Manual of Christian Iconography

Athonite painter Panselinos flourished in the first and second half of the 16th century 1. Therefore, there are no longer grounds for anyone to doubt this 2; nor should it be doubted anymore that there was one and only one Panselinos, as it has been proven that Simonides invented and disseminated the many Panselinos figures to corrupt the genuine Athonite tradition regarding the one and only known Panselinos. This is otherwise sufficiently attested by ancient monuments: first, the anonymous Hermeneia of the Art of Painting composed after the year 1566 3; then the prologue of Dionysius 4, the Russian traveler Basil Barsky (1744) 5, and Savvas and Makarios Trigonis (1780, 1792), the reliable sacristans of the Great Lavra. They testify in common that the pupil of Panselinos on Athos was the painter Theophanes 6. The time of this Theophanes

1) Pisma o preslovutom zhivopistse Panseline etc., p. 47 ff. Cf. Trudy Kiev. Dukh. Akademii, vol. 4, p. 270 ff. Bayet, Notes sur le peintre byzantin Panselinos. Paris 1884, p. 7. Dionysius’s painting workshop in his own cell exists even now in Karyes of Athos; this was founded in 1701, and in 1861 it was held by the hieromonk Meletios, who, knowing Simonides personally and the forgeries surrounding Dionysius from the confession of Simonides himself, revealed the reasons for them to Porphyrius Uspensky, adding that Simonides hoped to liquidate—for financial gain—the Hermeneia he had published by using the year 1458 given to Dionysius (see Pisma etc., pp. 19–14). Porphyrius Uspensky described the inscriptions and icons in the small church of Dionysius’s former cell (named after the Holy Forerunner), having verified on the spot the damages Simonides deliberately caused to the dates of the inscriptions. See Kniga bytiia moego The Book of My Being, vol. 7, pp. 375–381.
2) The time and artistic value of Panselinos are dealt with at length by L. Nikolsky, Istoricheskiy ocherk afonskoy stennoy zhivopisi Historical sketch of Athonite wall painting in the Ikonopisny sbornik Iconographic Collection. Issue I. St. Petersburg 1907, pp. 22–37. According to Nikolsky, too, Panselinos is a painter of the 16th century.
3) See here pp. 237, 239, 243, 244, 245. Porphyry, Erminiia ili nastavlenie v zhivopisnom iskusstve Hermeneia or instruction in the art of painting, pp. 1, 13, 28. Cf. Trudy Kiev. Dukh. Akademii 1867, vol. 3, pp. 139, 142, 149, 151.
4) See here pp. 3, 6, 20.
5) Stranstvovaniia Vasiliia Grigorovicha-Barskago po Sviatym Mestam Vostoka s 1723 po 1747 g. Travels of Basil Grigorovich-Barsky to the Holy Places of the East from 1723 to 1747. Constantinople 1885–1887, vol. 3, 171, 238, 300.
6) Proskynitarion of the royal and venerable monastery of the Great Holy Lavra of Saint Athanasius on Athos, composed by the most venerable elder and sacristan of the same monastery, Lord Savvas, and now published in print through the care, diligence, and expense of the most venerable nephew of his, prohegoumenos Cyril. Venice 1780, p. 30.—Proskynitarion of the royal and venerable monastery of the Great Holy Lavra...