The Landscape of Medieval Greece 333
aristocracy woven into the ranks of the Frankish feudal society.15 Local farmers,
labourers, artisans and those who were not people of means generally benefit-
ted by the boom in the local economy and the increase of regional and inter-
national commercial exchanges. Although it is all but impossible to evaluate
the degree to which the people of the time distinguished between “Byzantine”
(i.e. Eastern, Christian Orthodox, Greek) from “Gothic” (i.e. Western, Latin
Catholic, Venetian) forms, the preference of a distinct style by a group of
patrons must have suggested some meaningful connection between the two
as is clearly the case by the 15th century in the production of religious icons
on Crete.16
The study of Gothic forms in Greece was spearheaded by western scholars
who since the 19th century travelled to Greece in search of French or Italian/
Venetian remains.17 Recent scholarship has been shaped by the blossoming
of Mediterranean studies, following Braudel’s magisterial work.18 Research
15 During the 13th century the Peloponnese and Crete were embroiled in various revolts
either in response to instigation from the Byzantines or as a response of the local elites
against the colonisers. On Crete see Stephanos Xanthoudides, “Συvθήκη μεταξύ της
Εvετικής δημoκρατίας καί Αλεξίoυ Καλλεργίoυ” [“Treaty between the Venetian Republic and
Alexios Kallergis”], Athena 14 (1902), 282–331; idem, Η Εvετoκρατία εv Κρήτη και oι κατά τωv
Εvετώv αγώvες τωv Κρητώv [Venetian Rule in Crete and the Struggles of the Cretans against
the Venetians] (Athens, 1939); and Sally McKee, “The Revolt of St. Tito in Fourteenth-
Century Venetian Crete: A Reassessment,” Mediterranean Historical Review 9 (1994),
173–204. For the Peloponnese see comments in the Chronicle of the Morea, cf. Shawcross,
The Chronicle of Morea, pp. 204–11; and Aneta Ilieva, Frankish Morea (1205–1262): Socio-
Cultural Interaction between the Franks and the Local Population (Athens, 1991), pp. 171–90.
16 The use of terms maniera greca and maniera latina for paintings of the 15th century
provides a clue while also indicating a complex commercial enterprise. See Manolis
Chatzidakis, “Éssai sur l’école dite ‘Italogrecque’ précédé d’une note sur les rapports
de l’art vénitien avec l’art crétois jusqu’à 1500,” in Venezia e il Levante fino al secolo xv:
Convegno internazionale di storia della civiltà veneziana, ed. Agostino Pertusi, 2 vols.,
Civiltà Veneziana. Studi 27 (Florence, 1973–74), 2:69–124; and most recently Maria
Vassilaki, ed., The Hand of Angelos: an Icon Painter in Venetian Crete (Farnham, 2010).
17 Ramsay Traquair, “Frankish Architecture in Greece,” Journal of the Royal Institute of British
Architects 31 (1923), 33–48 and 73–86; Antoine Bon, La Morée franque: recherches histo-
riques, topographiques et archéologiques sur la principauté d’Achaie (1205–1430), 2 vols.
(Paris, 1969); Giuseppe Gerola, Monumenti veneti nell’ isola di Creta, 4 vols. (Venice, 1905–
32); Camille Enlart, Gothic Art and Architecture in Cyprus, trans. by David Hunt (London,
1987) originally published as L’art gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre (Paris, 1899),
pp. 309–14.
18 For a concise review of recent developments in Mediterranean studies see Monique
O’Connell, “The Italian Renaissance in the Mediterranean, or, Between East and West:
A Review Article,” California Italian Studies Journal 1 (2010), 1–30; Francesca Trivellato,