398 Kalopissi-Verti
adorning the palace of the Latin archbishop in Patras.67 Foskolou’s observation
that the depiction of the masonry corresponds to the building techniques of
the crusaders in the Latin East is of special interest and shows the origin, the
pictorial reception and the mechanisms of transportation and dissemination
of certain motifs. Stylistically the fresco decoration of Omorphe Ekklesia in
Aegina belongs to the conservative trend prevailing in the Byzantine and in the
Latin-held provinces of southern Greece which is characterised by the survival
of Komnenian features. In particular, close affinities with mural decorations in
Byzantine Lakonia and in Venetian Crete have been observed.
Local production of mural paintings in Aegina is also attested in the first
phase of decoration in the church of St Nicholas Mavrika close to Paliachora.68
The images of Christ and of St George mounted (Figure 11.13) find stylistic par-
allels in the figures of the first layer in the church of St Nicholas at Kalamos and
in St George at Kalyvia Kouvara (mid-13th century) and show affinities with the
frescoes of Omorphe Ekklesia on Aegina. They have been dated to the second
half of the 13th century, probably in the last decades.
The church that by far surpasses in quality, in iconographic complexity and
perceptions, and in style all other, generally provincial, monuments in the
duchy is the Omorphe Ekklesia (St George) at Galatsi in Athens.69 Besides the
usual Christological and Mariological scenes, the sophisticated and knowledge-
able iconographic programme is characterised by the juxtaposition of Old and
New Testament scenes with similar symbolism. The numerous figures of holy
Orthodox monks in the naos are in accord with the function of the church as a
katholikon of a Greek Orthodox monastery. However, the depiction of St Peter
as the middle of the three apostles in the Transfiguration in the naos, devi-
ating from the established iconography of the scene, and the representation
67 Jacoby, “La littérature française,” pp. 635–36; idem, “Knightly Values,” pp. 170–73; Teresa
Shawcross, “Re-Inventing the Homeland in the Historiography of Frankish Greece: The
Fourth Crusade and the Legend of the Trojan War,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
27 (2003), 136–43.
68 Angeliki Mitsani, “Οι τοιχογραφίες του Αγίου Νικολάου Μαύρικα στην Αίγινα” [“The Murals
of St Nicholas of Mavrika in Aegina”], Αρχαιολογικόν Δελτίον 56 (2001), Α ́, Μελέτες, pp.
365–82, esp. 367–71; Pennas, Η βυζαντινή Αίγινα, pp. 75–81, figs. 86–87.
69 Agapi Vasilaki-Karakatsani, Οι τοιχογραφίες της Όμορφης Εκκλησιάς στην Αθήνα [The Murals
of Omorphe Ekklesia in Athens] (Athens, 1971); Chatzidaki, “Mosaics and wall-paintings,”
pp. 270–72, figs. 1, 30–35; Panselinou, Bυζαντινή Αθήνα, pp. 73–74, pls. 45–49; Kalopissi-Verti,
“Επιπτώσεις της Δ ́ Σταυροφορίας,” pp. 77–78, pls. 7b, 48b; eadem, “Relations between East
and West,” pp. 18–23, figs. 8–10. I wish to thank my friend and colleague Charis Koilakou,
then director of the First Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities, for permitting and facilitat-
ing my study in the church.