Hodegetria
A Hodegetria,
The most venerated
The original icon has probably now been lost, although various traditions claim that it was carried to Russia or Italy. There are a great number of copies of the image, including many of the most venerated of Russian icons, which have themselves acquired their own status and tradition of copying.
Constantinople
There are a number of images showing the icon in its shrine and in the course of being displayed publicly, which happened every Tuesday, and was one of the great sights of Constantinople for visitors. After the Fourth Crusade, from 1204 to 1261, it was moved to the Monastery of the Pantocrator, which had become the cathedral of the Venetian see during the period of Frankish rule, and since none of the illustrations of the shrine at the Hodegetria Monastery predate this interlude, the shrine may have been created after its return.[5]
There are a number of accounts of the weekly display, the two most detailed by Spaniards:
Every Tuesday twenty men come to the church of Maria Hodegetria; they wear long red linen garments,[6] covering up their heads like stalking clothes […] there is a great procession and the men clad in red go one by one up to the icon; the one with whom the icon is pleased is able to take it up as if it weighed almost nothing. He places it on his shoulder and they go chanting out of the church to a great square, where the bearer of the icon walks with it from one side to the other, going fifty times around the square. When he sets it down then others take it up in turn.[7]
Another account says the bearers staggered around the crowd, the icon seeming to lurch towards onlookers, who were then considered blessed by the Virgin. Clergy touched pieces of cotton-wool to the icon and handed them out to the crowd. A wall-painting in a church near Arta in Greece shows a great crowd watching such a display, whilst a street-market for unconcerned locals continues in the foreground.[8]
The Hamilton Psalter picture of the shrine in the monastery appears to show the icon behind a golden screen of large mesh, mounted on brackets rising from a four-sided pyramidal base, like many large medieval lecterns. The heads of the red-robed attendants are level with the bottom frame of the icon.[9]
The icon disappeared during the
Spread of the image
In the 10th century, after the period of
Full-length versions, both probably made by Greek artists, appear in mosaic in Torcello Cathedral (12th century) and the Cappella Palatina, Palermo (c. 1150), this last with the "Hodegetria" inscription.[13]
From the Hodegetria developed the
Hodegetria of Smolensk
Some Russians, however, believe that after the fall of Constantinople,
This icon, dated by art historians to the 11th century, is believed to have been destroyed by fire during the
as "Our Lady of Smolensk."Italian tradition
An Italian tradition relates that the original icon of Mary attributed to Luke, sent by Eudocia to
An Italian "original" icon of the Hodegetria in Rome features in the crime novel Death and Restoration (1996) by Iain Pears, in the Jonathan Argyll series of art history mysteries.
It gives its name to the church of Santa Maria Odigitria al Tritone in Rome.
The Italian tradition spread also to Malta in the sixteenth century and the Chapel of Our Lady of Itria is dedicated to the Hodegetria.[18]
Gallery
Eastern church
-
Full-length mosaic by Greek artists, Torcello, 12th century
-
The Theotokos of Tikhvin (c. 1300)
-
The Theotokos of Perivleptos (c. 1350)
-
The Theotokos of the Passion (17th century)
-
Christodoulos Kalergis (18th century)
Western church
-
Duccio, 1284
-
Guido da Siena
See also
Notes
- Koinē Greek: [(h)o.d̪e̝ˈɡˠe̝.tri.a], Modern Greek pronunciation: [o̞.ðiˈʝi.tri.ɐ];: Hodighitria
Russian: Одиги́трия, romanized: Odigítria Russian pronunciation: [ɐ.dʲɪˈɡʲi.trʲɪ.jə]; Romanian
- ^ Pentcheva, Bissera V. (2006). "The Performative Icon". The Art Bulletin. 88 (4): 633 – via JSTOR.
- ISBN 0-7195-3971-4
- ^ Vasilakē; op & page cit
- ^ Cormack:58
- ^ Cormack
- manuscript illumination in the Hamilton Psalterof c. 1300 (Berlin), Cormack illustration 9
- ^ Cormack:59-61 – Pero Tafur in 1437
- ^ Cormack: illustration p.60
- ^ Cormack:61 for display, 58 and illustration 9 for shrine
- ISBN 0-8047-2630-2. Four pieces from Cormack:59
- ^ Maria Vasilakē, p.196
- ^ Vasilakē; op and page cit
- ISBN 0-7195-3971-4
- ^ "Image: madonna.jpg, (300 × 556 px)". avellinomagazine.it. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
- ^ "Image: Montevergine4.jpg, (238 × 340 px)". mariadinazareth.it. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
- ^ "Image: icona sta maria nuova.jpg, (350 × 502 px)". vultus.stblogs.org. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
- ^ Margherita Guarducci, The Primacy of the Church of Rome. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991, 93-101.
- ^ Brincat, Joe. "MGR Tal-Itria". www.kappellimaltin.com. Retrieved 2023-11-12.
References
- Cormack, Robin (1997). Painting the Soul: Icons, Death Masks and Shrouds. London: Reaktion Books.
- Kurpik, Wojciech (2008). "Częstochowska Hodegetria" (in Polish, English, and Hungarian). Łódź-Pelplin: Wydawnictwo Konserwatorów Dzieł Sztuki, Wydawnictwo Bernardinum. p. 302. Archived from the original on 2011-05-18. Retrieved 2011-03-31.
- Vasilakē, Maria (2004). Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Co. p. 196. OCLC 1124558394.
External links
- Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains many examples of Hodegetria