he had empowered his son to assume more and more responsibilits'. In 1612
Jorge Manuel had acquired a vault in the monastery church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo as
a burial place for his father and himself. Yet El Greco never made a will. Perhaps, philosoph-
ically, he did not want to influence events after he was gone, but preferred to let the customs
of die country take their course.
He died a stranger, an emigre in Toledo. For those who stood about El Greco's deathbed,
he must have been a lonely figure.

In early April the ground is still cold aroimd Toledo, and from the autumn plowing only
small tufts of green show on the earth. Few spring flowers have opened their heads reluctantly,
and the storks are just beginning to return from the warmer climate of Africa. The water of
tlie Tagus is greenish, rushing and cliill. The alleys of the city get little smishine to warm them.

•102-
 SIXTEExXTH CENTURY EMIGRE

Much of the dank air of winter still lingers there in morning and evening, and the stone houses
are cold and cheerless. On April 7, 1614, El Greco died and was buried in the vault that had
been acquired two years earher.
It was customary at that time to eulogize departed personalities. But in vain did the poet,
Luis de Gongora, proclaim "his name which loud-voiced heralds might declare in toumey-
field of Fame. . .
." In vain did Fray Hortensio de Faravicino assert that the silent grave
could not deprive the world of his fame. ... By the time these elegies for the dead painter
were pubhshed, El Greco's tomb was already obHterated. Less than four years had elapsed
after his father's death, when the monastery asked Jorge Manuel to remove the bones from

the vault which had been purchased "for always and forever." ^^^
Some suggest that the church
planned a reconstruction of the building, in a cit}' which was bursting with churches. That
year (1618) Jorge Manuel was working as architect on the church of San Torcuato, and in
lieu of payment he was permitted to construct a tomb for himself and family, where he then

transferred his father's remains. When San Torcuato was later demolished, there was no mark-
ing left to immortalize the name Theotokopoulos. The son of Jorge Manuel took orders wdth
the Augustinians in 1622 as Fray Gabriel de los Morales, using his mother's name, and trace
of other kin is lost. Recent excavations in the places where El Greco's remains or where eventu-
ally a grave marker might have lain have turned up only scattered, unidentifiable bones.

103
 •VII-

A LIBRARY

With the power of attorney given to his son Jorge Manuel, an inventory of El Greco's estate
was made four days after his death. Published early in the present century, the diligent investiga-
tions in the archives of Toledo by Francisco de Borja de San Roman pro\4de many illuminating
clues to the Hfe of the painter. The furnishings of his rooms appear sparse and plain and do not
confirm any suggestion of the "lavish hving" implied in earlier reports. At the time of his death
El Greco owned four shirts and one spare suit —a contrast to Michelangelo's legacy, which
enumerated twenty-six shirts and elegant clothing, ^^'hile Michelangelo left also eight thousand
gold ducats in a walnut strongbox. El Greco had only debts when he died. Illness may have
reduced his income and his estate. When Pacheco visited him in 1611, it was Jorge Manuel who
showed tlie distinguished guest around the house, the studio, and the stockroom, and it has
been suggested that even then El Greco was not able to do much work. It is also probable tliat
the Cretan gave financial help to refugees coming through Toledo, taxing his resources. Some
144 paintings are mentioned in various stages of completion. No exact measurements are given.
Such designations as "very small," "small," 'large," make difficult the positive identification of

canvases that were later so widely dispersed.

Usually a painter is judged from the quality of his work and his artistic actiWt}' as far as
records are extant. In El Greco's case, the contents of his Library are ver\' significant in the
forming of an imaginary portrait. Only fort\'-four individual titles can be constructed from
the hastily wTittenlist, said to be in the handwTiting of Jorge Manuel. Of these, twenty-seven

areGreek works and seventeen Italian. Jorge Manuel only approximated the titles of the Greek
books and recorded even the Italian ones without care, although they could have been copied
from the title pages. His spelling is colloquial Spanish. After the Hst of indi\idual titles, he
enters: "other fifty Italian books," "other se\enteen books of Romance," "nineteen books on
architecture," totahng 130 works, of which eighty-six are unidentified. A second inventon," was
made in 1621, when Jorge Manuel married for the second time. Seven years had passed since
the death of El Greco, and much had happened to the original collection. Here the son hsts
only thirty works by title, many of them on architecture (which was his specialt}'). Then he
adds the laconic, "twenty books in Greek and Italian." The total here is only fifty, considerably
less than half of those hsted in the first in\entor\'. It is highly probable that Jorge Manuel spoke
only Spanish and that most books in other languages were expendable for him.

•104.
 A LIBRARY
Nowhere in the history of art can one find an artist with a Hbrary even approximating El
Greco's in hnguistic and thematic variety. Titian collected not only gold but honors, and
throughout his long life he remained a prince among the painters of his epoch, a status doubtless
fully satisfying to him. Local wits and resident vn-iters, such as Aretino, were his constant com-
pany, and many distinguished visitors brought a lively exchange of thought and information to
his house. But Titian himself seems to have been rather a Hstener, amused and entertained

by all the mental fireworks which went on around him. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was
an excellent Latin scholar at the age of ten, and his paintings show his famiharity with my-
thology and the Bible. In the midst of artistic activities he became engaged in diplomacy also,
and acted as go-between for the Netherlands and Spain; he negotiated agreements between
Spain and England, and handled diplomatic tasks involving the houses of Austria, Poland,
and France. His writings show a person of rare tact and skill —rather a man of action than
of philosophy.
Book printing was a new art in El Greco's time. Many works, as they began to achieve a
wider distribution, were put on the Index of prohibited books, either that issued by the pope
or imposed by the Spanish ecclesiastical authorities. Most of the Greek books in El Greco's
possession were probably printed in northern Italy, especially Venice, and much of his library
must have been acquired there where censorship was lenient.
The bibliophiles and connoisseurs of Toledo must have browsed with delight among El
Greco's books. The range of his interests gives proof of the inquisitiveness and the broad hori-
zons of his typically Greek mind. Many of the Spanish and Italian works might have been for
his professional use. Volumes on architecture, geometry, and perspective are enumerated in
the second inventory, together with books on history, arithmetic, geography, descriptions of
Roman antiquities and cities, and religious history. No mention is made of books of popular
or light character.
Not one Spanish work is specifically named, nor is a Spanish group listed in the first inventory.
It has been suggested that some Spanish works may have been among the "seventeen books

of Romance." The efforts of the Spanish writers of El Greco's day to make malleable their ovra
language must have had httle appeal to one who was the product of the Hellenic classic tra-
dition. The Greeks had become masters of rhetoric when the other European nations were not
even formed. The perceptive twist of a phrase, the crisp succinctness of an aphorism was an old
art when most Europe was still illiterate. Even Latin was for many Greeks a language of
of
barbarians. Nor does Jorge Manuel mention specifically any books in Latin in the first inventory.
The few works by noted Latin authors named in the second inventory could all be had in
Italian translations by El Greco's time.
El Greco could well have learned Itahan when still in Candia. The general administration
was strongly Italianized,
of the island and it may be supposed that, particularly in the cities,
many Cretans were bilingual. Besides the Greek books which make up the backbone of his
library. El Greco apparently also bought in Venice the works of contemporary writers on ro-
mantic themes, as well as early Italian poets such as Petrarch.
Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) stands among the first true Renaissance figures. He col-

and delved into Greek and Latin classical poets, addressing epistles
lected coins, manuscripts,
to Seneca and Cicero as if they were his contemporaries. Though his knowledge of classical
Greek was probably negligible, he was a friend of a Greek scholar known as Leontius Pilatus
to whom he was introduced by Boccaccio. His long epic poem Africa was written in Latin, but

•105.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
the more famous sonnets and other lyrics were in the ItaUan vernacular of the day. Though
some of the works of Petrarch, a cleric, came on the Index, this did not restrain the RepubUc
of \'enice from accepting his library as a bequest.
The work by Lodovico Ariosto ( 1474-1533 ) mentioned in the inventory was most probably
Orlando Furioso, the complete edition of which appeared in print at Ferrara in 1532. Orlando,
better known to us as Roland, was one of Charlemagne's knights who executed a valiant rear-
guard stand against Basque border tribesmen in 778. The incident was developed into a heroic
legend by the French trouveres; the Basques became Saracens, and the adventures of the pro-
tagonists were colored with many details. The story always fascinated the Italians Dante —
meets Orlando in his Paradise, Ariosto's epic made him a hving figure in Italian literature, and
to this day the exploits of Orlando are the theme of the great Sicilian puppet folk plays. They
occupied also the fantasy of the Cretans and have a place in their folklore. Cervantes' Don
Quixote was the satirical commentary of a veteran of actual warfare on the "cops and robbers"
games to which such ancient tales had degenerated.
The poet Bernardo Tasso ( 1493-1569), father of the more famous Torquato Tasso, was bom
in Venice. His long and comphcated romantic poem entitled Amadigi is listed as "Camadji" by

Jorge Manuel. Printed in Venice in 1560, this book was a current favorite of the hterati when
the young Cretan arrived in the lagoon city.
An Itahan work of much later date, noted in the inventory as "Relacion unibersal de botero,"
is the Relazioni universali, by Giovanni Botero, which was pubhshed in five parts between 1591

and 1593. By that time El Greco was aheady well established in Spain, and that he should select
such a work is still greater proof of his always wakeful intellect. Botero was Jesuit-educated,
became a member of the order, and then left it. With his encyclopedic mind, he was the first
European to assemble statistics by inquiry and observation, in market places, at the city gates,
and other appropriate points. He developed the theory that a nation's wealth Ues, not in its
silver and gold, but in its agriculture and industrial production. His work is a treatise of uni-

versal political geography — —

what today would be called geopohtics remarkably accurate for
the time. It contains a description of all countries of the known world and of all known political
systems, as well as information concerning all religious beliefs, especially the Christian de-
nominations, even including remarks on the diffusion of Christianity in the New World. In the
last section of the work, Botero brings his statements up to date and adds a discussion of the
importance of climate in the development of various civilizations, an idea which at that time
was just short of revolutionary.
Other contemporary Italian works in the library include a book by one "Ju° franc . . . co
milanese"; also, "Camilo agripa" — that is, Camillo Agrippa Milanese's Trattado di scientia darme
con un dialogo di Rome, 1553. This is illustrated with a series of nudes in fighting pose
Filosofia,
using various weapons. The plates were engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, probably after
designs by Michelangelo, who was a friend of the author. It has been pointed out that Rai-
mondi's engravings, among others, influenced certain compositions by El Greco. Indeed, it was
general custom for painters to study woodcuts and engravings when contemplating a new
composition — especially in the absence of intensive action studies, such as are practiced today.
While the Italian books in themselves point to an unusual intellect. El Greco is mirrored in
truest proportions by his choice of Greek books, corroborating Pacheco's statement that he put
philosophy above art. Certain of the twenty-seven works will be discussed in detail because they
illuminate sometliing of El Greco's personality. It is easily possible that Jorge Manuel's inventory

•106-
 A LIBRARY
does not cover his father's entire Greek hbrary. Printed and illustrated works were collector's
items in those years, and especial value was placed on early printed Greek volumes. El Greco
may have presented some valuable tome to one or another of his Toledo friends, as he also
seems to have received some. When he was ill and the income of his house was low, certain
rarities may have been sold for cash.
The question may arise as to how was possible that this painter who, according to some
it

writers on art, came to Venice as a very young and inexperienced boy had such command of
the Greek tongue that Greek classical authors made up the core of his library. Even if we admit,
for the sake of theory, that El Greco arrived in Venice about 1560 —a matter that wdll be taken
up later in more detail —
was then nineteen or twenty years old, and no "empty slate."
^he

In the Byzantine world, as we have seen, higher education was not the privilege of the feudal
class or a monopoly of the church. The Orthodox youth of any poor family, if talented and

industrious, could attain a thorough education, in the democratic tradition of ancient Greece.
Manuscripts were rare and highly venerated. But with broader access to printed books pos-
sible just around El Greco's time, was no longer necessary to learn everything by repetition
it

and rote. It is clear that El Greco could read both ancient and modem Greek and wTite Greek
fluently.

It has been suggested that after Rome, he returned to Venice and that he visited a number
of Italian towns; would have him go back
some writers to Crete, and even spend some time
at Mount Athos. These are But the years up to his arrival in Spain are, with the
all possibilities.

exception of the Clovio letter dated 1570, entirely undocumented, and inferences as to his
activities during that time are based on pure speculation. However, his twenty-seven books

in Greek are fact. The unique choice of the works reveals the positive side of him.
The authors are discussed here generally in chronological order, and tides appear also as
Jorge Manuel wrote them in the inventory. The list should begin with the earliest poet of
Greece, that legendary Homer whose name is associated with the two great epics the Iliad and
the Odyssey. In the latter, Crete is described in some detail. Homer tells that the men from
Knossos of the Great Walls, Phaestus, and Rhytion (Rethymnon) lived in fine cities and were
valiant spearmen; that for nine years King Minos ruled in Knossos and enjoyed the friendship
of almighty Zeus. . . . The king's daughter Ariadne, mistress of the Labwinth, for nearly
three thousand years has stimulated the fancy of poets romance and librettos.
and wTiters of
El Greco may even have known some Homer, for landmarks still
of the sites described in
stood in the mid-sixteenth century which the occupations of the Turks and of other enemies
have since rendered imrecognizable. The first printed edition of Homer was brought out in
Florence by the Greek printer Demetrius Chalcondylas in 1488. Soon the Aldine Press in
—
Venice issued other printings in 1504, 1517, and later. When the young Cretan came to the
lagoon city, he had quite a choice of editions.
Similarly from the sunrise of Greek Uterature come the fables of Aesop, which might be
called the forenmners of all parables and apologues up to George Orwell in our present day.
Aesop, who is said to have been a slave, Hved about the sixth century before Christ on the
island of Samos in the Aegean. It is becoming more and more evident that his tales were not
written down in classical times but recited from generation to generation, thus keeping their
Hving rhythm, their warmth and directness of experience. The significance and broad prac-
tice of this "oral tradition" which preserved and kept vital so much of ancient legend and

tales, parallel to \\Titten literature, is only now being realized. Especially in tlie many lands

•107-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
where schooling is sporadic, this is the chief medium of folk expression, fortunately in some
places still was Aesop through the ages that
available for recording. So popular three hundred
years later, Lysippus, sculptor to Alexander the Great,made a statue of him for the Athenians.
In the first century before Christ, Plutarch had him appear as a guest in his Symposium of the
Seven Sages. The collection of Aesop's tales was translated into Syrian, as well as into Arabic,
and it seems that from one of those Near Eastern tongues they were translated into Greek
about the time of the Renaissance. Before any Greek printed version appeared, a selection of
some hundred fables was pubUshed in Latin in Rome in 1476.
The only one of the great Greek writers of tragedy listed in the inventory of El Greco's
library is Euripides (ca. 484-407 B.C.), who greatly influenced subsequent Greek authors.
He was noted for his unorthodoxy of thought and his elaborate but lucid style. Works of
Euripides were first printed in Florence in 1469 by the Greek Joannis Lascaris already referred
to in the chapter on the Greek Diaspora. Aldus Manutius in Venice published them in 1503.
By the mid-sixteenth century the most popular plays were widely distributed. El Greco's
preference is notable, for Euripides is the least "religious" and the most progressive among
the great Greek dramatists of the Classical Age.
A considerably different orientation and interest are manifest in the book hsted in the in-
ventory as "ypocrates." Hippocrates (ca. 460-377 b.c. ), a Greek physician, was the first in the
Western world to attempt a general and systematic treatment of the problems of medicine. A
group of medical works, since known as the Hippocratic Collection, began to circulate in the
ancient world around 300 b.c. It sets the goal of physicians to the present day, recommending
ability, grace, speed, painlessness of treatment, readiness, and elegance. This work, with a
number of other Greek scientific treatises, seems to have come into Europe by way of Sicily,
and was popular in El Greco's time.
The great historian Xenophon was bom about 430 b.c. in Athens, when that city was still
the center of Greek culture. Besides philosophical essays and hterary portraits, he wTOte a
chronicle of the Persian-Greek War, in which he had fought as a general in the Greek Army.
Xenophon praises his men as not only conscious of their common nationality but also imbued
with strong local patriotism and a fierce feeUng of each man's right as an individual. He de-
scribes a skirmish in which his Cretan soldiers, with clever maneuvering and a display of their
widely feared archery, brought the participants of the expedition safely back to camp. Later,
looking back on his life, he reahzed that the unification of all Greeks should be striven for
but that the old ideal of democracy combined with imperialism was impracticable.
Not long ago (1939), in the National Library of Madrid, a volume of Xenophon printed in
Florence was found, inscribed as coming to El Greco from the library of his friend Antonio
de Covamibias, a Latin and Greek scholar, canon of the cathedral of Toledo from 1580. This
might be tlie work mentioned in the first inventory. It seems that Jorge Manuel sold the volume
to Tamayo de was he who made
Vargas, a Toledan scholar of the seventeenth century, and it

the notation. Remarkable is that in it he calls El Greco "the ApeUes of our time." Apelles was
perhaps the most celebrated painter of antiquity, court painter to Alexander the Great. Thus
the inscription contained a graceful allusion to El Greco's lifelong interest in that bygone hero.
The Attic orator Isocrates (436-338 b.c), whose works were also represented in El Greco's
library, headed a school that rivaled tliat of Plato and drew pupils from all the Greek-speaking
world, from Sicily to the Black Sea. Isocrates also advocated the unification of Greece tlirough
concerted attack on Asia, but he foresaw diat a lasting conquest would be achieved rather
through the diffusion of Greek culture than through occupation. An outstanding rhetorician,

•108-
 A LIBRARY
he set a distinguished standard of prose which inspired e\'en Cicero. The Renaissance sought
out Isocrates' works with zeal, and for a competent modem edition hbraries of Milan, Florence,
Venice, Urbino, and the Vatican had to be consulted.
El Greco owned Aristotle's Physics and Politics. Bom in 384 b.c, the great philosopher
worked for years at the side of Plato. His \\Titings on logic and scientific method are funda-
mental to all subsequent efforts in these fields. Among the great Aristotelian commentators
were Arabs, notably the tweLfth centur\- pliilosopher ibn-Rushd (Averroes), who Uved in
Cordoba, Spain, whence the Aristotelian tradition passed into Christian Europe. When, in the
following century, the Latins captured Constantinople, Roman Catholic clergy set themselves
to learn Greek, so as to translate the manuscripts found in Byzantine hbraries. Thomas Aqiiinas
(1225-1274) essayed a s\Tithesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Cliristian behef, which was at
first regarded with suspicion but finally acclaimed by the Roman Church. \\'hile the ItaUan
Renaissance derived a great impetus from Neoplatonism, by the time El Greco grew into
manhood Aristotle was the leading philosopher. At his height, he represents the iQ\dncible logic
and the insatiable curiosit\' of the Greek mind —
a type of personality' not too far removed from
that of El Greco himself.
The logic of El Greco's thinking is evidenced in the fact that he owned also the commentaries
of Joannes Philoponus on Aristotle. This Greek philosopher lived in Alexandria in the late
fifth and early sixth century of our era and was cognizant of, if not actually involved with,
the Christian Copts there. Among his surviving wTitings are discussions of Aristotle's Physica
and De anima — the latter of which appears in Jorge Manuel's inventory- as "fihpono en los

hbros de anima."
Contemporary with Aristotle is Demosthenes (ca. 384-322 B.C.), one of the great orators
of all times. He exhorted his fellow countrymen to preserve the patriotic spirit which had once
made Athens great; he admonished judges to practice tolerance, the statesmen to be guided
in all pohcies by a higher concept The Aldine Press in Venice published
of the general interest.
the works of Demosthenes in 1504, and El Greco had opportmiity to buy subsequent editions
also. One visuaHzes him reading the passages against brute force and graft and the pleas for

tolerance, in Toledo —
where public offices and ecclesiastical posts were purchasable and the
inquisitor's lackeys darted through the dark after new \'ictims.*^
Not only with Philoponus did El Greco's interest follow the Hellenistic spirit into the Chris-
tian era. Plutarch, Greek biographer and author, li\-ed at the end of the first century. Having
been trained at Athens in philosophy, he traveled much and in Rome he lectiu-ed in Greek
on philosophy. His chief fame comes from his Parallel Lives, called "bite di Plutarco" in the
in\entory. In this work he pairs a Greek personality with a Roman, whether warrior, statesman,
orator, or legislator (among them, for instance, Julius Caesar is placed beside Alexander the
Great, to the benefit of the latter ) . The inventor}- records also the "filosofia moral di Plutarco"
sixty essays on various subjects, enhanced by excerpts from Greek poems that are lost in the
original. The essays treat "how may be distinguished from a friend," "how a young
a flatterer
man should listen to poetr>'," "on the education of children." There is also a study "on exile,"
illuminated with plentiful quotations.
The book cited in the inventor)' as "Josefo de belo Judaico" denotes The Jewish War by
Joseph ben Matthias, a Jewish historian of the first centur\' of our era, later known as Flavius
Josephus. He was also for a time a mihtar\' commander. Involved in various religious and
military conflicts, he saved himself from the soldiers of Vespasian at the last moment, by
prophesying that their leader would become emperor. Since tliis came to pass, Josephus was

•109-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
returned to favor and accompanied the Romans to Alexandria and thence to Rome, where he
was made a Roman and received an estate in Judea. Josephus' work was wTitten in
citizen
Aramaic, the language in which the Gospel was first recorded, and was soon translated into
a distinguished literary Greek. In it he describes the main events as they occurred and makes
various forecasts, some of which came true. He shows a vast knowledge of classic history, of
the exploits of Alexander, of the past of the Jews, and of the geography of Asia Minor. His
book illuminates not only the contemporary situation in Galilee and Egypt but also the re-
lationship of the various sections of Jewish population to one another, as well as their standing
in the empire, shedding light on many entries of the New Testament. The sect of the Essenes,
never mentioned in the New Testament, is fully described by him, with a detailed report of
their rites. This is especially relevant today, when interest is increasingly concentrated on the
sect through the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Josephus' writings are considered so ac-
curate that modemarchaeologists are using them in work on the ruins of ancient Caesarea
in Palestine.The Greek translation of Flavins Josephus was first printed in Protestant Basel in
1544 and later in Geneva in 1611. It is most probable that the first edition was in El Greco's
possession. As the complete work comprises over 150,000 words, the early volumes were a
condensation wdth many abbreviations. Josephus' tome was also among the few books in Rem-
brandt's hbrary, showing that it was widely distributed, although in Spain its importation was
restricted.
Mentioned in the inventory as "ariani work by Arrian, also kno\Mi as
de belo alexandri" is a
Flavius Arrianus, a Greek historian and philosopher, who was bom in Nicomedia in Asia
Minor, near Constantinople, at the end of the first century. Having studied among pagan
philosophers, Arrian found in their teachings much of the early Christian spirit. In a century'
when the Greek language was no longer at the highest level, he uses a polished style based
on handbook on moral philosophy was adopted for Christian use by
classical authors. Arrian's

St. Nilus of Constantinople in the fifth century and was regarded in the Middle Ages as a

guide to monastic Ufe. His most important surviving work is his Life of Alexander the Great,
which first appeared in print in 1522. This is the book El Greco owned. It begins with the origins
of the hero's career, and recounts his conquests in Europe and Asia by land and by sea.
Alexander the Great had a broad concept of the world and clarified ideals of administration.
For many centuries, deep into our modem age, it was thought that Western civihzation owed
more to him than to any other single man. This was the hero of El Greco. His achievements are
perhaps best and most fully documented in Arrian's book.
El Greco showed interest in a Latin author who treated his favorite figure Quintus Curtius —
Rufus, who hved in the mid-first century. His work De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni, listed as
"quinto curzio de fati alexandro" under Italian books in the inventory, was popular until recent
research proved it not entirely reliable.
With the work of tlie Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 55-120), El Greco followed
the incorporation of the Greek world into the Roman Empire. The record of those centuries
of transition and decline furnish melancholy reading. The dramas of the Golden Age were
replaced by bloody spectacles in the circus. In art, statues became larger and larger, the
features portrayed coarser and coarser —
as if size could make up for quahty. Tacitus was an
academic republican and could only see the darkest side of the imperialism through which he
lived. His annals are actually concerned with ethics rather than with politics. The work, most

probably an Italian translation, is listed only in the second inventor^', as "Comelio tazito."

In the library we find Greek authors also from the second and third centuries of our era.

•IIQ.
 A LIBRARY
Lucian, a Greek sophist and satirist, mocked at Christianit>'. He was bom in S\Tia and traveled
widely in his native .\sia Minor, in Macedonia, Greece, and Italy, and as far as Gaul. He wTOte
much literary criticism ( a model essay on "how history should be written" ) , as well as romances
and satirical dialogues. Lucian narrates the abduction of Europa to Crete. Indeed, many classi-

cal authors \\TOte at considerable length about the island.

The third centur>' HeHodoros, also bom in S\Tia, a student of Homer and Euripides, is

represented with his Aethiopica, possibly the best as well as the oldest of the Greek romances
that have come down to us. The work was found when the Turks
first manuscript copy of this

overran Hungar}- in 1526 and sacked the famous hbrar)- of the Hungarian Renaissance king
Matthias Corvinus in the royal palace at Buda(Pest). Printed in Basel in 1534, the romance
came into immediate vogue, influencing such authors through the years as Torquato Tasso,
Cervantes, and Racine.
A new facet of El Greco's psychology is revealed in the item "arte midoro," which stands for
the work of Artemidorus Daldianus, a soothsayer and collector of dreams, active in the mid-
second centur}'. His Interpretation of Dreanis in four books affords valuable insight into ancient
superstitions. El Greco's copy is in Greek of which the first edition appeared in Venice in 1518.
Numerous ItaHan translations followed.
From work listed as "Boecio seberino." Anicius
the formative period of Christianity comes the
Manlius Severinus Boethius (ca. 480-524), philosopher and statesman, was a Roman consul
at the time of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. He was Orthodox, as opposed to the Arian ruler. Accused

of treason, Boethius was imprisoned, and during his incarceration he wTOte his famous work De
consolatione philosophiae (On the Consolation of Philosophy), in which he contemplates man's
free will and God's foreknowledge, concluding that they are not incompatible. Boethius
planned to foUow with translations of the works of Aristotle and Plato and to reconcile their
philosophies. But he was put to death before he could conclude the project.
A work from a much later period, listed also among the Italian books, is Ten Dialogues on
the Reading and Writing of History, whose author is generally given as Francesco Patrizzi,
also as Patrizio and Franciscus Patritius (1529-1597). Patrizzi was bom Franjo Petric on the

Dalmatian island of Cherso, a stronghold of Slavic culture. To make a career, like El Greco,
Patrizzi left his home and, through the patronage of the Bishop of C\'prus, who was himself
a refugee, came to Venice where books of his were pubhshed in 1560 and 1571. This is the
period during a part of which at least El Greco lived in \'enice; and it is possible that Patrizzi
and the young Cretan became acquainted. Both foreigners to the Itahan cultural cHmate and
at home in the Byzantine civihzation, they could reaUy engage in dialogue. In spite of the
general preference for Aristotle's philosophy in that epoch, Patrizzi was a strong Xeoplatonist,
was incompatible with Christianity'. In 1593, in distant Ham-
insisting that Aristotle's tliought
burg, a volume of his was printed which contains essays on the philosophy of Zoroaster and the
Chaldean oracles, among other subjects. The Slav philosopher must have been a stimulating
conversational partner.
Jorge Manuel lists the Old and New Testaments in Greek, in five volumes, as part of his
father's Hbrary. Erasmus published the first New Testament in Greek in 1516. Two years
later the Aldine Press in Venice brought out a large folio edition of the complete Bible in
Greek (see PL HOC). Soon, in Strasbourg (1526), then a Protestant city, another edition of
the complete Bible came out, bound in five volumes, reissued in Basel in 1529. El Greco must
have owned one or the other of these issues, as no other five- volume Bibles are recorded in
this period. They are in a handy octavo size; the text is fluently set, and precise and easy to

•111-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
read. As more and more printed editions of the Bible appeared in Europe, this book also
became subject to scrutiny by the Inquisition. Certain marginal notes of a Latin translation
by Michael Servetus which appeared in Lyons in 1542 caused the editor to be put to death
at the stake (1553). A French translation pubUshed in Antwerp in 1530, although issued under

a grant of Charles V and with ecclesiastical approval, was put on the Index for its marginal
notes; its translator had died meanwhile.
It is noteworthy that of the twenty-seven entries of Greek books named in Jorge Manuel's

first inventory, only eight are rehgious works, all belonging to the Orthodox world.
Justin Mart)T was bom in Palestine around 100. He was converted to Christianity when
about thirty years old and began to preach the Word while still wearing the cloak of the
wandering teacher of philosophy. He recognized classical Greek thought as a preparation
for Christianity and was among the first who endeavored to reconcile the two different philoso-
phies. Justin describes the rites of the church of the second century, the ceremonies of Baptism
and the Eucharist. From his works it becomes e\ident that at that time there was no fixed
collection of apostolic wTitings.
The homilies and orations of Basil the Great are listed. He was Bishop of Caesarea in the
fourth century —that impressi\e provdnce of Herod the Great described by Josephus. Basil

studied the practices of the hermits of S\Tia and Egx-pt and laid down the first rules of mo-
nasticism, declaring communitv^ life to be spiritually superior to that of isolation. Basilian monas-
ticism spread from Greece to Italy, Russia, and the Balkans, and strongly influenced Benedict
in founding his order in the West. The chief collections of Greek manuscripts in Western
Europe, such as those of Bessarion in \'enice and a great number of those in the Vatican, come
from the plundering of Italian BasiHan houses.
What Jorge Manuel wrote down as "oraziones de S. Juo grisostomo" refers to the Orations
of St. John Chr>'sostom, "the golden-mouthed," the most famous of the Greek Church fathers
(345-407). Bom in Antioch and influenced by the Syrian school, he was uncompromising in
expressing his convictions, elevating the ascetic and laying stress on the Scripture. As early as
the fifth century he was cited by Greeks and Latins equally as a church authority. Both he
and Basil are noted for the elegance of tlieir Greek style.
Another interesting item is the work called by Jorge Manuel "constituziones de los SS.
Apostoles." This is a collection of canon law which originated in Greek in fourth or fifth cen-
tury SyTia. Besides giving ancient practices of the church, it contains rules on Christian morals,
and the sequence of feasts and fasts. The compilation was later falsely attributed to Clement
of the first centurv' —one of the Roman CathoHc Church fatliers — to give it autliorit\- in the
West.
The incomplete recording of one Greek book, listed merely as "S. dionisio," makes its identity
uncertain. Another, however, is named as "S. dionisio de Celesti yerarquia," that is. Concerning
the Celestial Hierarchyby the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. It may be assumed, therefore,
that the companion volume which treats of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The true
first is the
Dionysius the Areopagite lived in the first centur\' in Athens and was converted by St. Paul.
His name, however, was confused with a fifth or sixth centur}- Greek author in Palestine, in
whose WTitings Oriental, Jewish, and Hellenic thought are intermingled with Christian. This
author is now called the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The Celestial Hierarchy consists
of the ranks of the Heavenly Host, while the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy comprises the counter-
part of this system on earth, within the Christian Church. Here it should be remembered
that the art of early Christianity, indeed long past the schism, was based entirely on the iconog-

•112.
 A LIBRARY
raphy established in the Eastern countries of the Mediterranean. The works of Dionysius
which include Concerning Divine Names and a treatise on mystic theology —strongly in-

fluenced literature and art in Western Europe throughout the Middle Ages. El Greco's thorough
famiharity with the celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies is evidenced in the only three large
group compositions which chance put in his way: The Martyrdom of St. Mauritius, the Adora-
tion of the Holy Name, and The Burial of Count Orgaz and 68 ) as will be
( see Pis. 64B, 66B, ,

discussed in detail in connection with the paintings themselves. Dionysius was long held in
high honor. An icon entitled "S. Dionigi Areopagita" is in the Scuola dei Greci in Venice,
signed by Canghelarios in Athens, 1729.
As already mentioned, the Council of Trent ( 1545-1563 ) was urged by Charles V to clarify
the various religious disputes and to reform ecclesiastical abuses. Through the passive resistance
of the papacy, that longest of church conventions never accomplished all objectives. However,
it produced the reform of ecclesiastical discipline, a profession of faith, a new decree of the

catechism, a list of prohibited books. In addition, rulings concerning the arts were laid down,
such as the prohibition of the symbolic representation of the Trinity witli three heads or as
three human figures exactly alike and of the portrayal of women saints in sensuous dishevel-
ment or in the nude. A few years after the end of the council, certain decisions were printed in
book form. It is known tliat French, Dutch, and German translations appeared before the
end of the century, and seemingly El Greco owned a Greek copy, as "sinodo tridentino" is
listed under his Greek books.

