Writing in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Inscriptions and Graffiti in a Multilingual and Multigraphic Perspective
E-book: https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503619798-1
The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is an exceptional (epi)graphic site. Several dozen official inscriptions — painted, engraved, or made of mosaics, commissioned by the powers that were and the communities in place — took their place in its ancient and medieval decoration, while hundreds, if not thousands, of graffiti were incised or drawn by pilgrims and travellers on its walls and columns. These writings, markings with a communicative and/or memorial purpose, are in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Cyrillic, Syriac, and undoubtedly other alphabets. They transcribe the varied languages and cultures of the men and women who have inhabited the region or passed through the sanctuary over the centuries.
Three objectives underpin this book and go beyond it, as they are part of the broader concerns of the ERC GRAPH-EAST project. The first is to offer an ‘ecological’ vision of the epigraphic documentation. The second is to go beyond the fixed categories of ‘inscription’ and ‘graffiti’ in order to consider all the graphic signs in the basilica. The third is to go beyond alphabetic and linguistic distinctions and to bring together the different scripts present and in contact with each other, in order to propose a connected history of epigraphy.
The book opens with a preamble by Marcello Piacenti on the restoration of the graffiti. Indeed, this study was only possible thanks to the vast programme of conservation and restoration of the entire building completed in 2020, after a long period of abandonment and a paralysing situation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The first section of this book focuses on the interpretation of the Latin and Greek inscriptions made in the 1160s, their source, transmission, and interpretation on several levels, through three articles. Megan Boomer suggests reinterpreting the conciliar cycle of the nave in the regional context, in relation to the local craftsmen and users of the church, in the light of new Arabic manuscript evidence, moving away from the exclusively Crusader or Byzantine vision often proposed. Estelle Ingrand-Varenne discusses the Tree of Jesse that was on the counter-façade, accompanied by prophetic inscriptions, showing the proposed epigraphic exegesis of the event of the coming of Christ, both Nativity and Parousia. Délia Préteux explores the reproduction of the inscriptions copied by the Franciscan Francesco Quaresmio for the Elucidatio published in 1639, and proceeds to rehabilitate the palaeographic value of this work. The dialogue between the author and the printer-typographer, reconstructed thanks to the archives preserved at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, shows the typographical and technical research that went into recreating the medieval characters.
The second section offers a reflection on acts of writing and representation, particularly through graffiti, over the long term, in terms of categorization, the conditions of their material realization, and their spiritual meaning. Using a vast panorama of medieval graffiti, Carlo Tedeschi examines the periods during which these writings reached the highest degree of popularity and the evolution of the nature of these signs in relation to the history of the societies that produced them. By finely analysing the different techniques used to produce a sample of lapidary Nativity graffiti, Thierry Grégor brings a new nuance to the definition of ‘spontaneous writing’ that is sometimes proposed. The act of engraving, carving, or scratching requires different tools and skills, and in some cases involves premeditation on the part of pilgrims and travellers, and permission. Michele Bacci’s chapter focuses on the ‘portraits’, in other words the representations of supplicants, the inscriptions, the graphic signs, and the coats of arms displayed to demonstrate the desire of the pilgrims to be metonymically incorporated into the sanctity of this site. All the signs — whether iconographic, epigraphic, emblematic, or heraldic — are thus perceived in a continuum through the prism of the history of spirituality.
The third section offers the publication of a number of epigraphic texts, some of which are previously unpublished, while others, already known, are accompanied by a new, more precise reading and contextualization. Rachael Banes revisits the oldest graffiti, probably predating the basilica, located in the Grotto of the Bathing under the apse of the church. These eight early testimonies of pilgrimage and devotional practices of Late Antique Christians also show localized epigraphic behaviour, illustrated by a monogram that appears three times. They are all written in Greek, a script that subsequently seems to be much less present. Clément Dussart, in turn, focuses on the first graffiti in the Latin alphabet, before this act of writing became widespread in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The eight graffiti (name mentions, prayers, alphabet), until now almost all unknown, are rare survivals from the Carolingian period and the Frankish Kingdom, or a few decades after. Anna Lagaron has dedicated her study to inscriptions and Arab-Christian graffiti, selecting certain texts engraved on wood and stone from among the 220 or so recorded by Michael E. Stone. Religious invocations or visitors’ inscriptions, it is not always easy to ascertain their Christian character from the formulas or names used. Khachik Harutyunyan offers here the publication of 20 of the 80 Armenian epigraphic texts that he has recorded in the basilica and the convent, from the thirteenth century to the contemporary period, including inscriptions marking the presence of the community on site as well as travellers’ graffiti. Thirteen pieces of graffiti in the Georgian alphabet are presented by Georgi Gagoshidze, from the end of the tenth to the seventeenth century, while in the fourteenth century an altar was entrusted to the Georgians. At the same time as the pilgrims travelled to Bethlehem, they brought the Basilica of the Nativity to Georgia, as evidenced by the number of churches and monasteries dedicated to the Virgin of Bethlehem. Finally, Alexey Gippius, accompanied by Yuriy Artamonov and Ilya Zaytsev, analyses nine East Slavic inscriptions from the basilica, dating from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, most of which use the phrases ‘here was X’ and ‘Lord, remember X’.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: The Epigraphic Landscape of the Nativity Church Complex in Bethlehem
ESTELLE INGRAND-VARENNE and CLÉMENT DUSSART
The Discovery and the Conservation of Graffiti on the Columns of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem: The Voice of the Restorers
MARCELLO PIACENTI
Part I. Source, Transmission, and Interpretation of the Twelfth-Century Inscriptions
Quotation and Glorification: Bethlehem’s Conciliar Texts in Local Context
MEGAN BOOMER
From Abraham to Christ: A Family Tree on the Scale of the Church and its Epigraphic Exegesis
ESTELLE INGRAND-VARENNE
Typographical Transcription of the Inscriptions from the Holy Land: Francesco Quaresmio and the Publishing Adventure of the Historica, Theologica et Moralis Terræ Sanctæ Elucidatio
DÉLIA PRÉTEUX
Part II. Acts of Writing and Representation
Towards a Periodization of Graffiti (Seventh to Sixteenth Centuries)
CARLO TEDESCHI
How is Graffiti Done? Scratching, Incising, and Engraving Stone in Bethlehem
THIERRY GRÉGOR
Portraits, Graffiti, and Tattoos: Visual Indicators of Individual Piety on the Columns and Walls of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem
MICHELE BACCI
Part III. New Reading and Contextualization of Inscriptions and Graffiti
The Greek Graffiti in the Grotto of the Bathing
RACHAEL HELEN BANES
The Earliest Graffiti in Latin Characters in the Church of the Nativity
CLÉMENT DUSSART
The Arabic Inscriptions of the Basilica of the Nativity: Inventory and Research Perspectives
ANNA LAGARON
Armenian Inscriptions and Graffiti of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem
KHACHIK A. HARUTYUNYAN
Ancient Georgian Inscriptions in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and ‘Bethlehems’ in Georgia
GIORGI GAGOSHIDZE
East Slavic Inscriptions in the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem
YURIY A. ARTAMONOV, ALEXEY A. GIPPIUS, and ILYA V. ZAYTSEV
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Conclusion: Between Graphic Symphony and Cacophony
CLÉMENT DUSSART and ESTELLE INGRAND-VARENNE