Iconography of Saint Nicholas in Medieval Art of Southern Italy. Valentino Pace. (Udine, Italia)
The iconography of Saint Nicholas in South Italy has been widely explored, and the works by Ševčenko, Milella Lovecchio, Calò Mariani and Falla are known to everyone. With this paper I would like to choose some works which seem to me as particularly important and worth for some reconsideration.
Starting point will be the Exultet 1 in Bari, surprisingly forgotten in these works. The choice of Nicholas together with Saint Basil, in the margins of this roll, immediately after the first couple with John Chrysostomos and Gregory of Nazianzos may not come as a surprise since at that time (second quarter of the 11th century) Bari was fully Byzantine, but indeed testifies to a devotion which seems to prophesize the sacred theft of two generations later.
Other works have been allegedly dated to «prior 1087», which seems not to have always been the case. Absolutely untenable this early date for the mediocre fragments of his life painted in the church of Santa Marina, Muro Leccese, somewhat generously assigned to the patronage of the empress Zoë, with whom has been identified the image of a donor, if such is the kneeling woman with long hair and naked neck represented in one scene.
An earlier date than generally believed has also been assigned to the icon from Bisceglie. It has been linked with 1197, the year of the consecration of the little church where the icon is documented since mid 19th c. Caution is needed however to firmly link this (and the companion icon of Saint Marguerite) with this date. Not only is the apsidal space extremely narrow, but the innovation itself of such a typology («vita-icon» with full length figure) will not be copied or taken up in Apulia until the late 13th c., while conversely the innovation of the same kind of image, of Saint Francis, was immediately copied and widespread after its first appearance, 1228 or, at the latest 1235.
Widespread images or «icons» in churches «sub divo» or «in rape» (Cave-churches») make it useless here to mention them all, but it is worth remembering those images where Saint Nicholas has been given particular prominence, with the display of «mural biographic icons», even if unfortunately now largely damaged (Andria, Montesantangelo, Monopoli). In Mottola, Santa Marguerite has been represented only the scene of the Dowery for the three virgins. Other cases are the ones of special placement: in Vaste (11th century) in the center of an apse between Chrysostomos and Basil, in Palagianello in the Deesis, in San Nicola e Cataldo , Lecce on the lunette of the south portal; or also for its multiple display, at least three times (Poggiardo, Santa Maria; Mottola, San Nicola; Brindisi, Santa Lucia)
In Calabria the church of Scalea (early 12th century?) ostentatiously displays his image in the central apse as well.
Campania has two monuments which especially highlight the holiness of Saint Nicholas: in a chapel of the cave church at Maiori, near Amalfi, early 12th c., with a small cycle with four scenes, sealed by two images, one in the apse, and one on the counterfacade; in Minuta, in the crypt of the Church of the Annunziata (early 13th century) where the rare episode of Basil (Adeodatus) is displayed, with a sharply expressive mode. The choice of this scene was quite rare, and predates the examples of Bojana and of the Icon from Kakopetria. This icon may have reflected a fate similar to the one of Basil (Adeodatus) by a member of the donor's family. Saint Nicholas is singled out also in the bronze door of the Ravello cathedral by Barisano da Trani (1179) whose panel with Saint Nicholas shows the image of the kneeling donor.
To conclude: two images of the 13th century which may well round up this survey of South Italian images up in its 'northern' parts, the Abruzzi. One image is in Bominaco, 1263, and one in the apse of the monastic church of San Giovanni in Venere, circa 1300, where the Saint monumentally flanks the enthroned Virgin with the Child in the main apse of the crypt.