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Theological Works of John VI Kantakouzenos
Constantinople,
(?1370 and) 1375
Bibliothèque
Nationale de France, Paris (Ms. grec 1242)
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…the
emperor entered the holy building, the temple of Divine Wisdom,
in order that he might hand over the cathedra to the prelate.
And finally there assembled with the emperor all the notables
of the archons and the entire multitude. Then the emperor, taking
the arm of the patriarch, said, "Take your throne now,
O lord, and enjoy it, that of which you were so long deprived."
George Acropolites (1217–1282), Historia
• From its founding in 330 A.D., Constantinople,
the great city located where the Bosporus joins Europe and Asia,
had been the capital of the basileia ton Rhomaion,
the empire of the Romans. When the city fell in 1204 to the
Fourth Crusade, nearly nine hundred years of artistic and cultural
traditions were abruptly terminated. The long-established power
and patronage of the imperial center was dispersed to regional
outposts, including Nicaea, Trebizond, Thessaloniki, Epiros,
and Mistra.
When the empire’s traditional authority and its church
were restored to power fifty-seven years later in 1261, an artistic
and cultural flowering occurred that would last for more than
a century after the final fall of the empire to the Ottoman
Turks in 1453. In 1557 the German scholar Hieronymus Wolf created
the term Byzantium to identify the conquered state, the name
by which it is known today. Byzantium is a variant on Byzantion,
the name of the ancient Greek town near whose site Constantinople
had been founded. The name recognizes the importance of the
Empire’s Greek heritage, including its language and literature.
Themes in Late Byzantine Art
1. Introduction | 2. Peoples of the Byzantine
Sphere | 3. Visual Expressions
of the Faith | 4. The Byzantine
Sphere and the Islamic World | 5. The
Byzantine Sphere and the West
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