Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of DeclineThe Late Byzantine period (1261-1453) is marked by a paradoxical discrepancy between economic weakness and cultural strength. The apparent enigma can be resolved by recognizing that later Byzantine diplomatic strategies, despite or because of diminishing political advantage, relied on an increasingly desirable cultural and artistic heritage. This book reassesses the role of the visual arts in this era by examining the imperial image and the gift as reconceived in the final two centuries of the Byzantine Empire. In particular it traces a series of luxury objects created specifically for diplomatic exchange with such courts as Genoa, Paris and Moscow alongside key examples of imperial imagery and ritual. By questioning how political decline refigured the visual culture of empire, Cecily J. Hilsdale offers a more nuanced and dynamic account of medieval cultural exchange that considers the temporal dimensions of power and the changing fates of empires. |
Contents
the imperial image as gift | 1 |
Historicizing imperial giving 13 | 13 |
The gift and hindsight 20 | 20 |
the emperor and the city | 27 |
2 | 83 |
3 | 149 |
gift in an age of decline | 199 |
4 | 214 |
5 | 267 |
the ends of empire 333 | 333 |
| 344 | |
| 388 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Andronikos Angelov archangel authority bronze monument Byzantine Art Byzantine emperor Byzantine Empire Byzantine imperial Byzantine restoration Byzantium century ceremonial Chapter Christ chrysobull Chrysoloras Church city’s coin Constantine contemporary context coronation crown cultural depicted Dionysian Dionysios diplomatic discussed divine DOC V/2 Dumbarton Oaks dynastic early Palaiologan ecclesiastical Figure Genoa Genoese gesture gift-giving gold coinage Gold hyperpyron Greek Grierson Hagia Sophia hierarchy Holobolos hyperpyra hyperpyron icon iconography II’s imagery imperial city Imperial Ideology imperial image inscription John V Palaiologos John VII Justinian later Byzantine period Latin Lawrence letter liturgical Louvre Macrides Majeska Manuel Manuel II Palaiologos manuscript marriage Metropolitan Photios Michael VIII Palaiologos monastery mosaic Moscow Nicaea Nymphaion obverse ofthe Ottoman Pachymeres Palaiologan Palaiologan period Pallio Paris patriarch peplos Photios political portrait proskynesis relics repr restoration of Constantinople ritual ruler Russian sacred saint sakkos scene silk in Genoa textile Treaty of Nymphaion typikon Venice vestment Virgin visual Woodfin