Spolia on City Gates in the Thirteenth Century: Byzantium and Italy

In this paper I outline the problem of the reuse of ancient figurative sculpture in the Medieval architecture, on key points of urban arrangement, such as the city gates, in the first half of the 13th century. The analysis crosscuts the phenomenon, from the Byzantine world to central and southern Italy, and back, following the red line of the diplomatic contacts occurred between the Lascarid emperors of Nicaea and Frederick II Hohenstaufen. The goal is to understand whether and to what extent such interrelations may have had an (even indirect) influence on the artistic practice of either realm, and, conversely, whether the arts – in this case by means of the symbolic reuse of Antiquity – played a role in such delicate political relationships. A major key to this hypothesis is that spolia appeared in comparable settings, on highly symbolic places both in the Empire of Nicaea (e.g. on the city gates of Iznik) and in the Sicilian Kingdom (e.g. in the gate of Capua). Figural ancient spolia are reused in a similar fashion in contemporary Seljuk architecture, thus offering further elements to a “global” understanding of this complex historical and cultural phase, where differing interests confront across the Mediterranean.