180 Coureas
greatly increased population, as well as the cloisters of Bellapais and a number
of other churches in Nicosia and Famagusta, built in the Gothic style and, espe-
cially in Famagusta, to serve the needs not only of Latin Christians but of non-
Latins, such as Nestorians, Armenians and Greeks. The church of St George of
the Greeks in Famagusta constitutes an outstanding example of the blending
of Gothic and traditional Byzantine architectural elements. In a rural context
the churches built in the Cypriot villages of Kiti, Galata, Kakopetria, Pelendri
and elsewhere contain architectural features, icons and murals combining sty-
listic features of the western, Byzantine and eastern Christian iconographic
traditions, as does the royal chapel at Pyrga constructed in the early 15th cen-
tury. The Gothic architecture found in Cyprus is unparalleled in its extent and
scale not only in Latin Greece but throughout the Eastern Mediterranean,
although with the exception of the abbey of Bellapais the extant examples are
concentrated in the cities of Nicosia and Famagusta.69
In Latin Greece the church of Our Lady the Paregoritissa in Arta, built
between 1294 and 1296 by the Despot of Epirus Nikephoros I, presents a fusion
of Byzantine and Italian traditions perhaps unique in the Greek world of the
time. When the Greek monastery at Daphni in central Greece was granted
to the Cistercians the latter rebuilt the outer narthex, replacing the rounded
arches of the façade with pointed ones. In Thebes the church of Our Lady of
Lontzia, a Greek corruption of the Italian “loggia”, served as the Latin cathedral
church. It survives to this day as the cathedral church of Thebes and two seated
lions at the base of the episcopal throne executed in the western style date
from the Latin period. A pair of iron tongs used to stamp the Host and a smaller
pair of bronze tongs used for distributing it to the congregation, recently
unearthed near this cathedral, bear witness to the practice of the Latin rite in
Thebes. Yet Latins could not only patronise but also found Greek churches. Sir
Anthony le Flamenc founded a church dedicated to St George at Karditsa in
Boeotia on his estates, using local craftsmen. This church, which was intended
to contain his tomb, also served as the monastic church of a monastery inhab-
ited by Greek monks. The not infrequent place-name Frangoklissia found
throughout Greece and Cyprus testifies to churches built or at least used by
Franks. The church of Omorphe Ekklesia on the island of Aegina, built in 1289,
69 Philippe Plagnieux and Thierry Soulard, “La cathédrale Sainte-Sophie,” “La cathédrale
Saint-Nicolas,” “L’abbaye de Bellapaïs,” and “La cathédrale Saint-Georges des Grecs”; Jean-
Bernard de Vaivre, “La chapelle royale de Pyrga,” in L’Art gothique en Chypre, ed. Jean-
Berard de Vaivre and Philippe Plagnieux (Paris, 2006), pp. 121–60, 190–238 and 286–304;
Anne-Marie Weyl Carr, “Art,” in Cyprus: Society and Culture, 1191–1374, ed. Angel Nicolaou-
Konnari and Christopher Schabel (Leiden, 2005), pp. 285–328.