Trabzon Ayasofya Müzesi. - Art and Identity in Thirteenth-Century Byzantium: Hagia Sophia and the Empire of Trebizond

About the series

Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs is devoted to the history, culture and archaeology of the Byzantine and Ottoman worlds of the East Mediterranean region from the fifth to the twentieth century. It provides a forum for the publication of research completed by scholars from the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham, and those with similar research interests.

About the book

The church of Hagia Sophia in Trebizond, built by the emperor Manuel I Grand Komnenos (123863) in the aftermath of the Fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade, is the finest surviving Byzantine imperial monument of its period. Art and Identity in Thirteenth-Century Byzantium, with extensive illustrations in colour and black-and-white, provides a new analysis of the architecture, sculptural decoration and extensive wall paintings in the church. Antony Eastmond situates the church in the context of political and cultural developments across the Byzantine world in this turbulent period, and examines questions of cultural interchange on the borders of the Christian and Muslim worlds of eastern Anatolia, the Caucasus and Persia. He argues that a new visualisation of Byzantine imperial ideology emerged in Trebizond, determined as much by craftsmen and expectations of imperial power as by imperial decree; and that this was a credible alternative Byzantine identity to that developed in the empire of Nicaea.

About the author

Antony Eastmond is Reader in the History of Byzantine Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, UK

I dedicate to this book to Marion with love
(and to the baggage handlers at Trabzon Airport, without whom )

Volume 10

General Editors

Anthony Bryer

John Haldon

First published 2004 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Antony Eastmond 2004

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Eastmond, Antony, 1966

Art and identity in thirteenth-century Byzantium : Hagia Sophia and the empire of Trebizond. (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman monographs)

1. Hagia Sophia (Church : Trabzon, Turkey) 2. Art and state Byzantine Empire 3. Art, Byzantine Turkey 4. Church architecture Turkey Trabzon 5. Architecture, Byzantine Turkey 6. Identity (Psychology) in art 7. Trabzon (Turkey) History 8. Byzantine Empire History 10811453 9. Byzantine Empire Civilization 10811453

I. Title

949.504

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eastmond, Antony, 1966

Art and identity in thirteenth-century Byzantium : Hagia Sophia and the empire of Trebizond I Antony Eastmond.

p. c. (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman monographs ; 10)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Ayasofya Miizesi (Museum : Trabzon, Turkey) 2. Architecture, Byzantine-Turkey-Trabzon. 3. Christian art and symbolism-Turkey-Trabzon-Medieval, 5001500. 4. Art and state-Turkey-Trabzon. 5. Trebizond Empire-History. I. Title. II. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman monographs. ; v. 10.

NA5871.T7E37 2003

726.509565-dc22

2003063539

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-3575-8 (hbk)