Translated from the Italian edition of 2001, this profusely illustrated coffee-table book aims to introduce the history, art, architecture and ritual of the basilica of San Marco in Venice to a general audience. Because all the essays are written by leading scholars, it also offers the opportunity to assess the state of recent scholarship on the monument. The volume is divided into three broader sections: History and Society; Architecture and Sculpture; and Mosaics and the Treasury. Each section contains at least one broader essay and one or more short vignettes, focusing on individual themes or works of art. Color plates and diagrams complement each of the essays but there are no figure numbers for easy cross reference.
In the opening essay (26-53), Staale Sinding-Larsen explains how the Venetians appropriated their patron saint from Alexandria, just as the city was asserting its own independence from Byzantium at the beginning of the ninth century. He also argues that the choice of Mark was dictated in part by Venice's desire to reinforce its ties to Rome. Mark is thought to have written his gospel at Peter's behest in Rome, and by acquiring Mark's relics, Venice was able to establish its own martyrium in emulation of Old Saint Peter's.
Two short inserts appear in this chapter. Antonio Niero (28) surveys the textual history of Saint Mark's career, noting that the legend of his mission to Aquileia and the region of the Venices was invented relatively late to buttress the claims of the regional church to apostolic authority. Maria da Villa Urbani (36) explores the Venetian tradition that the city was founded on the feast of the Annunciation, tracing visual evidence back to the early thirteenth century.
In a second essay, Sinding-Larsen gives an instructive overview of ritual, drawing on the Ritum ecclesiasthicorum cerimoniale ixuta ducalis ecclesie sancti marci venetiam consuetudinem compiled by Bartolomeo Bonifacio in 1564 (54- 83). He rightly emphasizes that most of religious rituals in San Marco also had a civic dimension because they were enacted both in the presence of, and with the active participation of the Doge and members of his government. He refers to seven major feasts in which the Doge and San Marco played a significant role: the Epiphany, in which the Doge helped consecrate the water for baptism; The Sposalizio, in which the Doge performed a symbolic marriage of Venice to the Sea; Maundy Thursday, in which the Doge performed the Washing of the Feet; Good Friday, in which the Doge sealed the symbolic sepulcher of Christ; Easter, when the Doge processed from San Marco to attend Vespers at San Zaccharia; Pasquetta, the Sunday after Easter, when the Doge processed to the chapel of San Geminiano at the far end of Piazza San Marco; and Corpus Domini, during which the Doge joined members of his government as well as religious confraternities in a triumphant procession around Piazza San Marco. In addition, Sinding-Larsen points to two specifically ducal rituals: the Doge's investiture at the high altar, and the weekly procession each Wednesday ("del Mercore") in which Doge, clergy and Venetian Government accompanied "the Christ" into the basilica from the Palazzo Ducale.
As Sinding-Larsen himself admits, the Ritum Cerimoniale only takes us back to the sixteenth century, and, "it is not always easy to say which elements within them are medieval or belong to a later period" (82). It would thus be helpful to refer to the liturgical texts that antedate the compilation of the Ritum Cerimoniale by two or three centuries (see G. Cattin Liturgia e Musica a San Marco, Venice, 1990). The Doge's involvement in the re-enactment of the Washing of the Feet, for example, is already recorded in the fourteenth- century Processional (Biblioteca del Museo Correr); and the andate or processions of the Doge to San Zaccaria and San Geminiano are mentioned in the early fourteenth-century Consuetudines of the Canons of San Marco (ed. Bianca Betto). This latter text also refers to the special festival for the Dogaressa on Saint Clement's Day and the major feasts on which the Pala d'Oro was ceremonially unveiled from the fourteenth century on. Martino da Canal's Estoires de Venise also merits attention, because it furnishes accounts of ducal elections and processions in Piazza San Marco.
Two shorter vignettes appear in the second chapter. Debra Pincus discusses both the formal and ideological innovations of the tomb of Doge Andrea Dandolo and suggests ways in which it emulated rulers' tombs from nearby Padua (65). David Bryant's survey of music in San Marco emphasizes the distinctive practice of using two separate choirs (84-87). This fostered the creative works of its renowned choir directors such as Adrian Willaert (1527-62) and Giovanni Gabrielli (1584-1612).
