The wall-paintings of Hagios Nikolaos at Phountoukli-Dimylia, Rhodes (1497/98) and the art of painting during the last years of the Hospitaller’s rule in Dodecanese (1453-1522)

The church of Hagios Nikolaos is located at Phountoukli, a site close to the village of Dimilia in the island of Rhodes (insular complex of the Dodecanese), Greece. The church is considered one of the most significant because it is built according to the tetraconch plan, a rare architectural type on Rhodes, as well because of the artistic quality of its wall-paintings. Its painted decoration dated by inscription to 7006/1497or 1498 consists of scenes of the Christological cycle and scenes pertinent to the monastic content of the building and a great number of saintly figures as monks, healer saints, warrior saints, alongside decorative motifs. In a prominent place are the panels with the family members of donor; the pansevastos logothetis Nikolaos Vardoanes with his spouse, Eudocia Strevlou on the one side, whereas opposite, in a heavenly background their children, Mary, Michael (?), and the youngest George. The inscriptions inform us that the children were victims of the plague and died in the town of Rhodes.

This book consists of three chapters. The first Chapter begins with an introduction to the historiographical research. Then follows the situation in which the frescoes were found with many overpainting of the twentieth century. The final subchapter concludes with the historic context of the Hospitaller period of Rhodes (1309-1522), while a smaller subchapter examines the scarce information related to the village of Dimilia. The second Chapter examines the architecture of the monument. The third Chapter examines the painted decoration of the monument beginning with the disposition of its iconographic programme. The latter is followed by a detailed iconographic analysis organized on thematic ground. Last is the examination of the dedicatory inscription alongside the family portraits of the donor. An extended discussion of the iconographic programme follows. Finally, a thorough stylistic analysis is attempted. The overview of the art during the Hospitaller rule offers the necessary reference points to see these paintings in perspective and within the artistic climate of their time. The last chapter summarises the evidence discussed above that lead to conclusions concerning the personality of the donor and the artist, and in a broader frame, of the social political situation on Rhodes in the end of the fifteenth century.