BALKAN SAINTS - Mirjana Detelić

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and Damian are shown in a unique manner, not in frontal postures as usual, but almost
bent towards the royal couple. Partly damaged, Damian is painted literally turned to
queen Simonis, pointing at her with his medical instrument. Cosmas too is shown entirely
in profile, with his right arm stretched out towards the king, almost touching him with the
sharp end of his medical instrument. His penetrating look directed towards the king is
something quite new, contributing in its own way to the spatial game created between the
real and the painted (Hadermann-Misguich 1992). The busts of the two holy doctors
render pictorial evidence for the numerous written descriptions of images of saints
coming down from the walls to perform miraculous cures (Maguire 1988, 92). The
unprecedented iconography of the two holy doctors brings together the imagery on the
southern wall creating one semiotic unit. The king offers to the patrons the model of the
church as the real embodiment of his prayers, expecting the descent in turn – and right
above one sees the cradle with the baby Virgin. Something alike is to be found in the
monastery of Staro („Old‟) Nagoriĉino, in the church of St George. It was painted in the
year of king Milutin‟s great victory over the Turks, as recorded in the founder‟s
inscription above the western door. The king is depicted exchanging a model of the
church for St George‟s sword, symbol of the military victory (Todic 1993).
Comparisons of royal and biblical couples can be found in medieval cult literature
with exactly the same ideas and implications. The advisors of King Milutin probably had
in mind the old Serbian vitae testifying that the king‟s own parents, as well as the parents
of St Sava, had first to pray long and passionately for children, and when they finally got
them it was due to God‟s mercy (Domentijan 1988, 55-56). We may find similar
examples elsewhere in Serbian as well as in Byzantine monumental art, because the
practical role of icons was particularly reflected in personal prayers and in the context of
illness (Kazhdan, Maguire 1991, 14). For example, the vita of despot Stefan Lazarević,
one of the last Serbian rulers before the Ottomans conquered the Balkans, told how he
suffered from so-called „leg illness‟, probably an old war wound (Konstantin Filozof
1989, 122). It is interesting to note that the figure of St Panteleimon, another prominent
holy doctor, was painted alongside that of St Gobdelas, a young martyr saint clad in royal
garments, in two churches connected with the despot, in the monasteries of Resava
(Todic 1995, 64) and of Kalenić (Simic-Lazar 1995, 132-133). In both cases Ss
Panteleimon and Gobdelas face each other on opposite sides of a window in the southern
apse of the naos. However, it is still uncertain whether the repeated combination of these
two saints alludes to the despot‟s healing or to something else.
St Panteleimon was more widely venerated among medieval Serbs. His full-length
portrait occurs in the southern apse of the naos of the monastery of Veluće, in central
Serbia, placed between the templon screen and the Enthroned Virgin with Christ Child.
Such a prominent place for Panteleimon was interpreted at one time as a sign that the
Veluće church must had been the metochion (dependent parish church) of the great
monastery of St Panteleimon on Mount Athos (Todic 1998-1999). However, an identical
setting of the busts of St Panteleimon and the Virgin in the monastery of Hosios Lukas in
Greece suggests that the sainted doctor‟s emphasised position was due to his significant
role in the life of the faithful, rather than unproven relations between Veluće and the
Athonite monastery (Maguire 1988, 42-46).
It is also well known that dozens of portrait icons exist of the canonised Serbian rulers
and patriarchs. The practice culminated in the so-called family trees of the Nemanjic