Secular Art

The definition of Byzantine secular art remains problematic because of the interpenetration of the sacred and secular in all imperial domains, including the city, the home, and the church. Monumental and portable works of art regarded as secular due to their non-religious content or function were produced throughout the Byzantine era and served multiple roles. These included entertainment and indulgence in intellectual or other pleasurable pursuits; self-representation and the expression of ideological messages; protection against evil; and following current fashions. Innovation, invention, subjectivity, erudition, subversiveness, and humor, often associated with nudity and sexual innuendo, are all qualities thought to distinguish Byzantine secular art. The modes of its engagement with Greco-Roman art and with contemporary non-Byzantine artistic traditions need further study.

Ivories and Steatites

Objects carved from elephant ivory and steatite (soapstone) have been identified with Byzantine culture from Late Antiquity to the Late Byzantine period. Mainly relief icons, and ceremonial and liturgical objects, most are small enough to be held in the hand or worn as amulets. No other organic material carried as high an intrinsic and symbolic value as elephant ivory, and its increasing rarity in the Middle Byzantine era lent carved objects especially high status. When the trade ceased in the eleventh century, steatites took on greater importance. Evidence of polychromy on ivories has altered traditional perceptions of the medium and its aesthetic. Technical analyses and interdisciplinary approaches have the potential to shed new light on long-held issues.

Considerations on the Function and Provenance of the Glass in the Plato von Ustinow Collection

The Russian émigré Plato von Ustinow – who settled in Palestine in 1862 and lived there until 1913 – was a keen collector of antiquities. In contrast to other collectors, however, von Ustinow did not purchase the objects from art-dealers. Instead, he appears to have worked with professional archaeologists, but also bought objects from local inhabitants in Jaffa and Jerusalem. His collection includes a substantial number of glass vessels: primarily blown vessels dating to the first- to sixth- or seventh century CE, i.e. the Roman and Early Byzantine era. The von Ustinow collection is comparatively homogeneous, and most of the objects are likely to stem from a relatively limited geographical area, as it closely resembles material from funerary contexts found in modern-day Israel. The collection includes a number of perfume bottles, small jars and kohl-flasks, objects most probably utilised in the preparation of the deceased before burial.

Icons as punishers. Two narrations from the Vaticanus gr. 1587 manuscript (BHG 1390 f)

The Iconoclastic controversies of the Byzantine Era have provided a rich literary tradition of miracle narrations regarding the various magical aspects of the icon. The second period of Iconoclasm however seems to have given rise to a lesser prominent motif of the earlier traditions, namely that of the icon-agent acting as active punisher against its transgressor. The current article explores the development of this motif after a concise survey of the history of icon-miracle narrations, their representative texts and their role in liturgical practice. The starting point of the study were two previously unedited byzantine texts from the manuscript Vaticanus gr. 1587, testifying unique stories of icons as punishers. Finally, these stories are also perfect examples of the rich historical information popular narrations can provide on a topographical and prosopographical level regarding the era within which they were produced.

The Jewish Community of Late Byzantine Thessalonica: the Problem of Determining Its Status

In this article, the author turns to an examination of the status of the Jewish community in Thessalonica in the late Byzantine period. The author concludes that both in the Byzantine era and during the Venetian rule in Thessalonica, the Jewish community of the city was subjected to numerous restrictions and prohibitions on the part of the official authorities. The reason for this was the initial isolation of the community, as well as the fact that the Jews, in contrast to the rest of the townspeople, owned vast financial resources and rented trading floors, ousting local entrepreneurs from there. The Jewish community in Thessalonica, quite numerous by the standards of contemporaries, in the XIV and XV centuries was in a state of permanent conflict with the church authorities of the city and, probably, had some influence on the communities of Judaizing Christians.

РОЛЬ ФИЗИЧЕСКОЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ И СПОРТА В ПОДГОТОВКЕ МАССОВОГО ПРИЗЫВНОГО КОНТИНГЕНТА В ВИЗАНТИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ

В статье изучена роль физической культуры и спорта в процессе подготовки византийских воинов в ранневизантийский и средневизантийский периоды. Рассмотрены различные виды спортивных игр и состязаний – как детских и юношеских, благодаря которым обеспечивалась допризывная подготовка, так и военно-спортивные упражнения и соревнования в византийской армии. Сделан вывод о том, что, несмотря на ликвидацию античной системы палестр и гимнасиев, массовая физическая подготовка византийских мальчиков, подростков и юношей призывного возраста в Византии представляла собой хорошо продуманную и логично выстроенную систему, нацеленную на воспитание сильного, смелого и закаленного воина. Ее принципиальное отличие от античного периода заключалось в том, что физическое воспитание детей и подростков было возложено не на государство или общину, а на семью. 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Mapping the Persistence and Evolution of the Quincunx

The quincunx is a pattern that passes through different ages and cultures of Western world. It spread in the Byzantine era; it flourishes during the Renaissance, either in combination or as an alternative to the Vitruvian proportioning criteria; it suffers from a process of mathematization in the eighteenth century; it arrives at the twentieth century in the form of the so-called “nine-square grid problem” and is further re-evaluated in its historical prospective at the end of the century, in the Post-modern context. This article provides a mapping of its diffusion and inquires its development and evolution through the centuries.