The study explores icons featuring loca sancta as topographical representations of geographical and architectural sites integrated into sacred iconography. The introduction of various forms of topographic landscapes in icons during the post-Byzantine period is a relatively understudied phenomenon. This article is the third in a series that previously discussed pilgrimage proskynetaria from Jerusalem (2018) and maritime ex-votos and icons with cartographic representations (2023). The third category, addressed in this article, consists of icons depicting architectural and geographical representations of holy sites of Sinai and monasteries of Mount Athos and Meteora.

The phenomenon of Palestinian proskynetaria icons coincides with that of icons portraying holy sites created in the Greek environment of Mount Athos, Meteora and the Greek islands. All appear to have been prompted by the spread and availability of pilgrimage and the emergence of ethnically and territorially constructed identities in Europe and beyond. Hence, icons depicting religiously significant sites like the loca sancta emblematic among Orthodox Christians symbolised historical and territorial identity, as well as the Orthodox faith. This symbolism emerged in tandem with the consolidation of the concept of nationhood in its first form in the early modern period, as a kind of “biblical national identity”, an idea of chosen people, or sacred nation.

[1] For a general survey of the evolution of landscape as a genre in European painting, from antiquity to modern times, see Professor Nils Büttner’s companion Landscape Painting: A History. Translated by Russell Stockman (New York: Abbeville Press, 2006).

[2] Denis A. Khotimsky, Visualizing Images of the Invisible: A Concurrent Look at a Russian Icon and an Early Western Printed Map, lecture given at the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, May 2012. The text has been kindly put at my disposal by the author.

[3] Elisabeta Negrău, “Icônes avec cartes, icônes en tant que cartes : une géographie de la dévotion”, Cartes & Géomatique. Revue du Comité français de cartographie 251 (Mars 2023): 63-83.

[4] Eadem, “Pelerini din Ţările Române la Ierusalim. Profiluri sociale şi culturale (sfârşitul sec. XVI – prima jumătate a sec. XIX)” [Pilgrims from the Romanian Countries to Jerusalem. Social and Cultural Profiles (End of the 16^th Century – First Half of the 19^th Century).], in Cristina Bogdan, Silvia Marin-Barutchieff, eds., Călători şi călătorii. A privi, a descoperi, Colocviu Internaţional, Universitatea din Bucureşti, Facultatea de Litere – Departamentul de Ştiinţe ale Comunicării, 23-24 Oct. 2015, vol. I: Incursiuni în istorie şi artă [Travelers and Journeys. To Look, to Discover. International Colloquium, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Letters – Department of Communication Sciences, October 23-24, 2015, vol. I: Excursions into History and Art.] (București: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2016), 13-38; Eadem, “Harta pictată a Ierusalimului de la Mănăstirea Văcărești” [The Painted Map of Jerusalem from the Văcărești Monastery], RAIA 1 (2018): 31-43.

[5] Rehav Rubin, “Greek-Orthodox Maps of Jerusalem from the 18^th and 19^th Centuries”, e-Perimetron 8, no. 3 (2013): 106-132.

[6] Mat Imerzeel, “Souvenirs of the Holy Land. The Production of Proskynetaria in Jerusalem”, in Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai, and Hanna Vorholt, eds., Visual Constructs of Jerusalem (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 463-470.

[7] Pnina Arad, “Landscape and Iconicity: Proskynetaria of the Holy Land from the Ottoman Period”, Art bull. 100, no. 4 (2018): 62-80.

[8] Series Byzantina. Studies on Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art, vol. III-IV: Waldemar Deluga, ed., Proskynetaria from Jerusalem. Souvenirs of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Proceedings of the Conference held at “Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński” University, Warsaw, Oct. 9-10 2003 (Warsaw: Neriton, 2005-2006).

[9] Kurt Weitzmann, “Loca Sancta and the Representational Arts of Palestine”, DOP 28 (1974): 31-55; Gary Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art (1^st ed., 1982, 2^nd ed., Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection Publications, 2010).

[10] See Series Byzantina, vol. III-IV.

[11] Negrău, “Pelerini din Ţările Române”, 29; see also Adriana Scripcariu, Comunitate şi sfinţi în Bucureștiul medieval [Community and Saints in Medieval Bucharest], doctoral thesis, University of Bucharest, 2012.

[12] Negrău, “Harta pictată”, 31-43.

