Join Dr. Andrea Myers Achi, Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of Byzantine Art in The Met’s Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, for a virtual tour of Africa & Byzantium

Join artists as they reflect on works in the exhibition _Africa and Byzantium_ and make connections to their own artistic practices.

Old Testament prohibitions against worshipping graven images (Exodus 20:4) provided one of the most important precedents for Byzantine Iconoclasm.

These papers on the Late Byzantine period were inspired by the major loan exhibition "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557)," which was held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from March 23 through July 5, 2004. They were first presented by a group of renowned international scholars who gathered at the Museum on April 16–18, 2004, for a symposium examining the resurgence of artistic, cultural, and religious life during the last centuries of Byzantium. For the broadest possible perspective, the speakers, who were drawn from various disciplines, considered not only art history but also those developments in such fields as economics, politics, literature, and urban life that profoundly affected the visual arts. For almost two centuries after 1261, the year in which Michael VIII Palaiologos recaptured Constantinople from its Latin occupiers, Byzantine creativity and learning spread farther than ever before, even though the political strength of the empire was on the wane. The texts collected here examine issues central to life in the capital, including artistic patronage and the changing physiognomy of the city, but they also describe the continued growth of Byzantine influence on the Christian and Muslim East and the Latin West. Essays on the Eastern lands include studies of trade, which during these years stretched eastward across Asia and northward through the Black Sea; of relations with powers in the Caucasus, Asia Minor, and Central Asia, as reflected in the life of the Georgian princess T'amar; and of scholarly exchanges between Byzantine and Arabic writers. Among the texts focusing on the West are one describing Byzantine elements in the decoration of the basilica of San Marco in Venice and another tracing the evolution of the cult of Saint Catherine of Alexandria from its beginnings in the monastery at Sinai to its enthusiastic adoption in Europe. Byzantine religious life in this "age of icons" (forty exceptional works from the Sinai monastery appeared in the exhibition) is the subject of insightful essays on the place of icons during the empire's long history and on Palaiologan iconography and liturgy. The sixth in the Metropolitan Museum's Symposia series, this volume sheds valuable new light on the world in which Late Byzantine art was created and viewed.

The emperor renamed this ancient port city Constantinople (“the city of Constantine”) in his own honor.

The Virgin’s peaceful falling asleep in death, combined with Christ’s tender embrace of her soul—represented in Byzantine art as a swaddled infant —rendered an ideal image, one in which the Virgin’s soul was conveyed to heaven immediately upon her death.

In A.D. 843, following the resolution of the Iconoclastic controversy, which had raged throughout the Byzantine Empire for more than a century, the use of icons—images—was triumphantly reinstated in the Orthodox Church. This momentous event inspired much of the art of the following four centuries, which comprises the second great era of Byzantine culture and provides the starting point of this volume. The Glory of Byzantium, and the exhibition that it accompanies, concludes with the demise of the empire's role as a world power, evidenced by the Latin occupation of Constantinople from 1204 to 1261. Conceived as the sequel to the landmark exhibition "Age of Spirituality," which was held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1976 and focused on the first centuries of Byzantium, "The Glory of Byzantium" explores four interrelated themes: the religious and secular culture of the Second Golden Age of the Byzantine Empire; the empire's interaction with its Christian neighbors and rivals; its relations with the Islamic East; and its contact with the Latin West. Bringing together the contributions of fifty-nine scholars and art historians, most of them working in the United States, the text explores the complex currents of Byzantine civilization in its myriad facets. More than 350 works of art assembled for the exhibition from 119 institutions in 24 countries are discussed and illustrated in the catalogue. Together they present a significant selection of the most beautiful and meaningful works that survive from the empire's Second Golden Age and from the countries that constituted its extended sphere of influence. Liturgical objects—including icons, mosaics, chalices, patens, and reliquaries—and secular objects—silks, ivories, ceramics, jewelry, and manuscripts—reflect the dynamic nature of the art of this era both within and outside the empire. The first half of the volume treats the historical context, the religious sphere, and the secular courtly realm of the empire; the second half focuses on the interactions between Byzantium and other medieval cultures, including Islam and the Latin West. The 17 essays are accompanied by detailed discussions of the works of art and by full-color photographs, as well as by views of architectural sites and comparative illustrations. Many of these illustrations were made specifically for this volume by Bruce White, photographer, on site in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Georgia, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation.

The fall of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople to the Latin West in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade abruptly interrupted nearly nine hundred years of artistic and cultural traditions. In 1261, however, the Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos triumphantly re-entered Constantinople and reclaimed the seat of the empire, initiating a resurgence of art and culture that would continue for nearly three hundred years, not only in the waning empire itself but also among rival Eastern Christian nations eager to assume its legacy. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), and the groundbreaking exhibition that it accompanies, explores the artistic and cultural flowering of the last centuries of the "Empire of the Romans" and its enduring heritage. Conceived as the third of a trio of exhibitions dedicated to a fuller understanding of the art of the Byzantine Empire, whose influence spanned more than a millennium, "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557)" follows the 1997 landmark presentation of "The Glory of Byzantium," which focused on the art and culture of the Middle Byzantine era—the Second Golden Age of the Byzantine Empire (843–1261). In the late 1970s, "The Age of Spirituality" explored the early centuries of Byzantium's history. The present concluding segment explores the exceptional artistic accomplishments of an era too often considered in terms of political decline. Magnificent works—from splendid frescoes, textiles, gilded metalwork, and mosaics to elaborately decorated manuscripts and liturgical objects—testify to the artistic and intellectual vigor of the Late and Post-Byzantine era. In addition, forty magnificent icons from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt, join others from leading international institutions in a splendid gathering of these powerful religious images. While the political strength of the empire weakened, the creativity and learning of Byzantium spread father than ever before. The exceptional works of secular and religious art produced by Late Byzantine artists were emulated and transformed by other Eastern Christian centers of power, among them Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Cilician Armenia. The Islamic world adapted motifs drawn from Byzantium's imperial past, as Christian minorities in the Muslin East continued Byzantine customs. From Italy to the Lowlands, Byzantium's artistic and intellectual practices deeply influenced the development of the Renaissance, while, in turn, Byzantium's own traditions reflected the empire's connections with the Latin West. Fine examples of these interrelationships are illustrated by important panel paintings, ceramics, and illuminated manuscripts, among other objects. In 1557 the "Empire of the Romans," as its citizens knew it, which had fallen to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, was renamed Byzantium by the German scholar Hieronymus Wolf. The cultural and historical interaction and mutual influence of these major cultures—the Latin West and the Christian and Islamic East—during this fascinating period are investigated in this publication by a renowned group of international scholars in seventeen major essays and catalogue discussions of more than 350 exhibited objects.

Medieval art history has long emphasized the glories of the Byzantine Empire, but less known are the profound artistic contributions of Nubia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and other powerful African kingdoms whose pivotal interactions with Byzantium had an indelible impact on the medieval Mediterranean world. Bringing together more than 170 masterworks in a range of media and techniques—from mosaic, sculpture, pottery, and metalwork to luxury objects, panel paintings, and religious manuscripts—Africa and Byzantium recounts Africa’s centrality in transcontinental networks of trade and cultural exchange. With incisive scholarship and new photography of works rarely or never before seen in public, this long-overdue publication sheds new light on the staggering artistic achievements of late antique Africa. It reconsiders northern and eastern Africa’s contributions to the development of the premodern world and offers a more complete history of the region as a vibrant, multiethnic society of diverse languages and faiths that played a crucial role in the artistic, economic, and cultural life of Byzantium and beyond.

As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basilea ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.

As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basileia ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.