El Greco was no haphazard reader. He selected his books with deliberation for their par-
ticular subject matter. There is logic in the build-up of his library, and a continuity of thought.
The name of Alexander the Great weaves in and out of the list. Aristotle was a tutor of the
young prince; Demosthenes, a contemporary. Plutarch presents his figure with sympathy in his
Parallel Lives. Arrian wrote his biography in Greek, and Quintus Curtius Rufus, in Latin. A
nmnber of authors in the collection manifest an interest in coordinating the philosophy of
classical Greece with that of Christianity.
The Hbrary does not show one book by a Western church father, such as Augustine, Jerome,
Gregory, Ambrose, or by such saints as Benedict, Dominic, Thomas Aquinas. There is not
one "mystic" writer named in El Greco's inventory — in that sense of mysticism which was
romanticized later in the West and explained into the works of various painters. The belief
that man may attain an immediate or direct knowledge of God through contemplation and
love alone, without the process of reason, is out of keeping with El Greco's character. Not only
would his Greek rational philosophy keep him far from the mystic figures, but it should not
be forgotten that they were looked upon as suspect by the Inquisition —a fact today not
taken into consideration.
The emigre or refugee of the twentieth century turns to the books in his mother tongue for
fullest relaxation and stimulus. When we discussed the art of America before Columbus, a
most recent chapter in the history of art, with a refugee writer, not two minutes passed before
the German quoted Goethe —though in his time no one gave a thought to the aesthetic evalua-
tion of the civiUzation of Maya and Inca. In clinging to books of his native land, the emigre
makes a declaration of cultural belonging which is independent of country or century. The old
saying "Show me your books and I will know who you are" applies also to El Greco. His Greek
books must have been a tonic for his soul. They were reminders of Hellenic greatness not
only to his Greek visitors but also to the Spaniards who came to his house. They were, for
the emigre of his time also, instruments of equilibrium.

•113-
 •VIII-

ENIGMATIC
PAINTER

Venetian, Roman, and North European painters of the period made increasing use of themes
outside the rehgious world. El Greco, like many of his contemporaries, owned prints which at
that time circulated widely in Europe and brought the achievements in art of one country to
the cognizance of another. Yet the vast majority of his paintings is rehgious, and only once did
he reach for a Greek mythological theme, the Laocoon. This is remarkable, because in his
library there were many books treating legendary, mythological, and historical matter which
would have furnished adequate stimulus for secular compositions.
El Greco never submitted entirely to Western concepts of painting. Although his work ap-
parently fulfilled the demands of the market in Spain, he retained many practices of the hagiog-
rapher. He had in his house small-scale duphcates that gave his repertory of paintings and may
have served as a catalogue of stock merchandise from which choice could be made. El Greco
had nothing of the vanity of the Western painter when it came to repetitions. Six repetitions
by himself or his studio are recorded of the Baptism of Christ, and St. Martin and the Beggar,
eight of the Adoration of the Shepherds, and the Mount of Ohves, and seventeen of the Dis-
robing of Christ. His representation of St. Francis in Ecstasy, a widely sought-after subject of
his atelier, according to some sources was repeated over eighty times. A few themes went
through considerable changes across his entire artistic activity, as will be discussed later in

detail.

It is not so much the total impression of El Greco's painting as characteristic details that
recall his heritage, growing more pronounced with his artistic isolation in Toledo. For this

reason, his work constitutes a category for itself in Western painting. In his most Venetian
paintings he is not fuUy Venetian, and in paintings in which he gives the Spanish "atmosphere"
convincingly he achieves with means which were distinctly his own. His inability or unwill-
it

ingness to conform with his contemporaries places him outside the traditional development
of schools of painting. This is one of the reasons why the appreciation of his work coincides with
the acceptance of Impressionism —a style by no means exclusive to France. When, about the
end of the nineteenth centur^'^, composition and coloring were freed from academic traditions,
the mode of ElGreco could start.
A subject seldom encountered in painting at the time of El Greco is The Disrobing of Christ

(El Espolio), although it is one of the fourteen Stations of the Cross. A relatively late example

•114-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
is by Fra Angelico from the early fifteenth century. However, the concept survives con-
a panel
siderably later in Flemish and German prints. El Greco's painting {Pi. 58B), commissioned
in 1577, was to be placed in the section of the sacristy of the Toledan cathedral known as the

\^estuario, where the priest assumes the robe symboHc of Christ on earth. Although the work

was highly praised, an acrimonious Htigation arose in 1579 over payment of the agreed price.
In an eflFort to deprecate the work, it was protested that other heads had been placed higher
than Christ's and that the presence of the three women in the left foreground was not ac-
cording to Scripture. In the end, however, the composition remained imchanged, and no less
than seventeen repHcas and studio copies exist. In some of these, the shape has been changed
to horizontal and the four figures in the foreground have been left out —or eventually cut
off — greatly altering the effectiveness of the composition.
In this large painting, nearly six feet high, there is little effect of foreshortening, and, in
spite of the brilhant highhghts, shadows are absent —both characteristic of El Greco's art.
The composition up from the lowest part toward the center and above. Christ's figure,
is built
as in aU Byzantine representations, is the largest and is presented in full length. Although the
other figures form a tense circle around him, the work has the static quality of a \dsion, which
is also Byzantine. At first sight, the figure of Christ in the incandescent red of his garment
the royal "purple" of the highest Byzantine ruler — is so overpowering that the sense of the
action dawns only later.

For his compositions El Greco blended impressions gathered from various sources. The
minghng of Byzantine elements with those of Western painting gives his art its unique char-
acter. As a result, some of his compositions contain —whether dehberately or not—reminiscences,
e\en definite borrowings. The Disrobing bears a relationship to the Byzantine representation
of the Betrayal or the Kiss of Judas. In a page of a Byzantine Greek manuscript executed in
the early twelfth century {PI. 58 A), some of the same tension can be found, the \\Teath of
menacing heads, the reaching arms, the threatening lances, and the crowding to such a degree
that most of the bodies except Christ's are not visible. Even the flame-like plumes and the
dramatic hght in the backgroimd of the painting remind one of the torches in the manuscript.
.\s if to contradict the criticisms of the theological experts of Toledo, in the manuscript also
several rows of heads appear above the head of Christ. This manuscript was presented to
Louis XV of France by the French ambassador to the Porte, Istanbul, in the mid-eighteenth
century. The text is taken from Jesus' farewell to the apostles at the Last Supper, and reads:
"From the Gospel of John: He said to his disciples. Now is the Son of man glorified and God
is glorified in liim."

Mount Athos and survive

Representations of the Disrobing of Christ occur in the murals of
also at Zemen, Bulgaria. ^^ But the subject of the Betrayal of Christ was more popular. In a
late rendition by Theodoros Poulakis {PI. 58C), a seventeenth century Byzantine icon with

Western o\ ertones, parallel details can be observed, such as the soldier in armor at the left,
the stooping figure in the lower right. In aU cases, Christ is presented in fuU length, with even
the forward-thrust foot sho\\-ing.
As to the three women in the foreground of El Greco's painting, they are similar to various
groups of mourners that can be found in Macedonian wall paintings and in Late Byzantine
panels PL 59A and B The three women at the foot of the Cross have a precedent in Byzan-
(
) .

tine art that goes back to the eleventh century.^' Both in the Dormition of the Virgin and in
the Crucifixion, shown here, groups of mourning women are placed in the foreground. That

•115.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
this arrangement is based on biblical text might be one explanation that the three Marys in
El Greco's painting were finally accepted. The heavy drapery around the Virgin's head, the
contrast of hght and dark, the "speaking" hands, the sorrowful expression emphasized by the
deep shadows about the eyes (especially clear in PL 59C) all stem from the same tradition.

Another subject of El Greco's which is rarely encountered in the painting of the Western
world in the second half of the sixteenth century is Christ in the act of benediction. After the
Council of Trent, renewed emphasis was put on the cult of Mary. For the Orthodox Christian
also,Mary was important, not only as the Mother of God but as the embodiment of His Church
on earth. The cult of Mary goes back to the earliest centuries of Cliristianity in S>Tia and the
Near East with their hermits. But when she dies she does not ascend bodily; Christ receives her
soul in the form of a newborn infant, and angels descend from heaven to carry it upward
(see PL 15C). In the Byzantine world, which had no statues in its churches, Mary is sometimes
represented in overpowering dimensions that fill an apse or cover a large section of the walls
(see PL 12B), but her Child remains, even as an infant, the King.
El Greco painted the Virgin in various aspects. He had seen in Venice healdiy peasant women
serving as models for Titian's Madonnas; Tintoretto and the Bassanos brought the figure of the
Virgin among their ner\'Ously vibrating compositions heavy with people. But El Greco's concept
shows hisown individuality. She always has an amazingly small head; the elongated body is
clothed in heavy garments; the figure is coloristically always touching, some would say senti-

mental, as tlie Spaniard wished to have it.

But in his Christ in Benediction {PL GOB) there is no sweetness or novelistic ambience. This
is the Pantocrator of Byzantium, the all-seeing and all-understanding judge. Tliis Christ goes
back to the godhead who filled the highest place of the Byzantine dome or apse ( see PL 9B )
The Orthodox representation of Christ is based on a vision which appeared to King Abgamus
of Edessa in Asia Minor, healing him miraculously from a serious illness. Legend has it that the
artist was stricken bhnd while painting the vision from the king's description, re- and upon
covery found the picture finished. This early type has been followed ever since in Byzantine
art, as the actual earthly aspect of Christ —
hair parted, a mild and joyous expression, brilliant,
piercing eyes.
El Greco's Christ in Benediction is nearer to its forerunners and contemporaries of the Byzan-
tine school of painting thanany other subject he ever painted. An early and a late icon Pis. (

60A and 61B), a late mural from Crete {PL 60C), and an early one from Macedonia {PL 61 A)
show the influences that were absorbed by him. Not only tlie pose of the body and the gesture
of the hands show Orthodox tradition, but also details such as tlie angled line of the shirt, tlie

cap of thick hair, the heavy fall of the cloak over the left shoulder, the high lights in tlie

drapery, the strong illumination of the forehead and the wide cheekbones bringing out the
depth of His gaze. The long straight nose with its curled nostrils is Byzantine convention, as is

also the skillful painting of the eyes that seem to look at one from any angle but also through
and beyond one. Obvious similarities can be found in an icon that we discovered in a monas-
tery in western Crete {PL 61B), the painter of which may have been a contemporary of
El Greco.
The pose of the upraised hand in benediction is derived from the ancient language of gesture
in classical art. The Greek benediction, in which the third finger joins the thumb so as to form
a circle, is a hieratic form.

•116-
 ENIGMATIC PAIxXTER
Little explanation is needed to bring out the differences between the five paintings discussed

and that of Raphael (P/. 61C).

Derived from the Greek word meaning "fiftieth," the Pentecost is an important feast in the
Jewish as well as in the Christian religion. In Old Testament times it fell fifty days after the
Passover, about the time the harvest was finished in Palestine, and it is known in the Bible as

the Feast of the Weeks, or the Feast of the First Fruit. Its rehgious observance commemorated
the dehvery of the Law Moses on Mount Sinai. On this feast day, fifty
to days after Christ was
crucified, the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as "they were all -with one accord in
one place." In early centuries converts were baptized on this day, and from the white garments
they wore then comes the Enghsh name Whitsunday.
The representation of the Pentecost has gone tlirough considerable evolution. Reproduced
here ( PI. 62A is an illustration in the Rabula Gospels, the earUest and most celebrated Syrian
)

codex, now preserved in the Laurentian Library in Florence. It was written and illuminated
by the monk Rabula in a.d. 586, in the monastery of St. John at Zagba in Mesopotamia. The
recording of name, date, and place in the manuscript is unique in its time. In the illustration
the \%gin Mar\% embodvlng Christ's Church on earth, stands in the center flanked by the
apostles, all touched by tongues of fire.
Mention has already been made here of the immense influence which Syrian iconography
exerted on the early Christian, Byzantine, and finally Western art. The holocausts that have
visited Asia Minor through the centuries have wiped out much important artistic evidence.
However, enough survives to serve as convincing clues to those who give it their attention.
In most medieval representations of the Pentecost Mary is notably absent (see PL 112A). In
that period emphasis was placed on the apostohc succession, and this interpretation survives
in the Orthodox world today. Later, the Western world included her figure once more in a more

humanized interpretation of the scene, together with "the women" spoken of in x\cts 1:14, and
even sometimes with other brethren besides the twelve apostles.
The Pentecost as painted by El Greco {PL 62B) shows some Orthodox characteristics. The
arched ceiling which in the Rabula Gospel indicates "the upper room" is present. Here also
the heads of the figures, xWth tongues of flame above them, form nearly a straight line placed
high on the canvas. Although presenting a different scene, the Byzantine icon from Mount
Athos (PL 62C) shows relationship in the tenseness of the gesticulating figures, the central
position of the Virgin, the even line of the heads,
and the flame-like shape of the trees.
In comparing Titian's painting of the Pentecost ( PL 63A ) it should be repeated that Titian's
iconography was not strictly Western; the great Venetian master often went to the Basilica
of San Marco in Venice to study the composition in the Byzantine mosaics. In Titian's case,
the Italian art historians call the process "inspired by . . .", "borrowed from . . .
." When El
Greco does the same, it is plagiarism.
In Titian's Pentecost the arch is built into a sohd architectural structure and, with the back-
ground, takes up more than half the canvas. The feeling of height of "the upper room" is clearly
indicated by El Greco through steps and the suggestion of a platform. The important figures
occupy the upper third of the canvas, while Titian has placed his in the lower part of the
painting. The empty upper space is filled with a strong fan-like ray, as against the modest
hght of El Greco's around the Dove.
El Greco includes with Mar>' another w-oman, who is reminiscent of the white-veiled mourner

.117-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
of the Disrobing. What makes his painting individual is the presence, second from the right,
of the only figm^e looking out of tlie picture —a distinguished elderly man with a pointed beard.
This is thought to be a portrait of El Greco himself. The explanation might be sought in the
Scriptures (Acts 2:5-11), when, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, devout men of every
nation came together to bear witness to the miracle. And were amazed that ". Parthians . .

and Medes dwellers in Mesopotamia

. . . and Egypt Lybia, and strangers of Rome
. . . . . .

. .Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of
.

God." El Greco's inclusion of himself could have two explanations: he indeed could discourse
in several tongues, and above aU, he was a "Crete." A precedent can be found in Diirer's wood-

cut of the Pentecost (Pi. 63B), in which tliree witnesses or observers sit on a bench in the
background.
The by Guido Reni ( PL 63C ) nearly contemporary with El Greco, which now hangs
version ,

in the Vatican, shows inspiration replaced by sentimentality.

The painting, appearing in a catalogue of the mid-nineteenth century as "The Dream of

Philip II," renamed by Cossio "The Glory of Philip II," is now given the title The
and later
Adoration of the Holy Name of Jesus ( PL 64B ) It has been suggested that El Greco executed
.

this painting as a bid for the royal patronage of Phihp II, who was then building and decorat-

ing the Escorial. Another, smaller version exists, some twenty-one by fourteen inches, painted
in tempera on wood panel with considerably less detail.

The composition falls into three sections. In the upper part the angelic host forms a wreath
about the monogram of Jesus' name. On the left, in the background, the multitude of the
blessed kneel in prayer. In the lower right comer yawni the jaws of Hell slavering with bodies
of the damned, and the middle ground shows more of the wicked being tlirust into the lake
of lire. A group of potentates, warriors, and others kneel in the foreground, among whom the

black-robed figure of Philip II is easily recognized. His companions have been identified as

Pope Pius V
(showm in full face) and the doge Luigi Mocenigo (with his back to the onlooker)
w^ho with the King of Spain formed the Holy League. The warriors then might represent the
—
generals at Lepanto who were John of Austria for Spain, Marcantonio Colonna for the
Vatican, and Sebastiano Veniero for Venice. This central group finds a prototype in the com-
memorative and allegorical paintings so magnificently executed for various occasions in Venice.
Veronese painted an allegory of Lepanto for the Ducal Palace and Tintoretto a commemorative
canvas for a chapel in SS. Giovanni e Paolo.^^
While this interpretation of the members of the Holy
group in El Greco's painting as the
League seems acceptable, the work in its entirety contains a much more complex symbolism;
the other sections have little relevance to a naval victory. Actually, the theme is the Last Judg-
ment, which the Orthodox call the Second Coming of Christ. It has been pointed out that
Philip II liked fantastic and supernatural compositions, such as those by Hieronymus Bosch,
Martin de Vos, and others, a number of whom depicted tlie Last Judgment. But the iconography
of the Second Coming of Christ long occupied Orthodox imagination. Its main episodes were
described in the fourth century by Ephraim the Syrian and, in the ninth, were combined in
pictures as an admonition, in the educational program of the church. They are set downi in Denys
of Fouma's Painter's Manual (see Pis. 15B and 43B). On the refectory wall of the La\Ta mon-
astery at Mount Athos (PL 65B), the depiction of the gates of Hell as the open jaws of a
monster appears somewhat later but is fully a part of the Orthodox representation. The posi-

•118-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
tion of the monster and his vertical pointed snout are almost exactly like those in El Greco's
composition. In Bulgaria, at the monaster)- at Rila (see PL 17 A), we see the same idea. Here
it should be mentioned that the monster does not appear in Last Judgments either by Hier-
on)-mus Bosch or Martin de Vos, or in the earlier depictions by Era Angehco. A panel in tlie

Byzantine Museum of Athens shows the devil with a great hook raking in the damned from
the ri\-er of fire. Independent depictions of various punishments accorded to the damned cover
the walls of many rural churches in Crete; Gerola reported nearly fift)' such instances ia murals
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In El Greco's painting, through the archway beyond
the lake of fire, two gibbets are \isible witli hanging figures, while others fall into the
flames.
Despite the small size of El Greco's work, the Byzantine manner of separating di£Ferent
scenes is The various groups — the potentates, the company of the saved, and
striking. the of
damned —are enclosed in lozenge-shaped compartments (compare 65C). El Greco arranges Pi.

his figures of the blessed to denote masses, so that only those in the front row can be dis-

tinguished, and the heads finally recede into a series of semicircles (compare PL 65 A).
Although it has been suggested that the painting glorifies the Spanish king, the focus actually
is on the celestial vision, which occupies a full half of the composition. With a touch of what
might be called surrealistic technique today, El Greco separates the heavens from the earthly
landscape. Mature angels, larger than the rulers' figures in the foreground, N^ith powerful hea\y
\%-ings, circle around the monogram IHS surmounted by the Cross and blazing in celestial
radiance. El Greco's angehc host has much in common with tlie B^-zantine Hetimasia, or Prepa-
ration of tlie Throne for the Second Coming, as it is depicted in the church of St. Demetrios in
Mistra {PL 64A). The contemporary Cretan Damasldnos painted a related group in the scene
of the Burning Bush in which God the Father delivers the tablets of the Ten Commandments
{Pis. 64C and 112B). In both cases the angels are rampant; their corpulent bodies, their solid

wings and freely moving legs, as they encircle the heavenly hght, are basic elements of Byzan-
tine painting. They are the angels to which El Greco's are related.
In the earliest Orthodox s\Tnbolism of the apocalypse in Nicaea and elsewhere, the Throne
was depicted with upon it ( "the Word" ) and the monogram of Jesus above it, signif\'ing
a scroll
His elevation to the right hand of God as final judge. As St. Peter said, "for there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). The scroll
— —
was later \\-ith the invention of binding replaced by a book Nsith se\en seals. In some in-
stances the Throne is indicated by a cross \^ath the Book at its foot (see PL 15B).
From the radiant letters IHS originates the latest caption under which the painting is kno\Mi.
To quote Matthew 24:30, "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven ." and . .

Paul's Epistle to the Phihppians 2:9 and 10, "that at the name of Jesus ever}- knee should
bow .
." Those three letters IHS constitute
. . the monogram in Greek iota, eta, sigma of — —
Jesus: IHSUS or IHCUC (the letters S and C being variant forms in the Greek alphabet).
A line abo\-e the central character is the Greek sign of contraction or abbre\-iation, and a cross
is formed if the first stroke of the h is lengthened, so as to strike through the line. Long after

the Orthodox and Roman rites had separated, the Jesuits sought a Latin interpretation of the
Monogram, which by that time was too broadly appHed to be neglected. With a twist, the
letters were declared to stand for "Jesus Hominum Salvator," Jesus Savior of Mankind, with

a special interpretation for the Spanish: "Jesus Hijo Sacro," Jesus Di\ine Son. The IHS is also
—
sometimes read as "In hoc signo (\inces)" the sign which Western interpreters say appeared

•119.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
to Constantine. This explanation is especially fallacious. Constantine was Balkan-bom and
educated in the Eastern court. The supernatural admonition "By this (sign) conquer" was
evinced to him in Greek, and the "sign" itself was the Greek monogram of Christos —the Chi
Rho which subsequently he adopted for his personal device.
The complex symbolisms of El Greco's painting reveal the profound and philosophically acute
iconographic knowledge of the painter. Although this composition was never executed on the
large scale to which it is eminently suited, it may have been instrumental in gaining the painter
the one royal commission of his hfe. The Martyrdom of St. Mauritius for the Escorial.
Sometimes the wrong title clings When, after World War II, the
to a picture stubbornly.
Night Watch of Rembrandt was thoroughly cleaned, was established that it commemorates a
it

gathering in bright daylight of a company of civic guards, and has nothing to do with either
night or watch. Nevertheless it is still referred to xmder its former title. What title El Greco
gave to his painting is not known; no mention of such a composition can be found in his in-
ventory and no archival material is extant which could shed light upon it.

Among few large canvases with many figures which El Greco had occasion
the very to
execute. The Martyrdom of St. Mauritius and the Theban Legion {Pi. 66B) is reveaUng of
his talent for monumental composition. It was planned to fill the center section of an altar in
the church of the Escorial.
Mauritius was commander of a Roman Egypt in the late third century.
legion recruited in
Marched across the Alps to reinforce the army of Maximinian in the suppression of a revolt
in Gaul, they were commanded to take part in pubhc sacrifices near Geneva and in the per-
secution of Christians. But, as many of them were aheady converts to the same faith, they
refused. In punishment, the troop was twice decimated and finally exterminated.
In El Greco's depiction, Mauritius in the center discourses with his saintly comrades. The sol-
diers wear the leather shirts of the Roman army of the second or third century. All figures but one
are barefoot. Mauritius has a large jeweled clasp on his mantle, a traditional sign of rank.
The drape of the cloak, the clasp, and some details of his kilt-like uniform show similarity
with an eleventh century soapstone carving of George from Mount Athos {Pi. 66C). Still
St.

more striking are the similarity of stanceand the gesture of hands and arms. The costume,
with its unusual revealing of the navel, appears in the drawing of a statue of a Byzantine em-
peror in the heyday of Constantinople {PI. 66 A). In contrast, two spectators with portrait-
clear heads but without bodies or feet appear behind Mauritius —
one accoutered in greaved
armor and fine narrow white ruff of the sixteenth century.
Toward the left in the painting we see the second scene of the legend. Mauritius stands
beside the decapitated nude body of one of his soldiers, his arms stretched outward and down-
ward in a gesture of compassion. His standard-bearer remains at his side, and again a Spanish
knight looks on. Beyond this scene which the legion is driven to execution {PL
is a third in
67 B). The bodies are only sketched and the numbers suggested with receding semicircles for
the heads. But there is considerable movement in all of the groups, as well as an amazing lack
of the stereotype. The contrast between the meek and the mighty could not be brought out
more clearly than by the figures of the warriors on horseback at the left, resplendent in full
sixteenth century armor.
The heavens, opening, reveal angels ensconced on a shelving cloud, playing celestial music.
A lute, a recorder, and a viol make up an exquisite contemporary trio. The angelic singer who
•120-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
seems also to be beating time holds an antiphonary on which the musical notation is clearly
—
marked a touch of the miniature painter. Farther to the right, angels poising on broad wings
wa\e long pahns, the S)Tnbol of mart}Tdom, and hold high the mart>Ts' crowns of Nictory.
El Greco began the painting in 1579 or early 1580. That he did not deliver it for almost four
years bears out Pacheco's report of his methods of working, that he returned to a picture again
and again, putting in new touches and high Hghts. The Spanish master adds: "that is what I
call painting to stay poor. ." Rising to the challenge of a royal commission, El Greco has
. .

freed himself of a number of tight Byzantine formulas. The painting exhibits his unusual sense
of coloring, as well as his command of the technique of painting in oil.

A relatively broad section of the foreground is without figures, displa\^ng a finely executed
stiU life. The red mart>Tdom of the innocent. The cut-down young tree
lihes s)Tiibolize the
might refer to the sacrifice of young Uves, and also suggests the passage in Job 14: "there is
hope of a tree if it be cut down, that it wiU sprout again ."
. . .

In the right comer, a serpent holds in its mouth a slip of paper bearing the Greek signature
of the painter: "Domenikos Theotokopoulos made me." One Spanish writer explains the snake
as the spirit of the earth or the earth force,^^ while another suggests that it was painted to
symbohze the en\y and maHce which engulfed the Cretan as a foreigner and abetted the
king's lack of enthusiasm for the painting. ^^- But for one so widely read as El Greco and with
such profound philosophical bent it appears to have a more pertinent s>TnboUsm. In ancient
lore the serpent is said to flee in terror from a man who quickly discards his clothing, as Satan

flees from those who free tliemselves from sin; and even more relevant: as the serpent ex'poses
his whole body to his enemies, so also must the Christian not hesitate to endure affliction for
the sake of the Lord.^^ The nakedness of the soldiers, which is said to have displeased Philip,
thus gives significance to the presence of the serpent. That El Greco puts the label with his
signature into its mouth calls to mind the fact that the ancients associated subtlety' and wisdom
also with the reptile. The Greek god of medicine Asklepios is represented with the caduceus,
a staff with serpents coiled around it, which the medical branch of the United States Army
today wears as its insignia.
El Greco's painting was never put in the place for which was intended. Instead, the Spanish
it

monarch had a rendition of the same subject by Romulo Cincinnato placed on the altar {Pi.
67 A). His painting is pedestrian, and since it was executed later than El Greco's, some might
see in it a certain influence from the disparaged canvas. Cincinnato, one of the numerous Itahan
hack painters around the Escorial, was bom in Florence, studied in Rome, and came to Spain
about 1567 on the recommendation of the Spanish ambassador.^^ Today his name is remembered
only in connection with this incident, a conclusive demonstration of the conventional taste of
the monarch.
Another Itahan, Veronese, in his scene Christ and the Centurion {Pi. 67C), shows how a
Venetian master dressed his Roman soldiers, with what skill he arranged his groups and sug-
gested perspecti\e. The two Italians, hack and master, have nevertheless much more in common
with each other than with El Greco.