[13] Christodoulos Hadjichristodoulou, “A Map of Cyprus in a Post-Byzantine Cypriot Icon”, in G. Tolias, D. Loupis, eds., Eastern Mediterranean Cartographies (Athens: Institute of Neohellenical Research, 2004), 337-346.

[14] Veronica Della Dora, “Turning Holy Mountains into Ladders to Heaven. Overlapping Topographies and Poetics of Space in Post-Byzantine Sacred Engravings of Sinai and Mount Athos”, in S. Gerstel and R. Nelson, eds., Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 505-535; Eadem, “Windows on Heaven (and Earth): The Poetics and Politics of Post-Byzantine ‘Cartographic Icons’”, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 38, no. 1 (2012): 84-112.

[15] Rostislava Todorova, “Icons as Maps: Cartographic Icons in Orthodox art”, Eikón/Imago 7, no. 1 (2015): 13-30.

[16] Margarita Volgaropoulou, The Icon of Our Lady Skopiotissa, Savina Monastery, Montenegro, accessed in 21 January 2023, https://mappingeasterneurope.princeton.edu/item/the-icon-of-our-lady-skopiotissa-savina-monastery.html.

[17] Negrău, “Icônes avec cartes”, 79.

[18] Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford University Press, 2003); Diana Muir Appelbaum, “Biblical Nationalism and the Sixteenth-Century States”, Natl. Identities 15 (2013): 317-332.

[19] Negrău, “Icônes avec cartes”, 64.

[20] M. Levi-Rubin, R. Rubin, “The Image of the Holy City in Maps and Mapping”, in Nitza Kosovsky, ed., City of the Great King. Jerusalem from David to the Present (Harvard University Press, 1996), 352-379.

[21] Gustav Kühnel, “Die ʽIkone des Sinai Klosters’ und verwandte Pilgerillustrationen”, OC LXV (1981): 163-218.

[22] Spiridon Lambros, “Τα πάτρια του Αγίου Όρους” [The Patria of Mount Athos], Νέος Ελληνομνήμων 9 (1912) 116-161 and 205-244.

[23] Constanţa Costea, “Narthexul Dobrovăţului. Dosar arheologic“ [The Narthex of Dobrovăţ. Archaeological File], RMI LX (1991) 1: 20.

[24] Paul din Alep, Jurnal de călătorie în Moldova şi Valahia [Travel Journal in Moldavia and Wallachia], ed. Ioana Feodorov (Bucureşti – Brăila: Editura Academiei Române – Editura Istros, 2014), 254-255.

[25] Dory Papastratos, Paper Icons. Greek Orthodox Religious Engravings 1665-1899, 2 vols. (Athens: Papastratos S. A.- Publications, 1990), I, 19-20.

[26] Weitzmann, “Loca Sancta”, 54-55.

[27] See above, note 25.

[28] See above, note 14.

[29] Rubin, “Greek-Orthodox Maps”, 121.

[30] Ibid., 118.

[31] Ibid., 125.

[32] Levi-Rubin, Rubin, “The Image of the Holy City”, 368; M. Grigoriou-Verra, “Τοπογραφία των Αγίων Τόπων σε εικόνα της Ζακύνθου” [Topography of the Holy Places in an Icon from Zakynthos.], DChAE 42 (2003): 323.

[33] Grigoriou-Verra, “Τοπογραφία των Αγίων Τόπων”, 317-332; Rubin, “Greek-Orthodox Maps”, 110-114; Negrău, “Harta Ierusalimului”, 36-37.

[34] M. Vassilaki, “Three Questions on the Modena Triptych”, in N. Hadjinicolaou, ed., El Greco of Crete. Proceedings of the International Symposium Held on the Occasion of the 450^th Anniversary of the Artist’s Birth (Iraklion, Crete, 1-5 September 1990) (Municipality of Iraklion, 1995), 119-132.

[35] Maria Vassilakes-Mavrakakes, Maria Vassilaki, and Robin Cormack, “Domenikos Theotokopoulos, The Baptism of Christ. A Recent Acquisition of the Municipality of Heraklion, Crete”, DChAE  26 (2005): 227-240, 236.