The third chapter by Ennio Concina focuses on the symbolism of the architecture (88-107). Concina argues that the first church of San Marco was designed from the outset as a palatine chapel on the model of the Carolingian palace chapel at Aachen. He also accepts the hypothesis of Ettore Vio and others that the present church preserves the walls of the sanctuary and side chapels of the original San Marco, which he posits was a single-domed cruciform church, symbolically identified with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The "partial renovation" of the first church was necessitated by a fire accompanying the uprising against Doge Pietro Candiano IV in 976, but Concina refuses to speculate on its appearance. He argues that the present church was modelled on the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople as a deliberate response to the patriarchate of Aquileia which made rival claims on Mark as its apostle. In contrast to the early "Romanesque" basilica of Aquileia, which stressed that city's ties to the Western Roman empire, Concina argues that the new San Marco was designed to stress Venice's cultural, political and economic alliance with Byzantium. The sheathing of the exterior of San Marco in precious marbles and spolia from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade in 1204 constituted a transfer of "regal insignia", reinforcing the idea that the center of the empire had been transferred to Venice. This role was further strengthened after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, and with the dawn of the Renaissance in Venice, San Marco came to be understood as "Greek" building that served as model for a series of new domed churches revetted in marble, ranging from San Salvador to Santa Maria Formosa.
Concina's chapter is accompanied by two shorter inserts. Maria da Villa Urbani discusses the inscription put in place in 1815 by the Austrian Emperor Franz I to record the history of horses from the time of their acquisition from the Byzantine empire in 1204 to their restoration by the Austrian emperor, after a brief sojourn in Paris under Napoleon (102). Focusing on the meaning of their appropriation, Michael Jacoff argues that the horses were understood not only as trophies of war and symbols of the enduring power of Venetian state, but also as the Quadriga Domini (Chariot of the Lord), a medieval metaphor for the dissemination of the Gospels throughout the world (108-09). This meaning would have been reinforced by sculptural reliefs of Christ and the Four Evangelists that originally adorned the tympanum behind them. In the Venetian context, the horses also reinforced the role of its patron saint as evangelist and the city's self-proclaimed "mission" as leader of an expanding Christian empire.
Ettore Vio's chapter on architecture offers a more detailed analysis of the fabric than Concina's (112-149). His most significant contribution concerns the first two churches of San Marco. Analysing the stone and brick-work of the crypt, newly brought to light during a recent restoration campaign (1986- 1994), Vio proposes that the present crypt is not primarily the product of the eleventh-century as Demus and Cattaneo had assumed, but incorporates the floor and perimeter walls of the ninth-century church together with the original shrine of Saint Mark. Vio cites as primary evidence the fact that two kinds of foundation material are found in the crypt: one of gravel and broken stones of modest thickness, relating to the second church; the other of large blocks of stone supporting the apse, piers and vaulting between the nave and presbytery of the eleventh-century church. Following Polacco and Dorigo, he argues that the restoration of the church after the fire in 976 entailed the construction of the present vaulting over the original sanctuary to create the crypt. As additional evidence for a crypt in the second phase, he cites the Latin life of Doge Pietro I Orseolo, which mentions that the new church incorporated an upper chapel and a crypt in which the Doge was accustomed to pray. The old sanctuary, he reasons, was transformed into a crypt by the present vaulting to fire-proof the shrine. Drawing again on Polacco's work, Vio also assumes that the fragment of a mosaic depicting the Deposition of Christ from the Cross, found beneath the marble revetment on the eastern leg of the right-hand tetrapylon of the choir, is a chance survival of the tenth-century mosaic decoration and that this pier was re-used in the construction of the present building. According to Vio, the third phase of intervention for the present "Contarini" church, consecrated in 1094, left its mark on the crypt in the reinforcement of the foundations for the main piers of the upper church, and in the adjustments of the vaults at the west end to allow for the insertion of windows communicating with the nave of the new church.
