Text, Visuality, and Materiality in John Mauropous' Epigrams

John Mauropous is one of the most prolific poets of the 11th century and, for his inner characteristics, his poetical corpus is quite unique amongst Byzantine poetry. Firstly, LAUXTERMANN 2003 has convincingly enucleated thematic sections which had been planned by the author himself. In the light of this research, BERNARD 2014 has underlined the importance of autobiographical topics: a "progressive biographical logic" is strictly followed and the reader is led to observe the connections between the συλλογή, its thematic lines and the historical self-representation of the author. In all the manuscripts, the first section of the corpus is entitled Εἰς πίνακας μεγάλους τῶν ἑορτῶν· ὡς ἐν τύπῳ ἐκφράσεως. Epigrams on works of art are in fact very common in the epigrammatic συλλογαί currently known. However, Mauropous exploits the rhetorical mean of ekphrasis to reconstruct per verba twentyseven identifiable icons and he is apparently reproducing the patterns of traditional inscribed epigrams, if compared with RHOBY 2009 and the two epigram cycles edited by W. Hörandner (1992; 1994). This paper will deal with the ekphrastic epigrams on the life of Jesus, underlining visual interrelations with their iconological equivalents. Although Mauropous’ epigrams aren’t currently written on objects, they are composed as if they were and they preserve their strong materiality through the art of rhetorical ekphrasis. In this case, the dialogue between epigram and his physical base is in absentia and it is based on the Byzantine cultural perspective on icons. Thus, this peculiar poetical genre turns out to be similar to the first Hellenistic fictious epigraphies and it allows further considerations on the cultural significance of Byzantine inscribed epigrams.