2 A. Mattiello, ‘Latin Basilissai in Palaiologan Mystras: art and agency', PhD diss., University of Birmingham 2018.

3 Filardi, R., Il Dittico bizantino in micromosaico: atti della giornata di studi: Firenze, Antica Canonica di San Giovanni, 23 novembre 2018 (Florence 2020)Google Scholar.

4 The two stone-carved fragments are exhibited in the Mystras Museum (Inv. Nos. 1207, 1208); see The city of Mystras [Mystras, August 2001-January 2002] (Athens 2001), 183-4 cat. n. 29. They are also discussed in Kalopissi-Verti, S., ‘Mistra. A fortified Late Byzantine settlement’, in Albani, J. and Chalkia, E. (eds), Heaven and Earth. Cities and countryside in Byzantine Greece (2 vols, Athens 2013)Google Scholar II. 224–39, 238-9 fig. 210; Melvani, N., Late Byzantine Sculpture (Turnhout 2013), 24-5Google Scholar, 135, 138 n. 28; Mattiello, ‘Latin Basilissai in Palaiologan Mystras’, esp. 97-116; Louvi-Kizi, A., La rencontre pacifique de deux mondes chrétiens: Les monastères de la Péribleptos et de la Pantanassa à Mistra (Athens 2022) 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 F. Russo and A. Marinelli, La basilica di Santa Caterina d'Alessandria a Galatina (Bari 2012) 18 fig. 4; T.P. Presta, La Basilica degli Orsini: Santa Caterina D'Alessandria in Galatina (Galatina 1991) 8 fig. 2.

6 A. Bolton, Heavenly Bodies: fashion and the Catholic imagination (New York 2018).

7 See Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: image as exegesis in the homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge 1999); Brubaker and J.F. Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: a history (Cambridge 2011); Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm (London 2012); Brubaker, ‘Ernst Kitzinger and the invention of iconoclasm’, in F. Harley-McGowan and H. Maguire (eds), Ernst Kitzinger and the making of medieval art history (London 2017) 143–52.

8 On Sardou's Théodora see more recently F. Carlà-Uhink, ‘Theodora A.P. (After Procopius) / Theodora A.S. (After Sardou): Metamorphoses of an Empress’, in F. Carlà-Uhink and A. Wieber (eds), Orientalism and the Reception of Powerful Women from the Ancient World (London 2020) 167–83. On Wilson's opera see J. Novak and J. Richardson (eds), Einstein on the Beach: opera beyond drama (London; New York 2019). See also the Appendix below.

9 D.M. Nicol, The Byzantine Lady: ten portraits, 1250-1500 (Cambridge 1994); T. Gouma-Peterson, Anna Komnene and her times (New York 2000).

10 C. Beattie (ed.), Women in the Medieval world (4 vols, London 2017).

11 L. Theis, M. Mullett, and M. Grünbart (eds), Female Founders in Byzantium and Beyond: an international colloquium: September 23-25, 2008, Institut für Kunstgeschichte, University of Vienna (Vienna 2014).

12 On Byzantine historiography on women see indicatively the following: Brubaker, ‘Memories of Helena: patterns in imperial female matronage in the fourth and fifth centuries’, in L. James (ed.), Women, Men and Eunuchs. Gender in Byzantium (London 1997) 52–75; Brubaker and J.M.H. Smith, Gender in the Early Medieval World: east and west, 300-900 (Cambridge 2004); Brubaker and S. Tougher (eds), Approaches to the Byzantine Family (Farnham 2013). S.E.J. Gerstel and A.-M. Talbot, ‘Nuns in the Byzantine countryside’, Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 27 (2006) 481–90; Gerstel and S. Kalopissi-Verti, ‘Female church founders: the agency of the village widow in Late Byzantium’, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 60.1 (2012) 195–211; Gerstel, Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium: art, archaeology, and ethnography (New York 2015), esp. ‘The Village Woman’, 70-101. J. Herrin, Women in Purple: rulers of medieval Byzantium (Princeton 2001) and Unrivalled Influence: women and empire in Byzantium (Princeton 2013). A.E. Laiou, ‘The role of women in Byzantine society’, Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 31.1 (1981) 233–60; ‘Introduction [to the proceedings of the ‘Byzantine Family and Household’ Symposium, Dumbarton Oaks – May 5–7, 1989,’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990) 97–8; Gender, Society, and Economic Life in Byzantium (Aldershot 1992); Women, Family and Society in Byzantium (Farnham 2011). M. Meyer, An Obscure Portrait: imaging women's reality in Byzantine art (London 2009). A.-M. Talbot, ‘Women's Space in Byzantine Monasteries’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998) 113–27 and Women and Religious Life in Byzantium (Aldershot 2001). On Brubaker's scholarship see also n. 13 below.

