From Publishers Weekly
Covering an eponymous Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition that runs from March to July 2004, this massive catalogue examines almost 300 years of history. It begins in 1261—when Christianity and remnants of the Roman Empire’s power structure were brought back to dominance in Constantinople—and ends in 1557, when the region formerly known as basileia ton Rhomaion (Greek for "The empire of the Romans") was changed to Byzantium. Evans, curator at the Met’s department of medieval art and The Cloisters, has brought together a stellar collection of scholars and works for the volume. There are 17 essays in all, covering everything from liturgic instruments to the reach of byzantine icons into northern Europe. The layout is text-heavy. The 150 b&w photos and 450 colorplates are clear, and represent the works without ostentation or ornament, but they are also often reproduced at a scale that seems designed not to overwhelm the arguments being waged around them. Yet some piece, like Simon Marmion’s The Mass of Saint Gregory or the early 14th century Two-Sided Icon with the Virgin Psychosostria and the Annunciation, come through in a way that approximates the depth and beauty of the originals. As catalogues go, this one is rather less accessible to laypeople, but for scholars, it will be a feast. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
During the last centuries of the "Empire of the Romans," Byzantine artists created exceptional secular and religious works that had an enduring influence on art and culture. In later years, Eastern Christian centers of power emulated and transformed Byzantine artistic styles, the Islamic world adapted motifs drawn from Byzantium's imperial past, and the development of the Renaissance from Italy to the Lowlands was deeply affected by Byzantine artistic and intellectual practices. This spectacular book presents hundreds of objects in all media from the late thirteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries. Featured in full-color reproductions are sacred icons, luxuriously embroidered silk textiles, richly gilded metalwork, miniature icons of glass, precious metals and gemstone, and elaborately decorated manuscripts. In the accompanying text, renowned scholars discuss the art and investigate the cultural and historical interaction between these major cultures-the Christian and Islamic East and the Latin West. Continuing the story of the critically acclaimed The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261, this book-the first to focus exclusively on the last centuries of the Byzantine era-is a highly anticipated publication that will not be superceded for generations.

From the Publisher
Also available: The Glory of Byzantium; This book is the catalogue for an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (march 23 to July4, 2004)

About the Author
Helen C. Evans is Curator for Early Christian and Byzantine Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

During the last centuries of the "Empire of the Romans," Byzantine artists created exceptional secular and religious works that had an enduring influence on art and culture. In later years, Eastern Christian centers of power emulated and transformed Byzantine artistic styles, the Islamic world adapted motifs drawn from Byzantium's imperial past, and the development of the Renaissance from Italy to the Lowlands was deeply affected by Byzantine artistic and intellectual practices. This spectacular book presents hundreds of objects in all media from the late thirteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries. Featured in full-color reproductions are sacred icons, luxuriously embroidered silk textiles, richly gilded metalwork, miniature icons of glass, precious metals and gemstone, and elaborately decorated manuscripts. In the accompanying text, renowned scholars discuss the art and investigate the cultural and historical interaction between these major cultures-the Christian and Islamic East and the Latin West. Continuing the story of the critically acclaimed The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261, this book-the first to focus exclusively on the last centuries of the Byzantine era-is a highly anticipated publication that will not be superceded for generations.

Author Biography: Helen C. Evans is Curator for Early Christian and Byzantine Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Also available: The Glory of Byzantium; This book is the catalogue for an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (march 23 to July4, 2004)

SYNOPSIS

Written to accompany the exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004, this handsome catalogue matches in ambition and scholarly depth the exhibition itself, which featured over 350 works, the majority of them loaned from collections worldwide, many of them rarely seen outside their religious setting. The catalogue is organized around thematic essays written by specialists worldwide, with the appropriate works from the exhibition following each essay, each with a full entry. Among the topics for the essays are religious settings, sculpture, liturgical implements, miniature mosaic and steatite icons, manuscript illumination, liturgical textiles, Byzantium and the Islamic world, Christian communities of the Middle East, Italy and the mendicant orders, Venice, the role of Byzantium in the revival of art and learning in Italy and France, and the use of icons by artists of the Northern Renaissance. Evans is curator of Early Christian and Byzantine art at the Met. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Christopher Benfey - The New York Times

Yeats imagined Byzantium -- another multifarious world of East and West -- as an aesthetic utopia, with Grecian goldsmiths fashioning miraculous things ''to keep a drowsy Emperor awake.'' Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), edited by Helen C. Evans, discerns a more complicated picture in the final phase of Byzantine art, when the Orthodox Church still knit a vast region, from Greece to Russia, together with a lively trade in miracle-working icons, relics of the true cross and pilgrimages to the holy Mount Athos.

Library Journal