Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

Education, learning, literature, and art 

Page 15

But this does not mean that Byzantine art under the Comneni was in a state of decay. Especially in the field of architecture there were many remarkable monuments. At Constantinople the beautiful palace of Blachernae was erected, and the Comneni left the former imperial residence, the so-called Great Palace, and settled in a new palace, at the end of the Golden Horn. The new imperial residence was in no way inferior to the Great Palace, and contemporary writers have left enthusiastic descriptions of it. The abandoned Great Palace fell into decay. In the fifteenth century it was only a ruin and the Turks completed its destruction.

The name of the Comneni is also connected with the construction or reconstruction of several churches; for example, the Pantocrator at Constantinople, which became the burial place of John II and Manuel I Comneni and in which later on, in the fifteenth century, were to be buried the Emperors Manuel II and John VIII Palaeologi. The famous church of Chora (Qahrieh jami) was reconstructed at the beginning of the twelfth century. Churches were being built not only in the capital, but also in the provinces. In the West, at Venice, the cathedral of St. Mark, reproducing in plan the Church of the Apostles at Constantinople and reflecting in its mosaics Byzantine influence, was solemnly consecrated in 1095. In Sicily, many buildings and mosaics of Cefalu, Palermo, and Monreale, reproducing the best achievements of Byzantine art, belong to the twelfth century. In the East, the mosaics in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem are important remains of an elaborate decoration executed by east Christian mosaicists for Emperor Manuel Comnenus in 1169. Thus, in the East as in the West, the influence of Greek art remained all powerful in the twelfth century, and even where it might be least expected, among the Normans of Sicily and the Latins of Syria, Byzantium continued to initiate and to lead in elegance.

Very important frescoes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries have been discovered in Cappadocia and southern Italy; also in Russia, at Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod and in its neighborhood, some beautiful frescoes were made by Byzantine artists at the same time. Many artistic specimens of the epoch are to be found in ivory carvings, pottery and glass, metal work, seals, and engraved gems.

But, in spite of all artistic achievements of the epoch of the Comneni and Angeli, the first period of the second Golden Age contemporary with the Macedonian dynasty was more brilliant and more creative. Therefore, one cannot agree with the statement by a French writer: In the twelfth century the political and military fortune of Byzantium is shaken never to rise again. Nevertheless, the creative power of the Empire and of the Christian Orient reaches, in that epoch, its apogee.

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