780 



BYZANTINE SCHOOL OF ART. 



has left several learned theological writings. His 

 Brniariiim Historicum extends from the death of 

 the emperor Maurice to 770 (Venice, 1759). 5. 

 Joh. Scylitzes held several olhY ^ at Constantinople. 

 We have from him an abridgment of history, from 811 

 to the time of Isaac Comnenus (1057). Jt appeared 

 in a I .at in translation (Vi-niiv, 1570). Tlte same work 

 he continued to the time of Alexander Comnenus, 

 1081. The continuation is yet in manuscript 6. 

 Anna Comnena, daughter of the emperor Alexius I., 

 died about 1150. She wrote an .-He.iitis, or a work 

 on Uie history of her father, Alexius Comnenus, in 

 fifteen books, edited by Hoschel in Augsburg, 1610. 

 (A more complete edition, Paris, 1651, folio). 7. 

 George Acropolita, a statesman in Constantinople, 

 wrote an abridgment of the Byzantine history, from 

 the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, 1204, to 

 its recapture, 1260 (Paris, 1651). 8. George Pachy- 

 mer held higli offices in church and state in Constan 

 tinople. He wrote a Byzantine history, in thirteen 

 Books, from the Birth of Michael Palaeologus, 1158 

 to 1308 (Frankfort, 1568, folio). 9. John Cantacuze- 

 nus, the emperor, is the author of a Byzantine history, 

 in four books, from 132054 (Paris, 1645). 10. 

 George Codimis, intendant of the palace in Constanti- 

 nople. We have from him several works on the an- 

 tiquities of Constantinople. The most important of 

 them is On the Offices and Services appertaining to 

 the Court and the Church of Constantinople (Paris, 

 1648, folio). 11. Constantinus Porphyrogennetus, or 

 Porphyrogenneta, emperor, wrote the life of his 

 grandfather Basilius Macedo, edited by John Meur- 

 sins. We have also a work of his own government, 

 written for his son, and on the provinces of the East- 

 ern and Western Empire, besides other writings and 

 collections. The most important treats of the cere- 

 monies of the Byzantine court. It was edited by 

 Leich and Reiske (Leipsic, 1751 54, 2 vols.). 12. 

 After the capture of Constantinople, Ducas wrote a 

 Byzantine history, from 1 341 to the capture of Lesbos, 

 1462. 13. Anselm Banduri, a Benedictine monk, left 

 an extensive work on the antiquities of Constantino- 

 ple, in which several works of more ancient writers 

 are contained. 14. Peter Gilles. From him we have 

 three books on the Thracian Bosphorus, and four 

 books on the topography and antiquities of Constan- 

 tinople. 15. Zosimus wrote a Roman history, in six 

 books, from Augustus to Honorius. This work is of' 

 particular importance for the later epochs ; published 

 by Reitmeyer (Leipsic, 1784). 16. George Phranza 

 died, after the capture of Constantinople, in a monas- 

 tery of Corfu. We have from him a chronicle of the 

 Byzantine history, in four books, from 1401 77, pub- 

 lished by Alter (Vienna, 1796). A new and highly 

 improved edition of this important collection was com- 

 menced in 1828, by that distinguished scholar, Mr 

 Niebuhr, to be published by Weber, the well known 

 bookseller at Bonn, in Germany. 



BYZANTINE SCHOOL OF ART. After Constantine the 

 Great had made the ancient Byzantium the capital of 

 the Roman empire, and ornamented that city, which 

 was called after him, with all the treasures of Grecian 

 art, a new period commenced in the history of art. 