[36] Depictions of Sinai as two mountainous columns appear as early as the twelth-century Beatus Map or Beatine Map in Turin; Kühnel, “Die ʽIkone des Sinai Klosters’”: 206, fig. 30. The design of four icons, three of which depicting Moses before the Burning Bush and one depicting Mount Sinai as three massifs, has also been suggested as a possible source. However, the icons have not been successfully dated to determine if they precede or follow Fontana’s engraving. Weitzmann, “Loca Sancta”, 54, fig. 54, 55; Kühnel, “Die ʽIkone des Sinai Klosters’”, 162-168, figs. 3-6.

[37] Vassilakes-Mavrakakes, Vassilaki, and Cormack, “Domenikos Theotokopoulos”, 236.

[38] Ibid.; Manolis Chatzidakis, “Το τοπίο του Σινά” [The Landscape of Sinai], in M. Chatzidakis, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος Κρης. Κείμενα 1940-1990 [Domenikos Theotokopoulos the Cretan. Texts 1940-1990] (Athens 1990), 145.

[39] Vassilakes-Mavrakakes, Vassilaki, and Cormack, “Domenikos Theotokopoulos”, 237-238; Christa Gardner von Teuffel, “El Greco’s View of Mount Sinai as Independent Landscape”, in Hadjinicolaou, ed., El Greco of Crete. Proceedings, 161-172.

[40] Kühnel, “Die ʽIkone des Sinai Klosters’”, 163-218.

[41] Zaza Z. Skhirtladze, “Four Images of Mount Sinai in a Georgian Psalter (State Art Museum of Georgia, Cod. I-182)”, Le Muséon 119, no. 3-4 (2006): 429-461.

[42] Weitzmann, “Loca Sancta”, 54-55; Christopher Walter, “A Little-Known Typological Representation of the Monastery at Sinai”, DChAE 17 (1993-1994), 359-362.

[43] See Doula Mouriki, Icons from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Cen­tury, Sinai Treasures of the Monastery of Saint Catherine (Athens: K. S. Manafis, 1990), 15, 225, 243.

[44] Kühnel, “Die ʽIkone des Sinai Klosters’”.

[45] Giorgios Sotiriou, “Εικών εθίμων της μονής Σινά και ιστορικών σκηνών της ερήμου” [An Icon of Customs of the Sinai Monastery and Historical Scenes of the Desert], DChAE 2 (1960-1961): 1–7.

[46] Weitzmann, “Loca Sancta”, 54-55.

[47] Kühnel, “Die ʽIkone des Sinai Klosters’”, 168, 200.

[48] Walter, “A Little-Known Typological Representation”, 361-362.

[49] A. Kuelzer, “Byzantine and Early Post-Byzantine Pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to Mount Sinai”, in Ruth Macrides, ed., Travel in the Byzantine World: Papers of the Thirty-Fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, April 2000 [Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies Publications, vol. 10] (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2002), 150; Alice-Mary Talbot, “Pilgrimage in the Eastern Mediterranean between the 7^th and the 15^th Centuries”, in Egeria. Monuments of Faith in the Medieval Mediterranean (Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 2008), 38.

[50] Valentina Izmirlieva, “Christian Hajjis – The Other Orthodox Pilgrims to Jerusalem”, Slavic Rev. 73, no. 2 (2004): 322-346.

[51] Veronica Della Dora, “Mapping Pathways to Heaven: A Topographical Engraving of Meteora (1782)”, Imago Mundi. The International Journal for the History of Cartography 65 (2013) 2: 217-233.

[52] Papastratos, Paper Icons, II, 498-530.

[53] Negrău, “Pelerini din Ţările Române”, 30.

[54] Papastratos, Paper Icons, II, Mount Sinai: 337-385; Jerusalem: 367-372.

[55] Ibid., I, 27-29.

[56] 'Ιωάννου Κοµνηνού Προsκννηtάριον tον Αγίον 'Όρους Άθωνος [Proskynetarion of Mount Athos], Snagov, 1701; for Athonite pilgrim guides, see Sotiris Kadas, Οι Άγιοι Τόποι. Εικονογραφημένα προσκυνητάρια 17ου-18ου αι. [The Holy Places. Illustrated Pilgrimage Books of the 17^th-18^th Century.] (Athens: Kapon, 1998).

[57] Papastratos, Paper Icons, II, 385-498.

[58] Ibid., II, 498-530.

[59] Ibid., I, 26; Ivanka Gergova, “Гравьорът mонах Леонтий Рус” [The Engraver Monk Leontius Rus.], Проблеми на изкуството 1 (2022): 20-32.

