ABSTRACT
The chapter illustrates a crucial limit of reception theory-based methods in art history through the case study of the ‘Madonna Nicopeia’, allegedly a Byzantine apotropaic military icon, seized by the Venetians during battle in 1204. Studies have embarked on the challenge of identifying its Byzantine origins by focusing on its social function as a cult image; however, remarkably, their results ignored and contradicted the icon’s typology: a formal comparison reveals its origins as a liturgical Madonna ‘Theotokos’, deprived of military associations. Clearly, the over-indulgence in questions of contextualization resulted in neglecting the basic formalist issues. However, scholars should have also considered Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, according to which our perception of an artwork depends on the forms of knowledge that transferred it to us. Therefore, the conscious evaluation of the Nicopeia’s iconotropic process results fundamental, in considering the cultural veil cast by its past and present Venetian veneration cult.
