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Meaningful mingling: classicizing imagery and Islamicizing script in a Byzantine bowl
Art Bulletin, The, March, 2008 by Alicia Walker
77. For evidence of these mechanics in late antique magical papyri, see Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri, PGM XXXVI.1-XXXVI.133 and XXIX.1-XXIX.21. Pagan statuary was believed to be a particularly potent site for the attraction of pagan deities and demons. James, "'Pray Not to Fall into Temptation.'"
78. In his study of oracles in middle Byzantine illuminated manuscripts, Weitzmann ("Representations of Hellenic Oracles," 409-10) noted that Byzantine representations tend to emphasize the "delivery" of the oracle. Although the S. Marco vignettes are more emblematic than narrative, their emphasis on the moment of communication might allude to a similar concern.
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79. Greenfield, Traditions of Belief, 286-91: and Delatte, La catoptromancie grecque, 24.
80. Delatte, Anecdota Alheniensia, 595; and Maguire, "'Feathers Signify Power," 384, fig. 5.
81. Henry Maguire, "Magic and Money in the Early Middle Ages," Speculum 72 (1997): 1037-54.
82. Betz, The Creek Magical Papyri, passim.
83. It is tempting to search for a link among the figures depicted, the heavenly bodies, and astrological magic, but figures in only four of the seven vignettes share a celestial connection (Mars/Ares, Mercury/Hermes, Jupiter/Zeus, and Sun/Apollo). Nonetheless, the scholar Michael Scot (ca. 1175-ca. 1234), who was active at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and translated philosophical and scientific texts from Arabic to Latin, cited the hours of Jupiter, Apollo, and Mercury as efficacious times for the performance of a lecanomantic ritual that employed Christian invocations (Delatte, La catoptromancie grecque, 25-26). The presence of these deities on the S. Marco bowl could have further enhanced its effectiveness.
84. Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri, PGM IV.222-34 and 249-51; for a late antique lecanomantic spell conjuring Aphrodite, see PGM IV.3209-54. To my knowledge, no extant vessels from the late antique period have been identified as lecanomantic devices.
85. Regarding the practice of divination at the middle Byzantine court and the prevalence of lecanomancy among other mantic techniques, see Magdalino, "Occult Sciences and Imperial Power," 119-62, esp. 129.
86. His divinations were undertaken for the benefit of Emperor Theophilos (ibid., 123-24, 133-34). John the Grammarian is depicted performing a lecanomantic ritual to reveal the name of Theophilos's imperial successor in the twelfh-century illustrated manuscript of the History of John Skylitzes (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de Espana vitr. 26-2, fol. 58r). Vasiliki Tsamakda. The Illustrated Chronicle of Ioannes Skylitzes in Madrid (Leiden: Alexandros Press, 2002), 101, fig. 139.
87. Nicetas Choniates, Nicetae Choniatae Historia, 339.10-19; and Magdalino, "Occult Sciences and Imperial Power," 150-51, 155. Choniates describes lecanomancers as "those who falsely divined through tubs and basins" and cites them along with astrologers as the only diviners still active in twelfth-century Constantinople. Seth Skleros, the medium for this ritual, was blinded in about 1166 as punishment for his occult activities (Alexander Kazhdan, "Skleros," in ODB, vol. 3, 1912). According to Choniates, Skleros had performed divination since childhood, which would be in keeping with the practice of using children as mediums.