13 Brubaker's studies on gender, women, and Byzantium are numerous. Among them: Brubaker and J.M.H. Smith, Gender in the Medieval World, 23-161; Brubaker and H. Tobler, ‘The gender of money: Byzantine empresses on coins (324–802)’, Gender and History 12.3 (2000) 572–94; Brubaker, The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: texts and images (Farnham 2011).

14 Brubaker (following in the footsteps of Averil Cameron, Procopius and the sixth century (Berkeley 1985) 49–83) interprets and questions the fictional elements about the ‘anti-woman’ Empress Theodora created by Prokopios, and reveals the inner narrative and fictional nature of the Secret History, which, as Brubaker puts it, ‘is a successful piece of fiction, a brilliant parody [that] tells us next to nothing about Justinian and Theodora’: ‘Sex, lies and textuality: the Secret History of Prokopios and the rhetoric of gender in sixth-century Byzantium’, in Brubaker and Smith (eds), Gender in the Early Medieval World, 83–101.

15 For an exemplary case see Gouma-Peterson, Anna Komnene and her times and L.A. Neville, Anna Komnene: the life and work of a medieval historian (New York 2016).

16 I. Kalavrezou, Byzantine Women and Their World (Cambridge 2003).

17 J. Ramirez, Femina: a new history of the middle ages (London 2022).

18 Gerstel's scholarship is particularly significant as a term of methodological comparison: see S.E.J. Gerstel (ed.), Viewing Greece: cultural and political agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean (Turnhout 2016).

19 A. Gell, Art and agency: an anthropological theory (Oxford 1998), 16.

20 For a general introduction to Gell's work, see J. Tanner and R. Osborne, ‘Art and agency and art history’, in Art's Agency and Art History (Hoboken 2008) 1–27. For an application of the same methodology in studying performative practices in the twentieth century, see A. Mattiello, ‘Pratiche performative a New York, 1952-1965: Jonas, Kaprow, Nauman, Schneemann: ricerca, tempo e montaggio: dottorato di ricerca d'eccellenza in storia dell'architettura e della città, scienza delle arti, restauro, 19. ciclo (a. a. 2003/2004-2005/2006):’, PhD diss., Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia; Università IUAV di Venezia; Fondazione Scuola studi avanzati in Venezia 2007.

21 The chart is published as “Table 1. The Art Nexus” in Gell, Art and Agency, 29, see also 28-50.

22 U. Eco, Trattato di semiotica generale (Milan 1978), esp. 185-7.

23 See recently Glenn Peers's discussion of agency and animism in veneration objects in G. Peers et al., Byzantine Things in the World (Houston 2013), esp. 41-85; also Peers, ‘Showing Byzantine materiality’, in Animism, Materiality, and Museums (Amsterdam 2021) 31–42. For a recent study on the theory of perception and cognitive actions linked to Byzantine textual and visual evidence, see R. Betancourt, Sight, Touch, and Imagination in Byzantium (Cambridge 2018), esp. 109-96. On agency and Byzantine art, see R.S. Nelson, ‘The Chora and the Great Church: intervisuality in fourteenth-century Constantinople,' Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 23 (1999), 67–101 [repr. in Nelson, Byzantine Painting: Art, Agency, and Appreciation (Aldershot 2007); Gerstel (ed.), Viewing Greece; C.J. Hilsdale, Byzantine art and diplomacy in an age of decline (Cambridge 2014) esp. 1–26; Hilsdale, ‘Translatio and objecthood: the cultural agendas of two Greek manuscripts at Saint-Denis’, Gesta 56.2 (2017) 151–78; I. Drpić, ‘The enkolpion: object, agency, self’, Gesta 57.2 (2018) 197–224.

24 On Nicoletta Grioni see M. Bacci, ‘Il Dittico a micromosaico del Museo dell'Opera come bene di lusso e oggetto di devozione’, in R. Filardi (ed.), Il Dittico bizantino in micromosaico: atti della giornata di studi (Firenze 2020) 31–50, esp. 31-34; S.J. Cornelison, ‘Saints and status in late medieval and early Renaissance Florence’, in D. Cooper and B. Williamson (eds), Late Medieval Italian Art and its Contexts: essays in honour of Professor Joanna Cannon (Woodbridge 2022) 289–306, esp. 298-9 n. 35.

