| 1735, April – December, Bellapais |
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| Хочу всё знать - Barskiy's Trail: Cyprus |
The monastery of peace and bitter lemonsFrom the Monastery of Panagia Apsinthiotissa, Barsky walked on to the abbey at Bellapais. He had been sent there by monks from the Apsinthiotissa monastery, who had recommended the place as worthy of visiting. Barsky paid tribute to the beautiful ruin but was unable to draw it – for him it represented too much of a challenge. This famous Gothic monastery was already an unrestorable ruin, though a very beautiful one. Founded in the late 12th century by Augustinian monks who had arrived from the Holy Land, the abbey was transferred to the Premonstratensian Order in 1205. The church dates back to the early 13th century, while the courtyard, pavilions and refectory were built in the 14th century. The abbey flourished under the French kings of the Lusignan dynasty, when it possessed fabulous wealth and one piece of the True Cross of the Lord. Later it fell into decline under the Genoese and then the Venetians. By the time the Ottoman Turks plundered Bellapais, it was surprising that there was still something left to loot. Eventually the complex was handed over to the Orthodox Church, which only had enough funds to hold services in the church. These continued until 1974. The remaining buildings were taken apart by local villagers for their own needs, and it was only in 1912 with the establishment of the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus that the abbey began to be studied and restored. Until Barsky’s visit, Bellapais had been visited mainly by Western European pilgrims and travellers, including the Dutchman Cornelis de Bruyn. He travelled around Asia Minor and the Holy Land, and then undertook a voyage to Persia and Russia, where he became personally acquainted with Tsar Peter I (the Great). De Bruyn left behind some remarkable accounts of his travels, complete with superb hand-sketched illustrations. He was capable of producing accomplished drawings of Bellapais Abbey because, unlike Barsky, he was a professional artist. The Dutchman chose a view from afar, without Gothic latticework details, so that the dilapidated abbey would appear as an architectural ensemble. De Bruyn calls it the “Klooster de la Paays”, and writes that it was founded by the Templars. Either Barsky was not told of the Templars by the locals, who judged – fairly – that they would be of more interest to visitors from Western Europe, or he simply forgot this piece of information.
The first professional researcher of the architecture of Bellapais was the French art scholar and architectural historian Camille Enlart. He devoted an entire chapter of his book Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus (1899) to the abbey, furnishing it with excellent illustrative material, including a plan of the monastery and its buildings, as well as a series of astonishingly accurate and detailed architectural drawings (1).
Most English speakers know of this place from the novel Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell, brother of the famous naturalist Gerald. Shortly before Cyprus gained its independence from British colonial rule, the writer bought a house near the abbey. It is still there, and periodically goes up for sale.
After speaking with the local inhabitants, Barsky decided that the half-ruined architectural ensemble was a royal residence. He writes that the local population was using the church at Bellapais as a house of worship for lack of another, but the property itself belonged to an impoverished aristocrat, who was far from glad to be in possession of a ruin that could realistically neither be restored nor demolished. This may well have been the cause of the nobleman’s refusal to show the traveller any hospitality. Thus dismissed, Barsky sets off for Lambousa. His path takes him in the direction of Kyrenia, but he does not enter the town, declaring rather categorically that there is nothing to do or see there (he is wrong). Barsky notes that Christians lived between Kyrenia and Bellapais, and not badly at that, and occupied themselves by breeding silkworms. Here he finds refuge.
Then I stayed there the whole day long, walking around and contemplating these wonderful buildings, and marvelled at the skilful artistry of the artisans, and thought to draw its exact image, yet I did not take the trouble, as I saw in many places parts ruined and fallen, and cast into dereliction, and overgrown with grass and trees, with neither the hope nor the vigour which could renew them, care for them, because in the constant desolation of the island they are left to neglect. This place is named Telabais, from the Italian word bella pais (4); that is, a beautiful place, for the monastery stands in a very fine location; around are high mountains, with thick forest and adorned by trees, and with springs of water, and with planted cypresses; from the eastern and northern sides – an elegant view of the sea. Not far from here, roughly an hour on foot, on the sea coast sits a small town, with a fortress, named Kyrenia there is an episcopal see, because on the whole island of Cyprus there are three episcopal sees: Paphos, Crete [perhaps Barsky meant the see of Kition, in Larnaca] and Kyrenia, and the fourth of course – the archiepiscopal one in the capital city of Lefkosia; and during the period of Christian rule there were sixteen thrones.
