Birds in Paradise: Funerary Iconography at Merbaka Church
Abstract
A burial chamber discovered under the Bema at Merbaka church in the Argolid implies that the church was built for the Catholic rite, most likely at the turn of the 14th century, as a memorial to William of Moerbeke, Dominican Archbishop of Corinth until 1286. Inscriptions and details in the iconography of the frescoes in the prothesis, however, particularly a small antiquarian fresco of birds and plants over the entrance from the prothesis to the Bema, suggest that these paintings date to the early 15th century during the Venetian hegemony over Argos and Nauplion, when the translation of the local St. Peter of Argos from Argos to Nauplion occurred, and Merbaka church may have been given a new memorial purpose.
Article Details
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COULSON, M. L. (2013). Birds in Paradise: Funerary Iconography at Merbaka Church. Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, 34, 157–166. https://doi.org/10.12681/dchae.1715
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