Theocharides Ploutarchos, The monumental 17th-century internal façades in the wings of athonite monastic complexes
In the first half of the 17th century a change occurred in the preferences regarding the style of the internal (courtyard-facing) façades of the wings of Athonite monasteries.
The monuments we have at our disposal indicate the prevalence of multi-storeyed, arched doxata (galleries), with brick-built arches that bear rich brick decoration in the intermediate surfaces. During the previous century, if not earlier, it appears that the most common type of internal façade was that with · wooden doxata, which very often rested on a ground-floor arcade.
This change of preference, which appears to have been an Athos-wide phenomenon (despite the economic recession of the time), took place within the space of a few decades and also led to the 18th century superb examples mainly after 1760, when the monasteries' finances had already begun to recover.
In this paper we present the transition to the new kind of façades that took place during the late '30s and the '40s of the 17th century and we suggest possible reasons why this development took place at this particular time.