 From this time it became subservient to Christianity, 

 as the religion of the state. All the productions of 

 heathen artists, which formed suitable ornaments for 

 Christian cities and temples, were now employed in 

 the service of the invisible God, and art began, by 

 slow degrees, to rise from its degeneracy, under the 

 influences of Christianity. At the tune when Constan- 

 tine converted Byzantium into an imperial residence, 

 splendour and ornament had already supplanted the 

 simplicity of ancient taste. Asiatic luxury had be- 

 come predominant, and this laid more stress on rich- 

 ness of material and decoration than on purity of con- 



ception. Architecture, which adorned Lhefamm An- 

 gustettm, in Byzantium, with a fourfold colonnade, 

 and created splendid curia, imperial palaces, baths, 

 theatres, and porticoes, preserved, for a long time, the 

 grand forms of classic times, and deviated from then 

 slowly and gradually, at first in the Christian churches, 

 as a model for which Justinian built the church of St 

 Sophia, and decorated it with Oriental magnificence, 

 in 537. But, even in architecture, the costliness and 

 colour of the marble was soon considered as of more 

 importance than the proportion of the parts and the 

 distribution of the columns. There are, however, as 

 late as the ninth century, admirable wocks of Greek 

 architecture, particularly those of Theodosius the 

 Great and Justinian. This period was still less la 

 vourable to the simplicity of sculpture. The mytho- 

 logy of ancient Greece afforded sacred subjects to the 

 statuary. Gods appeared in the human form ; and the 

 human figure, in the Grecian model, was raised to the 

 classical ideal. On the introduction of the Christian 

 religion, sculpture was confined to the imitation of na- 

 ture ; afterwards to portraits, and to mere purposes of 

 ornament. ; for Christianity is averse to sensible repre- 

 sentations of the Divinity. Statues of emperors, of 

 great statesmen and generals, became the subjects ot 

 the sculptor, and seem, eventually, to have given rise 

 to the introduction of the worship of images in 

 the Christian churches, since the custom of erecting 

 monuments and statues to the emperors, and distin- 

 guished bishops, was extended to martyrs and saints, 

 and was afterwards followed by the superstitious wor- 

 ship of them. (See Iconoclasts.) Though images of 

 this kind became more frequent in the third and fourth 

 centuries, there were yet many Christian teachers, 

 who, like Tertullian (q. v.), at an early period, de- 

 clared the fine arts inventions of the devil, and the 

 pagan statues possessed by demons. This superstition 

 often caused the destruction of the noblest statues of 

 the Grecian gods by popular violence. It was not 

 until after many difficulties, that, in the ninth century, 

 the worship of images was established in the Greek 

 empire, and after that time appeared the first known 

 traces of Christian sculpture and painting in the East. 

 But even those statues to which sculpture was now 

 confined, no longer displayed the freedom and dig- 

 nity of ancient art. The pride of the emperors de- 

 manded statues of gold and silver, as long as theit 

 treasury, filled by exhausting their subjects, could 

 supply them. Images of bronze and marble were de- 

 spised. And how seldom could the artist be inspired 

 by his subject, when flattery erected monuments and 

 busts to the most worthless of men ! it was natural, 

 that, with the loss of elevated subjects, the dignity of 

 art should be lost in petty technical details. Heyne, 

 in his treatise on the later works of art, under the 

 Byzantine emperors (Commentat. Soc. Getting., vol. 

 xi.), observes, that the representations of the emper- 

 ors, of distinguished men, or of saints, were uniform 

 in figure and character. The vestiges of g-enius were 

 nowhere seen in free creations and ideal forms, in the 

 desire of truth and expression. From the time of 

 Justinian downwards, the true measure and propor- 

 tion of the parts, and the correctness of the outlines, 

 were so much neglected, that the representations be- 

 came constantly more like masks, spectres, and mon- 

 sters. The old Roman faces were seldom represented: 

 the forms appeared to belong to quite another race 

 to some new nation ; and it was often necessary to 

 write the names under them. In the perspective of 

 the figures no rules were observed. It became, at 

 this time, the great object to imitate the costly 

 robes of the emperors, bishops, and other noble per- 

 sons, who gratified their vanity not only with purple 

 garments, but by the extravagant use of pearls and 

 precious stones, which were worn in long pendants 