A number of objections may be raised against this interpretation. One reason why many scholars have not assumed that the present crypt coincides with the sanctuary of the first San Marco is the existence of the "retro-crypt" which lies to the west of the main crypt at a lower level. This structure is usually understood to be the remnant of a pre- Contarini structure, probably the crypt of the previous (second) church with two small side chambers corresponding to the original stairways to an upper church. Vio's interpretation of two other pieces of evidence is debatable. The mosaic fragment that he uses to prove that the piers of the choir incorporate those of the earlier structures on the site is usually dated not to the tenth century but to the late eleventh or twelfth century (Otto Demus, Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, Chicago, 1984, I, 209-12). If the mosaic were a chance remnant, it would also be hard to explain why it would have remained exposed to view until the late twelfth century when it was copied in the crypt of Aquileia Cathedral, and why it is perfectly aligned with the dimensions of the present pier (see Dale in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 48 (1994), 71-73, fig. 27). Perhaps the most enigmatic piece of the puzzle is the shrine of Saint Mark. Vio assumes that the present placement of the shrine and its massive columns belong are original to the ninth-century church. It should be pointed out, however, that the idea of a raised tomb-shrine is not common until the thirteenth century, and the San Marco shrine re-uses spolia from the ninth and eleventh-centuries. Thus, it should be asked if the shrine is yet another of the many modifications to the church and its liturgical furnishings in the wake of the Fourth Crusade and significant liturgical change.
Three shorter texts complement Vio's chapter. Simonetta Minguzzi (125), observes that the majority of precious stones found in San Marco were salvaged from Constantinople to be used for distinctive functions. Both porphyry and Thessalian green or verde antico had imperial associations and at San Marco they were used to "underline political power and glory of Venice". It could be added that there is also an important distinction in the use of verde antico that emulates Byzantine practice: it is most conspicuously associated with liturgical furnishings such as the ciborium over the high altar and the transom slabs of the north pulpit or ambo.
Surveying the mosaic pavement, Renato Polacco observes that large Proconnesian marble panels are confined to the spaces beneath the three domes on the east-west axis, while Byzantine- style quincunxes occupy the main floor areas of the transept arms (138). His analysis could be supplemented by Fabio Barry's recent interpretation of the Proconnesian panels as an allusion to ekphrastic representations of the primordial sea of creation. The quincunxes might also be tied to the ritual use of the north-south axis for the government procession.
John Unrau's brief contribution, "Ruskin and the Basilica" (150), discusses how Ruskin championed the architecture and decoration of San Marco at a time when other architects saw it as "a heterogenous medley of monstrosities". Praising its unusual compositional variety, its colors, texture, and visual tensions, Ruskin used his own drawings, watercolors and writings to rehabilitate San Marco in the eyes of his contemporaries, to change the taste of his times and, ultimately to save the west facade of the church from an over- zealous restoration in the 1870s.
Guido Tigler's essay offers a general overview of the sculpture of San Marco, ranging from the ninth to sixteenth centuries (152-184). Of the first two churches, relatively little survives, but he does trace a significant shift from the Lombard-inspired ornament of the ninth-century to the Byzantinizing motifs found in tenth-century transom reliefs. From the eleventh century onward, Byzantium remained a constant source of inspiration alongside new indigenous Romanesque and Gothic styles from northern Italy. The majority of transom slabs in the galleries, which he dates to the eleventh century, derive their designs from Middle Byzantine art, and the same can be said for the foliate ornament in the niello cornices of the interior. The thirteenth-century renewal of the exterior facades resulted in a more complex picture. On one hand, a fresh infusion of Byzantine artefacts in the form of spolia resulted in an updated Veneto-Byzantine figural style in relief sculpture; on the other hand, Venice embraced an Emilian Romanesque sculptural style for the first time in the Porta da'Mar and then in the archivolts of the central western portal. Tigler proposes that the so-called "Hercules Master" was responsible around 1250 for setting Byzantine icon reliefs into the west facade and for producing reliefs in a comparable style as their pairs, including the relief of Hercules slaying the Boar. This artist's work represents a new synthesis of Eastern and Western currents which was continued in the sculpture of the north and south facades up to the 1270s. He sees a Gothic style emerging in Venetian sculpture only in the 1330s-40s in the Annunciation group in the Treasury and the ducal tombs of Bartolomeo Gradenigo and Andrea Dandolo. He attributes the flowering of an international Gothic style in Venice to the workshop of the Masegne brothers, who were responsible for the tabernacles of the Holy Sacrament and the new iconostasis, completed in 1394. Their followers, in turn, completed the sculptural decoration on the upper most parts of the facade in the early fifteenth century. The shift from the International Gothic to a more classicising style comes late to Venice: Tigler mentions in passing Antonio Lombardo and Tullio Lombardo's work on the new Cappella Zen within the space of the Port da'Mar and the bronzes of Jacopo Sansovino which embodied the spirit of Raphael and Michelangelo.
