Author: Ormonde Maddock DaltonPublisher: Rarebooksclub.com
ISBN: 9781230181707
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38
Book Description
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... several church doors in Italy were imported from Constantinople, encouraging the production of similar work by European craftsmen. Numbers of small objects in bronze date from about this time, and an example of a typical kind of gilt bronze plaque may be seen in fig. 24. The art of weaving in silk, which had now had time to develope, reached its highest point in the eleventh century, and the figured textiles of Constantinople and the cities of Greece were as famous as the contemporary work of the Persians and the Saracens, from which, except where the subjects are religious, they are not easily distinguished. The Norman princes of Sicily encouraged Greek weavers to settle in Palermo; Sicily had already been occupied by the Arabs; and silk textiles of the finest quality were now produced in the island. Byzantine textiles were sent as presents to Western princes, or traded and smuggled into Europe, and a considerable number of examples have fortunately been preserved. Among the finer pieces of Greek workmanship still in existence are a magnificent dalmatic, inwoven with sacred subjects, in the Treasury of St. Peter's at Rome, and another piece representing an emperor on horseback, found in the tomb of Glinther, Bishop of Bamberg (1057-1065 a. D.), and now preserved in that city. Another dated piece, of which there is a reproduction at South Kensington, bears an inscription with the names of the Emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII (975-1028). The Greek silk textile industry was not destined to survive the troubles caused by the Crusades and the Turkish Invasion, and had died out by the thirteenth century. Fig. 24.--Byzantine gilt bronze plaque: St. Theodore. (No. 544.) Of the pottery and glass of the Byzantine Empire remarkably little is...