[60] Papastratos, Paper Icons, I, 25.

[61] Ibid., I, 19.

[62] Ibid., I, 19-20.

[63] Ibid., I, 19.

[64] Ibid., I, 20.

[65] Ibid., I, 24.

[66] See above, note 18.

[67] James A. Welu, “Vermeer: His Cartographic Sources”, Art bull. 57, no. 4 (Dec., 1975): 529-547.

[68] Negrău, “Icônes avec cartes”, 74 et pass.

[69] Andi Rembeci, Sokol Çunga, “Vithkuq of Moschopolis: The Cradle of the Early Inhabitants of Kozani, According to Oral Tradition”, in Χαρίτων Καρανάσιος, Βασιλική Διάφα-Καμπουρίδου, eds., Η Κοζάνη και η περιοχή της από τους Βυζαντινούς στους Νεότερους Χρόνους, πρακτικά Γ' Συνεδρίου Τοπικής Ιστορίας, Κοζάνη, 7-9 Δεκεμβρίου 2018 [Kozani and its Region from the Byzantines to Modern Times, Proceedings of the 3^rd Conference on Local History, Kozani, December 7-9, 2018] (Kozani, 2019), 119, fig. 2.

[70] Yıldıray Özbek, “City Depictions on Wall Paintings in Ottoman Period in Cappadocia”, in Mediterranean Journal of Humanities IV, 1 (2014): 215-230; Abdulhamit Tüfekçioğlu-İlker Gümüş, “Geç Dönem Osmanlı Mimarisi Duvar Resimlerinde Bazı Dokuma Tasviri Örnekleri Ve Düşündürdükleri” [Weaving Description Samples of Late Period Ottoman Architecture Wall Murals and Their Implications], Arışış 12 (2016): 19-29.

[71] Iordanes Dimakopoulos, “Παραστάσεις εκκλησιών της Κωνσταντινούπολης,της Βενετίας και της Κρήτης σε φορητέςμεταβυζαντινές εικόνες” [Church Representations of Constantinople, Venice, and Crete in Portable Post-Byzantine Icons], DChAE 10 (1980-1981): 35-42.

[72] Oded Peri, Christianity under Islam in Jerusalem. The Question of the Holy Sites in Early Ottoman Times [col. The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, vol. 23] (Brill: Leiden, 2001), 161-200.

[73] Smith, Chosen Peoples, 46.

[74] Cyril Mango, “Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965): 35–36.

[75] See Smith, Chosen Peoples.

[76] Della Dora, “Windows on Heaven (and Earth)”, 104-105.

Fig 1. Icon depicting the city of Jerusalem and its surroundings, first part of the 17^th century, Sinaitic provenance, Byzantine Museum of Zakynthos (after Grigoriou-Verra, “Τοπογραφία των Αγίων Τόπων”, 318).

Fig. 2. El Greco, the back of the triptych housed in the Galleria Estense of Modena, Italy, 1569-1570: The Annunciation, Mount Sinai, and the Interdiction of the forbidden fruit (source: Wikimedia Commons).

Fig. 3. Giovanni Baptista Fontana, View of Mount Sinai, Venice, 1569 (after Vassilaki, Cormack, “Domenikos Theotokopoulos”, 238).

Fig. 4. General view (dikorphon) of Mount Athos, by Alessandro Dalla Via, Venice, 1707. Hand-coloured print. 74.5 cm x 100.7 cm. (source: Bibliothèque Nationale de France).

Fig. 5. Mount Meteora by Monk Parthenios, 1782 (after Della Dora, “Mapping Pathways to Heaven”, 222).

Fig. 6. Sts Anthony and Theodosius of Pechersk Lavra, Kyiv, beginning of 18^th century, Archdiocesan Museum, Przemyśl, inv. MAPrz Ia/5523 (photo courtesy of Ana Dumitran).

Fig. 7. Monastery of St Ivan Kasinets near Vratsa, Bulgaria, by monk Leontion the Russian, Tryavna, 1822 (after Gergova, “Гравьорът mонах Леонтий Рус”, 26).

Fig. 8. St. Gerasimos of Kefalonia, Greek, early 19^th century, Shapiro Auctions, 18.03.2017, lot 283 (source: https://www.shapiroauctions.com/auctions/past).