Images: Met Museum
Clavis number: ECMA 125
Other descriptors: none
Location and accession numbers: Civiche Raccolte d’Arte Applicata, Castello Sforzesco, Milan (Avori 2–6); and Victoria and Albert Museum, London (270:1-1867).
Category: ivories
Related literature: Martyrdom of Mark
Featured characters and locations: Anianos, Mark (evangelist), Alexandria.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: ivory
Date: ca. 7th/8th cent.
Provenance: believed to have formed a liturgical throne in Alexandria taken to Italy by Emperor Constantine I (r. 610 – 641) when he reconquered Egypt in 629 after the Sassanid Persian occupation begun in 619. Heraclius gave it to a church in Grado, a town in Italy, in its northern-east. Weitzman (1972) argues instead for a link to Syria-Palestine in the 7th/8th century.
Images: of the fourteen ivories, five feature Mark. The other ivories believed to belong to the chair depict scenes from the Gospels (the Annunciation, the Nativity, the wedding at Cana, the raising of Lazarus), and other figures (St Menas, an unidentified saint in an orans pose, Joel, and a prophet with a plaque).
1. Peter dictating the Gospel to Mark. Victoria and Albert Museum, London; size: 13.5 × 10 × 0.8 cm). Images: Met; Victoria & Albert Museum.
2. Mark preaching. Castello Sforzesco, Milan (avori n. 2); Size: 18.9 × 10.5 × 1 cm. Image: Met.
3. Mark healing Anianos. Castello Sforzesco, Milan (avori n. 3); size: 19 × 8.3 × 0.7 cm. Image: Met.
4. Mark baptizing Anianos. Castello Sforzesco, Milan (avori n. 4); size: 19 × 9.2 × 0.7 cm. Image: Met.
5. Mark consecrating Anianos. Castello Sforzesco, Milan (avori n. 5); size: 19 × 9.4 × 0.6 cm. Image: Met.
6. Fragment with Mark holding book: Castello Sforzesco, Milan (avori n. 6); size: 19 × 4.1 × 0.6 cm. Image: Met.
Also of interest is an ivory depicting the Nativity. Pictured (left to right) are Joseph, Mary, the Ass and Ox looking over Jesus, the midwife. Byzantine Collection, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC (BZ.1951.30); size: 9.3 × 19.1. Image: Met; Dumbarton Oaks.
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The story of the healing of Anianos is found in the Martyrdom of Mark:
On the second day, the blessed Mark reached Alexandria and came, after he had left the ship, to a certain place called Bennidion. He entered the city gate and immediately his sandal broke. The blessed apostle saw a cobbler and gave him the sandal to repair. When the sandal-cobbler sewed, he injured his left hand greatly and said , “God is One.” When the blessed Mark heard (the words) “God is One” he smiled and said, “The Lord has made my way prosperous.” And he spat on the ground, made a dough of the spittle, anointed the man’s hand (and said), “In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the eternally living God!” And immediately the man’s hand was healed. And the cobbler, who had recognized the man’s power, the potency of the speech and his asceticism, said to him, “I beg you, man of God, make a stop today in the house of your servant and let us eat a bit of bread together, as you had mercy with me today.” The blessed Mark, however, said full of joy, “The Lord will give you bread of life from heaven.” The man urged the apostle and they joyfully reached his house. (3:4–9; the cobbler is named in 4:6; trans. Tobias Nicklas, “The Martyrdom of Mark,” pages 375–92 in New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 3 [ed. Tony Burke; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2023]).
No mention is made of Anianos’ baptism but he is appointed bishop in Mart. Mark 5:2.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cartlidge, David R. and J. Keith Elliott. Art and the Christian Apocrypha. London and New York: Routledge, 2001 (p. 231).
Graeven, Hans. “Der heilige Markus in Rom und in der Pentapolis.” Römische Quartalschrift 13 (1899): 109–26.
Goldschmidt, Adolph. Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus römischen Zeit XI–XIII Jahrhundert. Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1914–1926 (vol. 4, no. 113, pl. xxxix).
Hopwood-Philips, Henry. “The St Mark Ivories: The Grado Chair That Never Was.” The Byzantine Ambassador. Posted 4 April 2020. Online: https://www.byzantineambassador.com/post/the-st-mark-ivories-the-grado-chair-that-never-was.
Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz. Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters. 1952. 3rd ed. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1976 (no. 239).
__________. “Gli avori della ‘Cattedra si S. marco.’” Pages 134–38 in Arte del primo millennio: Atti del IIe convegno per lo studio dell’ arte dell’ alto medioevo, Pavia. Edited by Edoardo Arslan. Turin: Viglongo, 1950.
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979 (pp. 508–509).
__________. “The Ivories of the So-Called Grado Chair.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 26 (1972): 43–91.
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Castello Sforzesco.” Wikipedia.
“The Beautiful Coptic Ivories of the So-Called Grado Chair.” Coptic Nationalism. Posted 24 November 2017.
“The St Mark Ivories: The Grado Chair That Never Was.” Byzantine Ambassador. Posted 4 April 2020.
Entry created by Iasha Stephens, under the supervision of Tony Burke, York University, 6 April 2021.