25 On Isabelle de Lusignan, see n. 34 below.

26 On Maria d'Enghien-Brienne, see ‘MARIA d'Enghien, regina di Sicilia in “Dizionario Biografico”’, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/maria-d-enghien-regina-di-sicilia_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/, accessed 8/25/2023.

27 On the Greek-Latin Mediterranean context in late Byzantium, see A. Lymberopoulou (ed.), Cross-Cultural Interaction Between Byzantium and the West, 1204-1669: whose Mediterranean is it anyway? (Milton 2018).

28 See Bacci, ‘Il Dittico a micromosaico'’.

29 See Bacci, ‘Il Dittico a micromosaico’, esp. 31-4.

30 See L. Guzzetti, ‘Dowries in fourteenth-century Venice’, Renaissance Studies 16.4 (2002) 430–73, esp. 449-50.

31 Gell's approach could in principle link an index to any far away context based on abduction and vicinity that needs to be constantly evaluated by historical evidence. W. Davis, ‘Abducting the agency of art’, in ‘Art's Agency and Art History (Hoboken 2008) 199–219, esp. 214-15.

32 A. Eastmond, Tamta's World: the life and encounters of a medieval noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia (Cambridge 2017). Eastmond reconstructs the life of Tamta, a noblewoman living in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries at the courts of Georgia, the Ayyubids, the Khwarazm, and the Mongols, by complementing textual sources with courtly artefacts, monuments, material culture, and construction practices. This set of evidence indexes Tamta's agency, and allows us to build up a picture of her life ‘by situating her in the cultures in which she lives and understanding their concerns and expectations, and the positions and choices available to women in them’ (15).

33 J. Herrin, Ravenna: capital of empire, crucible of Europe (London 2020), esp. 17-59.

34 The most extensive study on the primary sources related to Isabelle de Lusignan are D.A. Zakythenos, ‘Une princesse française à la cour de Mistra au XIVe siècle. Isabelle de Lusignan Cantacuzène’, Revue des Études Grecques 49.229 (1936) 62–76; A. Louvi-Kizi, ‘La vie d'Isabelle de Lusignan, dite aussi Ζαμπεας ντε Λεζηναω ou Marie-Marguerite’, in La rencontre pacifique de deux mondes chrétiens (Athens 2022) 9-24. See also D.M. Nicol, The Byzantine family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus) ca. 1100-1460; a genealogical and prosopographical study (Washington D.C. 1968), esp. nos. 25, 122-7.

35 See n. 4 above.

36 G. Millet, ‘Inscriptions inédites de Mistra’, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 30.1 (1906) 453-66 (453).

37 Millet, ‘Inscriptions inédites de Mistra’, 453-4.

38 The architrave might have been meant for the portal of the courtyard in front of the Metropolis or for one of the entrances to the naos of the church either on the ground floor from the door on the northeast wall, or on the upper level on the door on the northwest upper wall. The measured plans of the upper and lower levels of the church of Hagios Demetrios can be found in G. Marinou, Άγιος Δημήτριος. Η μητρόπολη του Μυστρά (Athens 2002), 74 σχέδ. 8, 104 σχέδ. 10.

39 In the secondary literature the two stone blocks are identified as part of a lintel from a templon screen for the katholikon of the Peribleptos monastery. See The City of Mystras, 183. On the attribution of the architrave to Peribleptos templon, see Α. Louvi-Kizi, ‘Τό γλυπτό «προσκυνητάρι» στό ναό τοῦ Αγίου Γεωργίου τοῦ Κάστρου στό Γεράκι’, Δελτίον της Χριστιανικής Αρχαιολογικής Εταιρείας 25 (2004) 111–26, 104 and 104 n. 15. The transverse section of the architrave is not consistent with the ones of other architrave templa in churches of Mystras such of Hagios Demetrios (G. Millet, Monuments byzantins de Mistra: matériaux pour l’étude de l'architecture et de la peinture en Grèce aux XIVe et XVe siècles (Paris 1910), pls. 45 nos. 1-4) or with the architrave in the templon of the Peribleptos (Millet, Monuments byzantins de Mistra, pls. 45 nos. 1-4. pl. 49 nos. 3-4). It also lacks the longitudinal rim holding a second templon stone tier, or the lower part of templon icons, see for comparison the architrave with the interlaced cross and military saints displayed outside the Mystras Museum with the inv. no. 1603.

