The Tradition of the Image of Edessa (2025)

Revisiting Edessa’s Funerary Portrait Habit

Anatolia Antiqua, 2023

Bobou, O., Healey, J. & Raja, R. (2023). "Revisiting Edessa’s Funerary Portrait Habit", Anatolia Antiqua XXXI, 1-52.

'The History of the Image of Edessa: the telling of a story.' A reply to Dame Professor Averil Cameron

In the 1980’s Dame Professor Averil Cameron hypothesised that the Holy Mandylion, or Image of Edessa was not a miraculous ‘made without hand’ (ἀχειροποίητα) image of the face of Christ. It was instead a sixth century painting by an unknown artist. This paper evaluates Professor Cameron’s arguments. She ignores Biblical and early church evidence and relies on the silence of Eusebius, Aetheria and Procopius to argue it did not exist before the sixth century. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If the Holy Mandylion was just a sixth century painting an explanation is required for the deceit perpetrated by Byzantine emperors on their Christian subjects lasting over seven hundred years. From a theological perspective the emperors were also guilty of idolatry for revering a falsified image. As a counter-argument this paper suggests, following the historian Ian Wilson, that the Holy Mandylion was the burial shroud of Jesus, now known as the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud contains the inexplicable image of a crucified Man which is not created by paint. It was once folded into eight, shown by creases on the cloth. In this folding pattern the face of Christ would be revealed.

Κατὰ μίμησιν τῆς μακαρίας Πουλχερίας. Difracciones historiográficas per speculum haeresiae: imágenes contrapuestas de emperatrices teodosianas

R. Villegas y M. Chiriatti (eds.), en Imperial and Royal Women: Public Portraits of Power in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, CAMA, Brill 2021, 231-250.

The Cycle of the Life of St Eustathius in the Murals of Ertatsminda Church

ICONOGRAPHICA STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF IMAGES XVIII .2019, 2019

honog'aphim Studies in tha Histor.y ('Ityages is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the studr,of images in their historic.rl, cuJtu.ial and religious .ont.itr. It lromote, nerv and interdisciplina6,approaches to images goins be,ond the traditional frameuork of iconographic studies ar.rd aims ar shaping n.*, rrlitlrodologies in this naal r,,i.t.o.., essavs investigating the role plaved bv.images in mediating material aid sr.mbolic formiof culturai comrnunication, in corlro ing .t ltutnan grotrpt slrared perception.ol pou:er. behari.,r,rl code.. philosophicrl .nd l..llq;or, no,ionr.

'Mixing Roses with Milk': Recovering the Tradition behind the Ekphrasis of Niketas Eugenianos’ Drosilla and Charikles 1.120-158

2021

This article discusses similarities between a passage from Niketas Eugenianos’ novel Drosilla and Charikles and the poem anacr. 16. Although connections between Eugenianos’ novel and the Anacreontea poems have been discussed in modern scholarship, this particular resemblance has not yet been discussed. Notable similarities between the passages are, first, a painter that supposedly contributed to the creation of the girls, and second, the use of the metaphor of a mixture of milk and roses to describe the girls’ skin colour. This article firstly aims to analyse these similarities and discuss the possibility that Eugenianos retrieved inspiration from anacr. 16. As Drosilla and Charikles contains many references to ancient texts, the Anacreontea poems are not the only possible source of inspiration. Therefore, this article secondly aims to compare the passage from Eugenianos’ text with similar descriptions of beautiful people from other ancient and Byzantine novels.

La versione etiopica del Pastore di Erma (ሄርማ፡ ነቢይ፡). Riedizione critica del testo (Visioni e Precetti)

COMSt Bulletin 1/2, 2015

Maiestas Domini: Une image de l'Eglise en Occident Ve-IXe siècle (review)

Catholic Historical Review, 2006

Interview (Manuel Castiñeiras)

Images in Premodern Societies, Firenze, 2023, 90-99., 2023

Following the steps of the colleagues involved in the volume, Images in Premodern Societies. A Dialogue about the State of the Field on the Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of “Iconographica”, edited.by M. Bacci, F. Crivello, V. Scepanovic (Florence, 2023). I would like to share my answers to a questionnaire addressed to a number of art historian on the occasion of the ICONOGRAPHICA 20th anniversary.

Second issue 2012 of the journal ANNALI DI STORIA DELL'ESEGESI

LIBER AMICORUM - SPECULUM SIDERUM: Festschrift Alicia MARAVELIA

Archaeopress Egyptology 17, 2016

Volume in Honorem Alicia Maravelia, edited by Nadine Guilhou (and Antigoni Maniati). With more than 35 participations from 15 Countries all over the World. Published by Archaeopress in Egyptology Series 17 (2016).