The enthusiastic use of spolia continued in Turkey,
not only amongst the Turks, but also amongst Europeans. The most important use
of spolia for structure and decoration is of the large quantities of the
building blocks and reliefs of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World, by the Knights of Rhodes, although this reuse is
too late fully to be considered here[1].
Nevertheless, it is important because it offers the first semi-documented and
datable reuse of Hellenistic relief sculpture by the Renaissance, and near to
the source site as well. Hence it is worth mentioning here as a measure against
which we may set earlier instances of reuse, such as on the Gate of
Persecutions at Seljuk.
The Mausoleum was almost certainly largely intact and
hence visible throughout much of the Middle Ages; and reuse by the Hospitallers
is not in doubt – although it is likely that at first the original constructors
of the castle, in 1404, did not know it was the Mausoleum, or even that there
were spolia on site, since we are told that squared stones (a usual
shorthand for spolia blocks) were taken there in ships for the construction[2]
when Bodrum (Halicarnassus) was captured. The Castle of St. Peter was built on
a new site, some distance away, but its extension and repair meant hunting
locally for spolia. The reuse and aesthetic display of Mausoleum reliefs
(arguably not before 1494[3]),
together with large quantities of building blocks, indicate that the Knights
were interested in and knowledgeable about Antiquity and the prestige the
display of its remains could offer to theirt endeavours. We may wish to believe
that they probably knew precisely what it was that they were reusing, although
there is no evidence for this beyond the tangential account of Michelozzi and
Bonsignori, who visited Turkey in 1497/8, and who tended to go around
attempting to square what they saw with what the ancient authors wrote. At
Halicarnassus, following the ancient authors, they naturally expected to see
the famous Mausoleum, where were to be seen the great ruin of the Mausoleum
[...] and in this same place there is now the Castle of Saint Peter.[4]
Although there is some vagueness in the phraseology, it is possible that what
they actually saw was the Mausoleum, or perhaps what they identified as the
Mausoleum, namely the castle of S. Peter (as did Beaufort in 1818). For how
would they have known what such a structure looked like?
But could the superstructure of the Mausoleum still
have been visible in the 15th century? If we accept the well-known
account of the Commandant de la Tourette (who was in charge of the 1522 repairs
to the Castle), the tomb chamber was actually discovered leading from a room
containing much marble decoration and bas-reliefs. It went the way of the rest:
having at first admired these works, and entertained their fancy with the
singularity of the sculpture, they pulled it to pieces, and broke up the whole
of it. The account makes it clear that the sappers were digging downwards
for stone and not therefore dismantling any remaining superstructure; indeed,
the characteristic grey- green stone of the foundation blocks also appears in
the 1404 building (in all, to a calculated 6,000 cubic metres) - which surely
means that parts (at least) of the superstructure had by then disappeared. The
likelihood is therefore that, possibly after being severely damaged by
earthquake, the Mausoleum was dismantled in two stages (1404, and again in
1523) by the Knights – symmetry, as it were, for the nearby Colossus of Rhodes,
another of the Seven Wonders, also fallen in an earthquake, was carted off by
the Arabs in the seventh century, apparently together with sculpta saxa.[5]
However, because much of the surviving sculptural decoration from the Mausoleum
also appeared in the castle walls, and placed so as to be as decorative as
possible [6],
it is possible to argue that the tomb stood almost complete before the first
castle was begun: for the reliefs (in excellent condition, and therefore
probably still in place) would have to be stripped before the builders could
get at the structural blocks.
