Reading Wednesday: An Ottoman Church in Greece

I am trying to work my way thought my summer reading list starting with the top of the pile. This means reading some articles from the latest issue of Hesperia. I was particularly intrigued by Nikos Magouliotis article “The Printed Page and the Painted Column: An Architectural Microhistory of a Church in Ottoman Thessaly.” The article considers a 19th-century crossed-domed basilica in the village of Palamas on the Thessalian plain. The church itself, while attractive, is hardly remarkable except perhaps for its dome and rather impressive size. Magouliotis article doesn’t so much focus on the architecture, although he notes that the construction of a church of this size in the Late Ottoman period demonstrates the tolerance of Christianity under Ali Pasha’s reign in Central Greece. Magouliotis, however, studies 19th century decoration of the church with particular attention to the painting on the south wall of the nave and the decoration of the columns. The south wall depicts a series…