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A literary self-portrait of Nikolaos Mesarites*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2016

Beatrice Daskas
Beatrice Daskas*
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munichb.daskas@gmail.com
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Extract

This contribution is based on a new interpretation of the well-known passage found in the Description of the church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople by Nikolaos Mesarites (XXVIII, 63.18–64.3 Heisenberg = 910b.[23] Downey), normally dated to the late twelfth century. It provides a reappraisal of the question regarding the Byzantine painter Eulalios and his alleged self-portrait in one of the scenes of the monument's decorative cycle.

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Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , April 2016 , pp. 151 - 169
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Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I am most grateful to the editor, Ruth Macrides, and to Albrecht Berger for their generosity in providing valuable comments on my article and to Rebecca Darley who read a first draft. The research was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. All translations presented in the text are mine, unless otherwise stated.

References

1 For the critical edition of the text see Heisenberg, A., Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, zwei Basiliken Konstantins, II. Die Apostelkirche in Konstantinopel (Leipzig 1908) 10–96Google Scholar (hereafter Mesarites, Descr.); Engl. trans. Downey, G., ‘Nikolaos Mesarites, Description of the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 47.6 (1957) 855–924: 861–918CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The text, preserved in fragmentary form, is found in two manuscripts, once part of the same codicological unit: Gr. F 93 sup. (Martini, E., Bassi, D., Catalogus codicum Graecorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, I (Milan 1906) nr. 350, 405–408)Google Scholar and Gr. F 96 sup. (Martini and Bassi, nr. 352, 408–413). On ms. F 93 sup. cf. also: Heisenberg, A., Nikolaos Mesarites Die Palastrevolution des Johannes Komnenos (Würzburg 1907) 6–17Google Scholar (hereafter Mesarites, Seditio); on ms. F 96 sup.: J. Durand, M.-P. Lafitte (eds), Le trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle [Catalogue de l’exposition, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 31 mai-27 août 2001] (Paris 2001) no. 3, 36 (B. Flusin).

3 Noteworthy reconstructions heavily based on Mesarites’ text are those by A. Heisenberg (Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, 140–153, 172–268), and by A. M. Friend, G. Downey and P. A. Underwood, who in the 1940s promoted a systematic study of the Constantinopolitan monument under the aegis of Dumbarton Oaks: The Holy Apostles: Visualizing a Lost Monument. The Underwood Drawings from the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives, with essays by B. Daskas and F. Gargova, (Washington, D.C. 2015). Working on the same set of sources, the aforementioned reconstructions propose two chronologies for the decorative cycle of the church: 6th century (Heisenberg) and middle-Byzantine (Friend-Downey-Underwood). Mesarites’ text has widely been exploited to establish the architectural and decorative history of the monument. All relevant hypotheses are summarized in Epstein, A. W., ‘The rebuilding and redecoration of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople: a reconsideration’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 23/1 (1982) 79–92Google Scholar.

4 See Maguire, H. P., Truth and convention in Byzantine Descriptions of Works of Art (Washington, D. C. 1974)Google Scholar; James, L., Webb, R., ‘”To understand ultimate things and enter secret places”: Ekphrasis and art in Byzantium’, Art History 14 (1991) 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Baseu-Barabas, Th., Zwischen Wort und Bild: Nikolaos Mesarites und seine Beschreibung des Mosaikschmucks der Apostelkirche in Konstantinopel (Vienna 1992)Google Scholar; Webb, R., ‘The aesthetics of sacred space: narrative, metaphor and motion in ekphraseis of church buildings’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999) 59–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Mesarites, Descr., XVIII, 62.8–9 = Downey, Description, 910a.[16].

6 Mesarites, Descr., 63.18–64.3 = Downey, cit. 910b.[23] (cf. 884a for a different translation of the passage).

7 Ambros. Gr. F 96 sup., f. 4r.

8 B. Flusin is of this opinion, in: Durand-Lafitte, Trésor Sainte-Chapelle, nr. 3, 36; see also Flusin, , ‘Nikolas Mésaritès Ethopée d’un astrologue qui ne put devenir patriarche’, in: Mélanges Gilbert Dagron = Travaux et Mémoires 14 (2002) 221–242: 232–33Google Scholar; but contra Heisenberg, Palastrevolution, 16–17.