To many. The Burial of Count Orgaz {Pi. 68A) is El Greco's masterpiece, the painting in
which his rich and varied faculties come to fullest ex'pression. Gonzalo Ruiz de Toledo, Lord
of Orgaz, a town belonging to the province of Toledo, died in the first quarter of the fourteenth
century. His descendants later received the title of count, which is now applied to him also.^^^

•121-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
A devout and generous personage, he rebuilt and "dowered" the church of Santo Tome about
1300, and also ceded propert)- to reestablish the Augustinian monaster^', leaving instructions
that the church be called San Esteban for Stephen, the first mart\T. Upon completion of the
monaster)' complex, his body was transferred there from Santo Tome, and the assembled
company witnessed the appearance of the saints Stephen and Augustine who lifted the body
and placed it in the tomb. Though it was felt that the miracle should be worthily commem-
orated, it took some 150 years to have this done. Early in 1586 El Greco was commissioned to
paint the scene, and it was specified that the canvas be in place by Christmas perhaps in the —
knowledge that the master was a slow worker. While it is most probably a coincidence that a
Cretan received the commission, it should not be left unmentioned, as one more echo from the
Byzantine past, that the lordly family was related to the Palaeologues, the last d>Tiasty of the
Byzantine Empire.
A ceremonially solemn and pious muteness characterizes the dark waU of the personages
who witness tlie scene. Color draws the eye to the resplendent vestments of the celebrants in
the foreground. There is a Byzantine reminiscence in the way in which the tsvo saints clasp

the body of the count. .An example can be seen in a mural of the Entombment of Christ, as-
signed to the Cretan school in the monaster}' of Dochiariou, Mount Athos {PL 69 A). The even
hne-up of the group of mourners in an unbroken row has also Byzantine antecedents, apparent
in scenes of the deaths of Athanasius and Ephraim (see Pis. 11 A and B).
As previous authors have pointed out, the composition of El Greco's canvas was influenced
by the established formula for depicting theDormition of the Virgin (see Ph. 15C, 19 A, and
69B), in which her soul, as a newborn infant, is held in the arms of Christ and angels descend
to receive it.^^ This representation disappears from Western art as Mar\' is given more and
more importance. However, medieval rehefs and paintings show it, even in Spain. In Toledo,

in the treasury of the cathedral, there is a Byzantine soapstone plaque where this form is clearly

visible (PI. ir2A). The Prado has among its treasures an Annunciation by Fra Angelico in which
one panel of the predeUa, or base, pictures the same scene {PL 68B). This is in contrast to
the Assumption in tlie Roman CathoHc Church, in which Christ is not present and the Virgin
ascends full grown. In The Burial of Count Orgaz, El Greco depicts the soul of the dead
coimt as a newborn infant — still more like a translucent ectoplasm —which is carried upward
in the arms of an angel through the one opening in the clouds. The representation in connection
v^'ith a mortal stands alone in the entire histon,' of Western painting.
El Greco reveals a famiHarit\' with the ranks of the hierarchies as established by Dionysius
the Areopagite whose works in Greek he had in his librar>'. The ecclesiastical hierarchy is present
in the lower group: bishops, presbv-ters, deacons ("hierarchs, hght-bearers, servitors"), monks,
the initiate lait>', and "catechumens" — the last represented by the boy in the foreground.
It is known tliat the Council of Trent found the representation of the celestial choirs too
much of a residue of the back-ward Middle Ages. Although it was not forbidden, it nevertlieless

occurs seldom in Western art after the Counter Reformation.^^ In his depiction of Heaven,
El Greco does not cling to the categorical. Nevertheless he indicates the various ranks by a
separation into compartments which is reminiscent of the cloud boats in which the apostles
o\-al

were summoned for the Dormition (see PL 19 A). His clouds have the soliditv' of starched
woven material. Uppermost in the center we see Christ, draped in white folds, Mar\' and the
Baptist at His feet as supplicants for the soul —a B\-zantine concept. Toward the right, beyond
the figure of John the Baptist and quite close to the company of the apostles, a tv-pical Habsburg

•122.
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
head is portrayed. It has been suggested that this represents Phihp
II. But it is very doubtful

that El Greco, with his thorough knowledge would have placed a living mortal
of iconography,
— —
even the King of Spain among the heavenly choirs. Rather, it might be Philip's father, the
Emperor Charles V, who died in 1558 and whose magnificence was still vivid in memory.
It is generally accepted that the small boy next to St. Stephen is Jorge Manuel, El Greco's

son, at the age of eight. From his pocket, a white kerchief emerges, on which the Greek text
reads "Domenikos Theotokopoulos I made it," and the date, added in Greek, is not the year
when the painting was contracted or when it was delivered but 1578, the year when the child
was bom. The flash of wit in this instance was seemingly suffered in that generally humorless
society.
While the men gesticulate with amazement toward the miracle, the child, looking straight
at the spectator, points not — as so often stated — at the center of action, but directly into the
white and gold rose framed within a circle which is embroidered on Stephen's dalmatic {PL
70B). This detail, important for its symbolism, has until now been strangely overlooked. The
two monks and gray at the
in black left seem grouped with the boy, pondering his gesture.
And Stephen looks down upon him.
The circle, being without beginning or end, is the symbol of eternity. The rose has been
popular through the ages, and variously applied. As an ancient symbol of love it denotes
( especially enclosed in the esoteric circle ) Divine Love, hence also Christian Faith. The white
rose symbohzes the messianic promise of salvation. ^° The white rose also stands for innocence,
that is, virtue, blamelessness, purity of heart —hence the frequent apphcation to the Virgin
Mary. In his Divine Comedy, Dante brings the vision of Paradise as a great white rose made
up of saints and angels.
It is possible that for the erudite Cretan the rose had still more definite association. The
cathedral of Toledo owns one of the largest Byzantine soapstone carvings in existence, pre-
viously mentioned, with rehefs of the Twelve Feasts of the Church, dating from the twelfth
century (P/. 112A). In two of the scenes, the Annunciation and the Baptism, the Holy Ghost
descends on a beam of light, not as a dove, but in the form of a rose {Tl. 70A). If El Greco
knew the carving, he imderstood it as few others in Toledo. The implication of the rose in
this painting then would be that, like Stephen —who was the first to be confirmed under the
aposties and also the first to give his life for the Christian faith —Orgaz too was vouchsafed
the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
How different El Greco's scene is from a typical Spanish concept can be seen when it is com-
pared with The Burial of St. Bonaventure by Zurbaran {Tl. 69C). In the latter canvas the
onlookers are statue-like in placement and lighting, without the vibration of El Greco's work.
In The Burial of Count Orgaz, tension is achieved by drawing the earthly participants into
one shallow plane in the foreground. Both burial scenes have a Spanish quaUty, but the atmos-
phere is quite dissimilar.

The Council of Trent decreed that Christ rose out of a closed tomb.^^ El Greco painted The
Resurrection in his earliest years in Spain in a rather Italianate version. The soldiers are dressed
and the tomb is clearly depicted. In a version from his older age, the Byzantine
traditionally
echoes have become stronger (PI. 71 A). There is nothing which might suggest a tomb. The
background is without depth. Whatever sense of perspective is given comes from the bold
foreshortening of the agitated figures and the fact that the tallest is placed in the foreground.

•123-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
The soldiers are no longer traditionally uniformed — the impression is of nudity —and their
gestures are terror-stricken.
This later version, of which some four replicas are extant, has strong affinities with the
Orthodox rendition of the Transfiguration, as illustrated here from a manuscript executed in
early fourteenth centuiy for a member of the Palaeologue family {Pi. 7 IB). Moses and Elijah
have no place in El Greco's painting, but the floating quaUty of the figure of Christ and the apoca-
tumbling witnesses are related. Against the opaque curtain of the backdrop, El
lyptically
Greco has painted what can be recognized as a similar circular aureole of yellowish golden
light, reminiscent of the gilded backgrounds of miniatures and icons. Even a diamond and a
square radiation are superimposed — tlie last brought out by the lines of Christ's raised arm
and the fluttering drapery.
The Byzantine depiction of the Transfiguration is one of the most traditional. It occurs \\ath
little change in the mosaic in the church of the Twelve Apostles in Thessaloniki, in murals in
the Mount Athos monasteries of Chilandari, Pantokratoros, St. Paul {Pi. 71C), in the rural
chapels of Kastoria, as well as in many icons. In Russia, too, derived from the famous fifteenth
century icon of Andrei Rublev, the Christ in blazing aureole and the tumbling figures have
become stock elements of this scene.
71D) the landscape has not only perspective but shows vegetation.
In Tintoretto's canvas {Pi.
The tomb is an important and solid element in the composition. The soldiers are conventionally
clothed, and the two in the foreground make up passive bystanders, posed as in a tableau
vivant. Tintoretto's Christ leaps as if propelled out of the tomb, while El Greco's figure floats
upward, calm, weightless.

El Greco approached the subject of The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane relatively
late in his lifetime. Reproduced here is the representation strongest in Byzantine echoes {PL
73A).
After celebrating the Passover, Jesus went wdth His disciples to the Moimt of OHves as was
His wont, and taking Peter, John, and James to one side, prayed that this cup might be re-

moved from Him. Though He bade the apostles to watch and pray with Him, they fell asleep.

Thrice He offered the prayer and thrice awoke His friends; the last time, Judas and the soldiers

approached.
El Greco's depiction of the scene brings the figure of Christ in dominating size and position
illuminated by a heavenly ray. Behind Him, framing and isolating His figure as in a mandorla,
rises what might be a rock —but the rock of a stage setting, slanting upright like a cresting
wave. A
massive angel with powerful wings holds the cup. The sleeping apostles are visible
in an oval grotto. Peter leans his head on his right arm while his left encircles it in an unusual
and uncomfortable gesture; James in the center bows forward, while John, with his head pil-
lowed on his arm, lies stretched at full length.

In the distance, right, a group of soldiers with lances and torchbearers advances, with one
long-robed figure in the lead. The "garden" is suggested only in shorthand by a few t^vigs

and leaves. In the foreground a truncated tree calls to mind the Baptist's admonition that on
the Last Day every tree which brings not forth good fruit shall be hewn down and cast into

tlie fire. Beyond the angel, apocalyptic clouds are translucent with light. To the right, in a

turbulent sky, a veiled full moon is making in total

floating, effect as unrealistic and ominous
a landscape as might have been dreamed by a surrealist.

•124-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
There is an unusually strong sense of perspective in El Greco's painting, although it is achieved
without the geometric devices of contemporary Western masters. El Greco had the remarkable
faculty of bringing out perspective with color. Here the angel appears to be farther in the
foreground than the figure of Christ —indeed, quite outside the frame. While in the repro-
duction the position is perceptible through the fact that the robe overlaps the tree, in the
original the full eflFect by the coloring.
is achie\"ed
In Tintoretto's painting of the same scene {Pi. 73B) the angel flies in from the right, offer-
ing the cup without the gesture of obeisance and "comfort" shown in El Greco's painting. The
scene lacks the eerie moonscape of El Greco. The three apostles are posed more naturally,
amid massive vegetation. In the left background, the approaching soldiers are outlined by
torchhght. El Greco and his atelier made seven or eight renditions of the subject, with slight
variations; but the pose of the three apostles is always the same.
In the Byzantine representation of the Agony in the Garden, the text of St. Luke is usually
followed and all the apostles appear. The sleeping group is placed also in a grotto-Hke oval in the
twelfth century mosaic in tlie cathedral of Monreale, Sicily {PL 72A). The uncomfortable, un-
reahstic poses in many Byzantine renditions are strikingly similar to El Greco's —the sharply
bent arms, the central figure of James with forward-bowed foreshortened head, and the beard-
less John stretched at full length. In the two fourteenth century versions shown here, the murals
at Mount Athos and the Yugoslav-Macedonian monastery of S. Andreas {Pi. 72C and B), the
huddled, crowded effect is also preserved and the stupor tellingly portrayed. Although El Greco
includes only three figures, for which there is ample space, the crowding is retained.
The hills in the Byzantine landscape —arid truncated cones with slanting step-Like ledges
are taken from the actual tells, the barren, rocky mounds which can be seen by the hundreds
in the Near East.^ El Greco's landscape with its sharp, rigid outlines, from which any attempt
at realism is absent, shows derivation from Byzantine antecedents. Indeed, Western painting,
before it achiev^ed roundness and three-dimensional reaUsm, drew from the same early con-
ventionalization {Pi. 73C). These hard and scaled surfaces in stereot>^e repetition make up
the traditional composite landscape of Late Byzantine art, as shown in Pi. 96. El Greco's settings
with their unreal elements, sometimes abstracted, sometimes stylized, bear a distinct relation
to this landscape.

El Greco painted The Healing of the Blind Man several times, but all renditions are works
of his youth. In the scene illustrated {PL 74A) his preoccupation with perspective is evident
in the converging Hues of the pavement, in the rather arbitrarily placed steps, in the introduc-
tion of groups of diminishing size, and in the line of the arcades ending in a vaulted ruin. This
last detail has been identified as taken from a book by Serho on architecture, a copy of which
El Greco had in his hbrary.^^-
Of the many figures in the scene, the group on the left is dominated by a young man, naked
to the waist, who points into the comer. One wonders ff there was once an inscription on the
lintel beyond his finger. In the group at the right, a wise old man nearest the miracle indicates
amazement. The painting does not yet speak the particular subjective idiom of El Greco. Most
of the persons depicted are more or less stock figures; note the repetitions in the stance. Even
the gesticulations of the hands could have been executed by one of the many adept painters
who supplied the Venetian market, profiting from prints of the masters. It might be worth
mention that this canvas once belonged to the Famese family and was catalogued in the

•125.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
seventeenth century as the work of Veronese.^^* In all three knowoi repetitions of El Greco's
Christ Healing the Blind, the general arrangement is the same and the figure of Christ remains
unchanged, suggesting that the paintings do not fall far from one another in time.
Of especial interest for us is the figure of Christ, which shows a relationship to the Creto-
Venetian tradition. As sympathetic as the delineation is, it is also a stock figure but one from
another artistic ensemble. In the gallery of San Giorgio del Greci in Venice, there is an icon
of the Risen Christ with the two Marys {Pi. 74C) which remains recognizably Byzantine,
though it displays concessions to the Western taste. In this painting the benign pose of Christ's
figure, the folds of the drapery, the line of the shirt around the neck, and the throw of the
mantle over the left arm call the El Greco to mind. The stance has an unyielding quality which
is The Christ in a panel by Michele Damaskinos {Fl. 74B), today in the Metro-
traditional.
politan Church of Heraldion (Candia), is even closer to El Greco's figure; and the figure of
Mary is composed in similar relation to Him as that of the blind man. In both icons a series
of other scenes is included in the background. This also is in the Byzantine tradition aheady
seen in El Greco's The Martyrdom of St. Mauritius.
In The Cleansing of the Temple a development can be observed, from the early hesitant com-
positions to those painted in El Greco's very late Toledan years. The figure of Christ goes
tlu-ough a metamorphosis, although preserving the Creto- Venetian character which it had also
in the first essay. In a relatively similar architectural arrangement to the previous subject, Christ
is again placed in the center of the composition (
Pi. 74D ) . On the left there is again a young
man naked to the waist, but instead of pointing, he bends his arm as if protecting himself from
blows. At the right again, closer to the action, are wise men who are more onlookers than
participants. The intention to demonstrate a command of perspective is again evident. The
artist has set himself a more complicated problem and has resolved it successfully. The palace
with its balcony (left center) is so Venetian that it could stand on the Canal Grande. In the
lower right comer, four heads are inserted with no connection whatsoever with the action.
These have been tentatively identified as Titian, Michelangelo, Clovio, and Raphael. It has
also been repeatedly suggested that the younger man may be a self-portrait.
In this composition the figure of Christ has about the same dimensions as the other figures
and the gentle pose is changed into a militantly active one. Christ grasps a whip, and in the

crowd a radius is left open as if to give space for the swing of it. To be remarked in the early

version are also the nudity, the hair-dos of the women, Venetian in style and set forth in elabo-

rate detail, the babies, or putti, in Venetian tradition, worthy indeed of a "disciple of Titian."

In the later \ersions of this same theme {Pi. 75B) — as when an orchestra has repeated a
musical composition for a long time —a smoothness in the ensemble is noticeable. Absent
are a number The cherubic babies are no more to be seen nor are the anecdotal
of details.
touches which mellowed the atmosphere. The buildings are subordinated, less defined and more
distant. The pavement has a uniform pattern. Between the columns, in a number of versions,

two rehefs with symbolic meaning are presented: on the left, the expulsion of Adam and Eve
from the garden, on the right, Abraham about to sacrifice his son. This manner of placing small
rehefs into an architectural frame to elucidate the main theme was a favorite device of Bellini
and Titian.
Instead of the step in the foreground a new element is introduced — the upturned table of
the money-changers which serves a similar purpose in the design. This is a harking back to

•126-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
earlier protot>-pes, as exemplified in tlie twelfth century mosaic at Monreale, Sicily {Pi. 75C).
There is also another parallel: the figure of Christ is accentuated by the curve of an arch.
In this last version of El Greco's, Christ has growni in size and vehemence. This is an aveng-
ing Christ who establishes order, whom nobody dares to counteract. As in Byzantine art in
general, He stands drawTi in full; not the shghtest detail is permitted to obliterate any part of
the dominating figure.
This emphasis of the main protagonist is especially clear in a mural in the side chapel of
Kariye Cami, in Istanbul, just recently cleared of obscuring whitewash. Here Christ in Limbo
is represented, the Byzantine concept of the Resurrection known as Anastasis in Greek {PL
75A). He stands astride the blasted gates of Hell. Death himself hes manacled underfoot,
and locks, hinges, and bolts are scattered about. The triple mandorla inclines to the left, subtly
following themovement of His figure. Tliree tones of blue came to hght upon cleaning, and
starswere imcovered, appHed in gold leaf.^ With forceful authority Christ lifts Adam and
Eve out of the Kingdom of Death. The physical effort is at once perceivable, but still more
powerful is the spiritual communication. The appearance is kindred in more than one way
to El Greco's Sa\-iour.
El Greco has come far, on one hand, from the Creto-Venetian hagiographers and also, on
the other, from the models of the Venetian school, as is evident from the Bassano painting of

the Cleansing of the Temple (PL 75D). Here the figure of Christ is no larger than the others,
and, enveloped by the crowd around Him, does not command attention. The group with the
Jewish High Priest takes the emphasis, standing high above His head on the landing of the
temple, with strong illumination falling upon it, and weakens the point of the work.

Few events of the Bible have the idyllic grace of the angel's annunciation to Mary. The scene
is usually presented as one of truly angehc serenity. It was extremely popular in sixteenth
century Venice, with the madonneri and their Greek equivalents, the hagiographers. An ex-
ample from the Scuola di San Giorgio dei Greci, beheved to be from the end of the sixteenth
century, reproduced on PL 76C. The Virgin kneels at a prayer desk at the right of the canvas.
is

Her canopied bed is \isible, as often shown in early manuscripts and prints. Beyond the ter-
race a landscape stretches with houses and a campanile. The checkered floor and somewhat
uncertainly designed steps reveal an attempt at handling perspective. The archangel carries
a branch of hhes. God the Father wdth the orb is to be seen as He dispatches the Dove. This
part of the painting is in a cloud —always a good device for presenting transcendental ap-
pearances.
Many
similarities can be observed in the Veronese rendition of the Annunciation {PL 76B),
most probably painted not much earher, and eagerly copied by the "popular" painters. The
pose of the archangel, the Virgin's arms crossed in humility, the placement of the landscape,
and many other details are like. In the differences in execution and coloring, the wide range
of quality becomes clear in the contemporaneous art production of this one city.
The Annunciation belongs to the few subjects which inspired El Greco across the years.
Several paintings executed in Italy have been credited to him, then again declared doubtful.
One such, shown on PL 77 A, once hung in the State Caller)- in Vienna but was lost during
World War II. Here the colmnn and the heavy drapery only suggest the bedchamber. A more
successful perspective is displayed through the arcade, with a more elegantly patterned floor.

•127-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
The Do\e enters on an unobtrusive ray of light,
and the angel occupies only a small area of the
on heavy wings. As generally in the West, the second \ving is suggested by
painting, floating in
a view of its curving edge over the far shoulder.
The next example (PL 77C) is attributed to a follower of Titian. Mary kneels now at the
left. The bed again is clearly visible, topped by a large pillow with silken high lights. Genre
touches are introduced, in the cat, the chest, the workbasket. The handling of the drapery is

skillful, The checkerboard pattern of the pavement guides

the perspective no longer obtrusive.
the eye to the symbohc "closed garden" in the background.
In all of the Annunciations which El Greco painted, Mary is placed at the left. In the first
example here reproduced {PI. 77B), she kneels on a platform and there is no suggestion of a
bedchamber. The checkered pattern of the floor extends down a long vista to a gate that sug-
gests again the closed garden. To the right of the Venetian-style balcony, reminiscent of that in
the Cleansing of the Temple, a miniature fountain appears —the "fountain of U\ing waters"
is another attribute of the Virgin. The romping putti tend to distract the eye from the Dove.
Gabriel carries no lily but hails Mary with upraised hand. The curve of the right wing, in the
Western manner, is outlined beyond the shoulder.
A mural dated 1547 in the church of the Holy Apostles at Kastoria, Macedonia {Pi. 76A),
demonstrates the contrast between the Byzantine Greek and the Venetian, even the Creto-
Venetian concept of the subject. Here Mary stands before a throne-like seat proN-ided with the
imperial cushion. She holds a distaff in her left hand; the thread runs across her raised right hand
between thumb and forefinger. The bright wings of the archangel are spread to show entire,
one on each side. From a rainbow-rimmed circle the Dove descends, wearing a tiny triradiant
halo and emanating a ray of Hght from its beak. The architectural background is painted in the
Byzantine manner, and a number of other details hark back to miniatures and mosaics.
El Greco in a later version of the Annunciation (
Pi. 78 ) has discarded the elements of archi-
tectural perspective. A workbasket is set at the Virgin's feet, and Gabriel carries a lily stalk.
His outspread tinted wings that fill the upper third of the canvas are related in their strong
decorative power to Byzantine protot}'pes, such as the mural at Mount Athos {Pi. 7SB), where,
indeed, a variet)^ of positions of wings can be seen. In acr)'stal vase, prominent in the right

foreground, is a branch of the Burning Bush. The Lord announced to Moses out of a burning
bush that he had been chosen to free Israel. In Orthodox iconography the s\Tnbolism was ap-
phed to Mary, as the instrument of God in the redemption of mankind. Panels showing her with
the divine Infant in the midst of the bush, "burning but not consumed," hang in the gallery
of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice. A notable example is in the Metropolitan Church of

Heraldion (Candia) {Pi. 112B), signed by Michele Damaskinos. The icon presents parallels
between tlie Old and New Testaments, with an explanatory text above each scene. The Virgin
and Child sit in the center, in a mandorla formed by the Burning Bush. Above her, God the
Father delivers the Ten Commandments, while at the right the children of Israel are seen
worshiping the Golden Calf, and in the opposite background the Betrayal of Christ is depicted.
If El Greco had instruction in painting before he left Crete, it was probably in the monastery
of St. Catherine in Candia. This monaster)' was dedicated to the cult of Catherine of .Alexan-
dria whose bones were deposited in the mother house at Mount Sinai, the site of Moses' vision.
Thus El Greco's familiarity with this dual symbohsm of the Old and New Testaments is fully
ex-plained.
In a similar canvas of the same subject by El Greco {PL 78C), clustered cherub heads edge a

•128-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
great triangle of light surrounding the Dove. Again Mary's left hand lies on the book and her
right is raised in a gesture of listening or acceptance. Here, the angel's arms are folded across
the breast in reverence and the lily is placed in a vase. El Greco's typical "backdrop" closes
off the scene. When the canvas was restored, the entire right wing seems to have been painted
out. A suggestion of the outline can be discovered if this picture is compared with the painting
reproduced below it.

In an example apparently painted late in El Greco's lifetime (

PL 79B and C ) , Mary is turned
toward the angel, away from her prayer desk, and stands with extended arms and open hands
in the typical Orthodox theomeni, or orans, position of prayer —a considerable metamorphosis
from the master's Italianate period. A perfect illustration of the theomeni pose can be seen in
the lunette above the door at the Torcello basilica (see Pi. 43B). Over her head, not a lacy
mantilla-like veil but her mantle is draped. Both gesture and costume echo the Byzantine past,
as can be seen in the mural at Mistra {Pi. 79A). There is lettering on the embroidered strip
laid across her workbasket, defaced by repeated "restorations." It has been suggested that this
is El Greco's signature in Greek. But it could be rather the Greek words O Kheretismos, the
Annunciation, as was the custom to label the scene in early mosaics. The angel stands firmly
it

upon the cloud, with heavy Byzantine legs and feet. His right wing is turned forward and
downward, in a manner reminiscent of the Kastoria mural shown in Pi. 76A, counterbalancing
Mary's pose. The backdrop is enhvened by the blaze of light emanating from the Dove, and
in the spray of flowers in the background the red and gold flames of the Burning Bush are
indisputably recognizable.
The angehc which El Greco pictures in various compositions comes here to splendid
choir
—
climax. A recorder, virginals, a lute, a harp and a viol note the medieval position of holding
—
the bow make up a charmingly balanced ensemble. One of the angels holds the book of
music and seems to conduct; again the pages of the antiphonary are painted with the explicit-
ness of the miniaturist. A brightly colored fan of wings crowns the scene. It is recorded that
musicians played when El Greco dined. Some felt this to be ostentation, but the artist and
philosopher was evidently also a connoisseur of music. A long musical tradition was part of
his Cretan heritage. The eighth century Metropolitan of Gortyna, Andreas of Crete, is said
to be the initiator of the musical canon (the nomenclature is derived from the Greek). There
is manner of Byzantine chant, which passed through Corfu and Zante along the
a "Cretan"
Dalmatian coast and as far as Hungary. Crete led in the reform and codification of Orthodox
Church music. Further, it should be recalled that the music at San Giorgio dei Greci was recom-
mended to all visitors to Venice as especially rich and unusually varied.
El Greco's imagination created his own which his
peculiar stage on religious scenes were set.
Toward the end of his life, he eliminated all but the essential from his compositions. At the
height of his performance, he cannot be confused with anyone else.

Of the which Christ participated, the Feast in the House of Simon and the
several meals in
Last Supper were favorite subjects of Renaissance and Baroque painters. The arrangement
of the figures and the solution of the perspective offered a challenge to every master. Many Creto-
Venetian painters, following the Itahan example, placed the participants of these scenes at a
long refectory table across the foreground, as is illustrated in a work by one of the anonymous
painters in the gallery of San Giorgio dei Greci {Pi. SOB).
Although there is no record that El Greco ever painted a Last Supper, in his Feast in the

•129-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
House of Simon 81C) he uses certain traditional elements of that representation. The room
{PI.
is small and narrow. The background has strong architectural features and, through its flat-
ness, harks back to mosaics and enamels where realistic perspective was not yet an ambition
of the artist. Note the similarity of grouping in his Pentecost (see PL 62B). Kinship with a
mural of the Last Supper from a monastery at Meteora, Greece, can be seen ( PL SOD ) in the
architectural setting, the arrangement of the persons, the round table with its scattering of
dishes. The Last Supper by the Cretan-bom Damaskinos {PL 80C)y in the Metropolitan Church
in Heraklion (Candia), also contains parallels, but it is nearer to the anonymous panel in San
Giorgio dei Greci and to Western taste than to the work which El Greco painted in Toledo.
The two Creto-Venetian examples show a tendency to expand in space and place the partici-
pants of the meal comfortably. In El Greco's version, there is a drawing-together which is in
the ancient Byzantine spirit. This is well illustrated at the center of an onyx paten representing
tlie Last Supper, an exquisite jewel of enamelwork said to date from tenth century Con-
stantinople {PL 80A). There, as in the Meteora mural, and in El Greco's painting, the heads
are composed to form a circle. The Knights of the Holy Grail sit at a round table. The circle,
as the symbol of eternity and perfect unity, is also the basis for the halo.
In Western paintings of the Feast in the House of Simon ( scripturally it was merely a supper),
the woman, usually interpreted as the Magdalene, anoints Christ's feet and dries them with
her hair, following Luke 7:38, as is illustrated here by a relatively early Spanish painter {PL
81B), Pedro Berruguete (d. 1503), and by Tintoretto {PL 81A) a century later. El Greco has
again selected a moment, if less dramatic, of deeper spiritual significance, drawing his text from
Mark 14: "There came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, ver}^ precious;
and she brake the box, and poured it on His head." Some were indignant at the waste, but Jesus
said, "Let her alone she hath wrought a good work
. . . she is come aforehand to anoint
. . .

my body to the burying." This episode is emphasized in the Orthodox Church as a prelude
to the Passion.

