Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgique)
The Cynocephali or Dog Heads are not as common in pre-Romanesque art as other human-animal hybrids coming from Late Antique culture. Nonetheless, they have a significant role there and above all particularly in that they befit generally from a powerful push to humanize them. However disconcerting humans may find the idea of Cynocephali, especially when they appear in ecclesiastical sculpture and painting, their presence there has rarely been questioned in the course of centuries. So much the odder, then, that a saint —Christopher in this case— whose cult is already well attested to in the fifth century CE, could have belonged to their tribe before his conversion conferred full humanity on him. Nonetheless, their role there is not insignificant, especially in that they benefit from a rather high degree of humanization.
The present paper, therefore, will consider this puzzling matter from two perspectives. First we will examine the Cynocephali with reference to the most significant Late Antique and medieval texts about them before exploring their Romanesque representations. Second, we will consider Saint Christopher from the points of view of his iconography and his hagiographic “cult,” tracing these briefly between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. We will thus have noted that just as his monstrous origins are clearly reflected in the most ancient works, so this is still often the case in later Byzantine art, quite unlike what occurs in the Western artistic tradition. We will conclude by asking how we can explain this differing treatment between East and West..