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The Columns of the Ciborium of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, by Maria Villano

Between iconography and epigraphy, East and West… Maria Aimé Villano just published the book Les colonnes du ciborium de San Marco à Venise (Turnhout, Brepols, 2025), 496 p. It is based on her doctoral dissertation in Italian “Le colonne del ciborio della Basilica di San Marco a Venezia”, submitted in 2020 to the University of Venice, in cooperation with the University of Poitiers in France (supervised by prof. Stefano Riccioni, prof. Fabio Coden and Vincent Debiais).

To see the table of contentsBrepols

Entirely covered with 92 sculpted stories about the infancy of the Virgin Mary and the life of Christ – displayed over 36 strips and 324 nichettes –, the columns have been the object of a long-standing scholar controversy regarding their dating, which has been placed both as early as the 6th century, due to iconography and style, and as late as the 13th, due to the palaeographical features of the inscriptions carved as tituli above the scenes. Although what seems more plausible is that the columns were sculpted in Late Antiquity and taken to Venice – where the Latin inscriptions were carved – as part of the booty of the sack of Constantinople in 1204, the complex entanglements of this whole operation were yet to be explored. Deeply connected to the problem of dating are in fact the series of relationships between the parts of the work (image-text), between the columns and the artistic context, namely the Late Antique art and the Venetian art (influences and exchanges), and between the columns and the architectural frame of the St. Mark’s Basilica. Not secondary is the problem of the symbolic implications linked to the sack of Constantinople and the practices of reutilizations of the booty in the St. Mark’s Basilica, the church that best embodies the political aspirations of the Venetian Republic. In order to analyse this complex net of relationships I was compelled to carry out interdisciplinary strategies, whose core were, however, the images. It was necessary to master the vast literature regarding the columns of the St. Mark’s Basilica, from their first mention in 1581 until today. Being conscious of the lack of neutrality of the Historian due to their position in time and space, the review of the literature was accompanied by a consistent effort of understanding the influences and the currents of thought that crossed our discipline throughout history and how these were reflected in the analysis of the columns. The methodology of analysis employed for the scenes (style, composition, content) was also applied to the inscriptions, in an attempt of breaking the boundaries between text and image. Also the form of letters convey a message, namely the message of who thought the four columns of the ciborium were worthy of occupying the most prestigious area of St. Mark’s Basilica. The elegant and well-ordered capitals, the infrequent use of abbreviations and ligatures tell of a careful and thoughtful execution, probably during the 12th century. They also bear witness of the issues at labelling the sculpted parts since not always do the inscriptions match the scenes they intend to explain. This is especially truth for those scenes often depicted in Late Antiquity or in Eastern art which were not in use during Middle Ages in Western Europe. Finally, the architectonical framing made of small shelled niches, small columns and capitals could be treated as an image bearing significance. The use of the arches, the shell and the columns recall the composition of Late Antique sarcophagi, while the small capitals, which do not belong to any classical order and depict a form resembling a lily, might be connected to the description of Solomon’s Temple. The study of a complex work of art, with an intricate history placed in a stratified context, such as the columns of the ciborium of St. Mark’s Basilica required the application of various strategies aiming to evoke – as much as possible – the almost infinite messages they bear. Such an approximation was only possible through the analysis of every single part and their re-composition in a coherent net of reciprocal relationships.

After an Epigraphic Expedition in Turkey and Greece…

Acting as a postdoctoral researcher for the ERC GRAPH-EAST project and its scientific team, I carried out a long field mission during summer 2022 in Turkey and some adjacent island of Greece. After a quite long, exhaustive series of travel arrangements as well as bureaucratic processes for permissions to inaccessible sites, the mission was overall a productive and, in some occasions, even surprisingly novel experience in my opinion. Therefore, I am feeling very glad on behalf of our project. In this case, I would like to share my documentations and discoveries in brief, accompanied by my impressions and research, concerning the Late Medieval Latin epigraphy in Turkey and Greece, also including the sites that I failed this time. My primary aim during the field mission was to document the inscriptions through detailed photography and taking basic measurements of them, which were formerly either omitted or considered superficially in the literature, so that our efforts shall produce new readings and interpretation in the context of epigraphy. The research is actually still ongoing and will be further elaborated during the 2022-2023 academic year.

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