In the Byzantine depiction of the lamentation over the body of Christ {threnos in Greek),
the setting is usually the foot of the Cross. Mary appears in close unity with her dead Son,
even though often surrounded by a number of other mourners. Early examples are preserved
in Greek and Serbian Macedonia {PL 82B and A). The paintings in the Anargyri church of
Kastoria are dated in the last decade of the eleventh century. According to an inscription on
the narthex, the church of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi was decorated by order of Alexius Com-
nenus in 1164. Both murals apparently go back to the same prototype. Both project considerable
drama. Mary isweighed down by the lifeless figure in her lap. She presses her cheek upon His
with a vehemence full of poignancy. Her right hand can be seen supporting His head, while
with her left arm she gathers the body example the gesture is clear and
to her. In the Kastoria
natural; in the Nerezi mural, Clirist's left arm was redrawn in restoration and pulled awk-
wardly over hers.
The spirit of the scene and many details are the same in a Cretan icon painted several hun-
dred years later {PL 82D), although here Mary sits at Christ's head. The prone figure of her
Son determined the narrow rectangular shape of the composition, forcing the attendant figures
into attitudes of prostration ( see also PL 28 ) The sorrowful bearing of the group as a whole
.

augments the emotional effect of tlie central scene like the chorus of a Greek tragedy. The
upraised arms of tlie woman on the left have the impact on the onlooker of the sound of a

•130.
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
shriek. This maimer of representation sm^'ived the Tm^kish centuries, and a panel of it exists

in a private collection in Athens, signed "hand of Efstathios MavToyiannis, June 30, 1823."
In a Creto- Venetian icon of the sixteenth century (
Pi. 82C )
, the dead Christ Hes weightless in
the lap of His Mother as she sits in sohtude at the foot of the Cross.^^ The style of her garments
and their elaborate folds, as well as the gold background, are in Byzantine tradition. The anat-
omy of Christ's body is highly conventionalized, as are the craggy rocks on the landscape.
The monogram of Jesus Christ is inscribed in Greek above His head.
Another panel from about the same period, today in Athens, shows many similarities {PL
83A). Mary's eyes have the triangles of deep mourning already seen. The background again
is Greek lettering. .Although her garments show Western influence,
gold, with the identical
the high hghts and the whole pose keep the tradition. In these last two panels also, Mary en-
folds her dead Son on her lap, her right hand, with the fingers clearly delineated, holding
His head, while the left reaches across the body under His left arm.
El Greco combined the traditional and the sophistication of the sixteenth century \\ith his
indix-idual talent in his rendition of The Lamentation {Pi. 83C). Mary's relationship to her
Son is still the closed, iimer circle. It is CNident that nothing in the world exists for her except
her sorrow. Her carriage, the poise of her head, even the shadowed eyes are taken from the
Orthodox representation. Her fine right hand and fingers, painted with the usual mastery and
expressiveness of the Cretan, hold the head, and the left arm reaches across the sagging body,
under the left arm of Christ, exactly as in the Byzantine examples. The scene is laid, traditionally,
at the foot of the Cross, as seldom in contemporar\' Western painting. One concession is made
— the right hand of Christ on the ground, achieving a broader and more immediate rhythm
rests

in the composition. The delineation of the sagging body shows the same hand which painted
that of Count Orgaz and numerous Crucifixions (see Ph. 68A, 100, 101).
The mourning figures of Mar\'' Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea are only auxiliaries to the
personal drama so subjectively and mo\ingly portrayed. If they are removed {Pi. 83B), the
relationship of El Greco's composition to the Byzantine protot^'pes is more powerfully revealed.
El Greco's Marys never wear the wimple of a nun.
Many Western painters have rendered the Pieta. Bassano's contemporary composition {Pi.
83D) demonstrates how far the Cretan stood from the fully Western spirit. Bassano's figures
are loosely arranged as against tlie tight participation of all of El Greco's, In the Venetian
we miss the tense physical and emotional relationship of Mother and Son; her hands hang
limp and her eyes are closed in a swoon. While effectively grouped and well painted, the
picture is without the warmth which permeates El Greco's canvas.

In early Italian paintings, crowned by God the Father alone. Later, with the gro\\'ing
Mary is

Mariology, the Trinit>' came to participate in the act. El Greco painted The Coronation of the
Virgin several times, in an oblong, sometimes oval form {PL 85B), showing Christ and God
the Fatlier holding the cro\\Ti and the poised Dove also seeming to share in its support. God the
Father is enveloped in the spacious white chiton of the antique Greek world, which loses
itself downward into clouds, with a great mantle draped loosely back to free the arms. The

sweeping folds of the garments and the surging clouds gi\e buoyancy to the composition, and
the arrangement in the oval v^-ith its marked foreshortening achieves a sense of unfathomable
space. Both the Father and the Son hold a rod in their left hands, s\Tnbol of the final authority
of justice. That "He shall rule with a rod of iron" is several times mentioned in the Bible.

•131-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
The rod of chastisement is seldom represented so late in Western art. But an interesting hold-
over was observed by this writer at the Good Friday ceremonies in St. Peter inRome, when
a file of penitents, after depositing their oflFerings at a barrier, knelt before an aged priest
enthroned upon a dais and received a tap from his long rod, in token of justice administered
and forgiveness attained.
The and draped mantle are appurtenant to God the Father in the
rod, the white robe,
Orthodox representation of the Holy Liturgy {Pi. 84A). The phrase derives from the Greek,
meaning "pubhc service," and denotes the order of celebration and administration of the
Eucharist. There are a number of hturgical groups in the Christian world, including the S>Tian,
Egyptian, Persian (Nestorian), Mozarabic. They were developed in the first centuries of
Christianity, independent from the Byzantine and the Roman rites, and even today their sov-
ereignty co\ers a larger territory and more behevers than is generally known in the Western
world. In this esoteric rendition —which is never portrayed in the —
West God the Father is
seen sitting in a position similar to that in El Greco's painting, with the fold of cloak across
the shoulder and His long beard flowing over the white garment. His right hand is raised
in theOrthodox gesture of blessing. His left hand holds the rod. Christ at His right in the robes
of an Orthodox priest is celebrating the Mass before the ranks of the celestial hierarchy who
frame the scene.

In the depiction of the Baptism of Christ, Italian painters since earhest times generally
showed Jesus standing in the shallow water of the river Jordan, His head sHghtly bowed, and
John the Baptist to the right in the picture, with a shell in his hand. A clear and poetic land-
scape formed the background, often containing reminiscences of the region where the painter
was active {PL 84C). A work by a Spanish master, Juan de Juanes (1523-1579), who was
popular when El Greco arrived in Spain, t>^ifies the didactic interpretation of this scene in the
spirit of the Counter Reformation {PI. 85C). Jesus bends deep to show respect. His hands

crossed on His breast in humihty, as decreed by the Council of Trent. A thin reed cross in the
hand of the Baptist emphasizes his identity. The river is expertly painted, showing a long per-
spective that leaves space for luminous sk}-, in which the Dove appears. Heaven is separated
by large cumulus clouds, from which the figure of God the Father emerges, dressed in dark
fitted garments, both hands outstretched. Since at the Baptism the divinit>^ of Jesus w^as afiBrmed,
the event had great significance for the theologians. And the Spanish painter has put the four
doctors of the Latin Church into the picture — Gregory as pope, Augustine and Ambrose as

bishops, and Jerome wearing ecclesiastical robes, all carr\'ing the volumes of their theological

dissertations. The kneeling priest at the left, with open book, might be the donor of the picture
or the founder of the order that commissioned it. The five ecclesiastical figures outnumber
and outweigh —the transcendental ones. Unwittingly the painter has demonstrated that, in
that period, was all too often not the hierarchy who served tlie Church, but the re\erse.
it

The Orthodox baptism even today is performed by full immersion. In Byzantine mosaics and
paintings, Christ often stands up to His shoulders in the river. The Baptist is always placed
on the left of the picture, his face raised to Heaven, whence issued the Dove and the Voice,
and three or more ministering angels are grouped on the opposite shore ( PI. 84D ) The name .

of Manuel Panselinos is associated with the murals in the Protaton church at Karv-es, Mount
Athos, but his activities in time and place are far from clarified. Some would place him
wTiters
at the beginning of the fourteenth centur>'; others, more than two centuries later. The fact

•132.
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
that he is mentioned first in a seventeenth century text, without exact dates, keeps him still in

the realm of conjecture.

While the same arrangement is retained in the triptych assigned to El Greco's youth (
Pi. 84B )
in The Baptism of Christ painted in Toledo he followed Western practice as to the placement
of the various figures (PL 85 A). Here the river Jordan no more than a pool. Christ stands
is

on the shore, one knee resting on a rock, and bends His head only shghtly; His attitude is one
of prayer. John stands erect —
no melodramatic gesture of obeisance. An angel between them
helps hold up the swirhng mantle, that takes on the shape of a mandorla. Again there is no
attempt to suggest a surrounding landscape. The canvas has the spaceless perspective of EI
Greco's biblical scenes.
As so often, the celestial takes up a good half of the canvas. God the Father sits in the same
white chiton that we have seen in the Coronation, His hand raised in benediction —a figure
strongly reminiscent of the Holy Liturgy.
When the painting was transferred to the Prado Gallery, the margins on which El Greco
is said customarily to have wiped his brushes were left exposed, showing strips of variegated
color that often prove confusing to the spectator. This space was originally intended to be
covered by the heavy architectural frame of the altar for which the picture was planned, so
that the composition itself would not be encroached upon. As with nearly all large paintings
of El Greco which were taken out of the massive and ornate retables for which they were
composed, the effect is impeded. When they are hung at a different level than was intended,
and placed on a wall, often imcongenial, or in some aseptic museum room, much of the
painter's calculations of lighting, the adjustment of perspective, and the subtle harmony with
the original frame are lost.

Closely related to the Karyes mural PL 84D ) is the mosaic of the Baptism in St. Mark
( see
at Venice (Pi. 86A). The angled high hghts and rugged outlines in the mosaic make for a

striking design. Note the ax at the foot of the tree so clearly represented behind John. It is one
of the Baptist's important appurtenances in Orthodox iconography, signifying his warning of
the Last Judgment: "Now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore
which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and (Luke 3:9). The ax
cast into the fire"

) and also in El Greco's Baptism {PL 85A), between

can be seen in a late icon in Venice {PL 44B
the Baptist's knee and the angel, although partly obscured by ununderstanding restoration.
The cut tree appears also in Ph. 66B and 73A, further proof of the philosophical depth of
El Greco's symboHsm.

John the Baptist, Prodromos or Forerunner, lanky and tall in his rough garment of camel's
skin, is a fascinating figure. Both his parents came of priestly families, and as a lad he retired
into the desert for contemplation. He is represented in art sometimes as a youth, even a child
( PL 73C ) sometimes as a mature man. In the wilderness he experienced a revelation and
see ,

began to preach the baptism of repentance. John denounced Herod, King of the Jews, who for
a time was reluctant to act against him because of his great following. But at a birthday feast,
Herod's stepdaughter Salome danced so ravishingly that the king promised her the fulfillment
of any wish. At the Salome demanded the head of John, akeady
instigation of her mother,
head in a platter on her own head in real oriental
prisoner of the king. Salome, balancing John's
fashion, was depicted in numerous Byzantine mosaics and paintings.
The Orthodox representation of John the Baptist can be recognized in a large panel which

•133-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
has been transferred from an older location to the modem iconostasis of the Metropolitan's
church at Kastoria, Greece {Pi. 86B). Jesus called him ". . . much more than a prophet. This
is he of whom it is wTitten, Behold, I send my messenger which shall prepare thy way"
, . .

(Luke 7:26). And as a messenger of the Lord he is an archangel and wears wings. The land-
scape is strongly con\entionahzed. At tlie foot of the saint in a platter hes his o\mi head, in
accord with the transcendental interpretation of his mission. In the icon, the whites and blues
touched with red stand brilliant against the gold of the background.
The intellectual radiation of El Greco's St. John the Baptist {Pi. 86C), the gaunt height,
the forlorn gaze of the deeply shadowed eyes, the gesture of the elongated fingers, all are
closely related to the Byzantine model, as are also theunkempt curly hair, scrawny neck and
prominent ears, theand conventionaHzed stance. Where tlie clouds part and an
bony feet
opening is formed, one might e\en imagine the shape of wings.
Portrayed by Titian, there stands a healthy, handsome, and reassuring figure {Pi. 86D). He
shows nothing of the emaciation resulting from privations in the desert or of the exaltation
of the Forerunner, of whom Flavius Josephus wTote: "His face was like a savage's ... he wore
animal hair on those parts of his body not covered by his owti. He called on the Jews to claim
their freedom . . . with an earnest exhortation to abandon their evil ways." For a Spanish
example of the Baptist, see also PI. 52A.

An art dealer who emigrated to England describes an episode from his childhood in a Rus-
sian village at the end of the nineteenth century. An itinerant painter persuaded his grand-
father —a learned person with a long white beard, intelligent forehead, and hvely eyes — to
sit for a free portrait. Some years later, wandering about the fairground, the boy saw his grand-
father's likeness on se\eral icons which were laid out in a booth. Through priestly garb and
otlier paraphernalia a composite picture had been achieved. It seems that in the Orthodox
world the process was not unusual of reNixifying a saintly figure by building it up from elements
taken from life, while satisfying tradition also. The familiar features of more prominent saints

were carried across the centuries by the Byzantine painter (as demonstrated here in Ph. 86
and 88) wliile for other figures, stock models sufficed.
El Greco also kept in his mental storehouse the salient characteristics of certain important
saints; in other instanceshe seemingly apphed the composite method. His Saint Jerome as
cardinal, several times repeated, has always the same elongated head accented by a long
beard (
Pi. 87D ) . His hands rest on a book, s\'mbol of his learning, as the translator of the Bible
into Latin Vulgate. The head, rising from the stiff folds of his cardinal's garb, has httle con-
nection witli tlie shoulders. The expression is \-igorous and uncompromising, gixing character
to an otherwise conventional representation. Compare the pose and the robe in tlie portrait
of Cardinal Tavera, see Pi. 57 B. Both are striking and masterly works, even though permeated
by an inscrutable, chilling atmosphere.
A detail of a mosaic of St. Gregor)' {Pi. 87 A) from the mid-twelfth centur\-, in the Cappella
Palatina, Palermo, Sicily, has similar features. The thin straight nose, the balding forehead,
the prominent ears, the beard jutting out at the sides and parted in the middle, the hollow
cheeks, anatomically false but pictorially expressive — all show a relationship despite the restraint
of the line in tlie mosaic as against the dexterous biiishwork on the canvas. Ears are made
prominent in Byzantine iconography, not in an attempt at realism but as a s>Ti"ibol that tliey
**
had heard "the Word."
•134-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
In an icon of PL 87B ) with its shining gold background we see another relative.
St. Basil (

It hangs today in the gallery of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice, and is signed by Emmanuel

Zane, also a Cretan, and dated 1656. Here the saint sits enthroned Hke a Byzantine emperor,
the imperial cushion visible at the side.
In our survey of Macedonian mural painting, at the outskirts of the town of Kastoria we
came to a rural shrine dedicated to the Httle known St. Nicholas of Traianou, standing in a
neglected courtyard. We were all tired from clambering over the hilly countryside in hot

weather all day long. But wooden shutters and we found ourselves
were quickly lifted off

among a series of life-sized saintly "witnesses" that lined the walls, lighted by the late after-
noon sun. The mural was evidently the work of an itinerant painter. He could not have been
well paid in early seventeenth century, when this territory had been for more than two cen-
turies in Turkish hands. But the great tradition still held, and in places inspiration rose above
workaday craftsmanship. For some the figure of St. SteHanos {PL 87C) might be less an Ortho-
dox an imaginary portrait of Zoroaster. The calligraphy of the mantle shows a swift,
saint than
decisively working brush. Again the garments are depicted in the flat Byzantine manner, the
gaze is directed at the onlooker, and the head seems to float above the collar with httle ana-
tomical connection.
Four different saints are grouped here, ranging in time from the mid-twelfth century to the

late seventeenth, in provenience from Crete, Macedonia, and Spain, depicted in mosaic,
Sicily,

panel, mural, and canvas. What they have in common can be less defined in words than per-
ceived by the eye.

St. Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, who died around 67, was the first great Christian missionary
and theologian. Bom and bred a strict Jew, he was active in the persecution of early Christians
and "consented first martyr. Miraculously converted, he trans-
to" the stoning of Stephen, the
was Paul who distinguished clearly between the
ferred his zeal to the cause of Christianity. It
tenets of Judaism and the Gospel of Christ and who presented Christianity as the universal
religion, not merely a Jewish sect. He was bom in Tarsus in Cilicia ( in present-day Turkey )

Greek ideas abound in Paul's philosophy, and it is now accepted that he came to these through
with the Judaeo-Greek literature.
his familiarity
For a Greek and especially for a Cretan, such as was El Greco, the and philosophy of Me
Paul had many points of contact. Paul's activities in Thessaloniki and on the Greek mainland
are recorded in his epistles; he traveled in the Near East and also westward into other Mediter-
ranean countries. When El Greco portrays SS. Peter and Paul, the former is represented as a
sturdy graybeard with no sharply drawn features, but Paul's are unmistakably marked, in-
dividual, portrait-like {PL 89 A). Paul takes up most of the space, the books are before him,
and he is the one who points to the Word ( though the hand is badly redrawn ) looking straight ,

at the onlooker with a gesture as ff expounding the text.

Another depiction ( PL 89B which El Greco painted several times, is still more significant.
) ,

Not only are the drapery and hands characteristic, but the face also, in all examples, reveals
the somewhat emaciated, intellectually keen, and spiritually ardent personality of the Apostle.
Here Paul stands alone, the sword of his martyrdom in his right hand, and in the left the
familiar device of El Greco —a slip of paper. In this case it is folded into a letter inscribed
in cursive Greek script: "It was written to Titus, ordained the first bishop of the church of
the Cretians, . .
." the words at the end of the Epistle to Titus. In Gortyna (Gortys), less than

•135-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
tliirty miles south of Candia, are the ruins of the basilica on the site where Titus held services
as the first bishop of Crete (see PL 27B). During an insurrection of the Cretans in 1363, the
Venetian administration was driven off the island for three years, and Cretan public officials

took over. The primacy of the Greek Orthodox Church was reaffirmed and, in place of the flag
of St. Mark, which symboUzed the Venetian overlords, the flag of St. Titus, original protector of
^*
the island, was raised.
El Greco's figure of St. Paul is the image of Byzantine tradition. In the library of the mon-
astery of Vatopedi at Mount Athos, a fragment of a mural with Peter and Paul is preserved
(
PL 88B ) , originally painted for the refectory. Some date it in the fourteenth century, some at
the end of the twelfth. From a mosaic of the life of Paul in the twelfth century Cappella Pala-
tina in Palermo, Sicily {PL 88 A), we see him, blinded by the vision of the Lord on the road to
Damascus, as he is led into the city. The long head and balding forehead, the black hair,
hooked nose, and prominent ears are by now familiar from other examples. Paul is again recog-
nizably portrayed in the mural of the Dormition of the Virgin in the Monastery of Mavxiotissa
at Kastoria, Greece, which is believed to date from the fifteenth century (see PL 15C). The
detail reproduced here {PL 88D) shows him bending over the foot of Mary's bier. His features
are unmistakable, as we follow his representations in mosaic, wall paintings, on icons and on
canvas.
In a more or less contemporary painting by Ribera (
PL 88C ) we , find the romantic, coloristic
approach of a free artistic imagination, upon which the tradition of the saint's physical ap-
pearance has not been ingrained.

The Orthodox world does not have many women saints. Among them, a conspicuous role
was given to St. Catherine of Alexandria, who died a martyr's death in 310. According to the
legend, she preached against the worship of false gods, incurring the wrath of the emperor.
Although fifty scholars disputed with her, she defended her position successfully and thus was
made the patroness of philosophers. The emperor ordered her broken on the wheel, but the
wheel itself was shattered by her touch. Finally she was beheaded, and her body was borne
by angels to Mount Sinai. The importance to the Byzantine world of the monastery of Mount
Sinai dedicated to St. Catherine was discussed in the first chapter. At El Greco's time, Cretan
communities were still paying dues toward the support of the mother house. A well-to-do church
and monastery dedicated to the saint was maintained in Candia, with a notable school of painting,
whence icons and large panels were exported as far as Russia. In the West, five other Catherines
—
were later elevated to sainthood all of them of European origin, four Italian so that the —
Alexandrian saint was somewhat eclipsed. Her attributes are a section of the spiked wheel
and a sword in hand, the two instruments of her martyrdom. An open book symbolizes her
wisdom, and sometimes a crowned head lies at her feet, representing the pagan emperor.''^
El Greco's representation of St. Catherine of Alexandria has brought what was essential to
identify her {PL 91B). She wears a many-pointed crown, as royal princess, and holds the sword
and the palm of martyrdom. Only a small section of the spiked wheel is visible. Titian's St.

Catherine {PL 90A), in contrast, is a Venetian lady, elegantly attired. She kneels on a frag-
ment of the wheel, and the sword is laid against it. The scene is arranged in a spacious Renais-
sance hall with a Venetian landscape beyond the colonnade. A hea\y silk curtain adds to the
display of sumptuousness. On the base of the crucifix, perhaps a sarcophagus, is a relief of the
Entombment. Such rehefs, in amplification of a subject, were favorite devices of Titian and

•136-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
hismaster Bellini; El Greco uses them in various versions of his Cleansing of the Temple (see
PL 75B) and achieves somewhat the same purpose with the embroidered scenes on the saints'
robes in The Burial of Count Orgaz (see PL 68A) —
a clear influence from the Venetian.
In the depiction of St. Catherine by a Spanish contemporary, Sanchez Coello ( PL 90B ) her ,

expression is that of a girl scout doing a noble deed. The sword, the palm of martyrdom, and
the crown are there. Her dress is a strictly tailored all-covering costume of contemporary fashion.
Under her feet lies the prostrate emperor. In the background, soldiers fall thunderstruck as
two gigantic wheels burst asunder on touching her naked body. The ItaHan Enea Talpino,
called II Salmeggia, another contemporary, was not so prudish as his Spanish colleague and
brought the nude saint into the foreground {PL 90C). These closely parallel representations
of the saint's martyrdom can be traced to a painting by Giulio Romano reworked by Rubens.^*
The cult of St. Catherine of Alexandria remained popular in the Orthodox world up to our
day. The visitor in Heraklion (Candia) will find in the church of St. Matthew a number of
panels transferred from defunct monasteries and churches and ranging from early strongly
Orthodox "portraits" to nineteenth century sentimentalizations and souvenir prints for pilgrims.
One of the finest and oldest of the panels {PL 91 A) is said to have belonged to the monastery
of St. Catherine of Sinai in Candia and to have been removed from it at the time of the Turkish
conquest. The Cretan Catherine has imperial eagles embroidered in gold on her mantle and
wears the many-pointed crown to show her royal descent. Note the large eyes, pensive tilt of
the head, the long, nervous hands. The icon, which might date from late fifteenth century, is
painted on fine canvas over wood upon which a thick gesso base was appHed. But it shows
signs of tampering. The Rococo touches in the upper comers and some of the text might be
later additions. The cheap modem gray of the frame is out of keeping with the high degree

of craftsmanship on the mantle. On close examination, it is obvious that the ermine edging
of the cloakwas put on later with quite another paint; the gold of the older design shines
through underneath. The crucifix extending into the margin of the painting is an ahen touch
and might also have been introduced later.

Not only does El Greco show familiarity with Byzantine models in certain compositions
but his manner of delineation also is based on a long Orthodox tradition. The Egyptians who,
being near the Holy Land, became early converts to Christianity were known as Copts, derived
from the Greek word for Egyptian. Coptic art, which flourished until the fourteenth century
in Egypt, and included notable book illuminations, had antecedents that extended into the
time of the Pharaohs; it shows strong Hellenistic influence also. The ancient custom of embalm-
ing the dead survived into the Christian centuries. Usually a portrait of the deceased was placed
on top of the mummy bundle. Such panels were executed posthumously by a painter who often
had not seen the subject, and thus they show stereotyped treatment.
In Pis. 92 and 93, portraits by El Greco are grouped with mummy panels from the second
century, in one case a Byzantine glass painting from the fourth. The point of the comparison
lies in the conventions of portrayal —the full face, the large luminous eyes with high lights,
the shaded lids, the long straight nose with curling nostrils and the manner of connecting it
with the eyebrow, the calligraphic flourish of the lips, the prominent ears, and a number of
details which individual observation will add. A head of Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino is

paired with a second century panel (

PL 92B and A ) The illustration below ( D ) shows Jorge
.

Manuel, the painter's son, as he appears in The Burial of Count Orgaz, beside him a boy's head

•137-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
from a mummy pack ( C ) El Greco has painted a decorative text on the kerchief of his son,
.

with his signature and the year of the boy's birth ( see also PL 70B ) The boy in the Coptic .

panel wears a timic decorated with lettering giving his age, parentage, and provenience. This
embellishment of textiles with text was seen also in El Greco's Annunciation (see Pi. 79C).
On PL 93A a small portrait known The Lady with Flower is paired with a mummy panel
as
of the second century (
B ) . Although the latter was mishandled, and the damage detracts from
the expressive face, similarities can again be observed. A family portrait on glass of Byzantine
workmanship dating from the fourth century, set into a reliquary cross (
PL 93D shows three
,

figiues, apparently mother, daughter, and son. It is remarkable to what degree it resembles
the Coptic panels — although it was painted two centuries later — and also, to a certain extent,
some of El Greco's heads {PL 93C).

One would think that portraits in mosaic would be aflFected by the limitations of the medium,
resulting in a certain stiffness and coldness. Despite technical differences that can be discerned
in the two, the saints in mosaic —
one from eleventh century Thessaloniki {PL 94A) and the
other from the mid- twelfth century Palermo {PL 94C) —show that profound characterization
was possible. Between them (B) is reproduced a canvas thought to be El Greco's portrait, as
suggested by an entry in the second inventory: "retrato de mi padre." Even N^ith allowance
for probable restorations, the characteristic shaping of the skull, the lines around the mouth,
the formation of eyebrows and eyehds, the narrow nose, the unreahstic modeling of the cheeks,
and the emphasis on the ears are recognizable here also.
The artist of those days was apparently at home in various media. It is now beheved that
the cartoons for the mosaics in Kariye Cami, notable for their superior quaHty and dating from
the early fourteenth century, were designed by the same hand that painted the magnificent
murals there (see PL 75A). The tradition of the mosaic maker was handed on to mural and
icon painters. No claim is made that El Greco knew the parallels presented here. But he was
a product of the same tradition, which was ingrained in him more deeply than the restless
and eclectic West can fathom.

The hagiographer painted the Twelve Feasts of the Church as often as required. He also re-
peated Mother and Child, Christ in Benediction, Christ Crucified, and the Descent into Hell, to
take their places on the iconostasis or in a home. Deviation from the established formula of
the representation would have been resented and refused. It might be said that few changes
in iconography are noticeable until prints began to circulate, starting new fashions.
Not only tlie representation of a subject was fixed by tradition: the place of the painting
in the church where it was to be displayed and its relationship to the otlier subjects were also
decreed. In the church of Anargyxi, Kastoria, a thick layer of plaster crumbled from a pilaster,
revealing an earlier mural of St. Nicholas {PL 95C). Both inscriptions remain to dispel any
doubt as to the saint's identity. Compare the mural with the mosaic above {PL 94C).
El Greco and his studio painted St. Francis in various poses again and again according to —
one source, more than a hundred times. If a prospective client preferred the picture of St.
Francis receiN-ing the Stigmata PL 95A ) to St. Francis in Meditation, sho\\-n to him in El Greco's
(

stockroom of models, the painter's studio would furnish it as selected. It meant earning a living
by satisfying a customer. A page of an authoritative book on El Greco ( PL 95B ) shows eleven

•138-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
surviving examples of the same rendition. Even insignificant details are identical. It is the mark
of the hagiographer that the image retained its vigor and spontaneity.
St. Francis was one of the very few later saints whom the Cretans venerated. Pacheco praises

El Greco for his appealing portrayal, saying that his representation conformed best to how
history describes the saint. Practically all canvases of this subject carry a label with El Greco's
signatinre in Greek; where it is not was most probably covered by some "restorer,"
visible, it

or the paint was so flaked that it disappeared when the canvas was relined. The signing of
these repetitions gave them augmented value.

The lines of the aureole and certain shapes in the Byzantine landscape were used to set off
one scene from another. The Nativity as represented in a twelfth century mosaic in Palermo
{PL 96B) shows Mary resting on light-colored material in a grotto, the edge of which forms
a third, lighter-colored frame, suggesting a triple mandorla. (In the Holy Land a cave served
as stable. ) A depiction of the same subject —not in mosaic or from a royal city but in a mural
in a small town in Yugoslav Macedonia—shows again the aureole and the holy grotto as
standard devices to separate and emphasize (
PL 96 )

An illuminated manuscript at Mount Athos

St. John the Evangelist Dictating the
portrays
Gospel to Prochorus, his amanuensis (PL 96C). Here the disciple (who, with Stephen, was
one of the first deacons to be consecrated) is framed against the hillside, while the Evangelist
stands free against the open sky. In an icon of the same subject in San Giorgio dei Greci, Venice

(
PL 97B ) both are enclosed
, in a grotto. A
parchment hangs on the wall.
basket with rolls of

Prochorus has just inscribed in Greek the first words of The Gospel According to St. John.
The scroll, apparently laid out to dry, seems to contain phrases from the Revelation. The icon,
painted on panel covered with canvas, is dated 1602 and signed Emmanuel Lambardos, who is
known to have assisted in decorating the church of San Giorgio dei Greci. The Cretan Lam-
bardos obviously kept to his native tradition, although he had ample opportunity to study the
finest of Venetian style. Although in the four centuries intervening, the scene went through
many changes, the spiritual content is preserved. In both manuscript and icon, John turns his
head away from his amanuensis and toward the divine Hand which seems to be guiding him.
Two other applications of the grotto are reproduced here (
PL 97 ) from the exterior murals
at Siatista, Macedonia (see also PL IIC). At the left, Anthony the Abbott discourses with
the hermit Paul of Thebes. Note the raven carrying food, as to the prophet Elijah. Anthony,
a hermit of upper Egypt in early fourth century, was one of the first to gather fellow anchorites
into loose communities, forerunners of monastic and comforted the ancient
life. He visited
hermit and, returning later (right), he found him dead, mourned by wild animals. The mural
as a medium, whether executed on a wet wall (fresco) or a dry surface (secco), gives the
painter greater freedom than the exacting mosaic or the icon with its limited size. Further, the
mural painter, working fast, had to adapt his scheme to varying and larger surfaces, and took
hberties, especially in details. Here the grotto has a stalactite-Uke framing; but the dark open-
ing still serves to set off the protagonists. The rigidity of the tradition is loosened, but the
distance to naturalism is still great. Vegetation is used to liven the background and fill space,
but it is still highly conventionalized. The mural, dated 1611, was executed by an itinerant
painter schooled at Mount Athos;monotone in coloring and rather "bookish" in effect.
it is

The aureole is often suggested by El Greco in light or shadow or in the outline of a rock,

•139-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
such as frames the figure of Christ on the Mount of Ohves (see PL 73A). Grottoes and com-
partments of hght and clouds are part of the composition in The Adoration of the Holy Name
and The Burial of Count Orgaz ( 64B and 68A ) The grotto shape is also present
see Ph. . in El
Greco's St. Francis in Ecstacy {PL 97C), formed by the characteristic clouds that are lined
with an eerie light and swirl across the background.^ In places the clouds enveloping the saint
appear even farther in the forefront than the figure itself, giving still more the effect of a

grotto. Another relationship with the Macedonian mural can be detected in the wavy, uneven
framing of the protagonist.

