ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΑ

  On Mount Nerezi near Skopje, Alexios of the great aristocratic family of the Angels built a church and monastery in honor of Saint Panteleimon. In 1066 the frescoes were finished and the Monastery began to function. On the central shrine of the marble Iconostasis, an elegant Komnenian Saint Panteleimon was painted with lush, tufted hair and refined facial features. The Roman paenula that covers his shoulders is king-like, purple in color with gold edges. His tunic has gold cuffs and a gold royal “maniakin” around his neck. The open box with the medical preparations that he holds in his left hand is also gilded, while with his right he points towards it, as if saying: "come to me and be healed for free." The widespread use of the veneration of the money-free physician saint in antiquity also shows how financially inaccessible medical assistance would have been. + E . G . ------------------------------------------------------------- Στο Όρος Νέρεζι δίπλα στα Σκόπια, ο Α...

  At the end of the 12th century, the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II, invited artists from Constantinople to decorate the new cathedral he built in Cefalù, a town near Palermo, with the highest form of art of his time, mosaics. The great artists executed his order in 1148 on the apse of the Holy Altar, depicting the enormous Christ Pantocrator. They cut and used thousands of small stones of marble, gold, glass and enamel in squares and other shapes, placing them side by side, in such a masterful way that from a distance they appeared to be a single color. The mosaic composition is the only artistic creation whose colors never change, remaining the same and bright, as on the first day. +E. G . ------------------------------------------------------------- Στα τέλη του 12 ου αιώνα ο Νορμανδός βασιλιάς της Σικελίας Ρογήρος ο Β΄ ( Roger II ) προσκαλεί καλλιτέχνες από την Κωνσταντινούπολη για να διακοσμήσουν τον νέο καθεδρικό Ναό που έχτισε στην Κεφαλού (Cefalù), μια πόλη κοντά ...