The Knights certainly appreciated the sculptured
relief pieces of the tomb, for some of them were placed prominently in the
walls of their castle - just as discovered antiquities were exhibited on city
walls back home in Europe. They probably took others abroad with them. Thus the
fragment no. 1023 now in the British Museum was found in a Turkish house on
Rhodes, only a few hours’ sailing away, and possibly taken there before the
Turkish conquest of 1522; It was probably cut for easy transport, carefully
leaving intact the figure of an Amazon which it displays. Another piece,
fragment 1022, reached Genoa, perhaps in the same manner. Sufficient sculptures
remained visible later in the century to prompt the enterprising project of
Fra’ Sabba da Castiglione to take the whole tomb to Italy, to beautify Mantua;
unfortunately, the Turks got in the way. Sabba appears to have acted as the
Cyriacus of his generation, importing two little heads of Amazons into
Italy, and sending to Isabella d’Este sculptures from Kos, Naxos and Delos[7].
But we should beware of suggesting that the Knights
took over the Mausoleum sculpture wholesale, when all they reused was the
reliefs. For the sculptural load of the structure was enormous, and the great
majority of it has disappeared. Waywell[8]
estimates 5 statues in the chariot group, 56 or 72 lions at the base of the
roof, 36 portrait statues between columns, 56 colossal statues in groups on
upper step of podium, 72 heroic portraits on middle step of podium, and 88
life-size groups at the base - plus the reliefs. Their main interest was in the
greenish squared blocks of the Mausoleum as building materials, few of which now
remain on the Mausoleum site, but they also used some lions, and a Centaur
frieze slab. Whilst acknowledging that The Amazon frieze slabs, which were
on the outside as well as in the interior of the castle, must have created a
unique and impressive gallery of classical sculptures , Luttrell sees no iconographical
significance in their reuse,[9]
although surely we may at least accept their subject-matter as appropriate for
a fortress.
But whatever the appearance of the Mausoleum in the
Middle Ages, it seems certain is that even the very tradition of its site
disappeared when the Knights evacuated the area. Why was this? If there is one
litany of the antique well known to the Renaissance, it is the Seven Wonders of
the World. So can we attribute the slow re-learning about the Mausoleum to the
exclusory attitude of the Turks? This is in fact likely, once we accept that
people did indeed believe (wrongly) that the Castle was the site of the
Mausoleum - and the Castle being a military installation, was very difficult of
access for non-Turks even to the end of the 18th century. Even
Beaufort, who is very perceptive about antiquities, surmises that at Bodrum the
Mausoleum occupied the land where the castle now stands but, like many others,
could only admire the reliefs outside. He believed Thevenot, in 1656, was the
last to get inside.[10]
[1] A. LUTTRELL, The Maussolleion at Halikarnassos, 2.II: The later history of the Maussolleion and its utilization in the Hospitaller castle at Bodrum, Aarhus 1986, pp. 115-222;
[2] Ibid., p. 150.
[3] B. ARBEL & A. LUTTRELL, Plundering ancient treasures at Bodrum (Halicarnassus): a commercial letter written on Cyprus, January 1507, in Mediterranean Historical Review, II.1 (June 1996), pp. 78-86;
[4] BORSOOK Travels, cit., p. 169, note 169;
[5] W. GODELEVAEUM, Aulae Turcicae Othomannicique Imperii, Descriptio, Basle 1564, pp. 126-7: aes abduxit, ex quo Colossus factus fuerat, deiectus, cum cauus esset, inter sculpta saxa collocatus era - but what were the sculpta saxa and were they carried off as spolia as well?
[6] cf. Luigi Mayer’s drawing of 1797, reproduced in S. LLOYD, Ancient Turkey. A traveller’s history of Anatolia, London 1989, p. 170;
[7] G. GUALANDI, Sculture di Rodi, in Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene, 54 (1977), pp. 7-259: see cat. 3; p. 42, n. 2; and p. 19, & n. 3;
[8] G.B. WAYWELL, The free-standing sculptures of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in the British Museum: a catalogue, London 1978, p. 57;
[9] J. JEPPESEN & A. LUTTRELL, The Maussolleion at Halikarnassus (Reports of the Danish Archeological Expedition to Bodrum), II, the written sources and their archaeological background, Aarhus 1985, pp. 167-8;
[10] BEAUFORT, Karamania, cit., pp. 97-8;