9 Theodore Metochites, Ἠθικὸς ἢ περὶ παιδείας, [34].6–7, ed. Polemis, J., Θεόδωρος ΜετοχίτηςἨθικὸς ἢ περὶ παιδείας, (Athens 1995)Google Scholar (hereafter Metochites, Περὶ παιδείας). Apelles, Lysippos, Parrhasios, Pheidias, Praxiteles, Zeuxis are commonly featured in Byzantine sources as exempla of classical workmanship: see, e.g. Photios, Hom. X, 102.5–9, ed. V. Laourdas, Φωτίου Ομιλίαι, Έκδοσις κειμένου εισαγωγή και σχόλια (Thessalonike 1959) (hereafter Photios, Hom.).

10 Heisenberg, Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, 170–71; Heisenberg, , Die alten Mosaiken der Apostelkirche und der Hagia Sophia, in Ξένια (Athens 1912) 121–160: 123Google Scholar.

11 Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos (PLP no. 20826), author of a renowned Historia Ecclesiastica down to 610, flourished in the first half of the 14th century. On the author and his main work, see Gastgeber, Ch., Panteghini, S. (eds), Ecclesiastical History and Nikephoros Kallistou Xanthopoulos (Vienna 2015), with further bibliographyGoogle Scholar.

12 The passage makes a pun on Eulalios’ name, which is made up of the particle εὖ (‘well’) and the verb λαλεῖν (‘to talk’).

13 Xanthopoulos, Carm. XIV, 46 ed. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., ‘Νικηφόρος Κάλλιστος Ξανθόπουλος’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 9 (1902) 38–49Google Scholar; see also Mango, C., The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Toronto 1986) 231Google Scholar.

14 Photios, Hom. XVII, 167.12–14; trans. adapted from Daskas, ‘Nota sulla Theotókos descritta da Fozio, Hom. XVII 2 (p. 167, 14–17 Laourdas)’, Acme 64.2 (2011) 339–51: 344. Cf. Mango, C., The Homilies of Photius, patriarch of Constantinople (Cambridge, MA 1958) 290Google Scholar.

15 The traditional attitude is represented e.g. by Photios, who celebrates the artist responsible for the pavement in the palatine church of the Pharos by linking his skilfulness to God's intercession: Hom. X, 102.5–7 (trans. Mango, Homilies, 187). Similarly, the verses inscribed on a middle Byzantine ivory diptych with a heortological cycle, at the National Museum in Warsaw, admonish the beholder not to admire the art but God himself who oversaw the making of the object: (. . .) ΜΗ ΤΗΝ ΤΕΧΝΗΝ ΘΑΥΜ(Α)ΖΕ ΤΟΝ Δ’ ΕΠΙCΤΑΤΗΝ / ΟC ΠΟΛΛΑ ΤΕΥΞΕ ΤΕΡΠΝΑ Ν(O)Ω ΔΡΑCΤΙΡ(Ι)Ω (see Ratkowska, P., ‘An east Christian diptych with the heortological cycle’, Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie 6 (1965) 92–115: 96)Google Scholar.

16 Anthol. Palat., XVI (Appendix Planudea), 81, 111 ed. Aubreton, R., Bouffière, F., Anthologie grecque. Deuxième partie. Anthologie de Planude (Paris 1980)Google Scholar; trans. Mango, C., ‘Antique statuary and the Byzantine beholder’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963) 53–75: 66–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Paradigmatic for this point are the cases of Michail Astrapas and Eutychios, whose names appear in the late 13th-c. paintings of the Panagia Peribleptos in Ohrid and in a few other early 14th-c. frescoes commissioned by the Serbian king Milutin. For a general overview of the developments of Palaiologan painting, see Mouriki, D., Studies in Late Byzantine Painting (London 1995)Google Scholar, passim. For a study of the artistic self in Late Byzantium, see Drpić, I., ‘Painter as scribe: artistic identity and the arts of graphē in late Byzantium’, Word & Image 29.3 (2013) 334–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 On the Palaiologan Renaissance see Ševčenko, I., ‘The Palaeologan Renaissance’, in Treadgold, W. (ed.), Renaissances before the Renaissance. Cultural revivals of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Stanford CA 1984) 144–71Google Scholar.

