392 Kalopissi-Verti
the garb of Latin monks.56 In addition, a monumental panel of St George
Diasorites and St Theodore Teron on horseback (Figure 11.10) in a blind arch of
the south wall holding triangular shields with a chequered motif, has its icono-
graphic parallel in a 13th-century “crusader” icon of Sinai.57 The wall painting
has been dated, on stylistic grounds, to the beginning of the 14th century. The
mounted saints hold lances with fastened pennants bearing the white cross on
a red ground (St George) and the red-cross on a white ground (St Theodore)
that have been connected to the Hospitallers and the Knights Templar
respectively.
An important painted ensemble of the late 13th century is found in the Crypt
of St Nicholas at Kampia in Boeotia.58 The Deesis and other representations of
eschatological content reveal the funerary function of the crypt. The paintings,
which are the work of a provincial workshop with knowledge of the leading
contemporary trends, have been dated on stylistic grounds to about 1300. The
depiction of the metropolitan of Thebes Ioannes Kaloktenes approximately
100 years after his death reveals the strong bonds of the Orthodox people with
one of their ecclesiastical leaders before the time of the Latin rule.
To the second half of the 13th century have been dated the paintings pre-
served in the dome and the apse of the church of St Nicholas at Exarchos in
south Phthiotis, a region which probably belonged to the de la Roche family
and later to the Catalans.59 The iconography of the dome in the church of
the Taxiarches in Markopoulo60 deviates from the usual programme since it
includes, among the figures of the prophets on the drum, the images of the
medical saints Panteleemon, Cosmas, Damian, and the mother of the lat-
ter two, Theodote (Figure 11.11). A survival of an early Christian tradition, the
56 Coumbaraki-Pansélinou, Saint-Pierre, pls. 73–75.
57 Ghini-Tsofopoulou, “Τα ‘Μεσόγεια,’ ” pp. 184–85, fig. 1; Kurt Weitzmann, “Icon Painting in
the Crusader Kingdom,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966), 79–80, fig. 64.
58 Maria Panayotidi, “Oι τοιχογραφίες της κρύπτης του Αγίου Nικολάου στα Kαμπιά της Bοιωτίας”
[“The Frescoes of the Crypt of St Nicholas at Kampia in Boeotia”], in Actes du xve Congrès
International d’Études Byzantines, Athènes 1976, 3 vols. in 4 parts (Athens, 1981), 2:597–622.
Hieronymos (Liapis), Χριστιανική Βοιωτία, 1:288–95.
59 Papamastorakis, Ο διάκοσμος του τρούλου; Chara Konstantinidi, “Το Άγιο Μανδήλιο μεταξύ
των ιεραρχών: ένα ακόμα σύμβολο της θείας ευχαριστίας” [“The Holy Mandelion among
the Hierarchs: Another Symbol of the Eucharist”], in Λαμπηδών. Αφιέρωμα στη μνήμη της
Ντούλας Μουρίκη [Lampedon: A Dedication in Memory of Doula Mouriki], 2 vols. (Athens,
2003), 2:485, fig. 6.
60 Maria Aspra-Vardavaki, “Οι βυζαντινές τοιχογραφίες του Ταξιάρχη στο Μαρκόπουλο
Αττικής” [“The Byzantine Murals of the Taxiarches at Markopoulo in Attica”], Δελτίον της
Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 8 (1975–76), 199–229.