Douzième séance du Séminaire international du Centre André-Chastel
Vasiliki Tsamakda (Professeure à Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), invitée par Elisabeth Yota (Sorbonne Université, Centre André-Chastel)
Sous la responsabilité d'Élodie Vaudry
Law, morals and society. The individual punishments of the Damned in Cretan wall paintings (13th-15th c.)
During the late Byzantine period, representations of the damned and their punishments took on newfound significance. This is especially evident on Crete, where these motifs hold a unique place within church iconographic programs. Often appearing outside the traditional
framework of Last Judgment cycles, these images reflect an emerging focus on individual eschatology. Crete, in particular, showcases an unparalleled diversity of these scenes, featuring roughly 50 categories covering a wide spectrum of legal, moral, religious, and
social transgressions.
The lecture will highlight this rich variety, examine rarely discussed source material, and
analyze unique punishments with no known parallels elsewhere in the Byzantine world. In
doing so, it reveals not only the moral and social conflicts of the era but also the distinctive
cultural character of Crete under Venetian rule.