19 The contact between the two Palaiologan scholars is well attested in a poem by Theodore Metochites to Xanthopoulos, ed. by Cunningham, M., Featherstone, J., Georgiopoulou, S., ‘Theodore Metochites's poem to Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos’, in Okeanos: Essays presented to Ihor Ševčenko on his Sixtieth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students [=Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (1983)] 100–16 (hereafter Metochites, Carm.)Google Scholar.

20 The comparison is established in Plato's Sophist: the sophistic logos, with its mimetic technique that produces deceptive images is assimilated to painting and to its illusory capacity (234c 2-d 1).

21 Metochites, Carm. [Εἰς τὸν σοφὸν Ξανθόπουλον τὸν Νικηφόρον καὶ περὶ τῶν οικείων συνταγμάτων. ΙΒ.], v. 179, 107.

22 The ‘Manganeia’ corpus is transmitted by two mss., the cod. Marc. Gr. XI, 22 (13th c.) and the Ambros. Gr. O 94 sup. (15th c.). On this collection, see S. Bernardinello, Theodori Prodromi De Manganis (Padua 1972) 1–25; Magdalino, P., The empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 (Cambridge 1993) 494–500 [Appendix 1]CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Manganeios Prodromos, Carm., 33 (cod. Marc. Gr. XI, 22, fol. 81v) ed. Miller, E., ‘Poésies inédites de Théodore Prodrome’, Annuaire de l’association pour l’encouragement des études grecques en France 17 (1883) 18–64Google Scholar. N. A. Bees has identified the sebastokrator with Alexios I Komnenos’ brother Isaac and the son with John Komnenos, the refounder of the Constantinopolitan monastery of Christ Evergetes, where the image of the Annunciation would have been kept. It is on the grounds of this reconstruction that Bees has Eulalios in the 12th c.: see Bees, , ‘Kunstgeschichtliche Untersuchungen über die Eulalios-frage und den Mosaickschmuck der Apostelkirche zu Konstantinopel’, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 39 (1916) 97–251: 113–15Google Scholar. Of contrasting opinion is Heisenberg, Grabeskirche und Apostelkirche, 166–68, according to whom Eulalios was active at the time of the emperor Justin II (r. 565–578), when a decorative campaign at the church of the Holy Apostles is recorded (Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor, 2 vols. (Leipzig 1883, 1885, repr. Hildesheim 1980) I, 241.30–242.3.

24 The name ‘Eulalios’ is poorly attested in recorded inscriptions and graffiti (see, e.g., IEph 555 = Ephesos 2064: D. F. McCabe, Ephesos Inscriptions. Texts and List [The Princeton Project on the Inscriptions of Anatolia], Princeton 1991) and in documentary papyri (see, e.g., a documentary papyrus from Oxyrhynchos, PSI IX 1081, l. 34). None of the examples recorded refers to artists. Likewise, the name is rarely found in episcopal lists. Better known are a 7th-c. bishop of Zenonoupolis, Isauria (Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit (PMBZ), eds. R. J. Lilie et al. (Berlin 1999) 1663); a Studite monk (PMBZ 1664); a bishop of Syracuse in the late 5th-early 6th c., mentioned in the Vita Ss. Fulgentii (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina 3208), MPL 65.128d, 130a.

25 Metochites, Περὶ παιδείας, [34].9–12. On the contrary, the traditional view expresses the superiority of the logos in attaining immortality: along with the very much renowned Horatian ‘exegi monumentum aere perennius’ (Od. III, 30), see also, as more pertinent to our discussion, Luc. Im. [23].1–6.

26 On the life and work of Prodromos, see Hörandner, W., Theodoros Prodromos: Historische Gedichte (Vienna 1974) 21–72Google Scholar.

27 vv. 43–48 (cod. Vat. Gr. 1823, ff. 195r-196r) ed. A. Maiuri, ‘Una nuova poesia di Teodoro Prodromo in greco volgare’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 23 (1914–19) 397–407: 400. The attribution to Theodore Prodromos is not unanimously accepted: see e.g. Eideneier, H., Ptochoprodromos (Cologne 1991) 34–7 where further discussion is summarizedGoogle Scholar.

