Saints and Spectacle explains, for the first time, how the spectacurlar gold ground mosaics of the Middle Byzantine period were likely conceived. Through a recreation of the circumstances of this time, Saints and Spectacle brings the Middle Byzantine church to life as the witness to a compelling and fascinating drama.
Women played key roles in Byzantine society: some ruled or co-ruled the empire, and others commissioned art and buildings, went on pilgrimages, and wrote. This engrossing book draws on evidence ranging from pictorial mosaics and inscriptions on the walls of churches to women’s poetry and histories, examining for the first time the lives, occupations, beliefs, and social roles of Byzantine women. In each chapter Carolyn L. Connor introduces us to a single woman—from the elite to the ordinary—and uses her as a springboard to discuss Byzantine society. Frequently quoting from contemporary accounts, Connor reveals what these women thought of themselves and their lives and how they remembered the lives of women who had lived earlier. Informative, sympathetic, and engagingly written, this book is a window into Byzantine culture and women’s history that has never before been opened.
The frescoes of the newly restored crypt at the Byzantine monastery of Hosios Loukas in Greece represent one of the best preserved ensembles of monumental decoration to survive from the Middle Ages. In this first full photo-documentation of the crypt of Saint Luke of Steiris, Carolyn Connor shows how the frescoes reflect the funerary and commemorative functions of the architecture they embellish, and how they suggest a new way of looking at this part of the medieval Byzantine empire. Offering clues to the sources of wealth and the motives of patrons who made possible such a lavish foundation, these frescoes also offer insight into Byzantine beliefs about miracles and healing cults. Connor begins by examining the complex relationships among the frescoes: together the forty portraits of saints, eight Christological scenes, and other depictions proclaim a message of salvation and confirm that this crypt was a place of miracles. Through a study of the religious, cultural, social, and political background of the monastery, Connor integrates the program of the frescoes with its historical context and proposes a new dating for the architecture--changed from the eleventh century to the late tenth century.
Saints and Spectacle explains, for the first time, how the spectacurlar gold ground mosaics of the Middle Byzantine period were likely conceived. Through a recreation of the circumstances of this time, Saints and Spectacle brings the Middle Byzantine church to life as the witness to a compelling and fascinating drama.
Intrigued by barely visible traces of paint or stain, Connor subjected such ivory objects as boxes, plaques, and book covers to scientific analysis. Under the microscope, she saw that their surfaces were once ablaze with color, while tests identified the actual pigments. Her findings, presented here, demonstrate that the ivories were colored and that the paint or stain - which does not adhere well to the surface of ivory - either wore off or was cleaned away. She draws on the work of archaeologists, classicists, historians, and art historians to show that this color was almost certainly original and not, as many scholars have assumed, a medieval or later addition. The author also locates Byzantine ivories within a long tradition of colored ivory going back, for example, to a painted chest found in the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen.
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