Tigler presents a reasonable stylistic history of the sculpture, but he too readily dismisses earlier interpretations of its meaning. He summarily rejects Demus' attempt to trace a history of the Venetian state in the iconic reliefs of the west facade, asserting that Venetians were ignorant of Greek myths such as the Labors of Hercules (168). He also discounts as an "unsubstantiated historiographic myth" Demus' theory of Venetian artists deliberately imitating Early Christian reliefs to enhance the city's legitimacy as an "apostolic empire". Yet Tigler fails to substantiate his own claims, merely asserting that the "sculptures once attributed to these 'forgers' are now regarded--at least by those historians who are most credible-- as early Christian originals."
Closer readings of individual works of sculpture are provided in a series of five inserts. Tigler himself interprets the archivolts of the main portal of the west facade as representing the struggle between good and evil, moving from the profane to the sacred, the material to the spiritual (158- 59). The uppermost arch representing the series of crafts is viewed as an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem, "which in the literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was likened to a well-governed town or commune."
Irene Favaretto considers two of the most significant porphyry spolia displayed on the exterior of San Marco after the Fourth Crusade: the Tetrarch group and the Carmagnola head (162-63). She notes that the identity of the Tetrarchs remains uncertain: they either represent the four co-emperors established at the time of Diocletian or Constantine and his sons, amongst whom the empire was divided again in 335. The latter theory is supported by the fact that the missing foot of one of the tetrarchs was found in 1965 near the site of the Philadelphion, a public piazza in Constantinople that was adorned with porphyry statues of Constantine's family. Favoretto suggests that the Venetians may have reinterpreted the fraternal embrace as a "symbol of their own bond with Byzantium, a city they had conquered by force of arms but to which they felt themselves united by profound cultural ties." The porphyry head known as the Carmagnola is named after a captain general of the Venetian Republic who was wrongly decapitated for treason in the piazzetta of San Marco in March 1432. The original identity of the head is debated but recent consensus suggests that it represents Justinian I, and that it also came from the Philadelphion. Favoretto says little about what both pieces would have meant to the Venetians in the thirteenth century, but the likelihood that they were both displayed in one of the most important public spaces in Constantinople and the significance of their material suggests that the Venetians were aware of important civic and imperial connotations that could be transferred to the most important public space of Venice.
Anne Markham Schulz argues that a more classicizing Renaissance style took root in Venetian sculpture during the 1460s in the altarpieces executed by Antonio Rizzo in honor of Saints Paul and James in the transept (170). Their architectural framework also reflects the direct impact of Donatello's Paduan works.
Thomas Wiegel offers more substantial arguments than Tigler against the assumption that a number of relief sculptures in an Early Christian style are actually thirteenth-century Venetian copies or forgeries (178). He argues that the four historiated columns that support the ciborium over the high altar were made in the early sixth century, not only on the basis of style, but also because the iconography of the infancy of Christ and the life of the Virgin is best explained by knowledge of Greek apocrypha and such historiated columns are documented in the Byzantine capital from that time.