The Trinity, also called The Throne of Mercy, is among the few subjects that El Greco ap-
pears to have rendered only once (
PL 98B ) . It was commissioned in the first years of his resi-

dence in Spain. The crucified Christ lies in the lap of the Father, as above them hovers the
Dove. The sagging line of the lifeless body is strongly reminiscent of that in The Lamentation
(see PL 83C). Stalwart angels frame the composition into a well-knit unit. This is one of the
earliest instances in which El Greco essays to bring a figure (the archangel with back turned,

on the left) far into the foreground by means of sheer color. An anonymous Spanish painter's
work from the mid-sixteenth century PL 98C ) uses the same elements with a few more angels,
(

some carrying symbols of the Passion.

The representation of the Throne ofMercy appears to be a Western invention, and Diirer's
handling of the theme in a woodcut set the model for subsequent painters {PL 98 A). It is
most probable that El Greco had one of Diirer's widely popular prints in his collection. At any
rate there are many similarities in his work. But in one detail, which has not been previously
remarked upon, the Cretan does not follow the German master. His God the Father does not
wear the papal tiara, prominent in both the Diirer protot>^e and the Spanish painting.
The word "tiara" is derived from the Greek, designating a tall peaked Persian cap which,
when worn by kings, was encircled with a crown. The papal tiara with its triple crowTis,
symbolizing the Trinity and the three estates of the Kingdom of God, did not reach its present
form until the early fourteenth century.^ It is believed that the Van Eyck brothers of the early
fifteenth century were among the first to apply it to the figure of God the Father, and the well-
known woodcut of Diirer disseminated the representation. Luis Tristan, one of the very few
Spaniards who is knov^m to have worked in the studio of El Greco, painted a Throne of Mercy
obviously influenced by that of his master PL 98D ) His God the Father is bareheaded; his
(
.

triangular halo is drawn with a single line.

In El Greco's painting, however, God the Father, recalling Jehovah of the Old Testament,
wears the headgear of a Jewish high priest. No other instance, contemporary or later, is known
to this author. Blue and gold and white ("fine linen") predominate in the coloring of the gar-
ments, as prescribed for the robes of Aaron, the high priest of the Jews, in Exodus 28.
first

That El Greco well knew what he was painting is proven by his unfinished work The Marriage
of the Virgin {PL 99 A), executed at the very end of his life, in which tlie Jewish high priest offici-

ates in exactly the same headgear. This type of headgear, ancestor to the bishop's miter, appears
all through Renaissance and Baroque times in the painting of scenes laid in the Jewish Temple,
such as the Presentation, the Circumcision, tlie Purification. It is found in the works of Tintoretto,
Veronese, Lorenzo Lotto, Palma Vecchio, Federigo Barocci — to mention only some who lived
in El Greco's time. In Ribera's St. Simeon with the Christ Child {PL 99B), the headdress pic-
tured is absolutely traditional, even to the gold band inscribed in Hebrew. It occurs frequently

•140-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
also in paintings by the Bassano family (see PL 75D) whose work was often confused wdth
El Greco's, and appears in a canvas ( PL 99C ) once ascribed to the Cretan but now thought to
be by Francesco Montemezzano, active at the end of the sixteenth century, who combined
popular manners in his compositions.
El Greco in his Throne of Mercy has created a painting which was apparently satisfactory
to the ^^'estem eye, although he was never to repeat it. But deeply interested, as is evidenced
by his library, in the spiritual sources of Christianity, he demonstratively took a position for

the ancient bibhcal tradition when he could have remained on neutral ground. Nor did he
place the doge's corno, the Spanish crown, and the papal tiara on the ground to identify the

three protagonists in his Adoration of the Holy Name {PL 64B), as Tintoretto and others did
in similar commemorative scenes.

In painting the Crucifixion, El Greco never emphasized the drama, the historical pageantry
of the scene. In a few cases, Mary and the youthful John stand together or on either side of the
Cross; donors are seldom included. The body of the Crucified is sometimes straight, sometimes
slightly twisted. Whether He looks do\Mi with half -open eyes or heavenward, He is the Living
Christ, s)Tnbol in Byzantine tradition of the conscious sacrifice.-^ The inscription at the top
of the Cross, "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews," is always given in Hebrew, Greek and
Latin, as both Luke and John record. Flavius Josephus mentions the trilingual practice in
Palestine. This label in three languages in precise and articulate script is one of the sure signs
of El Greco's hand.
Of the sixteen or so renditions of the Crucifixion by El Greco or his studio, some ten or eleven
have only a small-scale landscape beyond the Cross. Even before Diirer, landscape for its own
sake was executed by Flemish and Italian painters. These were successful attempts at reaUstic
recording. In a number of works by Venetian masters, notably portraits, through a window or
beyond a balcony a vista opens onto the \"eneto mainland. El Greco's landscapes carry his
characteristic stamp. He uses them at the foot of a Crucifix and as a base out of which rise his

tall, slender saints; a few canvases of anomalous purpose are extant, without central figures.
It is interesting to obser\-e how El Greco manipulated the various details.
Titian is known to have delivered a canvas of Christ Crucified which is in the
to Philip II,
monaster}- of tlie Escorial. Recently, a small portable panel of the subject was discovered in
the rooms of the Spanish monarch, encased in a leather binding of Persian style fashionable in
Venice in the sixteenth century .^^ An engraving of it, signed by Giuho Bonasone, identifies the
painting as the work of Titian. This is dated 1563, coinciding v^dth El Greco's alleged Venetian
stay. He easily could have acquired a copy, thus having a prototv-pe for later work. It is known
that when the great Venetian master left his studio, his pupils immediately started to copy
what work of his lay about.
In Titian's canvas (PL lOOB) the mound of Golgotha is \isible, and the skull which gave
the place its name Hes at the foot of the Cross. The body of Jesus hangs lifeless, with drooping
head. The inscription is in Latin only: INRI. In the background (left) the company of Roman
soldiers can be seen \\-ithdrawing along a winding road toward a castle on the bluff, followed
by two riders —on a light —
and a dark horse bearing a standard. A single footsoldier brings up
the rear. To the right, the women depart toward a city impressi\'e with turreted towers, a large
domed structure, and outlying fortifications.
El Greco's Crucifix similarly occupies the entire height of his canvases. In one case (PL 100 A)

•141-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
the Virgin and John stand together on the left. Two riders with a standard can be seen on the
winding road (right), preceded by a man on a galloping horse and followed by two gesticu-
lating figures on foot. The city in the distance is characterized by a tall spire and fortress-
like walls.

There are no large attendant figures in another representation {PL lOOC), and the land-
scape with towers and several domed buildings spreads across the canvas. The three riders with
their standard are placed at the right. El Greco's fine caUigraphy records the inscription in
three languages.
In a canvas reproduced on PL lOlC, the pose of Christ same and the landscape has is the
similar elements, although somewhat differently grouped. The city with spires and dome is
far in the distance, though clear. The grove of trees takes a more prominent place.
In another rendition {PL 101 A) Christ's figure is unchanged, but as background a composite
picture of Toledo appears. The spire has the vertical accents of the city's Gothic cathedral,
and the craggy, rearing walls suggest the Alcazar. The standard bearers, on their light and
dark horses, and otlier miniature figures are included. The buildings break off abruptly at
the cross, and at the right we see the Alcantara Bridge with a long low barracks-like structure
beside it. Still another rendition {PL lOlB) presents the figure of Christ in a different pose,
but the landscape is practically the same, with still more small figures.
A distinguished scholar, with profound knowledge of El Greco's work, has suggested that
the dome so prominent in these landscape details might be the dome of the Mozarabic chapel
of the cathedral at Toledo. ^^^^ The chapel was under construction for several decades, and Jorge
Manuel worked on it; it was finished after El Greco's death. Often when an addition to a build-
ing is contemplated, a drawing is available before the work itself is concluded. Since the dome
was a family project, it could have been included in a painting before it really appeared on
the skyline. On the other hand, the cupola in the painting is much larger in its proportions,
more hke the dome in Titian's landscape than like that of the Mozarabic chapel, as a recent
photograph shows ( see PL 50 ) . Further, the three-language inscriptions are all in the elegant,
mature, flowing script of the father, quite different from the less expert hand of the son.
When El Greco's panorama in the Plan of Toledo {PL 103B) is compared with an engraving
of the city made about 1630 and a very recent photograph {PL 102), it is clear that he could
be topographically accurate when he wished. The painting was executed for the new Tavera
Hospital which lies outside the city gate, the Puerta de Visagra. Jorge Manuel drew the ad-
mirable plan in the foreground and wrote the accompanying text, which explains that the
hospital was brought forward in the picture and turned to face the onlooker, as otherwise
part of the city view would have been blocked.
Toledo again presented with recognizable fidelity in El Greco's Laocoon {PL 103 A)
is the —
only mythological subject essayed by the painter. While the church spires are omitted from a
view intended to represent prehistoric Troy, such topographical details as the double-headed
eagle on the Puerta de Visagra in the center are distinct.
Notable features of the Toledo skyline appear on the canvas known as The View of Toledo
{PL 104A), sometimes called "Toledo in Storm" because of its dramatic sky, although any of

the skies of the crucifixions and even those in the panorama and the Laocoon are scarcely less
dramatic. A wTiter on art has declared most recently that The View of Toledo is neither a
romantic landscape nor a panorama, neither Toledo in Storm nor Toledo in Thunderstorm
but Toledo in Heat Lightning; it stands for the physiognomy of Heaven and Earth; it is symbolic

•142-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
^°^
of Eternity and also of the cosmos; it is, finally, an apocalyptic, chiliastic manifestation.

If tlie reader tmns to PI. 107B, he can see that El Greco's sky even on a canvas of a few inches'
span has identical tonalities of light and dark.
In his Mew of Toledo, the painter has exaggerated the height of the hill, pulled together
certain elements of the topography, redistributed and emphasized others. The Alcantara Bridge
is clearly recognizable, and the Castillo de San Ser\-ando on the hill above it, which El Greco
included in only a few instances. On the summit rises the .\lcazar, the royal palace. The promi-
nent spire was identified as that of the cathedral, though the actual position of the two build-
ings is reversed. Curiously, this View of Toledo shows less than half of the city. At the end of

the Alcazar the panorama stops abruptly. The descending curve of the skyline toward the
right, so clearly continued in The Laocoon and the city plan, is cut off. The progression of
lozenge-shaped elements, so characteristic in El Greco's work, is arrested. Tiny figures are
sprinkled about in the water and on the banks — even a rider, near the great rock in the river
bed. Above the embankment-supported shore at the right, parts of a trough-like wooden
structure are visible.
Practically the same landscape, even to the water trough, appears in the painting of St.

Joseph and the Christ Child, although cut into two parts by the figures {PL 104B). The full

painting is reproduced on PL 112F. The detail reveals the ragged and patched state to which
some were allowed to deteriorate.
of El Greco's canvases
In the landscape detail from St. Martin and the Beggar {PL 106B), nothing of the houses
of Toledo is seen. But the bridge of Alcantara and the castle of San Servando can be identified.
The contraption under the left forefoot of the white horse, a wheel outlined with white high
lights and attached to a trough-hke sluice, makes the canvas a record of especial interest. This
may be an allusion to the apparatus built in 1568 to carry the water of the Tagus up to the
city on the height. It was the work of Giovanni Turriano (bom in Cremona in 1501, died in
Toledo 1575) who is known in Spain as Juanelo de la Torre. He was a watchmaker, architect,
and mechanical engineer, a companion of Charles V in his retirement at Yuste; for this monarch,
with his lively intellect, also had an interest in clocks and other mechanical devices. Turriano

was a celebrated personaht\^ in Spain in his time. A bust of him survives and also a commemo-
rative medal struck in his honor. \'arious poets of the epoch lauded his many talents. His water-
lifting apparatus was installed near the -\lcantara Bridge. Cervantes and other contemporan,'
vvTiters mention it as a rare attraction of Toledo. And El Greco apparently found it a picturesque

and characteristic addition to the riverscape, for he included it ia several of his paiutiags with
the bridge. (See also PL 104B, right.) It was not until a century later that in France Louis XIV
had something similar constructed, when he had anotlier pleasure palace erected, at Marly
near the Seine. A Belgian engineer, .Arnold Deville, was called in to solve the mechanical
problem of supplying water for the play of fountains. Today, when credit is so often reluctantly
given to a foreigner, it is worth mentioning that the work was done in Spain by an Itahan, in
France by a Belgian.
was costly and ineflBcient and it was replaced by a sturdier
Turriano's apparatus, however,
one. The same artist who sketched a panorama of the city, aheady seen, left an engraving in
which the bridge and castle are featured {PL 105 A). Beyond the bridge a building at the river
level can be seen, connected with another on the hill by a construction with five roofs like
the pleats of an accordion. This was the second apparatus designed to lift the water of the
Tagus for use in the city.

•143-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Details of Toledo's landscape are rearranged tofill the left background of El Greco's painting

of St. James the Great {PL 107 A). The spire with a small dome before it is here placed at the
right of the Alcazar. On the opposite side of the saint is a glade, the tree trunks delineated
by characteristic wavering curves. Buildings are seen only in the very distant background in

the painting of St. Andrew (PL 107C), without any details which would make them clearly
identifiable in the mild landscape. In both paintings the flap-like hang of the clothing is iden-
tical, as is the highly Byzantine stance.
Two lonely trees appear on the crest of El Greco's hill. Nowhere are they so marked as in
a small landscape, only 14 inches high by 6% wide {PL 107B). El Greco's brush stroke is by
now familiar, as are the lozenge shapes, the strong contrast of light and dark which he worked
into his skies, with little bearing on actual weather. These are evidently standard props in his
landscapes, which, with other details, he repeated again and again, with the unconcern of the
hagiographer who was not striving to produce an "original" composition for each occasion.
Most of El Greco's views of Toledo deviate strongly from the photographic reality. He
selected elements of the scene, inserting and interchanging details in the interest of the total
effect. These observations apply also to his View of Toledo, with its dramatization into the
vertical, inwhich the landscape is not subordinated to a larger figural composition. Here the
same lack of focus can be observed as in the secondary scenes. His brush stroke in the treat-
ment of a landscape is the same, whether for a large or for a small canvas, whether for a land-
scape alone or as background at the foot of the Cross or behind a saintly figure. When a detail
from the View of Toledo is compared with one from a Crucifixion {PL 105B and C), the
similar approach to landscape as such becomes evident. Not too different is the impressionistic
manner in which Titian rendered a panorama of Venice in an allegorical composition ( PL 39B )
also as an auxihary detail.

The View of Toledo was discovered by Manuel Cossio in the dark corridor of the apartment
of two old ladies in Madrid who were related to various high ecclesiastics and in whose family
the portrait of the Grand Inquisitor came down (see PL 57C). Cossio called their attention
and made the first photograph for his monograph.
to the authorship of the smaller painting,
The picture is and shape and is painted very thinly on a loosely woven canvas.
of unusual size
One wonders whether it was not executed for some temporary construction, eventually in com-
bination with another, complementary landscape. Various canvases, elegantly framed, are
hanging nowadays in distinguished collections, of which few spectators know that they are
—
not complete paintings but fragments representative and expressive enough, nevertheless,
to justify their placement on the walls.

For the visits of royalty to their cities, the professions erected triumphal arches, vying with
one another in the splendor of their execution. When Philip II visited Lisbon, arches are
recorded from the silversmiths, merchants, candlemakers, jewelers, money-changers, tailors,

painters, and some religious guilds. The Flemings and the Italians, even the German and
English residents of Lisbon, were represented with arches. ^^^
Two
instances are recorded in which El Greco and his studio executed temporary construc-
tionsand furnished the decorations. The first was in 1587 when the bones of St. Leocadia were
returned to Toledo. Up to the mid-seventeenth century 1643 comparatively few saints re-
( )

ceived formal canonization from Rome; the approval of the local bishop was considered suffi-
cient. For this reason some saints are popular in one country who are practically unknown in

•144-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
another. Leocadia, bom of a Toledan family, died a mart}T's death in the third centun.-. The
return of her remains to her native city occasioned great solemnities. Philip II, King of Spain,
and his family honored the Castihan tou-n with The houses were hung with
their presence.
colorful rugs and tapestries, and the churches displayed their treasures. Some four years later
a book was pubHshed describing the ceremonies in detail.'^ The procession entered the city
by way of the Puerta de Msagra, accompanied by personages of high rank, singing motets in
praise of the saint. A Doric monument stood within the gate and triumphal arches decorated
the route of the procession. These constructions were built on solid wooden framework covered
with thin boarding or similar material and then painted, often to imitate marble, silver, bronze.
Architectural elements predominated, ornate portals, columns and pediments, obelisks and
finials, interspersed \\ith pictures and statues that were sometimes real, sometimes simulated
in paint. Saints and were presented, with various heraldic emblems. At the
allegorical subjects
entrance of the cathedral stood a marvelous portico which alone had cost some seven thousand
ducats. "After motets and praises and reverence" the body was carried inside, "and afterwards
was great celebration in dancing and music."
The book, wTitten by a Jesuit, contains nearly three hundred pages Hsting saints, royalty,
ecclesiastical and secular potentates, and leaders of the procession. It details the decorations
and even mentions that Greek inscriptions, as well as Latin and Spanish, were applied on some
of the structures. In an addenda are included sonnets, epigrams, and other eulogies written for the
occasion. But not a single line records the artists and craftsmen who created the pomp against
which the elite could glitter.

The second occasion for which El Greco agreed to erect a temporary construction is recorded
in a contract, signed by him and his son, to execute a catafalque for memorial services held

in the Toledan cathedral in honor of Queen Margarita, the wife of Philip III, who died in 1611.
It was specified that the catafalque, designed to stand in the crossing, was to be 110 Spanish
feet high and fourteen feet wide, in carved and painted wood to simulate stone. ^*^^ It contained
amid an impressive architectural build-up
allegorical statues, portraits of kings, coats of arms,
of Ionic order, and was topped by a dome and lantern with an angel ten feet high holding
the imperial cro\s-n. The memorial service in the cathedral of Toledo was set for the 19th of
December, and the catafalque was dismantled by the 24th, so that the entire work was on
display no longer than five days. As a consequence of an "incident of protocol" between the
king and the municipahty of Toledo, no one of the royal family came to take part in the
ceremony.
In a sonnet eulogizing El Greco, Paravicino wTites of the structure as if it were of marble.
But it is generally accepted that it was made of wood and was mainly the work of
Jorge
Manuel. In this connection, it is revealing to point out that a late rendition of the Cleansing
of the Temple from El Greco's studio {Pi. 112G) is the only one in which the engaging Vene-
tian perspective is replaced by a tall architectural build-up, reminiscent of a catafalque, with
an obelisk as finial. This is also the only late rendition of the subject in which the two symbohc
reliefs are omitted.
In the second inventor}- of El Greco's estate, made by Jorge Manuel seven years after his
father's death, there are certain entries:"Un lienzo grande bianco y negro de los arcos," also,
"Un henzo grande de de bronce, de quando S^ Leocadia saho del sepulcro"
los arcos fingido
that is, a large canvas in white and black for the arches, and a large canvas imitating bronze,
of when St. Leocadia came forth from the tomb ( and appeared to St. Ildefonso ) Five other .

•145-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
canvases "for the arches" are Hsted, as well as a "fable" or "legend" and a painted royal coat of
arms which might well have served the same occasion. Thus, thirty-four years after the solem-
nities for Leocadia, and nearly a decade since his father's death, mementos of these ceremonies

still lay around the studio.

There are six further entries in the inventory of 1621, listing paises, or landscapes, of which
three are specified as "of Toledo." These paintings must have represented little value, either
because of their execution or because of their condition. Two landscapes were given by Jorge
Manuel to tlie Tavera Hospital, and when El Greco's Baptism of Christ there was restored,
around 1660, the two landscapes were attached to the bottom of the large canvas and painted
over "to represent the river." ^^"^ In view of El Greco's apparent indifference to repetitions, and
his recorded participation in the design and execution of triumphal arches and at least one
catafalque, it would not seem impossible that some of the canvases of unusual shape or small
size might ha\e been intended as models for the ateher or have found their first application
in temporary constructions. All such provisory structures had to be strongest at the base, which

was the most exposed to pressure and the jostling of masses. The real decorative elements
were placed above eye level to be visible to all. The bottom sections had to be kept open, so
that the craftsmen in decorating the upper parts could chmb inside on ladders or ramps;
at the very end, these utUitarian parts were camouflaged vdth some artistic covering.
No drawing or print survives either of the arch or of the catafalque for which El Greco and
his son contracted, but others from about the same period give an idea of the general design.
The drafting was put in the hands of well-known artists. When Henry HI, King of France,
visited Venice in 1574, he was honored by triumphal arches designed by Palladio and painted
by Tintoretto. Rubens designed a triumphal arch for a projected visit to the Netherlands of
Phihp IV, son of Philip HI and the deceased Margarita mentioned above {Pi. 109A). After
Philip's death, elaborate memorial services were held even in the far reaches of his colonial
empire. A contemporary woodcut shows the catafalque erected in the cathedral of the Mexican
capital {Pi. 108A).Note the paintings around the base. For the canonization in 1671 of Ferdi-
nand HI, thirteenth century King of Castile, who recaptured Seville from tlie Moslems, a
festive monument was erected in the cathedral of that city. The engraving {Pi. 108B), with
its imposing display of arts and crafts, probably presents an apotheosis rather than a record

of actuality.
The custom and survives even into our
of erecting triumphal arches goes back to antiquity
present century. Such constructions were sometimes transformed later into permanent monu-
ments. An impressive arch on Madison Square in New York to honor the home-coming troops
of World War I has vanished {PL 109C), while the arch at Washington Square, also first made
of perishable material, is now a sohd masonry structure {PI. 109B).

In the Greek classical world, vases were signed as early as the seventh century before Christ,
the names always accompanied by words signifying "made" or "painted." Double signatures
indicate that the potter and the painter were two different craftsmen:

"Ergotimos made me
Klitias painted me"

Excavations at the workshop of Phidias in the Peloponnesus uncovered a broken cup of the
period (fifth century B.C.) meticulously incised "I belong to Phidias." From Attica alone, more

•146-
 ENIGMATIC P.\IXTER
than a hundred vase painters' and potters' names are knouTi. Later, stamps were also used to
a similar purpose on drinking cups, saucers, and bowls. Potter\' v^-ith red figures on a black
background and with black on a red ground most frequently carried the signatures of
figures
potters and painters, since these pieces were made also for export to Italy, to Sicily, and other
parts of the Mediterranean world. Signatures are still frequent on the products of folk art
majohca, wood car\ing, embroider}-. The epics, legends, and fables preserved by the oral
tradition of repeated recitation end often \\-ith. a rh\Tne or phrase known in Greece as the
"seal," which indicates whence the tale was derived and gives the name and home of the singer
with the prayer, '"Remember him." As already mentioned, in the great cisterns of Constantinople,
a number which are still in use, many of the bricks bear a date of the fifth and sixth centuries
of
of our era stamped upon them, and the upper stone courses show the monograms of B\-zantine
masons.
The practice of signing a work of art, taken up in the Renaissance, is a harking back to the
classic, as well as the mark of a dawning indi\idual self-consciousness, as is so often stated.
In sixteenth centur\- \*enice, where the population was ver\- art conscious, the great masters
seldom signed a canvas commissioned in their own cit)'. But when a work was ordered for
ex-port abroad, as so often in the case of Titian for his noble patrons, the signature lent the
necessar\- authenticit}-. Some Western artists, such as the Italian Andrea Mantegna (l^Sl-
1506), occasionally signed in Greek to show their erudition, and in the classicizing st\-le of
the early nineteenth centmy certain painters and sculptors revived the custom.
Byzantine icon and mural painters were wont to place inscriptions, their signatures, and
sometimes the date, on a painted label or cartouche at the base of their work. A small chapel in
the region of Sfaldon, Crete (see PL 32B), has the date and the painter's name recorded in this
manner.
El Greco nearly alwa\-s signed his work, placing his name on either the background or the
landscape of a painting or conspicuously on a painted label. Besides the fuU name Domenikos
Theotokopoulos, he usually added the Greek word epaie — "made" or "did"— the identical phrase
found on the black-and-red vases of classical Greece. Frequentiy the word kres appears, the
literar\- Greek term for "Cretan." Individually characteristic is the painted label which he places
like a calling card at the foot of the Grand Inquisitor (see PL 57C). And still more subjective
is the inscription with the phrase "I made
and the child's birth date on the folded kerchief
it"

in The Burial of Count Orgaz (see PL 70B). The paper \\-ith Greek text addressed to Titus

which he placed in the hand of his St. Paul is revealing of his spiritual loyalt\- see PL S9B The ( ) .

significance of the inscription on his crucifixions, without exception trilingual, has already
been mentioned, as weU as the unique instance in which the shp of paper with his fuU auto-
gram is held up by the serpent [PL lllE). His signature of the Assumption of the Virgin, now
in the Chicago .Art Institute [PL HOB, bottom i, reads, after his name, "he who has manifested
it in [the year] 1577." A highly unconventional place for a signature is the forehead of the Hon.
upon which he inscribed his monogram, in the painting of the Virgin \\-ith Two Women Saints
now in the National Galler\- of .Art. Washington, D. C. The Hon as s>-mbol of courage and
character is well known.
No Western painter, to this writer's knowledge, has put his signature on the Cross itself, as

did El Greco (?/. HID). This also might indicate a Byzantine custom. It is paralleled in a
standard, preser\ed in Venice [PL 111 A and C\
which flew from the flagship of Francesco
Morosini ( 1618-1694 \ one of the greatest naval commanders of his time. Ha\-ing repeatedly

.147-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
proved victorious over the Turks, he was appointed to the defense of Crete, but after eighteen
months of siege was forced to surrender to save the surviving inhabitants of the island. At the
age of se\'enty he was elected doge. When five years later he again took command of the
\^enetian forces, the Turks, upon hearing that he had been called out against them, withdrew.
The standard, painted on canvas in bright colors with much gold and red, shows Christ on
the Cross, and, kneeling beside it, a saint in bishop's robes decorated with crosses in the
Orthodox manner. His hands are raised in the Greek theomeni attitude of prayer. The open
book before him suggests that this is St. Mark the Evangelist, the protector of the republic.
At the left, the winged lion representing Venice stands ^\^th one paw placed on the coat of
arms of the Morosinis and the other grasping the Cross. Above him, seeming to rest on his
wings, is a version of the \'irgin and Child known in Italy as Madonna del Soccorso (Our Lady
of Perpetual Help). This representation goes back into early Byzantine times when the orig-
inal, a miraculous icon, was brought from Jerusalem to Constantinople.^^ Venerated there as
one of the holiest treasures, the Hodegetria was copied again and again. In Carpaccio's Legend
of St. Ursula, in a t^-pical fifteenth century room, the same version of Virgin and Child hangs

—
on the wall. It became popular in many parts of the West indeed, as far as Boh\ia, where in
colored Hthographs it still attracts worshipers. On each side of the Morosini standard, the
busts of Orthodox and Roman Catholic saints form a vertical frame, in the manner of a Tree
of Jesse —an iconographical device not often encountered so late in Western art. The Morosini

standard, carrying the Hodegetria, the Greek crosses, and the various saints, is another proof
of how long the Venetians clung to Byzantine tradition.
At the foot of the Cross, a damaged signature appears in Greek letters: Bi . . . tor,

B and V being interchangeable in Greek, this might mean Victor. There was a priest and
painter named \'ictor in the Venetian Greek colony, and in the collection of San Giorgio dei
Greci there are several paintings signed and dated by him between 1651 and 1674, coinciding
with Morosini's career. One panel represents the Tree of Jesse, which the painter seemingly
favored; another, representing the Trinity, framed with saints in a manner similar to that
is

on the standard. \Vhen we pointed out the fragmentary Greek lettering on the Cross, the curator
of the museum brushed it aside with complete indifference. As long as the Western world, and
whose past is steeped in the Byzantine, continue to underplay
particularly \'enetian scholars,
panorama of Western civilization will remain grossly incomplete.
that tradition, the humanistic
Hagiographers at the time of El Greco often signed their works in Greek, prefixing their
baptismal names with "creation," "poem," "hand." A number of paintings are extant with the
signature in Greek, "hand [of] Domenikos." The name Domenikos is the Latinized form of
KvTiakos; both comprise the word for God. By the sixteenth century- the Venetian possessions
were considerably Latinized, and baptismal names were made to conform more or less to the
customs of the Venetian overlords —a general practice when the rulers' language differs from
that of the natives. Damaskinos signed a Westernized name, with many others of his co-
nationals — Michele, not Mihales. And there were a number of painters named Domenikos. But
nowadays many such panels, produced over a wide time span, are assigned to El Greco, re-
gardless of quality. Certain paintings signed "hand [of] Domenikos," such as the \'eil of Veron-
ica in Spain, are doubtless the work of his brush. But it cannot be emphasized strongly
enough tliat a number of his early paintings carry his full name followed by the words kres
{PL HOB), epoie, or both.

