Abstract
The church of Saint Nicholas at Phountoukli is located in a wooded area close to the village of Dimilia in the countryside of Rhodes. The church employs the tetraconch plan a fairly rare architectural type on Rhodes, since it is only encountered three times in total. Much of the architectural features of the church corroborate that the building of the edifice and its fresco decoration are parts of one and the same project.The church of Saint Nicholas dated by inscription in 1497/8 is one of the most important medieval structures of the islands due to its typology and fresco decoration alike. The painted decoration of the church has been preserved in its entity; it consists of scenes of the Christological cycle and scenes pertinent to the soteriological or monastic content of the building, e.g. the vision of Saint Pachomius with the angel, the miracle of Saint Nicholas, the vision of Saint Peter of Alexandria or the Communion of Saint Mary the Egyptian. The iconographic programme also i ...
The church of Saint Nicholas at Phountoukli is located in a wooded area close to the village of Dimilia in the countryside of Rhodes. The church employs the tetraconch plan a fairly rare architectural type on Rhodes, since it is only encountered three times in total. Much of the architectural features of the church corroborate that the building of the edifice and its fresco decoration are parts of one and the same project.The church of Saint Nicholas dated by inscription in 1497/8 is one of the most important medieval structures of the islands due to its typology and fresco decoration alike. The painted decoration of the church has been preserved in its entity; it consists of scenes of the Christological cycle and scenes pertinent to the soteriological or monastic content of the building, e.g. the vision of Saint Pachomius with the angel, the miracle of Saint Nicholas, the vision of Saint Peter of Alexandria or the Communion of Saint Mary the Egyptian. The iconographic programme also includes a great number of saintly figures, military saints, monastic saints, healing saints both male and female alongside decorative motifs of special artistic value. Among the portraits of the saints in a prominent place on either side of the western entrance of the church are the panels with the family members of donor. The elderly pansevastos logothetis Nicholaos Vardoanis with his spouse, Eudocia Stre(v)lou are depicted on the one side, whereas on the other in a heavenly whitish background their three kids, Mary, Michael and the youngster George. The inscriptions that accompany the portraits inform us that the kids were victims of the plague; over the portrait of Mary the place where she died is also inscribed: the city of Rhodes. In the dedicatory inscription the year is given as 7006 (1497/8).This doctoral dissertation consists of three parts. The first part begins with the introduction to the historiographic research pertinent to this church, of which a detailed overview is given. Then follows the situation in which the frescoes were found by the Italian Archaeological Service responsible for their repainting and partially unorthodox restoration during WW II. The final chapter of this first part concludes with the historic context of the Latin period of Rhodes (1309-1522) and some of its more significant facts, while in a smaller subchapter at the end examines the few, mostly scant, information related to the village of Dimilia in which the church of Saint Nicholas belongs to. The second part of the thesis examines the architecture of the monument. The third part, which is the last one, examines the painted decoration of the monument beginning with the disposition of its iconographic programme. The latter is followed by a detailed iconographic analysis, where the different subjects that surface are being discussed in their respective groups. Last in this analysis is the examination of the dedicatory inscription alongside the family portraits of the donor both of which are considered as an inseparable and complementary unit. An extended discussion of the iconographic programme and of its subjects underscores the analysis. Finally, a thorough stylistic analysis is attempted here for the first time in the history of the monument, a rather dauting task due to the bad preservation state of the wall paintings. The overview of the art, both monumental and panel icon painting, during the Hospitaller period offers the necessary reference points in order to see these paintings in perspective and within the artistic climate of their time. The last chapter of the third part summarizes the evidence discussed above that lead to conclusions concerning the personality of the donor and the artist, and in a broader frame, of the social political situation on Rhodes in the end of 15th century.
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