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  3. Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline
  • Cited by 22
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      05 February 2014
      20 February 2014
      ISBN:
      9781139519588
      9781107033306
      9781316631980
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519588
      Dimensions:
      (247 x 174 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.99kg, 412 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (244 x 170 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.73kg, 424 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, History, European Studies
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    Subjects:
    Area Studies, European History 1000-1450, History, European Studies
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    Book description

    The Late Byzantine period (1261–1453) is marked by a paradoxical discrepancy between economic weakness and cultural strength. The apparent enigma can be resolved by recognizing that later Byzantine diplomatic strategies, despite or because of diminishing political advantage, relied on an increasingly desirable cultural and artistic heritage. This book reassesses the role of the visual arts in this era by examining the imperial image and the gift as reconceived in the final two centuries of the Byzantine Empire. In particular it traces a series of luxury objects created specifically for diplomatic exchange with such courts as Genoa, Paris and Moscow alongside key examples of imperial imagery and ritual. By questioning how political decline refigured the visual culture of empire, Cecily J. Hilsdale offers a more nuanced and dynamic account of medieval cultural exchange that considers the temporal dimensions of power and the changing fates of empires.

    Reviews

    'Cecily J. Hilsdale's important volume … is a major contribution to the field. She asks essential questions and provides a rich and deep context for consideration of later Byzantine art … Her discussion of objects leads to questions not otherwise asked and thus to new insights about the function of images. Almost every scholar interested in this period of Mediterranean history will come away with something for his or her own work.'

    Source: The Medieval Review

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    Contents

    Contents
    • Introduction: the imperial image as gift
      pp 1-26
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