Byzantium and Venice: A Tale of Two Citi

This graduate seminar explores the art, architecture, and urban development of two preeminent cities in the Medieval Mediterranean: Constantinople and Venice. From the time of its (re)foundation under Constantine the Great in 330 to its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire, formed the most important political, economic, and artistic center in the Mediterranean world. Focusing on the history of Constantinople’s urban development, architecture, and religious artifacts from the late antique through the Middle Byzantine period, especially as it relates to the architecture of San Marco in Venice and the contents of its treasury, this graduate lecture course will offer a introduction to the capital’s most important ecclesiastical monuments and treasures and thus provide a basis for the discussion of the major tenets and themes of Byzantine art. Topics of special interest will include the relationship between urban development and imperial/ecclesiastical ceremonies, the function of religious images and artifacts in Byzantine society before and after the iconoclastic controversy, and the history of the Fourth Crusade.
In Venice, the ducal chapel and state state church of San Marco was built to house the body of the Evangelist St. Mark within the precinct of the ducal palace shortly after its translation from Alexandria in 828/29, thus replacing an earlier ducal chapel dedicated to St. Theodore as the primary site of state ceremonies and soon developed into the most prominent shrine dedicated to the evangalist in Italy. Rebuilt and expanded several times between the first half of the ninth and the mid-eleventh centuries, the architecture of the church of San Marco was heavily indebted not only to Byzantine art and architectural traditions, namely the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, but also to ceremonial traditions rooted in the Byzantine empire. The dual focus of this seminar will thus allow students to explore Venetian perceptions of Byzantine art and culture from the time of the foundation of San Marco through the collapse of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1261 and beyond. Particular emphasis will be placed on the function of Late Roman and Byzantine architectural spolia and saintly relics as markers of cultural and religious identity, the invention and visual manifestation of cult traditions, and changes in the sacred topography of San Marco as a result of Venice’s expansions in the Eastern Mediterranean fo