Τσιγαρίδας Ευθύμιος, Η χρονολόγηση των τοιχογραφιών του ναού του Αγίου Αλυπίου Καστοριάς

Τσιγαρίδας Ευθύμιος, 

«Η χρονολόγηση των τοιχογραφιών του ναού του Αγίου Αλυπίου Καστοριάς», στο: Ευφρόσυνον. Αφιέρωμα στον Μανόλη Χατζηδάκη, τόμ. 2, σ. 648-657 + πίν. 351-357. 

Αθήνα 1992

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Λέξεις κλειδιά: Άγιος Αλύπιος, Καστοριά, Μνημεία, Τοιχογραφίες, Τέχνη, Ζωγραφική

Keywords: Saint Alypios, Kastoria, Monuments, Art, Painting

Tsigaridas Euthymios, The date of the frescoes in the church of Saint Alypios at Kastoria

Summary

The remains of the decoration recorded by the writer in the church of Ayios Alypios at Kastoria are described and a date in the last two decades of the fourteenth century, is proposed for them.The church of Ayios Alypios was known from the fresco of the Panagia Eleousa in the Glykophilousa type (Pl. 352); the church was published by Orlandos (1938) and Pelekanidis (1953), and was dated by them to 1422. 

The writer begins by showing that the date of 1422 for the frescoes arose from the fact that Orlandos mistakenly connected the frescoes of the main church, preserved in the narthex, with the painted inscription dating to 1422 on the exterior west wall of the church. This is followed by an iconographic and stylistic study of the frescoes with the object of dating them accurately. 

An iconographic examination of the frescoes and particularly that of the Panayia Vrephokratousa (Pl. 352) shows that the latter belongs to a variation of the type of the Panayia Glykophilousa, which is not to be confused with the variation of the same type known as the Panayia Pelagonitissa. The iconographic type of the Panayia in the church of Ayios Alypios, of which the earliest example is an icon that came from Thessaloniki and is today in the Byzantine Museum of Athens (Pl. 354), occurs on Mt Athos (Pl. 355) and especially at Kastoria (Pl. 356), and very similar examples exist at Prespa (Pl. 357) and Treskavac, near Prilep in Yugoslavia. 

Finally, trom a stylistic examination of the surviving decoration in the church it is concluded that the frescoes in Ayios Alypios do not date to 1422, but to the last two decades of the fourteenth century and are assigned to the production of a local workshop in Kastoria that was influenced by the artistic tradition of churches in Thessaloniki during the first two decades of the fourteenth century.