40 L. Boura, Ό γλυπτός διάκοσμος του ναού της Παναγίας στο μοναστήρι του Οσίου Λουκά (Athens 1980), 107-8.

41 For a selection of these materials, see Millet, Monuments byzantins de Mistras, pl. 44 n. 18 and pls. 47-8, 50-1.

42 See for instance stone slabs and architraves in the Museum of Mystras: Millet, Monuments byzantins de Mistra pl. 50 nos. 1-3, 5, 10, 14.

43 See as a term of comparison the lemniskos decortion above the main entrance of the church of Hagios Sotiras, in Kato Gardenitsa, Mani: see N.B. Drandakis, ‘Σχεδίασμα καταλόγου των τοιχογραφημένων Βυζαντινών και Μεταβυζαντινών Ναών Λακωνίας’, Λακωνικαί Σπουδαί 13 (1996) 167–236, esp. 228 n. 407.

44 On the carved screen in the church of Hagios Demetrios in Geraki, see G. Dimitrokallis, Γεράκι Οἱ τοιχογραφίες τῶν ναῶν τοῦ Κάστρου (Αθήνα 2001), esp. 75-83; Louvi-Kizi, ‘Τό γλυπτό «προσκυνητάρι» στό ναό τοῦ Αγίου Γεωργίου τοῦ Κάστρου στό Γεράκι’; S.E.J. Gerstel, ‘The Morea’, in A. Drandaki, D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, and A. Tourta (eds), Heaven and Earth. Art of Byzantium from Greek collections (Athens 2013) I. 300–3, esp. 303.

45 The marble proskynetarion is dated to the second half of the fourteenth century. It was found on the south side narthex of the Peribleptos. It is now in the Museum of Mystras. Inv. No. 1166. See The city of Mystras, 178-80 cat. n. 27. The most recent discussion on this marble icon is on A. Drandaki, D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi, and A. Tourta (eds), Heaven and Earth, I. 313-14 cat. 163. This relief icon has been linked to Western influence.

46 Millet, ‘Inscriptions inédites de Mistra’, esp. 454.

47 See e.g. the obverse of the silver gros of Isabelle's cousin Peter I de Lusignan (1359-1369) in G.F. Hill, A History of Cyprus: the Frankish period, 1192–1432, (4 vols, Cambridge 1948), II.308 fig. 6. Also see the Lusignan's gold besants, and silver gorsses in J. Durand and D. Giovannoni (eds), Chypre: entre Byzance et l'Occident, IVe - XVIe siècle (Paris 2012), 190-3 cat. 73-7, 200-2 cat. 83-6.

48 D.M. Metcalf, ‘The Gros grand and the Gros petit of Henry II of Cyprus: PART I’, The Numismatic Chronicle 142 (1982) 83–100, 98 and pl. 23 no. 15: A/1.

49 On the cassone by the Master of Durazzo, see J. Pope-Hennessy and K. Christiansen, ‘Secular painting in 15th-Century Tuscany: birth trays, cassone panels, and portraits’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 38.1 (1980) 3–64, esp. 20-3; C.L. Baskins, The Triumph of Marriage: painted cassoni of the Renaissance (Boston 2008), esp. fig. 14a and catalogue entry by Virginia Brilliant; L. Mocciola, ‘La presa di Napoli di Carlo III di Durazzo nel pannello del Metropolitan Museum’, in G. Abbamonte (ed.), La battaglia nel Rinascimento meridionale: moduli narrativi tra parole e immagini (Rome 2011), esp. 57–67.

50 G.L. Schlumberger, Numismatique de l'Orient latin (Paris 1878), pl. VI 17.

51 From June 1381, Charles had already been invested by Pope Urban VI as King of Sicily and Jerusalem, as well as King of Naples and Gonfalonier of the Church, see ‘CARLO III d'Angiò Durazzo, re di Napoli, detto della Pace, o il Piccolo in “Dizionario Biografico”’, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/carlo-iii-d-angio-durazzo-re-di-napoli-detto-della-pace-o-il-piccolo_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/), accessed 5/16/2023. See also, D. Abulafia, ‘The Italian South’, in M. Jones (ed.), New Cambridge Medieval History Vol. 6 c.1300-c.1415 (Cambridge 2000) 488–514, esp. 512-13.

