Un cycle hagiographique peu étudié de la peinture extérieure moldave: La vie de saint Pacôme le Grand
A hagiographic cycle of Moldovan exterior painting: The life of Saint Pachomius the Great

Summary/Abstract: The present study is focused on a less studied hagiographic cycle of Moldavian exterior painting: The Life of St Pachomius the Great. This cycle is rare in Christian painting and it should not be confused with the frequent images of St Pachomius alone or of the Apparition of the Angel to St Pachomius. Thus, in the sixteenth century in Moldavia, the cycle of the life of St Pachomius was preserved only in the exterior paintings of the monasteries of Humor and Suceviţa. Research has shown that the last scene in the life of St Pachomius of Suceviţa was inspired by a similar scene painted about half a century earlier, in 1547, on the northern wall of St George’s Church in the Monastery of Voroneţ. It is true that in Voroneţ this scene illustrates (incorrectly) a sequence of the life of St Anthony, whose hagiography, as evidenced by literary sources, does not include the odd episode with the lifting of the oak leaf.

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