“Paliachora (Egina), el Sinaí y Catalunya a finales del siglo XIV: hibridación artística, política y peregrinación en el Mediterráneo Oriental”, in Imagens e Liturgia na Idade Média, 5, C. Varela Fernandes (ed.), Secretariado Nacional dos Bens Culturais da Igreja 5, Lisboa, 2016, pp. 9-56.

This essay is focused on the analysis of the Catalan artistic patronage in the Eastern Mediterranean during the 14th century. The expansion of the Kingdom of Aragon in Greece –Duchess of Athens and Neopatras- and the developing of its commercial trade in Levant were accompanied by an extraordinary interest of the House of Barcelona in becoming the protectors of the pilgrimage to the Holy Sites and appropriating of prestigious relics (Saint George) and symbolic monuments (Acropolis of Athens). The architecture (Hagios Giorgios Katholikos, Hagios Ioannis Theologos), painting (Hagios Nikolaos Mavrika) and urban plan of the city of Paliochora (Aigina) are an outstanding example of the cultural fusion between Greek and Latin population under the Catalan rule of the family of the count Alfons Frederic. This particular context allows us a better understanding of other Catalan artistic commissions in the Eastern Mediterranean as the celebrated panel of Saint Catherine offered in 1387 by the Catalan consul in Damascus to the St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai.