Suspended in Time and Space: A Carved Heraldic Panel from Nicosia

Abstract

Abstract A stone panel bearing a heraldic shield surmounted by a bust of the Virgin and Child flanked by kneeling supplicants in low relief survives today on the façade of an early twentieth-century house in the Old Town of Nicosia. Barely noticed in publications on Cypriot heraldry, it has escaped scrutiny. Yet it raises the same questions as any other object deprived of its original function and context: How can the modern observer use and interpret such a lone witness, seemingly hovering in time and space, at first sight totally anonymous and therefore mute? In order to give it a voice and demonstrate the value of every single piece of evidence from a period whose material culture remains surprisingly underexplored, this essay endeavours to identify the two coats-of-arms on the shield, to link them to individuals documented in the written record, and ultimately to provide an approximate date for the panel and to reconstruct its wider context. As demonstrated, it belongs to the later fifteenth century and the early decades of Venetian rule on Cyprus (1474/89-1570/71), a period of rapid change on all fronts for the island. Its iconography and style are briefly discussed in terms of craftsmanship and as testimonies to the cultural references and aspirations of members of a social class that has left behind little beyond textual attestations, drawing conclusions at the same time about its function within the built environment of Venetian Nicosia.