Monumental Art in the Lordship of Athens and Thebes 385
to 1233/34.39 Affinities between the two churches are also mirrored in the por-
trait of the metropolitan of Athens Michael Choniates depicted in the sanctu-
ary of both churches—St Peter and the south chapel of the Spelia Pentelis.
Moreover, the replacement of the portraits of Saints Barnabas and Kallinikos
of the first, slightly earlier fresco layer in the sanctuary of the south chapel at
Penteli by Saints Peter and Paul in the layer of 1233/34 reveals the same con-
cerns evident in St Peter at Kalyvia Kouvara, also dedicated to both apostles,
and is in accordance with the Zeitgeist in a time of confrontation and symbio-
sis of Latins and Greeks.
The painters’ workshop attested in the two afore-mentioned monuments
seems to have been active in two more churches within the town of Athens:
St Marina on the Observatory Hill (Asteroskopeio) and St John the Theologian
at Plaka.40 The few extant figures of the earliest painted layer in the church of
39 Doula Mouriki, “Oι βυζαντινές τοιχογραφίες της Σπηλιάς της Πεντέλης” [“The Byzantine
Murals of the Spelia Pentelis”], Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 7 (1973–74),
79–119.
40 Eleni Kounoupiotou-Manolessou, “Άγιος Ιωάννης Θεολόγος: Εργασίαι στερεώσεως” [“St John
the Theologian: Restoration Works”], Αρχαιολογικά Ανάλεκτα Αθηνών 8 (1975), 140–51;
figURE 11.6 Kalyvia Kouvara, Attica, church of St Peter. St Mamas and St Tryphon.
Photo: author, by permission of the 1st Ephorate of Byzantine
Antiquities.