Two Bodies of an Emperor: The Double Portrait of John VI Kantakouzenos in Paris. gr. 1242

Abstract

ne manuscript treasured today in Bibliothèque nationale de France (MS gr. 1242) contains four theological treatises written by Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos in the years after he had been forced to abandon the throne and exchange royal garb for the monastic habit. Being copied and illuminated under the close supervision of John VI himself at the monastery ton Hodegon in Constantinople, it can be rightly said that this luxurious book cherishes the personal desires of its author, cunningly expressed by carefully placing miniatures in order to preface specifically selected texts. Thus, interestingly enough, the double portrait of Kantakouzenos was chosen to precede his Apology against Islam, representing him both as Emperor John VI and as monk Joasaph. This illumination attracted many generations of historians and several interpretations have been given. The most widely accepted position is that the miniature was designed to indicate the authorship of the text while simultaneously recalling the course of the author’s life and visualizing his divine protection, for the double portrayal is situated under an image of the Holy Trinity. Indeed, it was also correctly pointed out that the depiction of the Trinity, with its special emphasis on the Holy Son by rendering him a cruciform nimbus, is connected with the content of the following treatise, in which emperor-monk defends Christ’s divine nature. However, can it be supposed that the “dual identity” of John VI was also meant to be associated with the theological text? The aim of the paper is to raise this question by analyzing ideological premises accomplished through the imagination of a single identity realized in two distinct bodies. Ultimately, it will be argued that the main purpose of Kantakouzenos’ double portrait was to direct and affect the reading of the treatise from which would have benefited the reader as well as the text’s author — the author who never fully abandoned his royal dignity and who was determined to preserve his imperial memory at one of the most important monasteries of the Byzantine capital.