•148-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
The Venetian hagiographers signed in majuscule, or capital letters. It appears that shortly
before 1580, early in his stay in Spain, El Greco changed his signature from majuscule to cursive
script, as shown in the middle example, where under his name is the Greek word for "made."
From that time on, he signed exclusively in cursive. The third signature given on Pi. HOB, that
of his Assumption of the Virgin, has already been discussed.
Through their very nature, the evenly blocked capitals can show Httle individuality. But El
Greco's cursive, written with the brush as fluently as with a pen, reveals considerable personality,
as modem graphologists testify. ^^'^ In the framework of the cursive, he varies his signatures.
Sometimes he uses the X character (chi) instead of the K (kappa), which are phonetically
related in Greek. Sometimes he puts the article before his name so as to read "the Domenikos
Theotokopoulos." When space on the canvas, he
there is little divides his name or carries up
letters above it. And he and the o in the third syllable of his last name. All of these
eUdes the t

practices are characteristic of the Greek scribes, proficient in writing, accustomed to working
with long lines, who were employed as copyists all over Europe.
Greek characters, Hke the Chinese, have not changed much in the past two thousand years.
A first century papyrus {PI. IIOA) shows two types of Greek script. In the longer upper sec-
tion, which is executed in clear manuscript hand, certain letters are nearly identical with

those which El Greco painted on his canvases some fifteen hundred years later; on the lower,
shorter section of the papyrus can be seen the cursive — ^personal, and hard to decipher today.
The fine writing which was practiced Greek manuscripts of the ninth to twelfth cen-
especially in
turies was revived by Greek scribes in the West who were engaged in
in the fifteenth century
copying the ancient texts. Late in that century, Aldus Manutius gathered Greek scholars and
compositors around him in Venice. As mentioned in the chapter on Venice, he pubHshed Greek
classics, from Aristotle to Xenophon. He used the lettering of Greek manuscripts as model for

his type. The last page of text from an early printed Greek Bible {Pi. HOC, top) shows how the
clear and elegant manuscript hand was adopted for printing. The final page {PL HOC, bottom)
bears the colophon of the Aldine Press in Venice and the date 1518, and contains in both Latin
and Greek a key to the sequence in which the sheets should be laid for the binder. After Aldus's
death his brothers-in-law and later his son were active with the press, and the firm continued
in Venice until 1585.
Up to El Greco's thirtieth year, few paintings of his of indisputable authenticity have been
found. It is recorded that he set philosophy above painting as an art. All the examples of El
Greco's handwriting show his familiarity with writing with the brush. His deft and expert
application of majuscule and cursive and his habits of elision and separation are those of the
copyist, the compositor, the proofreader. The thought occurs whether the young Candiote did
not find employment, for a time at least, with one of the presses in Venice. Here it should be
recalled that the librarian and caUigrapher of Philip II in the Escorial, the Cretan Nicolaos
Turrianos, signed his name in cursive, adding the word kres, in the same way as El Greco.
In our present day, when narrow professionalism is elevated to a sacrosanct position, it is

diflBcult to imagine that talented people should earn a living in different fields of endeavor.
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are well known as "polyhistors." Sebastiano del Piombo
( 1485-1547 ) was at first a musician, a solo player on the lute; then he turned to painting. Active

in Venice and Rome, he was not forty when the Medici pope employed him as the sealer
("piombo") of the briefs of the apostohc chamber. Thereafter he spent Httle time with the

.149-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
arts.Pacheco mentioned El Greco among the few painters of Europe skilled in the humanities.
His son, Jorge Manuel, hsts in his inventory five manuscripts of his father one of vv^hich was —
illustrated with sketches.

On looking at the signatures of El Greco's paintings, it should be taken into account how
often restorers who did not know any Greek have "strengthened" the lines and letters. Even
so, his signature shows strong consistency, direction, and a firm sense of the horizontal which
reveals the experienced draftsman. These characteristics can be observed throughout his sig-
natures in Spain, with the exception of a few on documents in the years when he was ill. It

was customary at that time for a master to affix his signature to a work done under his super-
vision in his atelier, with some final touches by him.
Besides the cartouche-like white slips on which he liked to sign. El Greco painted subjects
where text was required, such as on the phylacterium of the Nativity and the flag carried by
the Lamb of God in representations of John the Baptist. It is highly doubtful whether on any
occasion. El Greco included long Latin texts in his painting. An example from an Adoration
Shepherds survives in which the ribbon carries a recognizable Greek text, although much
of the
worn {PL lllB). In most cases the paintings have gone through many hands, and the original
Greek lettering, perhaps faded and flaked, most probably illegible to the restorer, was over-
painted with bright, appropriate Latin texts.

The Byzantine, Venetian, and Spanish ingredients in El Greco's painting constitute a subtle
and personal blend. Even nickname El Greco, the Greek, as has been pointed out, the
in his
article "El" is Spanish, while the "Greco" is Italian. Logically, he should be either II Greco or

EI Griego. In his early works he was influenced by what he saw around him and what was in
demand. Like the other hagiographers of his time, he could work in the Western manner.
Later in Spain, exposed to other expressions, new demands, and a very different intellectual
and artistic climate, his art went through another modulation. As a foreigner, he saw much in
Spain from a different angle than the natives — this is perhaps the reason that his Spanish
portraits make such a "Spanish" impression.
As his life circle passed the fifty-year mark, in 1591 or so, his artistic isolation becomes more
evident in his painting. By was past, Phihp II
that time Toledo's golden period was aging, and
was elsewhere. As the man grows older, the experiences of his
the market for artistic products
childhood and youth come into special focus, and El Greco was no exception. His retrospective
process was sharpened and enlivened by the arrival of his brother and groups of refugees.
He probably spoke much Greek in those years, and with words come the pictures of remem-
brance.
Clovio's letter, written in Rome in 1570, calls him a "discepolo" of Titian. This has been
translated as "pupil," although the word can be interpreted as follower, student, admirer.
The questionable translation comes most probably from Carl Justi, who also made the "giovane
Candiotto" in the same letter, into "Jiingling," or "youth." Carl Justi, Swiss archaeologist and
art historian (1832-1912), with his slavish admiration of Winckelmann's eighteenth century
theories of classical values, was far from being the right person to understand El Greco. His
volume on Velazquez, published for the first time in 1888, is full of disparagement of El Greco's
art.^^ And indeed, although he visited Spain repeatedly betw^een 1872 and 1886, according to
his faithful and admiring biographer he had difficulty finding the "soul" of Spain.

"Giovane Candiotto" means, not "youth," but a young Candiote —and the twenty-nine-year-
•150-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
old Cretan would certainly count as young to Clo\-io, who was and so infirm that
se\ent}--t^vo

his artistic acti\ities were drastically reduced. But hundred years, the young
for nearly the past
Candiote has been treated all too often as a youth just emerging from boyhood, who arrives
in \'enice with little education and a doubtful knowledge of painting. Credit for the eminence

he achieved goes to \'enice and to Spain; and the intellectual chmate of sixteenth century
Crete, with its possibihties for the education of an intelligent, ambitious young man, has been
overlooked. Based on Justi's assumptions, much-quoted \M-iters claim that El Greco had to
spend at least ten years in \>nice to learn to paint. .And since the Clovio letter is dated 1570,
this would make him arrive about 1560, as a nineteen-year-old.
—
Even if we accept this h\-pothesis which is entirely without e\-idence ^we must realize —
that in those days a nineteen-year-old was quite mature. Leonardo da Vinci was apprenticed to
Michelangelo at fifteen. Raphael at se\-enteen was established as an independent artist. Veronese
was at work at fourteen. \'elazquez when eighteen passed his examination and was admitted
to the guild of painters. And Diirer was not twent\" when he produced some of his finest por-
traits; he is known to have been in the profession since he was fifteen. Gilbert Stuart, famous

for his portraits of George Washington, began at fifteen; and a portrait by Picasso when he
was only fourteen is a pride of its owner.
But we should review perhaps a still more complex art, that of musical composition. Men-
delssohn finished a dehghtful string quartet when he was fourteen and composed music for
A Midsummer Xighfs Dream at seventeen. Mozart at seventeen had brought forth one of his
most graceful and beloved symphonies, the D major. A great many of Schubert's songs and
other musical works of high quality were produced by the time he reached eighteen, and at
nineteen he wTOte his hauntingly melodious Fourth S\Tnphony. El Greco's son was just past
nineteen when he was named in a contract of considerable importance as a substitute to finish
thework in case his father should become incapacitated.
Even before modem psychological studies on childhood, it was recognized that impressions
of the formative years cannot be erased. A classical philosopher has said that what a man is at
twelve or so he wiQ be aU through his Hfe. Rouault, starting his career at fourteen with a master
of stained-glass windows, throughout appHed the technique of arranging small elements
his life
of color into a larger composition. Renoir was apprenticed to a porcelain painter, and in early
years he also decorated screens and bhnds; as a result, a swift brush stroke of great virtuosity
characterizes his art. Franz Liszt left his native land at the age of eleven and Hved a thoroughly
cosmopohtan hfe, \\-ith a number of cities claiming him as resident. But many of his character-
istic compositions are woven through with Hungarian folk melodies. Less known is his burning

Hungarian patriotism which he carried sometimes into open insult at the Habsburg court.
Cretan impressions and Greek psycholog\- permeate the personalits' of El Greco.
Byzantine echoes in El Greco's art have been pointed out by writers and scholars ever since
interest focused on the painter. But it is only within the last decades that many monuments of
B\^zantine art have become easier to approach and that modem photography is making the
material available for study. Byzantine mosaics and murals of outstanding quaht\' that have lain
hidden under whitewash for centuries are only now being restored. .And the vast scope and
\-igor of this art, which persisted for centuries even after the fall of Constantinople, is just now
beginning to be revealed.
El Greco's stockroom, with samples of his repertory', and his calm multiphcation of an iden-
tical subject on order are t^-pical of the hagiographer. His frequent use of Orthodox sources

•151-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
in his representation, composition, and individual poses has been discussed here at length.
His different interpretation of perspective is in the Byzantine tradition. The inscription on his
crucifixes is always in three languages; and when he uses the Orthodox IHS for the name of
Jesus, he places the stroke across the top to indicate abbreviation. Some Western painters,
ostensibly using the three languages, actually transcribe the Latin words into Greek letters.

As has been pointed out, in early versions of El Greco's Annunciation, the Virgin kneels before
a prayer desk; in his last examples she has turned away and raises both arms in the Orthodox
theomeni gesture. Other Byzantine characteristics in his work are the absence of middle ground,
the low vanishing point, and a two-dimensional effect, often with tapestry-like interweaving of
the figures. His architecture is schematized, toy-like, or like a design for a stage setting. It would
seem that his almost austere iconography, based on early Christian traditions, was acceptable
to the ecclesiastic authorities in Spain, as against the free interpretation and the pagan sen-
suousness they found objectionable in the art of the Late Renaissance and Baroque.
El Greco never painted the Spanish mystics such as St. Theresa of Avila, to whom certain
writers like to connect him in inspiration — ^not even Loyola, whose influence was so powerful
at that time. His Apostle James the Great, patron of Spain, always stands as in a Byzantine
mosaic, and never rides a charger as Matamoros, Killer of the Moors, although this representa-
tion was popular in Castile since the end of the fifteenth century.®^ In his Adoration of the
Holy Name, where the temporal rulers, the doge, the king, and the pope kneel together, he
omits the headgears customary in Venetian commemorative paintings, which would emphasize
their rank. In his Throne of Mercy, he places the headgear of the Jewish high priest on God
the Father —a unique instance in Western painting.
He hved his private life without much conformity. He never married the woman whose
natural son, Jorge Manuel, he acknowledged oflBcially only on his deathbed. He is recorded as
dying without making a and for the power of attorney drawn up at the end of his life
will,

he did not request as witnesses two of his distinguished Spanish friends, but two refugee
—
nobodies who were, however, Greek, and one, at least, a Cretan.
As already mentioned, Julio Clovio's letter of 1570 is the first document extant that con-
cerns El Greco. Clovio was bom Jure Glovic (Glovocic) in the Balkans, and, according to
Vasari, was known as "the Macedonian" among his colleagues. A painting of his in the Pitti
Gallery in Florence is signed "Julius Clovius Macedo faciebat." It is understandable that the
young Cretan, arriving in Rome, which was teeming with Italian artists, should seek out one
who was akin in language and religion. Apparently the emigre's psychology in the sixteenth
century was not much different from that of the present day.
In a most autocratic country, El Greco, the "foreigner," did not hesitate to assert his rights
as a free man. His refusal to accept less for his work than had been agreed upon led to re-
peated lawsuits. His intransigence in not giving more than his name, age, and birthplace
—
before a judge in one case, his statement that he is not obliged to tell why he came to Toledo
—reveals his knowledge of his rights before the law. He threatened to appeal cases to the highest
authorities, as far as the king and the pope for justice. His protest that artwork should not
fall under a tax like food and clothing set a precedent for which future generations of painters
were grateful.
No previous author has ever pointed out that, in his lawsuits and in all his appearances
before authorities, he never mentions by any word an Italian master or any years in Italy, al-

though it might have eased certain situations to present himself as a pupil of Titian. He was a

•152-
 ENIGMATIC PAINTER
Greek, a Candiote, and to build himself up with a boast of Italy would have been out of
character.
El Greco must also have been reticent about his Italian years among the intimate circle of
his Spanish friends in Toledo, who seemingly regarded him as a worthy representative of Greek
humanistic education. In the poems uTitten about him, Italy is never mentioned. The sitters

for portraits by El Greco in Spain were mainly persons of ecclesiastical status or civilian ad-
ministration in Toledo. On the bene\olence of the civil authorities depended the permits of
Greek refugees to stay in the cit>% while the ecclesiastics could give a helping hand in acquiring
ransom money for his compatriots. It appears that El Greco painted several portraits of Fray
Hortensio FelLx Paravicino y .Arteaga, theologist and htterateur. Bom in 1580, ParaN-icino was
two years younger than El Greco's outi son. A descendant of a noble Italian family, he may
have looked with awe to the much-traveled and erudite Greek, who was fifty-nine years old
when the young was only twenty. There is a record of a t^'pographer Dionisio Para\dcino,
friar

who printed the first book in Greek characters, a grammar, in Milan in 1476. Fray Hortensio
became provinical or district superior of the Trinitarian order in Toledo, an order founded
specifically for the ransoming of captives from the Moslems. He was famous in his circle as a
flowery orator and a prolific poet.
In each of his four soimets addressed to El Greco, Paraxicino alludes to the painter in the
first stanza as Greek. He pairs him with Prometheus, and with Apelles, court painter to .\lex-
ander the Great. In the last sonnet, wTitten on the occasion of the painter's death, Paravicino
calls him "El Griego de Toledo." This was pubHshed in a posthumous volume in 1641. The final

lines read:

Creta le did la vidu y los pinceles

Toledo meyor patria donde empiega

a lograr con la muerte eternidudes.

(Crete gave him life and the brushes Toledo homeland where he/ achieved with
[a] better

death immortaht)'. In certain editions a comma is placed after "Crete gave him life." and
)

"the brushes" are thus referred to Toledo that gave him immortalit)\ The anomaly will hardly
be cleared up, unless the original is found; but it is now accepted that the comma was inserted
Iater.^5

Another funerary sonnet survives, by Luis de Gongora, a Spanish IvTic poet of the time,
in which El Greco is called (as often by Paravicino) a "wanderer," a "pilgrim," a Greek to —
whom Iris gave the colors, Phoebus the light, and Morpheus the shadows.
The twent\--seven Greek books of El Greco's librar\' enumerated in Jorge Manuel's first in-

ventory- reveal the basis of his philosophy and his unique character. In the second list the son
lumps them all together as "twenty Greek and Itahan books." By that time the collection was
scattered. One volume, in which El Greco is again compared to Apelles, came to light after
was admired as a Greek. He may be called in
the ci\il war, a witness across the centuries that he
Italian Domenico Theotocopuli, in Spanish Dominico Greco. But the signature on his paint-
ings reiterates the name under which he sailed from Candia:

DOMENTKOS ThEOTOKOPOULOS

• 153 •
 POSTLUDE

Spanish writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discussing the painters of their
land generally include El Greco. They mention without exception that he was a foreigner, a
Greek; but since a considerable part of his life was spent in Spain and many of liis works are
there, they deem it fair to give him space in their list.

In the early nineteenth century, travel was by stagecoach, strenuous, sometimes even peril-
ous. Nevertheless, a number
European tra\elers visited and reported on Spain. The books
of
of Lady Holland and Theophile Gautier have already been mentioned here. Captain S. Cook
saw much of the country in the years 1829-1832, and his observations on social customs and
economic conditions would in themselves make his book worth while. His descriptions of art
and architecture are amazingly perceptive. Of El Greco he wTites that he is less kno\\Ti "than
the great Italians and Flemings his name, his common designation of Greco and the
. . .

habit he used occasionally of signing his pictures at length in the Greek character wdth kres
added, put his native country out of all doubt and it is certain that he must have studied both
at Venice and in the South of Italy. Unfortunately he adopted an unique and extraor-
. . .

dinary tone of color which destroys all pleasure in examinmg the greater part of his work, but
the most masterly freedom of design is always to be seen."
Captain Cook recalls with horror how in the Prado, then a royal collection, paintings were
being "restored." "The worst part of this noble institution is a gang of restorers . . . every
picture in the gallery seems destined to undergo their discipline and neither age nor school
escape their merciless grasp. Their methods seem to injure the Venetian pictures more than any
other, and the mode of disturbing the surface and then glazing and substituting varnishes of
their own completely alters the appearance of them and would astonish the artists if they re-
visited the earth and saw their production." ^^ Ruskin some twenty years later reports that
in Venice canvases of the masters were laid out on the floor, stitched together, and overpainted
with house painters' brushes dipped into vats of ordinary nondescript color. Captain Cook must
have had very good recommendations to be admitted to special rooms where, as he describes,
some of the finest paintings of Rubens, Titian, and other Italians were locked away from the
pubhc, "from a fastidious and mawkish delicacy," so that the morals of the madrilehos should
not be corrupted by the sight of the ripe female nudes. At that time the great Assumption of
El Greco, contracted for a church in Toledo, was no longer m its original location but the

•154.
 POSTLUDE
property of the Spanish Infante —
on its way to being sold to America later. It was not until
1906, when The Count Orgaz was arranged to be sold abroad, that the outcry,
Burial of
"sacrilege" and "profanation" was heard by the authorities, and they stopped the export.
Another foreign author who had a good inside view of Spanish art was Louis Viardot who
married Pauhna Garcia of the family of world-famous Spanish singers and singing teachers.
Viardot's appreciative remarks about El Greco, in books pubHshed in 1839 and 1855, prove that
the Cretan painter was never completely forgotten.®^
When the railroad nets were extended across Europe, around the mid-nineteenth century,
they brought additional visitors. The Spanish government required a wider-gauge track than
was uniformly accepted for the Continent. No through trains could run into the country.
All freight had to be reloaded at the border, and all the passengers had to leave the coaches.
Luggage was dragged over a distance, from where the French train came to a halt, to a
large hall where Spanish customs oflBcials in shakos burrowed into all valises. This manner of
isolation, paralleled only in czarist Russia, meant also the suspicious examination of all persons
and ideas that might have brought the clarifying air of a more liberal Europe into the country.
Nevertheless a group of Spanish scholars, Mrriters, and artists felt that now was the time to
lift Spain out of its morass of clerical Bourbonism, to make their country, which had produced

so much that was superlative in the arts, conscious of its heritage, and to raise its prestige abroad.
Edouard Manet, father of Impressionism, having copied Spanish canvases busily in the
Louvre, went to Spain in 1865. Without his study of the colors of Velazquez, his palette never
would have acquired its characteristic velvety modulated tone. The Swiss art historian Carl
Justi, as aheady mentioned, was several times in Spain.
With the rising interest in Spanish painting, it was unavoidable that the Cretan painter,
nearly unknown outside the country, should receive a share of attention. By 1885, Manuel
Cossio had published in an encyclopedia a long essay on Spanish painting, in which El Greco
was highly valued. Cossio was the first to present him vdthout any pathological qualifica-
tions that declared him to have suffered from astigmatism or from manifold manias. Al-
though in 1881 the director of the Prado had expressed himself as hanging those "absurd
caricatures" only at the order of his superior, articles on El Greco were pubhshed in various
countries of Europe, and in 1902 the first exhibition of his work took place in Madrid, followed
by a second in 1909.
In 1908 the pioneer Manuel Cossio brought out the first monograph devoted to El Greco
two massive volumes in which much data and healthy observation were presented. In 1909
the first edition of August L. Mayer s El Greco appeared in Munich, and this scholar remained
until his martyr's death a staunch and articulate publicist for the Cretan's art. In 1910 the Toledan
historian San Roman published, as the result of patient and arduous efforts, archival data re-
ferring to the life, work, and death of El Greco. Even today the documents exhumed by this
thorough searcher contain nearly all the factual information on the painter, which later vmters
use again and again. In 1910 Juhus Meier-Graefe issued his Spanische Reise a Spanish —
journey undertaken to learn more about Velazquez that brought forth another enthusiastic
revelation of El Greco. By that time essays about this unusual and unconventional painter had
appeared in nearly all European languages.
The year 1912 saw the pubhcation of Maurice Barres's Le Greco ou le secret du Tolede, a
catchy title perhaps, but a mere pamphlet compared vnth the pioneering volumes which had
preceded it. Here we must return to Manuel Cossio's monograph published four years earlier.

•155.
 EL GRECO REVISITED
At the end of the nineteenth century, the Spanish scholar received an inquiry from an Enghsh
pubhsher whether he would be willing to wTite a book on Murillo for them. Cossio had no
special interest in the project, but offered the publisher his manuscript on El Greco. Upon
seeing the sizable work, the Englishman refused it. The manuscript then went to a Parisian pub-
hsher, where it encountered the same fate. Finally, after years of lost time, it was brought
out with a subvention under the imprint of a stationery firm that also issued textbooks for schools
in Madrid. The daughter of Manuel Cossio has told us personally that when Barres's book
reached him, they were at their summer place in the mountains of Gahcia in northwestern
Spain. The father called his daughter into the garden pavilion where he used to work, and
showed her in the Frenchman's book entire passages translated from his own monograph with
scarcely a word changed and with no credit given.
In spite of El Greco's meteoric rise in the first decade of our century, his fame was not yet gen-
eral. As late as 1902, a monumental volume of the history of art came out; it contained nearly

seven hundred pages, and was widely quoted and used as a textbook.^^ Although it had a compre-
hensive section on Spanish art and architecture, including painters from Morales and Ribalta
to Cano and Goya, as well as an index with more than two thousand entries. El Greco's name
is nowhere to be found. In a work on Spanish Baroque, published in 1908, the same year as

Cossio's monumental monograph, and still regarded as up-to-date in many ways, the author
makes the astonishing statement that, although Philip II ordered The Martyrdom of St. Mauri-
tius from El Greco, and paid for it in full, the painting had been destroyed.®^

On the other hand, many by that time were distributed in different

of El Greco's paintings
parts of the world: before 1911, Austria had two El Grecos, Italy had six, Germany seven,
England and France thirteen each. Budapest alone possessed eleven, and New York, the same
number. An additional five in Philadelphia, one in Boston, and one in Chicago bring the total
for the United States to eighteen, a goodly number for a country continuously deprecated for
her lack of "culture." Less than a decade later, his name had become a household word;
and since art history pigeonholes every artist, he is declared a Byzantine, a Gothic, a Baroque,
a Mannerist painter.
Many nineteenth century writers speak of the "energy" in El Greco's painting, the impet-
uosity, the "saber blades" of his high hghts. They were unused to his palette which "modems"
now accept. El Greco's work comes close to the modems in a number of practices which, with
him, stem from the Byzantine tradition. His appeal to the present day lies in the fact that in
his manifold talent he never had all those components that were considered necessary to a
Western master up to the mid-nineteenth century. Thus he stands for the direction into which
modems "reacted" from academic conservatism. He may use stock figures, but each time they
are welded into a close-knit whole. His work is vibrant but not diffuse, nervous but directed.
El Greco's talent did not stagnate. The very distance from his homeland and the foreignness
of his Spanish surroundings gave him unusual strength. As ha\'e many emigres in our own days,
he found a radius of activity that he could not have achieved in his native land.
El Greco's style was purely his own, developed from his experiences in the three worlds in
—
which he hved Candia, Venice, and Toledo. Candia is no more. Even its name is changed.
But Venice and Toledo retain much of the visage that El Greco knew. These two cities, in

their picturesque ambience, have managed amount of their intricate

to preserve a spectacular
history. Venice was limited by the waters of the lagoon. Toledo was contained upon its hill
within medieval walls, and grew bigger and more compact within itself. To wander their

•156-
 POSTLUDE
streets at leisure — strange, that in both cities a street is called calle — will open to the xisitor
revealing vistas of their uniqueness.
Cit>' maps are interesting reading matter. what is not in the guidebooks.
They sometimes tell

Looking o\"er the map of Toledo, one sees streets named

few artists and writers; the rest
for a

are given to poHticos, generals, archbishops, and cardinals. There is no street named after the
Marques de la \^ega Inclan whose enthusiasm created the Casa del Greco, or for Manuel Cossio
who brought justice to the painter. Xor does one find the name of the Marques San Roman
Borja whose search for archival data brought out nearly all that is known about the painter.
A street is named after the Frenchman Maurice Barres, who exchanged a promising Uterary
career for questionable reactionar}- pohtical actixities. It is said that Spaniards incHne to xeno-
phobia, but itmust be recalled that the worthy Spanish champions of El Greco were all liberals

— a word in some circles equi\'alent to "outcast."

The neglect tlie city's attraction. Auto buses, motor-
of "grateful posterity" does not lessen
bicycles, nowadays bring the visitor to Toledo. And on Sundays the cit>', Hke
and pri\ate cars
an overladen excursion boat, rocks with the mass of humanity. Young people in bright clothing
chatter with the abandon of their age, noting the aggressive posters of the moving-picture
theater, commenting on their fellow men. Some have lunch baskets in tlieir hands, some cameras
over their shoulders; one carries a blaring transistor radio and expects the admiration of the
passers-by. Older people in dark clothing walk slowly, stop frequently, and are rather subdued
in their speech. For them it is still a city evoking respect.

And there are also the tourists, herded by

whose main concern is not to lose any of
a guide
them in the lab)Tindial streets or among the milling crowds. The foreign tourist is in a hurr)'.
In the one day he has to "check out" all the famous monuments, art pieces, and sites in his
itinerary —
and often has to be back early in Madrid to catch the evening plane. By the day
after tomorrow his impressions of Toledo will already have begun to lose their shape and

color, among the mesmerizing mass of other cities in other lands.

For the Spaniards there will be another Sunday. For them Toledo is not a fleeting interlude.
It is three-dimensional reaht)' with its inescapable consequences, an epic of history preserved
in stone.

We last saw Toledo on a warm October Sunday, when we were invited to dine in a countrv^
house outside the cit\-. We dro\-e out early so as to visit once more our favorite sites. We sat
on a bench before The Burial of Count Orgaz, now decently displayed and lighted — not, as
when saw it the first
I time, vWth an impatient sacristan holding a flickering candle before it

for a few moments.

It is hopeless to try to form an opinion of this moving work from color prints. The foreground
and dense. The row of pallid
figures are dark faces makes a terminating line. The contrast be-
tween earth and heaven is forceful. From realistic details such as the elaborate vestments,
the ruffs of the hidalgos, the translucent white of the priest's robe, the painter makes a smooth
and convincing transition to the absolutely unreal. Below, black and gold predominate. As
the eye moves upward, the heavens open —opahne, shimmering bound-
in evanescent tones,
less in space.

We Ustened to the parrot-like recitation of the guides, as they herded their flocks in and
out, taking sometimes less than ten minutes. The Spanish discourse sounded apropos and
melodious, as against the monotone of foreign languages memorized and rattled off.

•157-
 EL GRECO REVISITED
Time came for us to leave also. Crossing the Puente de San Martin, our car began to mount
the barren and soon the gate of the Cigarral los Dolores came into sight. It was in the
hill,

midst of an ohve grove, a good-sized building, once a retreat for religious personnel. Today,
modernized with graceful feeling for tradition, it is the country seat of a distinguished historian
who wTOte most of his works there. The cells were enlarged into bedrooms, the refectory was
transformed into a dining hall, and at the far end of the sprawling mansion were several rooms
lined with shelves of books from bottom to top. Here was a piece of Toledo's past: the paint-
ings in dark hues on the walls, an El Greco miniature among them, the statues showing the
subdued polychrome through the patina of centuries, the rugs faded by age but displa\'ing
their elegant craft, and the silver gleaming in the complacence of Spanish Baroque. One waU
of the nuns' reception room had been broken out to a tiled terrace, and the hea\y iron grille
that had separated the inmates from their visitors, by means of glass and a curtain was made
into a friendly \\'indow.
The table was laid with flower-embroidered linen and cheerful Talavera ware. For the meal
there were a savory clear soup, partridge from the nearby hills baked in wine, an endive salad
decorated with a scattering of pomegranate seeds. Cream puffs with tempting fillings were
ser\-ed, and marzipan and candied apricots, recalling the Arabian past. Dappled jugs set about
the table contained a pleasantly cool Valdepenas.
Afterward we walked out onto the terrace. Beyond the e\ergreen of the ohve grove, flanked
by dust\' yellow and red foliage, stood tenacious, timeless Toledo —translucent as a projected
stage setting, unforgettable in masculine majesty.

158
 ADDENDA

when this book was being distributed, a congress was held in HerakHon (Candia) devoted to
tlie archaeology and history of Crete (September 21-27, 1961). My book's main thesis, that El
Greco, both intellectually and artistically, was thoroughly educated in the Byzantine tradition,
has been fully vindicated by data brought to light at this congress.
Mr. C. D. Mertzios (see page 167), archivist and historian, long-time Greek vice consul in

Venice, read a paper at the congress called "Gleanings in the Register of the Cretan Notary
Michel Maras (1538-1578)." His text was based on his investigation of nineteen folios contain-

ing some thirty thousand notarial documents, all in Greek, which had been transferred from
Candia to Venice when the island of Crete fell to the Turks and which are now in the Pul^lic

(State) Archives of that city.