The third section of the book begins with a stylistic survey of the mosaics by Renato Polacco (190-242). Polacco believes that all of the mosaics of the interior were executed by Byzantine craftsmen until the early thirteenth century. The earliest mosaics in the Contarini church, dating from the late eleventh century, are generally agreed to be those of the central portal of the western narthex and the hemicycle of the main apse. The remainder of the original mosaic program of the interior, he believes, was completed by about 1150, moving from the choir westward to the Pentecost dome. Polacco sees the first evidence of native Venetian mosaicists at work between 1215 and 1220 on the grand composition of Gethsemane on the south wall of the nave. As in the case of sculpture, the thirteenth century was a period in which different workshops sought inspiration beyond contemporary Byzantine art. On one hand, the atrium mosaics of Genesis follow the style and iconography of an early Christian illuminated manuscript, the Cotton Genesis. On the other hand, the mosaics of the Apparitio in the south transept inaugurate a new narrative style that emphasizes greater illusionism of space and a proliferation of realistic detail in architecture and furniture. The later mosaics of the north branch of the atrium, including the third Joseph cupola and the Moses cycle, move in a similar direction. The fourteenth-century mosaics in the Cappella S. Isidoro and the baptistery reflect the impact of an international Gothic style on the Venetian mosaic tradition. Polacco concludes with a discussion of post-medieval restorations in which medieval compositions were replaced with new mosaics in the style of contemporary painters, beginning with Andrea del Castagno in chapel of the Mascoli. More objective restoration methods were first introduced by Pietro Saccardo in the twentieth century, when it was attempted to preserve as much of the medieval fabric and designs as possible through the use of calchi-- colored impressions of the original tesserae on paper.
What is most surprising about Polacco's analysis is his chronology. In contrast to Demus and others, he tries to wedge almost the entire program of original mosaics into the first half of the twelfth century. It is hard to accept his dating of the mosaics of the Ascension dome and the western barrel vault to the early twelfth century, because they so clearly bear the impact of the later Comnenian style manifested in the mosaics of Monreale (c. 1180-90) and the mural paintings of Kurbinovo (1191). Polacco also fails to take account of clear changes in style both in the hemicycle of the main apse and in the eastern dome that have been shown to represent the impact of fire and earthquake early in the twelfth century (Irina Andreescu-Treadgold, Actes du Xve Congres International d'Etudes Byzantines, Athens, 1976, II, 15-30; Demus, Mosaics, I, 43-53). He also seems unaware of the compelling arguments made by Luba Eleen for the dating of the Marian cycle of the north transept to the early thirteenth century (Arte veneta 39 (1985): 9-21).
Balancing Polacco's focus on style, Debra Pincus (246-47) offers a succinct analysis of the iconographic program of the baptistery mosaics. She argues that there are three dominant themes relating to the distinctive functions of the baptistery: the history of John the Baptist as central figure in the prehistory of the sacrament of baptism; the promise of salvation through baptism; and the Venetian state. Christian history is intertwined with Venetian references through the inclusion of government officials as witnesses to the Crucifixion and the unusual themes of the domes--the baptism of the nations and the hierarchy of angels--which seem to allude to the expansion of Venice's maritime empire, and the hierarchy of its state government.
The iconography of the Genesis cycle in the atrium of San Marco has long been thought to be based on the fifth-century Cotton Genesis manuscript attributed to Alexandria. Antonio Niero's essay builds on this hypothesis to emphasize features that he believes are based on Gnostic and orthodox sources in Egyptian Christianity; he also tries to show particular elements that reflect the thirteenth-century Venetian context (248-78). Of all the theories proposed by Niero, the one most widely accepted is that the emphasis on Joseph in Egypt alludes to Venice's destiny as successor to Egypt in receiving the relics of its apostle. Demus had already suggested this and I have amplified his interpretation by pointing out that the theme of the Chosen people and their exodus from Egypt runs parallel to, and also foreshadows, the cycle of the Translation of Mark's relics out of Egypt on the exterior of the west facade so that the Venetians are cast as a new Chosen people of Saint Mark (see Dale, DOP 48 (1994), 93-101). Less convincing is Niero's theory that the cross represented in the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden foreshadows the processional cross in the Reception of Mark's relics on the vault of the chapel of San Clemente, and further that this prophesies the eventual pre-eminence of Venice as a Patriarchal see ruling over the churches of the Venices, Istria and Dalmatia. Not only does this theory require one to make a rather convoluted interpretation of a ubiquitous Christian symbol, commonly connected with the Tree of Life in Eden; the cross that he sees as model for the one in the Genesis cycle belongs to a section of mosaic that was heavily restored in the nineteenth century-- the crucifer was absent altogether in Kreutz's engraving of this composition (see Demus, Mosaics of San Marco, I, 68 & fig. 69). I also find problematic certain suggestions of Gnostic or Cathar influences. The theory that Adam is represented before the Fall as an androgynous being (with "uterus resting on his abdomen from which the male pubes with the penis hang") pushes the visual evidence too far, especially since his genitalia are represented the same way after the Fall, and the same convention is used again for Noah. Furthermore, a number of supposed allusions to Gnostic thought are explained by Weitzmann and Kessler as the original manuscript cycle's debt to either Jewish or orthodox Christian commentaries, some of which come from Egypt (see K. Weitzmann and H. L. Kessler, The Cotton Genesis: British Library, Codex Cotton Otho B VI. Princeton, 1986). The representation of the Logos-Creator as Christ, for example, is easily explained by the texts of a number of Early Christian (and not necessarily Gnostic) writers, who reinterpreted the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria's notion of an independent Creator working on the divinity's behalf into the figure of Christ himself as embodiment of the Logos-Incarnate described in John's Gospel. Finally,it hard to accept the notion that doctrines of medieval heretical sects such as the Cathars would be consciously represented in the government church of Venice at the very time that the Doge was enjoined to persecute them.