28 Epigr. Ded. 1, vv. 9–14 ed. Agapitos, P. A., ‘Poets and painters: Theodoros Prodromos’ dedicatory verses of his novel to an anonymous caesar’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 50 (2000) 173–85Google Scholar. Prodromos asks that his most recent works not be placed against the paintings of Praxiteles and Apelles, but that his art be compared to that of ‘ζωγράφοις νέοισιν’, ‘recent painters’, so that ‘he may possibly appear as not much worse in relation to them’ (Ibid., 178).

29 ‘Quacker’ is employed to render in English the Sicilian dialectal ‘Quaquaraquà’, meaning an overly talkative person, who never accomplishes the many things (s)he talks about doing: see Sgroi, S. C., ‘Le traduzioni del Giorno della Civetta di Leonardo Sciascia nelle lingue indoeuropee (romanze e germaniche) e non (ungherese, finnico e cinese) e la resa dei dialettalismi: un caso paradigmatico (quaquaraquà)’, RiCOGNIZIONI. Rivista di lingue, letterature e culture moderne 1.2 (2014) 187–224: 201–2Google Scholar. As compared with the original Greek, the English name is onomatopoeic, bearing also a reference to the duck's quack.

30 On this dignity see ODB I, s. v. chartoularios, 416a-b (A. Kazhdan). The ‘Man in White Paper’ is a character created by the English writer Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1871). He is the caricature of a bureaucrat, surrounded by piles of papers.

31 Translators of the passage have kept the painters’ names as they are in Greek, considering them to refer to actual figures. See Heisenberg, Die alten Mosaiken der Apostelkirche, 124; Malickij, N., ‘Remarques sur la date des mosaïques de l’église des Saints-Apôtres à Constantinople décrites par Mésaritès’, Byzantion 3 (1926) 123–151: 127Google Scholar; Mango, Sources and documents, 230.

32 See LSJ s.v. πρόδρομος.

33 No painter under the name of ‘Chartoularis’ is known in other sources. ‘Chenaros’, on the other hand, appears in a legendary account preserved in an old Russian manuscript tradition, having to do with a goose herder who becomes the pupil of the painter: see Preobrazhensky, A. S., ‘О некоторых формах выражения авторского самосознания византийских и русских иконописцев’, in Evseeva, E. M., Художник в Византии и Древней Руси. Проблема авторства (Moscow 2014) 59–119: 69–71Google Scholar. I am most grateful to Ivan Drpić for having drawn my attention to this contribution.

34 Bees, ‘Untersuchungen über die Eulalios-frage’, 117; Malickij, ‘Remarques sur la date des mosaiques de l'église des Saints-Âpotres’, 126–8; Kalopissi-Verti, Painters’ portraits, 138.

35 Heisenberg, Die alten Mosaiken der Apostelkirche, 123–4

36 See e.g. Mango, Sources and documents, 230.

37 Kalopissi-Verti, Painters’ portraits, 138–9.

38 Ibid., passim.

39 Examples are found in Kalopissi-Verti, Painters’ portraits, 130–6.

40 O. Demus suggested a different reading of the passage, to bring it into concordance with Byzantine iconographic practices. According to him, the figure of the artist has been confused with a ‘more plausible’ alternative, the king and prophet David. See Demus, , ‘“The Sleepless Watcher”: ein Erklärungsversuch’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 28 (1979) 241–45Google Scholar. In response to such an improbable reading, see Ševčenko, N. Patterson, ‘The representation of donors and holy figures on four Byzantine icons’, Δελτίον τῆς Χριστιανικῆς Ἀρχαιολογικῆς Ἑταιρείας 17 (1993–94) 157–64:164 note 24Google Scholar.

41 As we read in the sixth session of the second Nicene council (787), τοῦ γὰρ ζωγράφου ἡ τέχνη μόνον, ‘to a painter [belongs] only his artistry’, since μένουν αὐτῶν [sc. τῶν ἁγίων πατέρων] ἡ ἐπίνοια καὶ ἡ παράδοσις, ‘to the Fathers is tied the conception [of icons] and their tradition’: Mansi XIII, 252C. For obvious reasons, in post-iconoclastic sources, a departure from the iconographic norm is normally criticised: see e.g. Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. C. de Boor (Leipzig 1883, repr. Hildesheim 1980) 2 vols; I, 149.28–150.1.