52 Melvani, Late Byzantine Sculpture, esp. 151-4.

53 See M.G. Parani, ‘Le royaume des Lusignan (1192-1489): la tradition byzantine’, in J. Durand and D. Giovannoni (eds), Chypre: entre Byzance et l'Occident, IVe - XVIe siècle (Paris 2012) 293–301 (297 fig. 7).

54 A. Cutolo, Maria d'Enghien (Galatina 1977). See also n. 26 above.

55 Mary of Lusignan (1381-1404) was the daughter of James I de Lusignan (1334-98), King of Cyprus and titular King of Armenia Cilicia and Jerusalem (1382-98), and Isabelle's second cousin.

56 Cutolo, Maria d'Enghien, esp. 33-54; I. Ortega, Les lignases nobiliares dans la Morée latine (XIIIe - XVe siècle). Permanences et mutations (Turnhout 2012), esp. 594-97, 631.

57 K. Toomaspoeg, ‘Orsini Del Balzo, Raimondo’, in ‘Orsini Del Balzo, Raimondo’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 79 (Rome 2013) 732–5.

58 C.D. Poso, ‘La fondazione di Santa Caterina: scelta devozionale e commitenza artistica di Raimondo Orsini del Balzo’, in A. Cassiano and B. Vetere (eds), Dal Gilgio all'Orso: i Principi d'Angiò e Orsini del Balzo nel Salento (Lecce 2006) 194–223; U. Ritzerfeld, ‘Santa Caterina a Galatina: un monumento per la “latinizzazione” della Puglia greco-bizantina o per le ambizioni autonomistiche dei Del Balzo Orsini?’, Convivium 5, 1 (2018) 142–57; R. Casciaro, La Basilica di Santa Caterina d'Alessandria in Galatina (Galatina 2019); G. Pollini, ‘Santa Caterina d'Alessandria a Galatina: culto, pellegrinaggio ed economia nel Salento dei del Balzo Orsini’, in S. Beltramo and C. Tosco (eds), Architettura medievale: il Trecento. Modelli, tecniche, materiali (Sesto Fiorentino (Fi) 2022) 286–95.

59 The inscription reads ‘+Ενταυθα εστιν η καππελλα τ[ῆς] … α[γιας] Κατ[ερινας] / … εντος και … ρθ …’, ‘Here is the chapel of Saint Catherine / … inside and …’, in L. Safran, The medieval Salento: art and identity in Southern Italy (Philadelphia 2014), 275.

60 G.A. Loud, ‘Latins, Greeks and non-Christians’, in The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge 2007) 494–520, esp. 510-11.

61 C.T. Gallori, ‘The Late Trecento in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme Napoleone and Nicola Orsini, the Carthusians, and the triptych of Saint Gregory’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 58.2 (2016) 156–87 (172 fig. 9).

62 R.G. Ousterhout, ‘Byzantium between east and West and the origins of heraldry’, in C. Hourihane (ed.), Byzantine Art: recent studies (Princeton 2009) 153–70, esp. 157-9.

63 For a discussion on the use of the fleur-de-lis as a decorative motif in Arta and Constantinople, see Melvani, Late Byzantine Sculpture, esp. 24.

64 Melvani, Late Byzantine Sculpture, esp. 103-4.

65 Ousterhout, ‘Byzantium between east and West and the Origins of Heraldry’, 159.

66 Boehm, B.D. and Holcomb, M. (eds), Jerusalem, 1000-1400: every people under heaven (New York 2016)Google Scholar, 48 cat. n.19b.

67 Boehm and Holcomb (eds), Jerusalem, 1000-1400, 48 cat. n.19a.

68 On the cultural environment of the Peloponnese during late Byzantium, see Jeffreys, E., ‘The Morea through the prism of the past’, in Gerstel, S.E.J. (ed.), Viewing the Morea: land and people in the late medieval Peloponnese (Washington DC 2013) 9–21Google Scholar.

69 For a discussion of the visual cultural context, see M. Bacci, ‘Some thoughts of Greco-Venetian artistic interactions in fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries’, in A. Eastmond and L. James (eds), Wonderful Things: Byzantium through its art (2013) 203–27.

70 Ramirez, Femina, 18.

71 Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium, 19-21.