This course examines the art and architecture of the Byzantine Empire from its beginnings in the sixth century until its end in 1453. The story of Byzantium begins with emperor Justinian's attempt to revive the glory of ancient Rome in Constantinople. This was short-lived, as ethnic and political upheavals in the following centuries set the eastern empire on a path of decline into the status of a medieval principality. Austere saints in dim candlelit interiors replaced the festive images of salvation that had adorned the walls of Justinian's dazzling bright churches. Despite this inclination toward mysticism, links with Antiquity were not severed, and a profoundly classical humanism came to permeate even the strictest and most transcendental of Byzantine mosaics, ivory plaques, illuminated manuscripts, or icons. It is no accident, therefore, that even under the Paleologue dynasty, there should have been a true classical revival which anticipated the Italian Renaissance.
