Anthologia Marciana/Marcianus Graecus 524
Epigram L224 [Sp 251], On the Monastery in honour of the most-holy Theotokos

Name of text:

Anthologia Marciana/Marcianus Graecus 524
Epigram L224 [Sp 251], On the Monastery in honour of the most-holy Theotokos
Author of text: Unknown
Date of text: 12th century, manuscript 13th century
Date of person in text:
Name of structure in text: Monastery of the Hodegetria [probably]
Type of structure in text: Church
Date of structure in text Fifth century
Century of structure 1: 5 AD
Century of structure 2:
Country in text: Turkey
Region in text:
City in text: Constantinople
Specific place of mosaic in text: Narthex
Description of mosaic in text: '

…[to admire] beauty of the church [and to] have it as a pure pleasure in his heart; for [the church] sparkles with the variegated gleaming stones and it is coloured all around with golden bliss.'
Constantine X, Romanus IV, Michael VII, Nikephoros III, Alexius I, John II, and Manuel I Komnenos were portrayed.
Deeds of Manuel were depicted in six narrative scenes:  he repels the sultan from Ikonion; he is wounded in his heel with an arrow and punishes the culprit; he turns away the Turks; he defeats the Hungarians and the Serbians; he conquers Sirmion; he organises a splendid triumphal celebration in Constantinople.
Mosaic date in text: 12 AD
Tesserae silver mentioned in text? No
Tesserae gold mentioned in text? Yes
Colour descriptions in text:
Bibliography:

Spingou, Foteini, Words and artworks in the twelfth century and beyond: the thirteenth-century manuscript Marcianus Graecus 524 and the twelfth-century dedicatory epigrams on works of art, DPhil Thesis, Michaelmas Term 2012, University of Oxford, pp. 128-130, 186, 236 [unpublished]
URLs:
Comments: Probably the Monastery of the Hodegetria, as George the donor of the mosaics was known to have been involved in its renovation.
'

vv. 9-12: For George, the megas hetaireiarches, sebastos, born from the family of the Palaiologoi, the grandson of the imperial line of the families of Komnenos and Doukas, offers this [church] to the Virgin, the immaculate mother.'

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