Maria da Villa Urbani briefly considers the mosaics narrating the life of Saint Mark of the Zen Chapel (280-81). While the style is relatively conservative, the narrative sequence introduces two new episodes: Mark writing the text of the Gospel and Mark's dream, known as the Praedestinatio. The latter episode prophesies Venice's destiny for future greatness as the people of Saint Mark. It could be added here that this scene, which appears in the former, open vestibule leading into the atrium, also highlighted the broader theme of Venice's pre-destination as a kind of "Promised Land" for a new Chosen people whose patron saint had come out of Egypt like a new Moses.
The last major chapter in the book by Renato Polacco surveys the contents of the treasury (282-305). In this largely descriptive essay, Polacco selects a few objects for special attention. He argues that the icon of the Nikopeia was made in Constantinople during the first half of the twelfth century as a copy of the Madonna and Child at the center of a mosaic featuring John II Comnenos and his wife Irene in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia. He points to a tradition that this icon was taken from the Venetians from the monastery of St John the Theologian, but another, more commonly accepted tradition assumes that it was captured in the heat of battle from the Byzantine emperor's war chariot in 1203 (see A. Weyl Carr, in Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, ed. M. Vassilaki, Milan, 2000, 325-337, esp. 334). The present installation of the icon over the altar of north transept dates to 1617. Originally, however, the icon was kept in an upper room of the basilica, and, according to the Ritum Cerimoniale, it was brought to the high altar during solemn festivities. Another outstanding object in the treasury is the pentapyrgion, a silver gilt container with five domes arranged in a cross and four pyramidal roofs occupying the corners. Polacco interprets it as an artophorion or container for the consecrated bread; however, it is usually thought to have served as an incense-burner in a secular context, because it has perforated walls and domes and is decorated with ostensibly profane imagery, including personifications of virtues as well as hybrid beasts and bare- bottomed putti (H. R. Hahnloser, ed., Il Tesoro di San Marco, Florence, 1971, II, no. 109, 86-88; and W. Wixom, ed., The Treasury of San Marco, Milan, 1984, 237-43). The crosses were only added in the thirteenth century, probably in order to reinforce its resemblance to San Marco itself. Indeed, it should be noted that the text of the 1283 inventory explicitly refers to the pentapyrgion as the "ecclesiola", or little church and describes its function as a container for the reliquary of the Holy Blood (R. Gallo, Il tesoro di San Marco e la sua Storia, Florence, 1967, 273, item 1).
The book concludes with three short inserts on individual works in the treasury. Polacco outlines the three phases in the fabrication of the Pala d'Oro (300). The altarpiece began as a rectangular panel in gold and enamel, comprising most of the lower section of the current altarpiece and was commissioned in 1105 by Doge Ordelaffo Falier from artists in Constantinople. In the second phase, in 1209, the panel was expanded with an upper row of larger enamels of feast scenes and the figure of the archangel Michael, all taken by the Venetians from the Pantokrator monastery during the Latin occupation of Constantinople. At this point, Polacco argues that the proportions were changed by the addition of upper frieze and that it was then necessary to broaden original work by placing the scenes of Mark's life at the sides. At the same time, the feast cycle was shifted upward to fill the gaps in the Christological narrative of the larger enamels in the upper register. During the third phase, in 1345, the altarpiece was restored and embellished with gems and set within a Gothic architectural framework. Polacco also asserts that the donor portrait of Doge Ordelaffo Falier, which appears opposite the portrait of the Empress Irene, originally portrayed the Byzantine emperor but was modified during this phase to represent the Doge as heir to imperial authority after the Fourth Crusade.