Mr. Mertzios found references to perfumers, physicians, notaries, and lawyers in Candia, the
names of Orthodox priests, chief cantors, and teachers. Forty-two hitherto unknown Greek
painters are named, three among whom bear the proud title of "master." Five records refer to
Manousos Theotokopoulos (page 98). In one, he is cited as treasurer of the Mutual Benefit
Association of Cretan Seamen ( 1569 )
Of primary importance is a document concerning El Greco, which he signed as "master
Menegos [that is, Domenikos] Theotokopoulos painter." The date is 1566, the phce, Candia.
Until now, the first date referring to El Greco was the letter ( pages 67 and 150 ) of the Mace-
donian painter Clovio (Glovic) to Cardinal Farnese in 1570. Many writers suggest that El
Greco arrived in Venice in or about the year 1560, when he was nineteen years old, as an un-
tutored lad— though that was a man's age in those days. This new date reveals him as a master
painter, still active in his native Candia at the age of twenty-five, where his style was formed
in accordance with Byzantine tenets.
In a report to the Senate of Venice dated 1561, Mr. Mertzios found also the description of
the miserable condition of the Cretan population. It was stated that of the three hundred thou-
sand souls Crete then had, only four thousand slept in beds; nutrition was far below sustenance
level, and many lived on forage from the fields. This famine condition, together with the Turkish
advance on various Mediterranean islands and the forced labor of the Cretan population in the

Venetian galleys and on the fortifications, furnishes ample reason why the painter should have
left his native land (
page 37 )
Whether El Greco was twenty-five or possibly even older when he reached Venice, his stay

•
158a
 EL GRECO REVISITED
in that citv was lon*^ enough for the talented and mature artist to famihari/.e himself with the
work of the master painters there. As stated on pages 6()-62, painters in Crete, on the Ionian
islands, and in the Scuola del Greci in Venice, were thoroughly grounded in the Byzantine tra-

dition but also learned to ser\e the taste of the West. The tremendous influence of Byzantine
art on the West is only now beginning to be realized. Exca\ ations in the Le\ ant and very recent
finds in Syria, Ethiopia, and the Sudan emphasize once more that a great part of Christian
iconography— applied in murals, icons, and manuscripts— was fully developed in those countries
before the Renaissance adopted and changed it for the West.
That El Greco was still active in Candia at the age of twenty-five offers one reason why,
when in Spain and in litigation for higher prices for his paintings, he never mentioned a stay in

Italy or it might have given him a better stature in Spain (page

working with Titian, although
152). The new date illuminates still more sharply his preference for Greek literature, history,
and philosophy, and why his Spanish friends and admirers declared him always a Greek.
In his unique way of painting, the Byzantine compositional method is modulated to conform
to Western taste. He has been called "the first expressionist," "an Italian mannerist"— but that

depends on what definitions are given to these terms. Some declare him a "Spanish m\stic.
His Greek rationality and shrewd behavior before Spanish authorities are far from those of a
mystic. Byzantine mosaics, murals, and icons have an uplifting, sometimes ecstatic quality.
Ample explanation has been given (page 102) as to how a sixteenth century emigre who
^^•antcd to succeed in his craft had to compromise his religious views among strangers, while
those who only \isited in Spain returned to Eastern countries and rejoined the Orthodox Chincli.
If El Greco's family wished him to be buried with a religious ceremony, acquiescence was nec-
essary to the only existing all-powerful religion in Spain. His son and grandchildren were
Toledo-born Spaniards. At that time no other church could function there. Even today— in the
age of Telstar— a person of the Jewish or the Protestant faith cannot be buried in a public reli-

gious ceremony in Spain.

It may surprise some that such important data should come to light only now. Doing research
in \^enice, this author saw a long sala on the second story of the Biblioteca Marciana, where
fascicles were piled, uncatalogued and unindcxed, on shelves and along the floor. Similar ac-
cumulations of documents, in Italian and in \arious foreign tongues, are to be found in other

municipal and ecclesiastical buildings in that town.*

Max 1962

Mr. C-. U. Mnt/ios's complete text is expected to be published next \e;ir. in the eollectixc xolnnie oi cssa> s
"

read at the Premier Congies International des £tiides Cjetoiscs. A fully inlcMmativc communication appeared
in Nea Estia, \o\. 70, Xo. 823, Athens. My renewed thanks ;j:o to Professor Pandelis Prevelakis. .Xthens, for
his assistance.

•
158b •
 CATALOGUE
OF
ILLUSTRATIONS
This listing contains various credits not included in the text or captions. WTien a museum or collection
owns the piece and has also furnished the photograph, the name is given only once.
The National Geographic Societ\', Washington, with exceptional courtesy, permitted a selection from
its world-famous archive to be used. With rare cooperation, the ENTE, Venice, D. StanimiroN-itch,
Paris, and Dr. Karl Eller, Munich, furnished choice photographs and much important information.
George Csema, photographer, New York, improved a number of negatives and prints.
The full titles of books referred to can be found in the BibHography.
The follo\\lng abbre\-iations are used:
D.S.: D. Stanimiro\itch, Paris NGS: The National Geographic Society Coll: Collection
EZK: Elisabeth Zulauf Kelemen S.O.: Spanish Tourist Office Cy: Courtesy
G.T.: Greek Tourist Office, Athens Y.C.: Yugoslav Information Center Ph: Photograph
K.E.: Dr. Karl EUer, Munich

Plate 14 EZK 1956

1 A) VioUet, Paris. B) EZK 1956. C) Ph 15 A) and C) EZK 1956. B ) Cy Pelekanidis.
Cy Hilton Hotel
Pferschy. D Cy ENTE,
) Venice
A) and D) Viollet, Paris. B) Ecole des 16 A) Wm. Tobin 1930. NGS. B and C)
Hautes-Etudes, Paris. C) Cy .Arab Inf. M. O. Wilhams 1932. NGS. D) after Fi-
Center low, Alt-bulgarische Kunst
D) Pemberton Pigott, London IT A) M. O. Wilhams 1932. NGS. B) Wm.
A ) after Strz\-gowski, Asiens hildende Kunst Tobin 1930. NGS. C ) after lorga and Bals,
. . . B ) and'c ) Cy Prof. K. A. C. CresweU Uort Roumain. D) after Henr>', Les
Cy .Arab Inf. Center Eglises Moldavia
A) M. O. Wilhams. NGS. B) Lykides, 18 Cy D.S.
Thessaloniki 19 Cy D.S.
A) M. O. WiUiams. NGS. B) Cy G.T. 20 Cy D.S.
C) Lykides, Thessaloniki 21 Cy D.S.
8 A) m'. O. WilHams. NGS. B) Cy K.E. 22 A) Cy Y.C B) EZK 1956. C) and D)
9 A) Lykides, Thessaloniki. B) after Millet, Cy D.S.
. .Afhos. .C) Cy K.E. 23 A) Cy Y.C B) Cy D.S. C) EZK 1956
10 A) M. O. Williams. NGS. B) Cy K.E. 24 A)CyD.S. B ) M. 6. WiUiams. NGS. C
C) and D) Cy G.T. Cy Y.C.
11 A) and B) CyK.E. C) EZK 1956 25 A) Anderson. B) Cy D.S. C) Cy K.E
12 A and B EZK 1956. C Hautes-Etudes,
) ) ) 26 A) G. Maraghiannis, Herakhon. B) M. O
Paris Wilhams 1928. NGS
13 EZK 1956 27 A) EZK 1956. B) A. Matton

159
 CATALOGUE OF ILLUSTRATIONS
28 EZK 1956 63 A) Venice. Cy ENTE. B) after Durer,
29 EZK 1956 The Small Passion ( 1509-1511 ) C Rome. . )

30 A) and B) EZK 1956. C) M. O. Williams Vatican Gallery

1928. NGS 64 A) Mistra. Hautes-Etudes, Paris. B) Es-
31 EZK 1956 corial. Mas. C) Heraklion. G. Maraghian-
32 EZK 1956 nis
33 A) after Gerola, Monumenti ... B) Cy 65 A) Istanbul. EZK 1956. B) and C) Mt.
K.E. C) after Diehl, Manuel d'art byzan-
Athos. Hautes-Etudes, Paris
tin.D) Cy Pelekanidis
66 A) Budapest. Nat. Lib. B) Escorial. Mas.
34 Cy NGS C) Mt, Athos. Cy K.E.
35 A) Cy NGS. B) after Adam, Ruins of the
67 A) and B) Escorial. Mas. C) Kansas City.
Palace ... C ) after Ivekovic, Dalmatiens
Wm. R. Nelson Gall., Mary Atkins Mus. of
Architektur . . .

Fine Arts
36 A) and C) Alinari. B) Cy ENTE, Venice.
68 A) Toledo. Mas. B) Madrid. Prado
D) Anderson
37 Cy Cleveland Museum of Art. H. Wade 69 A) after Millet, Athos. B) Turin.
. . .

J.
Fund Alinari. C) Louvre, Paris. Giraudon
38 Cy ENTE, Venice 70 A) Toledo. Cy Victoria and Albert Mus.
39 Cy ENTE, Venice B) Toledo. Mas
40 Cy ENTE, Venice 71 A) Madrid. Mas. B) Bib. Nat., Paris.
41 Cy ENTE, Venice C) Mt. Athos. Hautes-Etudes. D) Venice.
42 Cy ENTE, Venice Alinari
43 Cy ENTE, Venice 72 A) Monreale. Alinari. B) Andrejas. Cy
44 Cy ENTE, Venice D.S. C) Mt. Athos. after Millet, . . .

45 A) EZK 1954. B) EZK 1935 Athos

46 A) Mus. Vatican. B) and C) Anderson 73 A) and C) London. Cy Trustees, National
47 A) and C) Anderson. B) EZK Gallery. B) Venice. Anderson
48 A) Cy Kunsthistorisches Mus., Vieima. B) 74 A) Parma. Alinari. B) Heraklion. G. Mar-
Cy S.O.
aghiannis. C) Venice. EZK 1935. D)
49 CyS.O. Minneapolis. Inst, of Arts. Dunwoody Fund
50 EZK 1959
1924
51 A) Cy Rene Taylor. B) Cy S.O.
75 A) Istanbul. Dumbarton Oaks. B) Lon-
52 A) Mas. B) and C) Cy S.O.
don. Cy Trustees, Nat. Gall. C ) Monreale.
53 A) and C) Cy S.O. B) Westminster Ca-
Anderson. D) Cadiz. Mas
thedral, London
54 A) and C) Cy S.O. B) Mas
76 A ) Lylddes, Thessaloniki. B) Washington.
55 A) EZK 1956. B) Cy S.O. C) Mas Cy National Gallery of Art. Samuel H.
56 Cy S.O.
Kress Coll. C) Scuola dei Greci, Venice.

57 A) Naples. Anderson. B) Toledo. Mas. EZK 1935

C) New York. Metropolitan Mus. of Art. 77 A) Vienna. Cy Akad. der bild. Kiinste. B)
Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 Madrid. Mas. C) Cy Erica Tietze
58 A) Paris. Bibliotheque National. B) To- 78 A Budapest. Cy Fine Arts Mus. B ) after
)

ledo. Mas. C) Athens. Cy Statathos Millet, AtJios.

. C) Siguenza. Mas
. .

59 A) Benaki Mus., Athens. EZK 1956. B) 79 A) Mistra. Cy K.E. B) and C) Lugano.

Athens. Cy Statathos. C) Istanbul. Dum- Cy Galleria Thyssen
barton Oaks 80 A) Brussels. Giraudon. B) Scuola dei
60 A) Mt. Athos. Cy K.E. B) Toledo. Mas. Greci. EZK 1935. C ) Heraklion. G. Mara-
C) Kritsa. EZK 1956 ghiannis. D) Meteora, Greece. Papado-
61 A) Verroia. EZK 1956. B) Crete. EZK poulos
1956. C) Brescia. Alinari 81 A) Escorial. Anderson. B) Jerez de la

62 A) Florence. Cy Warbm-g Inst., London. Frontera. Mas. C) Cy Art Inst, of Chi-

B) Madrid. Mas. C) Mt. Athos. Cy K.E. cago. J.
Winterbotham Coll.

160
 CATALOGUE OF ILLUSTK\TIOXS
82 A) Nerezi, Yugosla\'ia. Cy Y.C. B) Kas- 98 A) after Diirer (1511). B) Madrid. Prado.
toria, Greece. Cy Pelekanidis. C ) Bologna. C) Barcelona. Cy Mus. de Arte de Cata-
D) Heraklion. EZK 1956 luha. D) Se\-iUe. Mas
83 A) Benaki Mus., Athens. EZK 1956. B) 99 A) formerly Bucharest. Mas. B) Ickworth.
and C) Paris. Mas. D) Venice. Cy ENTE Coll. Marq. of Bristol. C) Paris. Cy Mus.
84 A) Heraklion. G. Maraghiannis. B) Mo- Jacquemart Andre
dena. Cy Galleria Estense. C ) London. 100 A) Philadelphia. Cy J. G. Johnson Coll.
Cy Trustees, Xat. Gall. D) Mt. Athos. Cy B) Escorial. Mas. C) Amsterdam. Cy
KL. Rijksmus.
55 A) Madrid. B) Illescas. C) Valencia. 101 A) Cincinnati. Cy .Art Mus. B) and C)
.\11 Mas Moreno Archive, Madrid
56 A) and D) Venice. Cy ENTE. B) Kas- 102 A) after Meunier, Vues en Espagne. Cy
toria. EZK C
San Francisco. Cy
1956. ) Xew York Public Library. B) EZK 1959
M. H. de Young Memorial Mus. 103 A) Washington. Cy Xat. Gall. S. H. Kress
87 A) Palermo. Anderson. B) Scuola del Coll. B) Toledo. Mas
Greci. EZK 1954. C) Kastoria. EZK 1956. 104 A) Xew York. Cy Metropohtan Mus. of
D; New York. Cy Frick Collection .\rt. Beq. of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929.

88 A) Palermo. Alinari. B) Mt. Athos. Cy B) Toledo. Mas

K.E. C) Vitoria. Mas. D) Kastoria. EZK 105 A) after Meunier, Vues en Espagne. B)
1956 Cincinnati. Cy Art Mus. C) Xew Y'ork.
89 A) Stockholm. Cy Xat. Mus. B) St. Louis. Cy Metropolitan Mus. of .Art
Cy Cit>- Art Mus. 106 A) Cincinnati. Cy Art Mus. B) Washing-
90 A) Boston. Cy Mus. of Fine .-Vrts. B) Es- ton. Cy Xat. Gall. Widener CoU.
corial. Mas. C) Rome. Anderson 107 A I formerly Budapest. Cy Bilderarchiv
91 A) Herakhon. EZK 1956. B) Xew York. Marburg. B Xew York. J. Hirsch Estate.
Cy Metropolitan Mus. of Art. Gift of Mrs. Cv T. Virzi. C) Xew York. Cy S. C. Clark
Ralph Hines, 1954 Coll.
J.

92 A) Manchester. Cy Universit)- Mus. B) 108 A) Mexico. B) Cy Hispanic Society- of

Boston. Cy Mus. of Fine Arts. C) Xew America
York. Cy Metropolitan Mus. of Art. Gift 109 A) after Gevaerts, Pompa introitus
of Edward S. Harkness, 1917-191S. D) B) and C) Xew York. Brown Bros.
110 A) Cambridge. Cy University Lib. B)
Toledo. Mas
upper and middle: Washington. Cy Xat
93 A' Scotland. Mas. B) Paris. Giraudon.
Gall. Lower: Chicago. Cy Art Inst. C)
C) Madrid. Mas. D) Brescia. Alinari
Washington. Cy Lib. of Congress
94 A) Thessalonild. Lykides. B) Xew York.
111 A and C)
'
Venice. EZK 1954^ B) Toledo.
Cy Metropohtan Mus. of .Art. Joseph Pul-
Mas. D) after Legendre-Hartman. E)
itzer Beq. Fund. C) Palermo. Anderson Escorial. Mas
95 Aj Cadiz. Mas. B) after A. L. Mayer, El 112 A) Toledo. Cy Victoria and Albert Mus.
Greco. C) Kastoria. EZK 1956 B; Herakhon. G. Maraghiannis. C Istan- )

96 A) Decani. Cy D.S. B) Palermo. Alinari. bul. EZK 1956. D) formerly Budapest.

C) Mt. Athos. Cy K.E. Bilderarch. Marburg. E) Xew York. Cy
97 A) Siatista. EZK 1956. B) Scuola dei S. C. Clark Coll. F) Toledo. Mas. G)
Greci. EZK 1935. C) DubHn. Cy Xat. Madrid. Mas. H) Athens. Cv Statathos
Gall, of Ireland CoU.

161
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

The literature of some on which this book sometimes only touches, is so vast that it
of the subjects,
fills entire libraries. Much was found in periodicals which have been discontinued.
useful material
Further, old guidebooks and exhibition catalogues contain valuable information and have helped to
give a fuller picture.
Here only a selection of titles can be oflFered. Even the subject of Byzantine influence in El Greco's
art has been discussed by numerous authors. Books may have been omitted which are as important
to the specialist as those included here, as no bibliography can claim to be all-encompassing.
For general reference use was made of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Catholic Encyclopedia,
Endclopedia Italiana, the Spanish Enciclopedia universal ilustrada, the Stauffacher Illustrierte Welt-
Kunstgeschichte, Thieme-Becker's KUnstler Lexikon, as well as specialized iconographical and theo-
logical works.
Books with an extensive bibliography are marked with an asterisk.* The numbers refer to source
references in the text and works in which further information can be found.

GENERAL Deschamps, Paul, Recueil de textes relatifs a

I'histoire de Varchitecture et a la condition
Arg>TOpoulos, p. A., "Les Grecs au service de
des architectes en France au moyen age.
I'empire ottoman" in L'Hellenisme contem-
Paris, 1929
porain. Athens, 1953
*Deutsch, Otto Erich, ed., Schubert: Memoirs
Atiyah, Edward, Tlie Arabs. London, 1955
Biihler, Curt F., TJie Fifteenth Century Book. by His Friends. New York, 1958
Philadelphia, 1960 Diringer, David, L'Alfabeto nella storia del
Cartellieri, O., Abt Siiger von Saint Denis. civiltd. Florence, 1937
Berlin, 1898 ,TJie Alphabet in the History of Civiliza-
^ Ceccaroni, Agostino, Ficcola enciclopedia ec- tion. London, 1948
clesiastica. Milan, 1953 -, The Illuminated Book. New York, 1958
^Clapham, Sir Alfred, and F. Saxl, "Lincoln Du Colombier, Pierre, Les Chantiers des ca-

Cathedral, the Eleventh Century West thedrales. Paris, 1953

Front" in The Archaeological Journal, Lon- Dupont-Sommer, A., The Dead Sea Scrolls.

don, 1947 Oxford, 1952

^ Creswell, K. A. C, Early Muslim Architecture, ^ Egh, Ernst, Sinan, dcr Baumcister osmanischer
2 vols. London, 1932, 1940 Glanzzeit. Zurich, 1954
, The Muslim ArcJiitecture of Egypt, 2 Entz, Geza, A kozepkori Magyarorszdg mii-
vols.London, 1952, 1959 veszete. Budapest, 1959
Davis, R. H. C, and Helmut Domke, Ro- ' Ferguson, George, Signs and Symbols in Chris-
*
manesque Europe. New York, 1960 tian Art. New York, 1954

•162-
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Fossey, Charles M., Notices sur les caracteres 1^ Webber, F. R., Church Symbolism. Cleveland,
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Frisch, Teresa G., 'The Twelve Choir Statues Wright, S., O. A. Jager, and J. Leroy, Ethiopia.
of the Cathedral at Reims" in The Art Bul- UNESCO, 1961
letin, 1960
Gero, Laszlo, Eger. Budapest, 1954
BYZANTINE
Gimpel, Jean, Les Bdtisseurs de cathedrales.
Paris, 1958 1^ Adam, R., Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor
Grillmeier, Aloys, Der Logos am Kreuz. Mu- Diocletian. London, 1764
nich, 1956 Andrews, Kevin, Castles of the Morea. Prince-
Grunebaum, G. E. von, Islam. Chicago, 1955 ton, 1953
^ Holt, Elizabeth Gilmore, ed.. Literary Sources Athens. Benald Museum Catalogue (in

of Art History. Princeton, 1947 Greek), A[ndre] Xyngopoulos, ed. 1936

^Huime, Edward F., The History, Principles, . Museum of Dionysios Loverdos Cata-
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King, Georgiana Goddard, "Iconographical Musee Byzantin d^Athenes, Guide du.
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1934 1955
Kiinsde, Karl Ikonographie der christlichen Atiya, Aziz Suryal, The Monastery of St. Cath-
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171
 INDEX

( Titles of paintings and plate numbers are in italics.

85
Acciaioli, Assumption of the Virgin, 147, 110; Byzantine art (cont.)
Achthamar, 12-13, 3; 90 155 portrait, 138, 93
Adam, Robert, 46 Aswan, Egypt, 11, 2 traditions, 22, 39, 41^3, 60, 64, 75
Adoration of the Holy Name, 113, Athens, 42-43, 33; 91 Byzantium, 1-31
118-20, 64; 140^1 aureole. 15, 13; 16, 43, 33; 124, 71; Byzan to-Venetian painters, 60-61, 63.
Adoration of the Shepherds, 114, 150, 134-40, 97 See also hagiographers
111 Averoes (ibn-Rushd), 109
Agony in the Garden, 114, 124-25, Candia (Heraklion), 33, 98, 101
72-73; 140 Badia Greca. See Grottaferrata St. Catherine Monastery, 44, 128,
Alba, Duke 74 of, Baptism of Christ, 114, 123, 112; 136-37
Aldus Manutius (Aldine Press), 55, 132-53, 84-85 "Candiotto," 150-51
88, 107, 109, 111, 149, 110 Barbari, Jacopo de', 48, 37 Cano, Alonso, 79
Alexander the Great, 23, 108, 109, Barberini, Cardinal, 68, 88 Carlos, Don, 74
113, 153 Baroque, 45, 65-66, 79 Carpaccio, 58
Alexandria, 84, 109 Barres, Maurice, 155-57 Carranza, Archbishop, 77
America, 51, 54, 71, 73, 75, 78, 113, Bashkirtseff, Marie, 71 Castagno, Andrea del, 30, 25
146, 108-109; 155-56 Basilian order, 16-17, 90-91, 112 Catafalque. See temporary monu-
Anastasis. See Resurrection basilica, 4-5, 64 ments
angel musicians. See angels Bassano, 64, 127, 75; 131, 83; 141 Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 90,
Angelico, Fra, 15, 115, 122 Bellini, Gentile, 69 96, 143
angels, 15-16, 12-13; 25-27, 15, 17; Bernini, 66 Charlemagne, 3, 5
28-30, 21-23; 42, 33; 119, 65; Berruguete, Alonso, 79, 52 Charles V, 9, 14, 63, 65-67, 73-75,
122, 69; 127, 76-78; 132, 84; 133, Pedro, 130, 81 78,89,94,99, 112, 113
86; 140, 98 Bessarion, Cardinal, 55, 68-69, 87, 89, Chi Rho (Christ's monogram), 1, 120,
El Greco's 120-21, 66;
119, 64; 112 131
122, 68; 124-25, 73; 128-29, 78- Betrayal of Christ, 115, 58; 128 Chilandari, Mount Athos, 18, 26, 28;
79; 131-32, 85; 140, 98; 150, Biblioteca Marciana, 55 124, 7i
111 Bocche di Cattaro, 45 chiton, 131-33
musicians, 120-21, 66; 129, 79 Bonasone, Giulio, 141 Christ in Benediction, 42-43, 33; 116-
Ani, 13, 4 Bucintoro, 49, 63 17, 60-61
Annunciation, 123, 70; 127-29, 76-79 Bulgaria, 26 Christ Driving Out the Money-Chang-
Ansaldo, Juan Augustin, 99 Burial of Count Orgaz, 100, 113; 121- ers.See Cleansing of the Temple
Apelles, 108, 153 23, 68, 70; 140, 147, 155, 157 Christ in Judgment, 21, 9; 25, 15; 47,
apostolic rights, 2, 55—56, 65 Burning Bush, 16, 43; 119, 64, 112; 36
Arabs, 2, 11-12, 14, 33, 79-80, 94 128, 78 Christ in Limbo, 14-15, 127, 75
influence on Europe, 2, 73, 81, 109 Byzantine art, 1, 8, 15-16, 31, 53, 58; Christ in Majesty, 6, 53
archives, 90 130, 80; 151 Christ on the Mount of Olives. See
destruction, 92-93 growing appreciation, 151 Agony in the Garden
Greek, in Venice, 62, 98 influence in Europe, 47, 85 church fathers, Orthodox, 41, 30; 112
Spanish, 77 on Gothic, 4—5 Roman Catholic, 112, 132
Armada, 46, 74 landscape, 139 cigarral, 96
Armenia, 12-13, 58. See also mosaics. See mosaics Cigarral los Dolores, 158
Achthamar murals. See murals Cincinnato, Romulo, 121, 67
Armenians, 50, 57 music, 59, 68, 129 Cistercian order, 6, 13
artists, early maturity, 151 painters. See hagiographers Cleansing of the Temple, 126-27, 74-
Ascension, 15, 13; 30, 22; 41, 29 painting. Western influence, 43, 61 75; 137; 145, 112

•172-
 INDEX
Climacos (St. John Climacos), Ladder Disrobing of Christ {El Espolio), Fletcher, Banister, 59
of Perfection, 21, 10; 27, 17 100, 114-15,58 fondaco, 50
CloWo, Julio (Jure Glo\-ic), 67, 69, Dochiariou, Mount Athos, 21, 9; 23, Fondaco de' Tedeschi, 50, 100
107. 126, 150-52 11; 122, 69 Fondaco de' Turchi, 51
portrait by El Greco, 67, 57 I>ominican order, 34, 57, 75-76 Formis, Italy, 42, 33
Coello. Sanchez, 137, 50 Dormition of the Virgin, 23, 26, 15; Francesca, Piero della, 132, 84
Colleoni, Bartolommeo, 52—53 28, 19; 30, 22; 115-16, 59; 122, Franks, 3-4, 8, 15
Como, 5—6 69; 136 freebooters, 51, 73, 98
Constantine. 1. 120 Dostoevski, 77
Constantinople, 1. 4-5, 10, 1; 130. 80 Drakona, 40, 32 Garcia, Paulina, 155
cisterns, 12, 147 Durer, 50, 118, 63; 140, 98; 141 Gautier, Theophile, 72, 154
equestrian statue, 53, 120, 66 Gerola, 119
FrankL^h conquest, 4, 10, 33, 109 Eg>-pt, 1-2,4, 10-11,33 ghetto, 58
Karive Cami Kariye Djami), 14, i;
( El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopou- Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman
127. 75,- 138 los), 57 Empire, 8
St. Sophia, 5, 9; 10, 1; 13 angel musicians. See angels Giorgione, 50
Turkish conquest, 8-9, 83 birth,101 Giotto, 15, 29
See also Istanbul Byzantine heritage, 96-97, 151-53 Gongora, Luis de, 103, 153
Cook, Captain S., 154 Casa, SO, 56 Gonia, 41-42, 31; 85
Copts, 11. 109; 137-38, 92-53 Cretan background, 45, 96, 97, 105, GortvTia Ck)rt>-s), 33, 129, 135
i,

Corfu Kerk\Ta), 17; 45, 34

( 107, 151-53 Gothic, 6-7, 10, 13-14, 53, 71, 79
CoTOTUJtion of the Virgin, 131, 85 death, 102-3 Gou%emotissa, 41, 30
corsairs.See freebooters documents, 62, 67, 79, 96, 99-103, Goya, Francisco, 79
Cortes, 54. 94 107 Gozzoli, Benozzo. 8, 15
Corvinus. Matthias, 111 early work, 61, 63-64, 67, 69, 149 Gracanica, 29, 21
Cossio, Manuel. 101, 144, 155-57 Greek books, 104-13 Grand Inquisitor. See Inquisitors
Council of Florence, 8, 35 growing appreciation of, 70, 72, General
Council of Trent, 66, 77, 89, 113, 116, 151, 154-57 Greco, Griego, appellatives, 85-86,
122-23, 132 household, 97-99 88-89. 101-2
Covarrubias, Antonio de, 108 in Rome, 67, 69, 78 Greek copyists (scribes), 88-89, 149.
Cretan painters, 20-22, 38-45, 28-33 in Toledo, 75, 78-81, 89-91, 94- See also Greek diaspora
Mount Athos, 20-23 1&3 diaspora, S-3-93
Venic-e. 61 in Venice, 57, 59, 61-64 fire. See p>Totechnics
See also hagiographers inventory, 104, 145—46 inscriptions. See inscriptions
Crete, 4. 14. 17, 23; 32-45, 26-33; 94, landscapes, 125, 141-44. 100-1, manuscripts, 19, 55, 68, 83, 87-89,
110 103-7; 146 112; 115,55; 139, 149
centers of painting, 44 lawsuits, 99-101 names, change of, 7S, 85, 87, 101-2
culture. 38, 96, 151 librar>-, 96, 104-13 printing, 54-55, S7-SS. 105, 106
massacres, German, 38 manuscripts, 96, 150 refugee psycholog>', 95-96, 99, 150
Venetian, 36—37 methods, 121 Greeks, Adriatic coast, 45 47, 85-86 —
militar>- prowess, 32, 36, 59, 108 paintings, 63, 67, 69, 104, 114-47, in .America, 85, 89, 95-96
monasteries, 41—42, 29—31 156. See also separate titles in Hungar.', 86, 57
murals. 35. 38 i3 — disadvantageous hanging, 133 in Inquisition, 79, 100
Roman Catholic Church, 34, 44 distribution of (in 1911), 156 in Istanbul, 37. See also Phanariot
Turkish conquest, 37 portraits, 67, 57; 69, 80-81, 57; Greeks
Venetian colony, 33-^7, 94 118; 137-38,92-94 in Italy. 68. 84
World War II, 37-39, 42 power of attorney, 91, 97, 102 in Spain, 75. 88-92
"Cretes." 118 psvcholog>-, 94-103, 111, 113, 150. in \'enice, 5S—6-3
"Cretians." 135 151-53 in ^^'esternEurope, 87
Crucifixion (.Christ on the Cross), 72; refugee contacts, 90-91, 102, 150 See also Greek diaspora
11.5-16, 59; 141-i2, 100-1; repetitions, 100, 114, 125-26, 138- Grigoriou, Mount Athos, 20, 9
148 39, 141 Grottaferrata ( Badia Greca ) , 68-69,
crusades. 3, 6-7, 13, 51. See also signatiires, 67, 69, 81, 90, 101-2, 47; S5
Franks 121, 123, 138-39, 147-50, 110- grotto, 125, 139-40, 96-97
Cue\"as, Jeronima de las, 97 111; 153
Curzon, Lord, 19 studio (atelier), 97, 99. 104, 114. Habsburg. 56, 67, 86, 87, 101-2,
C\prus, 4, 14, 17, 35, 37, 51, 91 138. 141, 144, 150 122-23
use of color, 70, 72, 115, 125, 140, hagioeraphers, 42, 45, 60-61, 63, 127,
Damaskinos, Michele, 59-60, 62; 116, 156 fSS, 144, 148-50
61; 119; 126, 74; 128, 112; 130, See also Greco, appellative ha-Levi, Samuel, 80
80; 148
"El Tizon," 76 Healing of the Blind Man, 125-26.
Erasmus, 111 74
Death oi St. Athanasius, 22, 11;
122
Escorial, 72, 74-75, 48-^9; 89, 97 Hellenic Institute. See San Giorgio dei
Death Ephraim, 23, 11; 61, 122
of St.
Essenes, 110 Greci
Decani, 139, 96
Heraklion, 33; 43-44, 26; 98; 137, 91
Denys of Fouma, 22, 39, 118 Fabri, FelLx, 17 hermits, 11, 1&-18, 21-23, 112, 116.
diaspora. See Greek diaspora
Famese, 6.5. 67-69, 125 139
Didron. A. X., 22 Feast in the House of Simon, 129-30, Hetima.9ia (Preparation of the Throne),
Diocletian's palace, 46, 35 SI 119. 64
Dionysiou, Mount Athos, 20-21, 10 Ferdinand III, monument, 146, 108 hierarchies, 112-13, 119, 65; 122, &S

