Elena N. Boeck - The Bronze Horseman of Justinian in Constantinople: The Cross-Cultural Biography of a Mediterranean Monument

The Bronze Horseman of Justinian in Constantinople

Justinian s triumphal column was the tallest freestanding column of the premodern world and was crowned with arguably the largest metal equestrian sculpture created anywhere in the world before 1699. The Byzantine empire s bronze horseman towered over the heart of Constantinople, assumed new identities, spawned conflicting narratives, and acquired widespread international acclaim. Because all traces of Justinian s column were erased from the urban fabric of Istanbul in the sixteenth century, scholars have undervalued its astonishing agency and remarkable longevity. Its impact in visual and verbal culture was arguably among the most extensive of any Mediterranean monument. This book analyzes Byzantine, Islamic, Slavic, Crusader, and Renaissance historical accounts; medieval pilgrimages; geographic, apocalyptic, and apocryphal narratives; vernacular poetry; Byzantine, Bulgarian, Italian, French, Latin, and Ottoman illustrated manuscripts; Florentine wedding chests; Venetian paintings; and Russian icons to provide an engrossing and pioneering biography of a contested medieval monument during the millennium of its life.

Elena N. Boeck is Professor of History of Art and Architecture at DePaul University. Her publications explore intellectual exchange in the Mediterranean and unconventional, fascinating forms of engagement with Byzantium s legacy. She is the author of Imagining the Byzantine Past: The Perception of History in the Illustrated Manuscripts of Skylitzes and Manasses (Cambridge University Press, 2015). She held appointments as the Excellence Initiative Professor at Radboud University, and Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks.

The Bronze Horseman of Justinian in Constantinople

The Cross-Cultural Biography of a Mediterranean Monument

Elena N. Boeck

DePaul University, Chicago

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107197275

DOI: 10.1017/9781108178341

Elena N. Boeck 2021

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First published 2021

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ISBN 978-1-107-19727-5 Hardback

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Contents

Figures and Maps

Tables

Acknowledgements

This book began as a small quest to answer a deceptively simple question: why is Justinian s column represented in a fourteenth-century Bulgarian manuscript? The bronze horseman curiously appears in an illustration in the Vatican Manasses. While that text says a lot about Justinian, it never mentions the column. To answer that original question, I had to solve dozens of new puzzles. This project has been an extraordinarily enjoyable experience and a rewarding intellectual journey into many fields.

In this ever-expanding quest I have benefitted from the advice, assistance, and generosity of many people. Cornell Fleischer imparted his extraordinary knowledge of Al-Bistami and Ottoman history.