Meaningful mingling: classicizing imagery and Islamicizing script in a Byzantine bowl

In sum, the application and form of pseudo-Arabic on the S. Marco bowl lack a direct parallel, demonstrating innovation and adaptation, rather than direct imitation, of an Islamic model. Nonetheless, comparanda indicate a medieval Mediterranean source--perhaps Spanish Umayyad or Fatimid--dating no earlier than the late tenth and more likely the eleventh or even twelfth century. This later date is supported by similar examples of pseudo-Arabic in late-tenth- to thirteenth-century Byzantine buildings and manuscripts, and it places the vessel in closer alignment with the corpus of related middle Byzantine enameled glass vessels, which, as noted above, dates from the eleventh to the early thirteenth centuries.

[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]

The Iconography of Divination

A variety of textual and visual corroborations must be considered in order to establish a fuller picture of Byzantine awareness of ancient mantic traditions in the eleventh to twelfth century. Greek, Roman, and late antique texts still known in Byzantium afford one body of reference. In particular, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey--which discuss the oracular and necromantic abilities of various gods and heroes--were central texts in Byzantine schooling and known to any educated person. As such, they offer potential points of common reference for Byzantine familiarity with pagan divination. (36) Roman literature also furnishes possible sources on the subject. For instance, the second-century CE geographer Pausanias, who was still known to some medieval Byzantine readers, cited the locations of ancient cults of oracular deities. (37) A rich mine of occult knowledge is found in late antique "magical papyri" that record a vast range of pagan and Early Christian mantic spells. Although these documents are typically dated no later than the fifth century CE, the spells and procedures they describe often parallel instructions preserved in later Byzantine texts, implying the persistence and integrity of occult practices from late antiquity to the medieval era. (38) Most important, middle Byzantine written sources reference ancient oracular deities and divinatory practices, hinting at continued acquaintance with the occult.

In the visual realm, extant antique and late antique works of art that parallel figural types in the S. Marco bowl illustrate in general terms the iconographic stock that Byzantine makers and viewers may have had at their disposal. But the range of classicizing models available in the middle Byzantine period was certainly more extensive than what survives today. For instance, a partially preserved fifth- or sixth-century CE illustrated manuscript of Homer's Iliad (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana cod. F. 205 inf.) is inscribed with eleventh- or twelfth-century marginal commentaries, demonstrating its continued use in the medieval era. (39) Although the surviving illuminations present few parallels for the iconography of the S. Marco bowl, the manuscript proves that illustrations of Homer's narratives circulated during the middle Byzantine era and could have informed the iconography on an object like the S. Marco bowl. In addition, antique statuary decorated public and private spaces of the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. The vast majority of these sculptures is no longer extant, but textual references attest to the broader iconographic repertoire once available to Byzantine viewers and their active engagement with these works of art. (40)