This month sees the start of a three-year Leverhulme Trust International Network project in the Art History department titled Damned in Hell in the Frescoes of Venetian-dominated Crete (13th-17th centuries). The award is the largest ever made by the Trust for this type of project and was granted to Dr Angeliki Lymberopoulou, of the Open University, and Prof. Dr. Vasiliki Tsamakda, of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz, working with a group of academics from Germany, Greece, the UK and USA.
The island of Crete was culturally prolific during the period of Venetian rule (1211–1669) and provides one of the most prolonged case-studies in cultural interaction between two different groups – the native Greek Orthodox population and the Venetian colonists. One of the lasting monuments to this thriving era is formed by approximately seven-hundred-and-fifty surviving churches with fresco decorations. No fewer than seventy-seven of these fresco cycles contain representations of hell and these form the specific subject to which this international network is devoted.
The subject has a wide range of cultural connotations, since it reflects religious and moral beliefs, social structure and expectations, and the most common illegal activities (e.g. livestock theft). The scenes of hell reflect more than anything the complex interaction between (Byzantine) East and (Venetian) West that took place on Crete during its Venetian occupation, especially since they often include Orthodox as well as western sinners burning in the eternal flames. Therefore, the choice of this iconographic subject carries a wider appeal and interest for cross-cultural studies in general, including the way different cultures influence each other today.
The team aims to create a corpus of material accessible to scholarship. This will provide a stepping stone for future research in key iconographic subjects, for understanding their social and historic context by studying the examples in depth in order to determine the intentions behind their commission, the religious and political aspirations and the moral and legal parameters in contemporary cross-cultural Cretan society. Equally important is the aim to place and to assess these representations within a wider geographical and cultural context involving both contemporary Greek Orthodox and western examples from the Balkans, Cyprus, Cappadocia and Italy.
For more information about the project, please contact the Network Facilitator, Dr Diana Newall on d.newall@open.ac.uk.
Photograph: Scenes of the Last Judgement and Hell, Church of Hagios Georgios, 14th century, village of Mourne, province of Hagios Vasileios, prefecture of Rethymno, western Crete (photo: Vasiliki Tsamakda).
