Abstract
An inscription above a mosaic image of Christ in the church of San Marco, Venice states: ‘Indeed God is as the image teaches, but the image itself is not God. Here you see [the image], but you worship in spirit what you perceive in it’. This paper explores the meaning of the inscription in the context of its location in the church (in the politically sensitive Cappella di San Clemente, where the doge sat during services) and concerns about the anxiety of images that is apparent in both Byzantium and the Latin West in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.
The mosaic is examined against a background of the veneration of images that increasingly blurred their material form and their spiritual efficacy. Icons were increasingly seen as objects as much as images. It argues that the Venetian interest in relics as the prime exponent of faith led them to seek to argue against these alternative forms, and that art played a very different role in San Marco in the twelfth century. The influx of icons into Venice after 1204 radically changed this understanding of relics and images, reducing the validity and meaning of the mosaic.
The mosaic is examined against a background of the veneration of images that increasingly blurred their material form and their spiritual efficacy. Icons were increasingly seen as objects as much as images. It argues that the Venetian interest in relics as the prime exponent of faith led them to seek to argue against these alternative forms, and that art played a very different role in San Marco in the twelfth century. The influx of icons into Venice after 1204 radically changed this understanding of relics and images, reducing the validity and meaning of the mosaic.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | GESTA-International Center of Medieval Art |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - Sept 17 2024 |