North Africa Under Byzantium and Early Islam

North Africa Under Byzantium and Early Islam PDF Author: Susan T. Stevens
Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection
ISBN: 9780884024088
Category : Africa, North
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Essays in North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam include the legacy of Vandal rule in Africa, art and architectural history, archaeology, economics, theology, Berbers, and the Islamic conquest. They examine the ways in which the imperial legacy was re-interpreted, re-imagined, and put to new uses in Byzantine and early Islamic Africa.

Africa and Byzantium

Africa and Byzantium PDF Author: Andrea Myers Achi
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588397718
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description
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.

Muslim Expansion and Byzantine Collapse in North Africa

Muslim Expansion and Byzantine Collapse in North Africa PDF Author: Walter E. Kaegi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521196779
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Book Description
This book investigates the failure of the Byzantine Empire to develop successful resistance to the Muslim conquest of North Africa.

Byzantium and Islam

Byzantium and Islam PDF Author: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588394573
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
This magnificent volume explores the epochal transformations and unexpected continuities in the Byzantine Empire from the 7th to the 9th century. At the beginning of the 7th century, the Empire's southern provinces, the vibrant, diverse areas of North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, were at the crossroads of exchanges reaching from Spain to China. These regions experienced historic upheavals when their Christian and Jewish communities encountered the emerging Islamic world, and by the 9th century, an unprecedented cross- fertilization of cultures had taken place. This extraordinary age is brought vividly to life in insightful contributions by leading international scholars, accompanied by sumptuous illustrations of the period's most notable arts and artifacts. Resplendent images of authority, religion, and trade—embodied in precious metals, brilliant textiles, fine ivories, elaborate mosaics, manuscripts, and icons, many of them never before published— highlight the dynamic dialogue between the rich array of Byzantine styles and the newly forming Islamic aesthetic. With its masterful exploration of two centuries that would shape the emerging medieval world, this illuminating publication provides a unique interpretation of a period that still resonates today.

The Glory of Byzantium

The Glory of Byzantium PDF Author: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 0870997777
Category : Art, Byzantine
Languages : en
Pages : 604

Book Description
Serves as both visual and textual record of the exhibition of the same name, surveying the art of the Middle Byzantine period from the restoration of the use of icons by the Orthodox Church in 843 to the occupation of Constantinople by the Crusader forces from the West from 1204 to 1261. Conceived as a sequel to the 1976 exhibition "Age of Spirituality," which focused on the first centuries of Byzantium. Preceding the catalogue, 17 essays treat the historical context, religious sphere, and secular courtly realm of the empire, and the interactions between Byzantium and other medieval cultures. Abundantly illustrated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Byzantium

Byzantium PDF Author: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588391132
Category : Art, Byzantine
Languages : en
Pages : 682

Book Description
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.

A Black Byzantium

A Black Byzantium PDF Author: Siegfried Frederick Nadel
Publisher: Hassell Street Press
ISBN: 9781014133441
Category : Nupe (African people)
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Byzantium, Faith, and Power (1261-1557)

Byzantium, Faith, and Power (1261-1557) PDF Author: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 030011141X
Category : Art, Byzantine
Languages : en
Pages : 13

Book Description
This volume publishes twelve papers that were delivered at an academic symposium held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on April 16-18, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition, "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557)" (held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from March 23 to July 5, 2004).

The Byzantine Republic

The Byzantine Republic PDF Author: Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674967402
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Book Description
Although Byzantium is known to history as the Eastern Roman Empire, scholars have long claimed that this Greek Christian theocracy bore little resemblance to Rome. Here, in a revolutionary model of Byzantine politics and society, Anthony Kaldellis reconnects Byzantium to its Roman roots, arguing that from the fifth to the twelfth centuries CE the Eastern Roman Empire was essentially a republic, with power exercised on behalf of the people and sometimes by them too. The Byzantine Republic recovers for the historical record a less autocratic, more populist Byzantium whose Greek-speaking citizens considered themselves as fully Roman as their Latin-speaking “ancestors.” Kaldellis shows that the idea of Byzantium as a rigid imperial theocracy is a misleading construct of Western historians since the Enlightenment. With court proclamations often draped in Christian rhetoric, the notion of divine kingship emerged as a way to disguise the inherent vulnerability of each regime. The legitimacy of the emperors was not predicated on an absolute right to the throne but on the popularity of individual emperors, whose grip on power was tenuous despite the stability of the imperial institution itself. Kaldellis examines the overlooked Byzantine concept of the polity, along with the complex relationship of emperors to the law and the ways they bolstered their popular acceptance and avoided challenges. The rebellions that periodically rocked the empire were not aberrations, he shows, but an essential part of the functioning of the republican monarchy.

The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary

The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary PDF Author: John Lowden
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588393437
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 146

Book Description
Until 2008 the Jaharis Lectionary was a hidden treasure: an illuminated Byzantine manuscript that was almost entirely unknown, even to scholars. Superbly preserved, it is arguably the most important Byzantine work to come to the Metropolitan Museum's renowned collection since the 1917 gifts of J. Pierpont Morgan. It represents the apogee of Constantinopolitan craftsmanship around the year 1100.In this important study, John Lowden, a leading expert on Byzantine manuscripts, discusses his discoveries about this extraordinary manuscript within the broader context of Byzantine book illumination. He traces the book's history from its acquisition to its production in Constantinople. By detailed analysis and comparison, the author shows how the manuscript was made for use in the patriarchal church of Hagia Sophia.