These marvellous buildings were royal chambers, as I justly learnt, in a silent and secluded place, where the buildings are tall and wonderful and refined, made of smoothly hewn quadrangular stones, where there is a quadrilateral courtyard [in this case, a typical Gothic cloister], spacious, around it with great and accomplished craftsmanship are set vestibules; in these are some interwoven patterns of skilful artistry, like carvings, they seem to be carved not from stone, but from wood; they bear up in some hidden way, and look as if they are suspended [here Barsky is speaking of arch ribs and Gothic patterned arches].
There is a wash trough of pure white marble (5), beautiful, with some naturalistic faces, it stands not in the centre of the courtyard, but in one vestibule, next to it is a royal chamber, still intact, with high and beautiful walls, and also there a royal pulpit, beautifully and cleverly done, on the seaward side, in the wall, and it seems to be hanging in the air [he is writing here about the refectory].
In this courtyard there are found numerous beautiful galleries [these are found in the arcade around the inner yard of the cloister] of wonderful construction, of around ten sazhens in height, although some have collapsed in the upper part, and some to the floor. Therewithal [with this building] is also found a very beautiful church, in it the local residents even now make prayer every day, because there is no other church in the settlement, apart from this one, and, although previously there was no settlement there, and the beautiful church stood empty for long years, it was because of it that the settlement appeared.
These chambers are kept by a certain Christian, poor, though from a noble family and a illustrious bloodline. As I heard, he inherited it from his forebears, with the signing of royal certificates, and no one can strip him of them, nobody wants to buy it, because it is not simply expensive, but demands even more money for upkeep, than the price itself. For this reason, the buildings are in a state of neglect, to the point of complete dereliction. I, having seen, that he, living in this settlement, is not well-disposed towards travellers, and, when the sun tilted to the west, rose and took the way leading to Kyrenia, of which I have earlier made mention, that there is an episcopal see. However, the bishop does not sit there, due to its sparse population and ill-natured Hagarenes [Muslims]. But there are there, between Telabais and Kyrenia, many Christian gardens, in them they grow silkworms and make silk, and there is a large garden, with beautiful houses, belonging to a certain famed man, and by physical kinship the son-in-law of the then former bishop. I came there by chance and took lodgings with this man on my way, and he received me hospitably and gave me alms, Lord save him. The next morning I rose, from there I went out early on my way and passed the little town of Kyrenia, without going in, because, as I had heard, there was nothing worth my sight, and I walked for four hours across and even and beautiful field, before high mountains, spreading along the sea coast… Stranstvovaniya Vasiliya Grigorovicha-Barskogo po svyatym mestam Vostoka c 1723 po 1747 / Edited by N. Barsukov. Part 2. (St. Petersburg, 1886), 248-251. Location and route
Location: 35.306700 33.352900 − car park at Bellapais
Notes(1) 1st edition: Enlart, C., L’Art Gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre (2 vols.) (Paris: E. Leroux, 1899). Enlart, C. / Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, translated by D. Hunt, (London: Trigraph, 1987), 174–200.
Literature, linksZykova N. V., Palomnichestvo na Kipr pravoslavny (po stopam Vasiliya Grigorovicha-Barskogo), (Larnaca, Izdatelstvo Russkogo pravoslavnogo obrazovatelnogo tsentra, 2013), 24–25. Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus, Metelino, Stanchio, etc., mitsgaders de voornaamste steden van Aegypten, Syrien en Palestina (Delft: Henrik van Krooneveld, 1698), 369-371, ill. 198. Enlart, C. L’Art Gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre (2 vols.) (Paris: E. Leroux, 1899). Enlart, C. Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, translated by D. Hunt. – London: Trigraph, 1987 Description of the site on Wikipedia
© Yuliya Buzykina
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When I went out from there, I crossed very high mountains; hard, dry and stony, cruel and having difficult paths, and after rounding a high mountain named Achrendrusa, I went down, not far from the sea coast, around several stadia (2), and that hieromonk [from the monastery of Apsinthiotissa] led me to one settlement, in which is found one dilapidated and famous and much celebrated building, named Telabais (3), and there he left me, and went back to his own monastery.
