A Song of Victory on the Eve of the Fall: Re-framing the Akathistos Escurialensis

Abstract

This chapter aims to redress the hitherto prevailing view on the illumination of the Akathistos Escurialensis as a simple copy of the so-called Moscow Akathistos or as evidence of a Creto-Venetian workshop. The analysis of the codex allows us to highlight the dialogic aspect of this artwork as an outstanding example of the interaction between text, narrative images, ornament, liturgical performance, and historical context. Recent paleographical analyses have pointed out that this manuscript was made in Constantinople around the 1420s. Thus, it is very likely that the luxurious copy of El Escorial had been made after the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1422, in which, according to Ioannis Kananos, the city was saved by a miraculous intervention of the Panagia, and its potential recipient could have been a member of the imperial family. A detailed study of the use of ornament, classical motifs, and pictorial illusionism of architectures allows us to assess the relationship between Constantinople and the Despotate of Morea in Late Paleologan art and how these features meant to highlight the ρωμαϊκή identity of the declining empire and its willingness to survive.