Visualizing Christ's miracles in late Byzantium : art, theology, and court culture / Maria Alessia Rossi, Princeton University.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rossi, Maria Alessia, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jesus Christ--Miracles.

Jesus Christ.

Miracles in art.

Mural painting and decoration, Byzantine--Themes, motives.

Mural painting and decoration, Byzantine.

Cycles (Art)--Byzantine Empire.

Cycles (Art).

Christian art and symbolism--Byzantine Empire--Medieval, 500-1500.

Christian art and symbolism.

Art and society--Byzantine Empire.

Art and society.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvii, 337 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Summary:

This book investigates the political and spiritual agenda behind monumental paintings of Christ's miracles in late Byzantine churches in Constantinople, Mystras, Thessaloniki, Mount Athos, Ohrid, and Kastoria. It is the first exhaustive examination of Christ's miracles in monumental decoration, offering a comparative and detailed analysis of their selection, grouping, and layout and redefining the significance of this diverse and unique iconography in the early Palaiologan period. Maria Alessia Rossi argues that these painted cycles were carefully and inventively crafted by the cultural milieu, secular and religious, surrounding Emperor Andronikos II (r. 1282-1328) at a time of ferment in the early Palaiologan era. Furthermore, by adopting an interdisciplinary approach, she demonstrates that the novel flowering of Christ's miracles in art was not an isolated phenomenon, but rather emerged as part of a larger surge in literary commissions, and reveals how miracles became a tool to rewrite history and promote Orthodoxy.

Contents:

Ecclesiastical policies and the sociohistorical context of the early Palaiologan period

Wealth of sources : miracles in text and image

Christ's miracles : selection and iconography

Christ's miracles : grouping and setting

Christ's miracle cycle in Byzantine churches.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 10 Jan 2025).

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781009387613

1009387618

9781009387606

100938760X

9781009387644

1009387642