Maria Constantina Terss | An Unlikely Throne of Glory: Gloria in the Vatican Job’s Golden Dunghill

The Working Group in Literary and Visual Culture at Stanford University invites you to An Unlikely Throne of Glory: Gloria in the Vatican Job’s Golden Dunghill, presented by Maria Constantina Terss, a PhD candidate in Stanford's Department of Art and Art History.

Abstract

After Byzantine Iconoclasm (726-787 AD and 815-843 AD) the notion of glory becomes associated with iconophilia—the belief that Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints should be depicted in figural imagery. In the ninth-century iconophile center of papal Rome, the Latin gloria (glory) aligns with the role Greek iconophile theologians attribute to sacred images—to glorify, praise, and honor God. By tracing gloria’s depiction in the ninth-century Vatican Job manuscript (Bibl. Ap. Vat. Gr. 749), I distill two related concerns of Italo-Greek communities and argue for Rome, rather than Constantinople, as the manuscript’s center of origin. I build this hypothesis from the identification of three distinct illumination phases. From Worldly to Heavenly Glory witnesses the transformation of Job from a famous wealthy nobleman, to an honorable spiritual shepherd modeled off of the Roman pope. This comments on the papacy as a superior spiritual power to the lay Byzantine rulers from whom papal Rome sought to preserve their geopolitical independence. The Glorifying Kiln visualizes Job’s encasing dunghill as a purifying furnace that leads him to glory through righteous suffering. Whereas, The Throne of Glory uncovers the final transfiguration of Job’s dunghill into a golden throne. By showing that an otherwise humble material substance can become a vehicle of gloria, not dissimilar from the wood of sacred images or the parchment of illuminations, the latter two phases base Rome’s “claim to glory” on its continuous iconophilia. Thus, in contradiction to Byzantium’s lapse into Iconoclasm, papal Rome surfaces as the “legitimate” spiritual center of the Christian Ecumene.

About the Series

Research Workshop in Honor of John Bender

The Working Group in Literary and Visual Culture ​is made possible by support from an anonymous donor honoring the work of former SHC Director John Bender, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.