Monastery at Daphne / Dafni

So we took A to the monastery at Daphni. I had not been since 1991, almost twenty years ago. I remember walls and fortifications and a blurry photograph I have of the pantokrator (which I may be confusing with a pantokrator in Mystra). I did not remember the Ionic columns from the temple of Apollo and I would not then have been able to spot any trace of Gothicness on the narthex, let alone remember it. Given how much we did learn and retain while making this study tour with the school, there is no fault to be ascribed to Jimmy and the gang if we missed some of the Mediterranean Gothic...

Walking into the site today, the visitor is confronted by the massive block of the Daphni church, orange and pink in limestone and brick with its impressive drum and dome on top, all covered in scaffolding and dotted with stickers labeled ΕΜΠ and NTUA. The south door which was in front of us was locked. We headed to the west colonnaded section of the monastic complex's southern courtyard. The buildings there housed classical sculptures from the Daphnephoros sanctuary and late antique, Byzantine and medieval architectural fragments. Across the court, on the top floor, there is an exhibition on the restoration and the work being done. After wandering about a bit more, we found the phylax and much of what follows we were either told or I figured it out for myself as the phylax took us up the scaffolding.

Photos and videos are not allowed inside (rofl). No, really, they are not, so I was all fidgety and annoyed both because of the brevity of the preparation time available to take some photos while no one was looking but also by the need to keep my (now handheld) helmet-cam hidden.

On the way up, we first see two Gregories, amazingly large when at eye-level, amazingly pink-skinned and white haired in their restored splendour. Each mosaic we saw was an invitation to spend a whole afternoon there, wondering in awe at the work of the mosaicist. Opposite these was Zacharias in an arch, with his funny cuboid hat and then onwards and upwards - the guide rushing us upwards, but telling us to take our time... At conch level, we were face to face with (from NE-NW clockwise): Annunciation (amazingly tranquil and inspiring), Birth, Baptism (no willy), and Metamorphosis (badly damaged). And like the Narnian Mouse - "Further up and further in!", cried the phylax and we found ourselves face to face with sixteen prophets around the drum, again splendidly pink and white, like the Gregories or Zacharias, all of course with their golden backgrounds and with calligraphic names but also with conspicuous tubes and plastic pipes sticking out of them for the strengthening of the mosaics and eventually for the cement enemas which will serve to strengthen the walls and finally allow the walls to again take the weight of the building for themselves.

Then, finally, on the top floor of the scaffolding, we stood face to face with the pantokrator in awe, and were able to distinguish the tesserae and notice that each one is quite a large stone. Amazing indeed, but I had to let K see it too. I came down with appetite for close-up mosaic unsated and told her to go up while we played with A in the garden to the West. The narthex contains one of the four original Ionic columns from the Daphnephoros sanctuary. I am not sure where the other three are, various sources give various stories about what indeed Elgin took from here. The asymmetric gothic exonarthex is rather fun as well, with its arches not quite lining up on each side.

The need for restoration came with the famous quake of 1999, where, apparently the mosaic decoration all came to the ground. On commencement of restoration, they only replaced whatever pieces had a definite provenance, meaning that there are great chunks which will never be replaced. The opportunity to get this close to such exquisite mosaic work was amazing and I totally recommend a visit. The feeling it inspires reminds me of the feeling I had when facing some fresco work in Ochrid or facing the frescoes of the Protaton in Karyes, both pretty much contemporary with these mosaics. I want to go again...

View towards the exonarthex from the North West

View towards the exonarthex from the North West in clunky HDR

Base of the Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade, complete with seismic sensors

Capital of the Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade

Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade

Ravenna - Jan 2005, Part I

Here's one I prepared earlier, as they say... it follows on from the last Venice installment: Venice


Two nights and two days in fog choked Ravenna followed. Our ambitious plan was made easier by the fact that the mausoleum of Theodoric and the chapel of Aint Andrew were both closed for restoration work. That left only six (if I am not mistaken) UNESCO protected feats of the mosaicists art for us to go and gawp at. Fortunately, cameras are allowed here, although the fog cut the available light to a minimum and I had to use all my tricks to be able to shoot decent shots (not that I managed with 100% success, mind you).




Corinna wrapped against the cold as effectively as Lazarus wrapped against death on this early Christian sacrophagus

After finding our way into town in the morning, and finding a place to park - something not as easy as it sounds - we headed off to the Saint Vitale and mausoleum of Galla Placida complex where we spent quite a while walking around and marvelling at the mosaics.






I suppose I could go off on the Justinian / Theodora tangent right now and that would lead us through the Belissarius / Procopius / Narses tangents and back to the goths and all that jazz, but I'd probably forget to write about how it is that I first came to want to come to Ravenna and whether or not you can tell that Saint Vitale is an architectural copy of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople.

One thing I was not prepared for was the material used for the windows - a sort of yellow rock cut thin enough to be translucent and used for window material in San Vitale, the mausoleum and others of the old churches we visited.



We walked across the garden to the tomb of Galla Placida where the mosaic work was far more classically roman-looking than what we are used to miscalling Byzantine. Despite the figurative art having one foot firmly in the Greco-roman tradition, the geometric designs were incredibly forward looking and modern to our eyes.



Geometric patterns on the vault of the mausoleum of Galla Palcida.





Leaving the mausoleum / Vitale area we drove to the cathedral and museum. The chapel of Saint Andrew was closed, but we managed to see the exhibits in the museum, which included some good early mosaic work and of course the amazing ivory throne of Maximian, bishop of Ravenna. I remember friends ("Hi, James!") doing late Roman art courses getting all excited about this throne of some bishop in a place I hadn't heard of, called Ravenna. This was a long time before my "Byzantine" or late roman awakening. The throne was a masterpiece of ivory work of the period and it is good to look at. We have nothing in the eastern empire of this sort (meaning the flammable sort).

We walked around the city centre of Ravenna, which is beautiful enough and hides a number of later churches which no doubt are just as exciting to those who call the 17th or 18th centuries their own.

The baptisteries and St. Apollonaris are next and they require some introduction into the whole Arian / Orthodox thing and probably also the whole Goth business. This is a different chapter.