While the main lines of Polacco's interpretation are convincing, he fails to highlight the essential functional change in the thirteenth-century renovation. With the additional frieze of enamels, the original antependium must have been transformed into an altarpiece, reflecting a gradual shift in western liturgical practice sanctioned in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 to highlight the elevation of the consecrated bread. Re-arranged as an altarpiece, the enamels of Christ in Majesty thus reinforced the real presence of the eucharist and the mystical process of transubstantiation. The placement of the archangel Michael on the central axis holding a chalice, seems to confirm this eucharistic interpretation. Polacco's theory about the donor portrait of Doge Oredelaffo Falier is plausible but the technical evidence suggests that the Doge was portrayed opposite the empress from the very beginning, and that only the head was changed, perhaps as early as 1209, in order to bestow upon the Doge the halo of imperial dignity (D. Buckton and J. Osborne in Gesta 39 [2000], no. 1, 43-49).
Rona Goffen contributes a brief essay on the Pala Feriale of Paolo Veneziano, a painted panel that was commissioned by Doge Andrea Dandolo, 1343-54, to cover the Pala d'Oro on regular weekdays (306-308). Goffen observes that this panel combines the western format of an altarpiece with lines of portrait icons based on the Byzantine iconostasis. In contrast to the conservative style of icons in the upper zone, the narrative scenes of the predella are innovative in their illusionistic architectural settings, replete with local detail, and in the dramatic vibrancy of their narrative style. Goffen thus sees in the Pala Ferriale the origins of a style of Venetian history painting which culminates in Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. It should be noted, however, that one can trace the concern for narrative veracity at least back to the thirteenth century mosaics of the translation on the west facade and the Apparitio miracle in the south transept. (See P. F. Brown, Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio, New Haven, 1988, 31 ff).
Maria da Villa Urbani considers an early fifteenth-century series of Flemish tapestries of the Passion used during Holy Week in the choir of San Marco, (310-311). The cartoons are attributed to two Venetian painters, Nicolo di Pietro and Zanino di Pietro; the biblical iconography is enriched by material from the Meditations on the Life of Christ and Ludwig of Saxony's Life of Jesus Christ.
The last brief insert, by Catarina Schmidt Arcangeli, focuses on the wooden intarsie designed for the new Sacristy completed under Doge Agostino Barbarigo in 1486 (312). The intarsie cabinets, executed by Antonio and Paolo Mola, 1497-1503, represent still-life compositions in the lower zone and cityscapes above, which serve as the backdrop for narratives from the legend of Saint Mark. In contrast to earlier versions of the narrative, this new cycle places emphasis on posthumous miracles of the saint.
Although this book is not designed primarily as a scholarly publication, it does provide a useful starting point for considering the current state of research on San Marco. At the same time, its lavish color plates offer an unusually comprehensive visual documentation of all aspects of the Venetian state church. The selection of topics and authors is also exemplary. Apart from the objections I have already voiced concerning individual interpretations, I would also observe that there is a conspicuous absence of certain, more recent art-historical frameworks. We hear much about cultural 'influence' especially in terms of style, but, with some notable exceptions, very little about the meaningful processes of cultural appropriation, be it from antiquity or the East (here P. F. Brown's Venice and Antiquity, New Haven, 1997, is exemplary). We find no mention of gender, even though Penny Jolly has published a significant study regarding the representation of women in the Genesis cycle (Made in God's image?: Eve and Adam in the Genesis mosaics at San Marco in Venice, Berkeley, 1997). Finally, only passing reference is made (by Sinding-Larsen) to the significant role of Islamic culture in the basilica's architecture from the late thirteenth-century on--this has been highlighted recently by Deborah Howard's compelling monograph, Venice and the East, New Haven, 2000). One might also hope for an attempt to better integrate the different media that make up the complex palimpsest of San Marco. Clearly, there is much more to be understood about this great monument that has stood at the heart of Venetian life for over a thousand years. The volume under review offers fruit for future thought.