42 The traits of Constantine Monomachos have been recognized in the figure of king Solomon, who unlike his canonical type, appears in the mosaic as a bearded figure: see Mouriki, D., The Mosaics of Nea Moni on Chios (Athens, 1985) I, 137Google Scholar. On the problematic aspects of such an identification cf. Kartsonis, A., Anastasis: The Making of an Image (Princeton 1986) 216–17Google Scholar.

43 Plut. Per., XXXI, 4. The self-portrait is also recalled by Cicero (Orat. LXX 234–235; Tusc. I 15 34; de orat. II 17 73).

44 ps.-Aristot. Mund. 6, 399b-400a. See also: Apul. Mund. 32; Val. Max., VIII 14, 6.

45 Mesarites, Epitaphios, 42.15–21 ed. A. Heisenberg, ‘Neue Quellen zur Geschichte des lateinischen Kaisertums und der Kirchenunion’, Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philos.-philol. und hist. Kl. 1922, 5, I. Der Epitaphios des Nikolaos Mesarites auf seinen Bruder Johannes (Munich 1923) 14 (hereafter Mesarites, Epitaphios). See also Flusin, ‘Ethopée’, 223.

46 Mesarites, Epitaphios, 42.29. Τhe reference is also to the illusory ability of the (ekphrastic) discourse (cf. Plat. Soph., 234c 2-d 1: εἴδωλα λεγόμενα), which is further developed with reference to the concept of ‘skiagraphia’ (see below, note 56).

47 Mesarites, Λόγος ἔκφραστος εἰς τὸν βασιλέα κυρὸν ἀλέξιον τὸν κομνηνὸν, ms. Ambr. F 96 sup.: καὶ γάρ τινα στήλην ἀρετῶν πασῶν ἔμπλεως διαζωγραφῆσαι τῷ λόγῳ προὐθέμην (f. 35v); ἡ φύσις ἠγαλματούργησεν ὡς ὁ λόγος φθάσας διεζωγράφησεν (f. 42r). I am preparing a critical edition of this text.

48 Ibid., f. 35v.

49 Cf. Mesarites, Seditio, 20.13: ἀντὶ πίνακος τῷ παρόντι χάρτῃ.

50 Aphthonios, Progymnasmata, 36.22–23 ed. Rabe, H., Rhetores Graeci, X (Leipzig 1926)Google Scholar; cf. Nikolaos, Progymnasmata, 68.8–9 ed. Felten, J., Rhetores Graeci, XI (Leipzig 1913)Google Scholar: λόγος ἀφηγηματικός, ‘a discourse that gives an account down to the last detail’. On ekphrasis (descriptio) as an exercise of rhetorical practice, see H. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft (Munich 1960) § 1133. On its relation to description of artworks see P. Friedländer (ed.), Johannes von Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius. Kunstbeschreibungen justinianischer Zeit (Leipzig and Berlin 1912) 1–103.

51 Johannes Sardianos, In Aphthonii Progymnasmata, 217.3–5 ed. H. Rabe, Rhetores Graeci, XV (Leipzig 1926).

52 Johannes Sardianos, In Aphthonii Progymnasmata, 224.24–225.2; Nikolaos, Progymnasmata, 68.11–12, 70.4–6.

53 Ap. Plut. Mor. [De Glor. Athen.] 346–47, picked up by Hor. Ars poet., 361, who coins the renowned formula. On the Horatian formula and its interpretation see A. Manieri, ‘Pittura e poesia in Hor. Ars Poet. 361–365’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, n.s., 47.2 (1994) 105–114.

54 The expression is drawn from the elegy on Athens written by its 12th-century metropolitan Michael Choniates: Versus in Athenas, v. 25, ed. S. P. Lampros, Μιχαὴλ Ἀκομινάτου τοῦ χωνιάτου τὰ σωζόμενα, II (Athens 1880) 398 = ed. S. G. Mercati, ‘Intorno alla elegia di Michele Acominato sulla decadenza della città di Atene’ (1935), in: Collectanea Byzantina, ed. A. Acconcia Longo (Bari 1970) I, 483–88: 487. For a brief discussion on the significance of this text see below note 56.

55 Luc. Im. [8].1–3. The virtues of the logos, seized by poets through the embellishments of metre and by orators by means of eloquence are alone able to paint the portrait of a figure with indelible (immortal) colours: Im. [16].10–16; and [23].1–6. On the Lucianic essay see M. Cistaro, Sotto il velo di Pantea. Imagines e Pro Imaginibus di Luciano (Messina 2009).