173
 INDEX
Hodegetria, 148 Lamentation (Pietd), 45; 130-31, 82- Mount Athos (cont.
Holland, Lady, 75, 154 83; 140 murals, 18-23, 6-11; 29, 24; 30,
Holy League, 51, 118 Laocoon, 114; 142-43, 103 25; 116, 118, 65; 122, 69; 124,
Holy Liturgy, 132-33, 84 Last Judgment, 19, 9; 25-26, 15; 27, 71; 125, 72; 128, 78; 132, 84;
Holy Office. See Inquisition 17; 64, 43; 118-20,65; 133 136, 88
Hospitalers. See Knights of Malta Last Supper, 129-30, 80 Mount Sinai, 16-17, 39, 128, 136
Hungary, 3, 7, 9, 86, 87, 111 LavTa, Mount Athos, 17-19, 9; 22, 11; Mozarabic Rite, 71,93
royal crown of, 3 39, 116,60,- 118,65 murals, 6, 139
8, 15, 68,
Huntington, Archer M., 80 Leoni, Leone, 78, 48 Armenia (Achthamar), 12-13,3
Hurtado de Mendoza, Cardinal, 89 Pompeo, 78 Athens, 42-43, 33
Lepanto, 51, 74, 91, 94, 96, 100, 118 Bulgaria (RUa), 26-27, 16-17; 119
iconoclasm, 2-3, 85 Libreria Vecchia, Venice, 55 Constantinople, 14-15, 127, 75
iconostasis, 19, 36, 39; 43-44, 28; 59, Lutlier, Martin, 54, 64-65 Crete, 35, 38-42, 29-33; 116, 60
45; 64 Greek Macedonia (except Mount
icons, 27, 35, 42-43, 60, 63 Macedonia, 125, 72 Athos and Kastoria), 24, J 1; 116,
dates, 61, 62 machicolation, 14 61; 139, 97
Western influence, 61 Madariaga, Salvador de, 97 Italy, 42, 33; 50, 59

IHS ( Jesus' monogram ) 118-20

,
Madonna del Soccorso, 148 Kastoria, 24-26, 14-15; 30, 22-23;
Illescas, 100-1 madonneri, 60, 127 42, 33; 128, 76; 130, 82; 135, 87;
Impressionism, 114, 155 Madrid, 72, 74, 93, 100 136, 88; 138, 95
Index of prohibited books, 76-77, 80, Malta, 14, 84, 94 Meteora, 39, 130, 80
105, 106, 112 Manasija, 29-30, 24-25 Mistra, 15-16, 12-13; 116; 119, 64;
Inquisition, 46, 57, 66, 75-79, 100- mandorla, 16, 30, 124, 127, 133, 139 129, 79
101, 112, 113 Manet, Edouard, 155 Moldavia (Romania), 27, 17
artists, 77-79 Mantegna, Andrea, 147 Mount Athos, 18-23, 6-11; 29, 24;
See also Index Margarita, Queen of Spain, 145 30, 25; 116, 118, 65; 122, 69;
Inquisitors General {Grand Inquisitor), "Mariegola," 62 124, 71; 125, 72; 128, 78; 132,
77, 79, 80-81, 57; 147 Marriage of the Virgin, 140, 99 84; 136, 88
inscriptions, 5; 12, 4; 28, 18-19; 80, Martyrdom of St. Mauritius, 113, 120- Serbia (Yugoslavia), 27-31, 18-23,
138, 141, 145 21, 66-67; 156 25; 125, 72; 130, 82; 139, 96
Greek, 41, 43, 33; 68, 88, 125 mass migrations, 95 Murillo, 70, 75
Istanbul, 2, 9, 37; 43, 112; 84, 88, 94. Mayer, August L., 155 mystics, 113, 152
See also Constantinople Medici, 65, 87
Catherine de', 66 names, change of, 78, 85, 88, 90-91,
Iviron, Mount Athos, 19, 10; 29, 24;
101-2, 111. See also Greco, ap-
91 Lorenzo de', 8, 78
Meier-Graefe, Julius, 155 pellati%e

Mena, Pedro de, 71 Napoleon, 49, 52, 62, 86, 92

Jesuit order, 56, 76, 119 Nativity, 139, 96
Mendoza y Bobadilla, Cardinal, 76
Jewish high-priest headgear, 40, 127, Nerezi, 130, 82
Mercedarian order, 90
140-41, 98-99 Nino de Guevara, Cardinal, 80-81, 57
Meteora, 17, 39, 43; 130, 80
John of Austria, 51, 74, 94
Michelangelo, 66, 78, 99, 104, 106,
Jorge Manuel, 91, 97-99, 102-3, 104, Ohrid, 23, 29
126, 149
106-7, 108; 123, 70; 137-38, 92; S. Jovan Kaneo, 29, 22
Mileseva, 29, 21
142, 145-46, 150 St. Sophia, 29-30, 23
Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, 42,
Josephus, Flavius, 109-10, 112, 134, Omayad Mosque, Damascus, 11, 2
31
141 oral tradition, 38, 107-8, 147
Mistra, 15, 12; 41; 119,64
Juanelo de la Torre, 143 Orgaz, Lord of (Gonzalo Ruiz), 121,
Peribleptos, 15, 12-13
Juanes, Juan de, 132, 85 68
Mohammed the Prophet, 16-17 Orthodox Church, 2, 4, 8-10, 23-24,
Justi, Carl, 70, 150, 155
Moldavia, 27, 90. See also Romania
31, 33-36, 39, 45, 58-^9, 85, 93,
monasticism, 16, 18, 112
Kariye Cami. See Constantinople
136
money changers, 126
Karyes, Mount Athos, 30, 25; 132, 84 Monreale, 125, 72; 127, 75 Pacheco, Francisco, 96, 104, 106, 121,
Kastoria, 20, 24-26, 29; 42, 33; 124; Montemezzano, Francesco, 141, 99 139, 150
128-29, 76; 134, 86; 135, 87 Morales, Gabriel de los, 103 Pagomenos, John, 40
Anargvri, 25, 14; 30, 22-23; 130, Palaeologos, 122
Morosini, Francesco, standard, 147-48,
82; 138, 95 Andronicus II, 14, 21, 35
111
Mavriotissa, 25-26, 14-15; 64, 116, Constantine XI, 15
mosaics, 8, 14, 41^2, 53-54, 58-59
119, 136,88 George, 87
Greek Macedonia, 138, 94
Kastrophylax, George, 43 John, 35
Grottaferrata, 68, 47
Kazantzakis, Nikos, 41 John VII, 8, 55
Khania, 34, 37-38 Parenzo, 47, 36
Paleopapas, Konstantin, 42, 31
Knight of Malta, 69 Ravenna, 47, 36
Palermo, 134, 136, 88; 138, 94; 139,
Knights of Malta, 3-4, 13-14, 69, 77 Sicily, 125, 72; 126-27, 75; 134, 87;
96
Komitades, 40, 32 136, 88; 138, 94; 139, 96
Palladio, 59, 65, 146
Krak des Chevaliers, 13-14, 5 techniques, 53 Panselinos, Manuel, 30, 132
Kritsa, 40-41, 29; 44; 116, 60 TorceUo, 25-26, 15; 64, 43 Panteleimon, Mount Athos, 20, 8
Kurbinovo, 30, 23 Venice, 53-54, 40; 59, 133, 86 Pantocrator, 59. See also Christ in
See also Monreale and Palermo Majesty and Christ in Judgment
Lady with Flower, 138, 93 Mount Athos, 17, 39, 43, 86, 88, 89, papal infallibility', 56
Lambardos, Emmanuel, 61, 139, 97 139 papal tiara, 140-41

•174-
 INDEX
paper, 55, 92—93 St. Mark Basilica, \'enice, 5, 10; 52- Sit%veU, Sir George, 85
Para\icino. Fray Hortensio Felix de, 54. 39-il; 133, 86 Sopocani, 28, i8-i9,- 30, 22
103; 137. 92; 145, 153 bronze horses, 52—.53 Spain, 51, 73, 94, 154. See also Philip
Parenzo (Porec), 47, 36; 68 St. Paul monastery. Mount Athos, 124. II and Inquisition
Patmos Island, 88 71 Spalato (Split), 46-47, 35
Pec (Ipek).2S-29. 20 St. Peter Basilica. Rome, 6.5-66, 46; Studenica, 29, 20
Pentecost, 117-18, 62-63; 130 132 Sucevita, 27. 17
Petrucci, Otta\iano, 55 St. Simeon the Stvlite church, S%Tia. Suger, Abbot. 6-7
Phanariot Greeks. 9, 84 11,2 s\-mbolism, 25, 44, 68, 115, 119, 121,
Philip II. 65. 67; 72-75, 48; 76-78, saints (El Greco's paintings in italics) 126, 128, 1.34, 136, 141, 147; ax,
89-90. 94, 99-100, 118, 121, 141, St. Andreiv, 144, 107 126, 133; Burning Bush, 128-29;
144-45 St. Anthony the Abbott, 139, 97 circle, 123, 130; cut tree, 121,
Philip III. 145 St. Athanasius, 17, 19; 22-23, 19; 124, 133; ears, 134; jaws of Hell,
phylacterium, 150 85 19, 27, 118-19; rod, 131-32; rose,
Pietd.See Lamentation St. Basil the Great, 16, 19, 90, 112; 12-3; serpent, 121; soul as an in-
Plan of Toledo. See Toledo landscape 135. 87 fant, 22, 26, 28, 43, 116, 122
Plantin Press, 77 St. Catherine of Alexandria, 16, 128; S>Tia, 1-2, 33
Platanias, 42, 33 136-<37. 90-91 cisterns, 12
Pola, 86 St. Chrv-sostom, 19. 112 dome construction, 4-5
Potamies, 41 St. Francis, 114; 138-39, 95; 140, 97 Hellenic heritage, 1
Poulakis. Theodores. 61; 115, 58 St. Gregory, 134, 57 hermit, 11
Prado. 97. 133, 154-55 St Haralambos, 43, 28; 119, 65, 112 tower-houses, 14
Preboste, Francisco, 91, 99 St. Ignatius, 77
printing, 54-55, 58, 87, 88, 105, 106, James the Great, 144, 107; 152
St. Ta%-era, Cardinal, 81, 57
107. See also Aldm Manutius and St. Jerome, 134. S" teU, 125
Plantin Press St. John the Baptist, 11; 132-34. temporary monuments, 63, 89, 90;
prints, 60. 106, 114-15, 125, 138, 140 56 144-46, lOS-9
privateers. See freebooters St. John the Evangelist, 40-41, 29; Theofanis the Cretan, 39
Prochorus. 139 139, 96-^7 theomeni, attitude of praver, 47, 129,
Prosfori Pyrgos), 21, 7
i St. Joseph and the Christ Child, 143, 148, 152
Protestantism. See Reformation 104,112 Theophanes the Greek, 86
p>TOtechnics, 59, 89, 92-93 St. Leocadia, 90, 144-45 Theotokopoulos, Domenikos. See El
St. Mark the Evangelist, 52, 148 Greco
Quiroga, Cardinal, 80 St. Martin and tlie Beggar, 100, 114; Jorge Manuel. See Jorge Manuel
Rabula Gospels, 13, 117, 62 143, 106 Manousos, 59, 91. 98-99, 102
St. Michael, 42 Thessaloniki, 18, 23-24; 80, 55; 124;
Ragusa Dubro\-nik 28, 34-35; 46
'
) ,

Ramla Ramie), Israel, 11-12, 4

i
St. Nicholas. 138, 95 138, 94
Raphael, 117, 6i; 126 St. Paul, 23-24, 26; 135-^6, 88-89; St. Sophia, 5

Ravenna, 47, 36 147 Throne of Mercy, 140-41, 98

Reformation, 8, 6.5—66, 73, 76 Paul of Thebes. 139, 97
St. TilKeuy, 11,2
St. Peter, 23-24, 26, 41; 135, 88-89 Tintoretto, 54, 57, 59, 63-64, 85. 100;
refugee psychologv', 95-96, 99, 113,
St. Stelianos, 135, 57 124, 71; 125, 73; 130, 81; 146
152
Rembrandt, 110, 120 St. Theresa of Avila. 77, 152 house, 64, 42
Reni, Guido, 118, 63 warrior, 29, 20; 30, 25; 42, 33; 47, Titian, 49, 39; 50, 54, 57; 63, 42; 67,

Resurrection (Christ Risen), 14-15; 52, 98; 120, 66 85, 97, 99, 105, 117, 63; 126, 134,
123-24, 71; 126, 74 Salmeggia, 137, 90 56; 136, 90; 141, 100; 144, 147,
Reth\-mnon. 37-38, 94 San Giorgio dei Greci, 59-62, 41 - 4 5; 150, 152
Rhodes, 9. 14, 17, 37 92, 93, 128-29, 148 Titus, 3-3, 135-36. 147

Ribera. 136. 88; 140, 99 San Roman, Francisco de Borja de, Toledo, 70-73, 76: 79-81, 50-56; 95.
RUa, Bulgaria, 26-27, 16-17; 119 104, 155. 157 96, 142-46, 157-58
Roman Catholic Church, 109, 122 Sansovino, Jacopo, 55, 58 Alcantara Bridge, 70, 50; 142-43
censorship, 96 schism, 2-3, 8, 17, 68, 93 Alcazar, 142-44
Romanesque, 5, 10, 88 scuola, 57—58 Castillo San Sen.ando, 143
Romania, 9-10, 20. See also Moldavia Scuola degli Schiavoni, 58, 62 cathedral, 71, 52; 79, 142-43, 145
Romano. Giulio, 137 Scuola dei Greci, 58, 62, 113; 127, 76. Cristo de la Luz, 80. 54-.55
Rome, 64-69 See also San Giorgio dei Greci. engra\ings. 142, 102; 143, 105
Greeks in. 68 Scuola Spagnola, 58 Greek refugees, 90-91, 153
Piazza del Popolo, 64, 46; 66-67 Serbia, 27-30 industries, 72-73, 90
Piazza di Spagna, 67, 46 Serlio. 65, 125 Jewish quarter, 80
St. Athanasius (church), 68 Sfakion (Sfakia), 33; 38-<39, 32; 147 literar\' academies, 95

Via Babuino, 67, 69 Sfakiotes, 36 Moorish architecture, 79-80, 54-55

See also St. Peter Basilica SiatL^ta. 2.-3-24, 11; 139. 97 Mozarabic chapel, 71, 142
Rubens. 50. 105. 137, 146 signatures. 35, 40, 43, 61, 90, 131, 139; Puerta del Sol, 79
Ruskin. 57. 64, 154 146-49, 110-111 Puerta de \'isagra. 142, 145
Russia. 19-20, 27, 39, 86, 93, 112, cisterns, 12 Santiago del .Arrabal, 80, 55
124. 136 cursive script, 149 Santo Domingo el Antiguo, 102
majuscule, 149 Santo Tome. 122
Safie. Sultana, 51 See also El Greco signatures synagogue, 80, 54
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, 37, Simopetra, Mount Athos, 20, 8 Tavera hospital, 81, 53; 142, 146
66,76 Sinan, 9 Toledo laridscape, 142-44, 100-7

•175'
 INDEX
Torcello, 25-26, J5; 64, 43; 129 universities (cont. Veronese, 54, 77-78, 85; 121, 67; 127,
Torrigiani, Pietro, 78, 53 Spanish, 76, 88, 96 76
Transfiguration, 47, 36; 124, 71 Verroia, 24, 116, 6i
Tree of Jesse, 148 Valsamonero, 41, 44 Viardot, Louis, 155
Trieste, 86 Vargas, Tamayo de, 107 Victor, Priest, 61; 148, 111
Trinitarian order, 90, 153 Vatopedi, Mount Athos, 18-19, 6-7; View of Toledo. See Toledo land-
Tristan, Luis, 91, 99; 140, 98 21; 120,66; 136,88 scape
triumphal arches. See teinporar>' mon- \'ega. Lope de, 72, 96 Villard de Honnecourt, 7
uments Vega Inclan, Marques de la, 80, 157 Viollet-le-Duc, 7
Turks, 18, 28, 37, 94 Venice, 47, 36; 48-64, 37-45; 94 Virgin tvith Two Women Saints,
attitude toward Christians, 26, 37, arsenal, 49, 98 147
39,82 commerce, 50, 54 Vitruvius, 65
Ottoman, 8, 17, 51 Ducal Palace, 52 Vrontissi, 41, 44
Seljuk, 4 education, 56-57
Turriano, Giovanni, 143 Greek colony, 58-63
Yugoslavia. See Serbia
Turrianos, Nicolaos, Copyist to the Orthodox rites, 58-59
King, 89, 149 Rialto, 48, 50, 38; 60
tolerance, 56 Zane, Emmanuel, 61, 135, 87
Uniate Church, 34, 39, 68, 85, 93 See also St. Mark Basilica and San Zante (Zakintos), 45, 51, 61
universities, 60, 76, 87 Giorgio dei Greci Zurbaran, 123, 69

•176'
 A. Julio Clovio

PLATE 57

Three Portraits by El Greco

c. Cardinal Fernando Niiio de Guevara

B. Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera

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a.
A. The Burial of Count Orgaz, by El Greco
PLATE 68

B. The Dormition of the Virgin, by Fra Angelico. Detail

A. The Entombment of Christ. Mural. B. The Dormition of the Virgin, by Andreas Rizzo. 16th C.
Dochiariou, Mt. Athos. Mid-16th C.
PLATE 69

c. The Burial of St. Bonaventure,

by Zurbaran
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A. The Annunciation.
Byzantine Soapstone Relief.
Toledo. 12th C.
PLATE 70

The Mystic Rose

B. Portrait of His Son,

bv El Greco. Detail
\. The Resurrection,
hv EI Greco
PLATE 71

B. The Transfiguration.
Greek Mss. 14th C.
c. The Transfiguration. Mural.
St. Paul Mt. Athos. Mid-16th C.

D. The Resurrection, by Tintoretto

 A. Mosaic. Detail. Monreale. Late 12th C. B. Mural. Detail. Andrejas, Yugoslavia. 14th C.
PLATE 72

The Agony in the Garden

c. Mural. Detail. Karves, Mt. Athos. 14th C

¥

A. El Greco
PLATE 73
"he Agony in the Garden
c. St. John the Baptist entering the Desert,
B. Tintoretto by Giovanni di Paolo. 15th C.

P^
A. The Healing of the BHnd, by El Greco
PLATE 74

B. The Risen Christ, by Damaskinos.

Icon. Crete. 16th C.

c. The Risen Christ, by E. Zane. Icon.

Scuola dei Greci. Venice. 1686 D. The Cleansing of the Temple, by El Greco. Early Version
A. Christ in Limbo. Mural. B, The Cleansing of the Temple, by El Greco. Late Version
Kariye Cami, Istanbul. Early 14th C.
PLATE 75

c. The Cleansing of the Temple.

Detail, Mosaic. Monreale. Late 12th C.

D. The Cleansing of the Temple, by Bassano. Detail

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Byzantine. 9th C.
PLATE 80 B. Icon. Scuola dei Greci, Venice. Earlv 17th C?

The Last Supper

D. Mural. Metamorphosis Monastery,

c. Damaskinos. Icon. Heraklion, Crete. 16th C. Meteora, Greece. Late 15th C.
 A. Tintoretto
PLATE 81

The Feast in the House of Simon

c. El Greco

B. Berruguete el Vie jo

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\. The Holy Liturgy, by Damaskinos. Detail, Icon. B. Right Wing of Triptych
Heniklion, Crete. 16th C. •issigned to El Greco
PLATE 84

< . Piero della Francesca

I'he Baptism of Christ
 B. The Coronation of the \irgin. bv El Greco

\. El Greco
PLATE 85

( . Juan de juanes
 A. The Baptism. Mosaic. St. Mai;k, Venice. 14th C. B. Icon. Cathedral,

PLATE 86 Kastoria, Greece. 17th C?

St. John the Baptist
c. El Greco D. Titian
 B. St. Basil, by E. Zane. Detail, Icon. 1656

A. St. Gregory. Mosaic. Cappella Palatina.

Palermo. Mid-12.th C.
PLATE 87

c. St. Stelianos. Mural. St. Nicholas Trianou,

Kastoria, Greece. 17th C. D. St. Jeronie, bv El Greco
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A. Portrait Panel. Egypt. 2nd C. B. Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino, by El Greco
PLATE 92

c. Portrait Panel. Egypt. 2nd C. D. Head of Jorge Manuel, by El Greco

A
 \. Portrait hv El Greco K. Portrait Pane). Egypt. 2nd C.
PLATE 93

c. The \'irs;in Man,, b\- El Greco

D. Family Portrait. Byzantine. 4th G.

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PLATE 96

Backiirnunds Derived from the Aureole and the Holy Grotto

('.. St. John the Evangelist dictating the Gospel.

B. Nativity. Mosaic. Martorana. Palermo. Mid-12th C. Mss. Dionvsiou, Mt. Athos. 13th C.
j
\. SS. Paul of Thebes and Anthonv Abbot. Mural. Siatista, Greece. 1611
'

PLATE 97

Backgrounds Derived from the Aureole and the Holy Grotto

B. St. John dictating the Gospel,

bv Lambardo. Icon. \'enice. 1602

c. St. Francis in Ecstasv, bv El Greco

 A. Diirer. Woodcut B. El Greco
PLATE 98

The Throne of Mercy

c. Catalan School. Panel. 16th C. D. Luis Tristan

A. The Marriage of the Virgin, by El Greco B. St. Simeon with the Christ Child, by Ribera
PLATE 99

c. The Presentation in the Temple, by Francesco Montemezzano.

Formerly assigned to El Greco
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 A. View of Toledo, by El Greco
PLATE 104

B. Landscape from St. Joseph and

the Christ Child, bv El Greco
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A. Toledo. Bridge and Royal Castle. Engraving by Louis Meunier. Mid-17th C.
PLATE 105

B. Landscape from Crucifixion by El Greco.

Cincinnati

c. Detail from View of Toledo by El Greco

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 mmiin iminiii iiiiiw/ib

13' JO" j<>iv y 10"

So
%e(D€DlT€RRAn€An
World of ecGReco
at file end of ihe l6* cen+ury
Scale ii"i""iiiii""ii'i"ni"
 (continued from front flap) StM
mn \\\\\m\ wmu mm
20" ly
(Burial of Count Orgaz) and the replacement of
the tiara with the headgear of the Jewish
high
priest in his Throne of Mercy. \

IX THE last decades, Pal Kelemen, an outstand-

ing authority on art, has devoted his energy
to
the art of the W'estern Hemisphere. His Medieval
American Art, published in 1943, is now in its
fourth edition. This magnificent study of the art
of the Americas before Columbus filled a
gap
long by museums and scholars, and remains
felt
the definitive work in its field.

Subsequently Baroque and Rococo in Latin

America appeared, based on five surveys in Latin
America and repeated visits to the Iberian Penin-
sula. This volume reveals, as no other
book, the
dazzling and original developments that occurred
in the transplanting of these stvles to
the New
W'orld.

-Mr. Kclcmen. long an American citizen. \\as

born inBudapest and came to the United States
in 1932 on what \\as planned as a short visit. He
has published other works in various fields and I

has contributed articles to the Encyclopcedia

Britannica and other reference works of inter- '

national prestige, as well as to art magazines and

scholarly reviews both in this counrr^• and '

abroad. He has lectured widely in the Old and

Ne\\- worlds, at times in the service of the State
Department. |

Reproductions, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Portrait of a Man: Purchase, 1924, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest.
View of Toledo: Bequest of Mrs. H. O.
Havemeyer, 1929.
The H. O. Havemeyer Collection.
The Adoration of the Shepherds:

Bequest of George Blumenthol, 1941.

The Alacmillaii Company

60 Fifth Avenue, Xew York 11. X.Y

Jacket Design/S. A. Summit, Inc.

International Acclaim tor
El Greco Revisited
is impossible to do jusricc to flic broad humanism and penetrating s\inpathy of Mr. Kelemcn's approach.
"It
... His conclusions have been reached after a long and careful examination of the evidence and his judgment
is far more balanced than that of the large majority of writers who would denigrate or even deny the

B\ vantine elements in El Greco's work. The illustrations reflect painstaking and affectionate care
. . . . . .

in a work made fresh and alive b\' long journe\s in the Mediterranean world."
D. TALBOT RICE, THE CONNOISSEUR
"The book has taught me many new things. The author's evidence all adds up convincingly to . . .

placing El Greco in his native sauce of the spirit. He nails this thesis brilliantly home in the final groups
of comparative illustrations."
A. HYATT MAYOR, Mefropolifan Museum of Art, New York
"The visual survey of the Orthodox world offers masterfully selected evidence of the quality of Byzantine
culture . . . lovingh- handled. The book contains a wealth of assimilable material on the undoubtedly
underestimated Orthodox world . The happy scholar in Mr. Kelemcn has provided us with an equally
. .

happy fare."
ARTS MAGAZINE
"Fascinating new light is thrown on the cultures leading up to and surrounding El Greco. Revealing . . .

is the chapter on the Greek Diaspora, w hich gives a better notion of El Cireco's environment and how he
must have felt about his situation in the world."
FERN SHAPLEY, The Nafional Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
"The intimate association between El Greco's work and modern art confers on this study a particular
significance. Toledo, with its thoroughly Byzantine atmosphere and cruel Inquisitors, lives in these pages. . . .

Clearly a labor of love."

THE KEY REPORTER (Phi Beta Kappa)
". . . the most interesting and important historical work which has been devoted to the Greek painter.
Itsucceeds in illuminating the intellectual situation of the period and so brings a new and deeper under-
standing of the phenomenon 'El Greco'. The author is the first to examine profoundly the problem of
. . .

Byzantine influences on El Greco. His universal and thorough knowledge are admirable."
HALLDOR SOEHNER, Museum of Fine Arts, Munich
"Here is a book which is certainly epoch-making in the history of art, a veritable monument of erudition
and intelligence in planning. ." . .

D. STANIMIROVITCH, historian and author, Paris

"... a monumental work with beautiful and rich illustrations from the whole area where Byzantine art
flourished. The
vivid text combines the personal feelings of the author who loves his hero. ... I am deeply
touched with the subject, the scholarly sensibility, and the profound knowledge of the sources."
ANGELO PROCOPIOU, NEW FORMS, Athens
"How stimulating when a writer approaches with fresh and unprejudiced eyes such a singular
it is

personality as El Greco. One sees the whole problem anew and surprising perspectives are opened in this
salutary — in the best sense, humanistic light."
art historian, Rome HELLY HOHENEMSER,
"... a really new book on El Cireco with a most original layout, in which the history of Byzantium is
revaluated and one follows step by step the investigation of the life and activities of the magnificent
Candiote. The illustrations are fabulous."
MARIO J. BUSCHIAZZO, University of Buenos Aires
". . . fascinating reading material, written with a swift surety and the usual colorful language found in
Kelemen's writing. A combination of skillful sensitive style, sound scholarship, and a rare power of
description."
LIBRARY JOURNAL
"The author examines the culture of B>-zantium, Candia, \''enice, and Toledo . . . then focuses on El
CJrcco's biography, the contents of his library and finally, in a superb section, analyses the paintings in 4,

relation to the various cultures summarized in the first section."

THE VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW
"Kelemen writes smoothly flowing life of this unique man and succeeds in giving the reader a real
a
understanding of the influences which shaped El Greco's art even back into the Byzantine era whose tradi-
tion El Greco, perhaps unconsciously, had inherited."
THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
"Especially interesting and informative are the careful analysis of B\"zantine characteristics and the
. . .

comparisons with Byzantine art of the sixteenth century, showing the close relationship of El Greco w irh
B\'zantine painting rather than w irh the Italian or Spanish art world."
THE SAN DIEGO UNION
"... a scholarly, magnificent, lifetime stud\' of the cultural and religious world from which El (ireco
came and the Mediterranean world which made him. It is unlike aiu' other book about an artist, his art
and his milieu."

BOSTON GLOBE