56 Seditio, [1], 19.11–18. For a similar allusion to σκιαγραφία (through ‘σκιά’, ‘shadow’) see Michael Choniates, Versus in Athenas, vv. 1–2: Ἔρως Ἀθηνῶν τῶν πάλαι θρυλουμένων/ ἔγραψε ταῦτα ταῖς σκιαῖς προσαθύρων / καὶ τοῦ πόθου τὸ θάλπον ὑπαναψύχων, ‘Love for the once talked-of Athens / depicted such things, playing around with shadows / soothing thus the sting of regret’ (397 Lampros = 486 Mercati). The ambiguity of the latter passage is further enhanced by ‘ἔγραψε’, meaning both the act of writing and painting (recalled also in v. 30: ἴνδαλμα ταύτης γραφικῶς ἐστησάμην, ‘I “graphically” [i.e. in words/images] set up its appearance’, Mercati ed.: 488). Michael Choniates’ elegy is, again, deeply rooted in the tradition of ekphrasis. But, for a different interpretation of the poem, as a description of an actual painting representing the city, see Speck, P., ‘Eine byzantinische Darstellung der antiken Stadt Athen’, Hellenika 28 (1975) 415–18: 416–17Google Scholar.

57 Further discussion of the significance of the text is found in B. Daskas, ‘Images de la ville impériale dans les ekphrastikai diêgêseis de Nikolaos Mésaritès. Le récit sur la Révolution de Palais’, in P. Odorico, C. Messis (eds), Villes de toute beauté: L’ekphrasis des cités dans les littératures byzantine et byzantino-slaves, Actes du Colloque International (Prague, 25–26 novembre 2011) [=Dossiers Byzantins 12 (2012)] 135–48.

58 Mesarites, Epitaphios, 42.18. On the patriarchal school and its attested teachers during the Comnenian age see Browning, R., ‘The patriarcal school at Constantinople in the twelfth century’, and ‘Continuation’, Byzantion 22 (1962) 167–202Google Scholar; Byzantion 23 (1963) 11–40.

59 E.g. Constantinos Stilbes: see Browning, ‘The patriarchal school’, 29–32.

60 Mesarites, Disputatio, 15.3–4 and Descriptio itineris Nicaeam 35.13. ed. Heisenberg, A., Neue Quellen, II. Die Unionsverhandlungen vom. 30. August 1206. Patriarchenwahl und Kaiserkronüng in Nikaia 1208 (Munich 1923)Google Scholar.

61 Mesarites, Seditio, 19.2–3; [2], 19.20–22.

62 Mesarites, Descriptio itineris Nicaeam, 35.13–14.

63 Mesarites, Renuntiatio, 6.1 ed. A. Heisenberg, ‘Neue Quellen, III. Der Bericht des Nikoloas Mesarites über die politischen und kirchlichen Ereignisse des Jahres 1214’ (Munich 1923). His appointment also appears in synodal letters: see Pavlov, A., ‘Синодальная грамота 1213 года о браке греческаго императора с дочерю армянскаго князя’, Vizantiiskii Vremennik 4 (1897) 160–66: 166Google Scholar; and also: [I], p. 104.43 (May 9, 1216); [II], p. 106.3–4, 107.36 (July 4, 1216); [III], p. 110.3–4, 25–26 (August 11, 1216) ed. Kurtz, Cинодальныхъ грамоты.

64 The ‘decalogue’ of relics is spelled out in Mesarites, Seditio [13], 29.34–31.32. On these relics, see Klein, H. A., ‘Sacred relics and imperial ceremonies at the Great Palace of Constantinople’, in F. A. Bauer (ed.), Visualisierungen von Herrschaft. Frühmittelalterliche Residenzen Gestalt und Zeremoniell = BYZAS 5 (2006) 79–99: 91–92Google Scholar.

65 See, e.g., Mango, Sources and Documents, 230; and more recently, Zarras, N., ‘A gem of artistic ekphrasis: Nicholas Mesarites’ Description of the mosaics in the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople’, in Simpson, A. (ed.), Byzantium, 1180–1204: ‘The Sad Quarter of a Century’? (Athens 2015) 261–282: 265–66Google Scholar.