The Sacred Architecture of Byzantium

The Sacred Architecture of Byzantium

Author: Nicholas N. Patricios

Publisher: I.B. Tauris

Published: 2014-03-27

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 9781780762913

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A comprehensive survey, from the age of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople, of the nexus between buildings, worship and art.


Architecture of the Sacred

Architecture of the Sacred

Author: Bonna D. Wescoat

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-13

Total Pages: 467

ISBN-13: 110737829X

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In this book, a distinguished team of authors explores the way space, place, architecture, and ritual interact to construct sacred experience in the historical cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. Essays address fundamental issues and features that enable buildings to perform as spiritually transformative spaces in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, early Christian, and Byzantine civilizations. Collectively they demonstrate the multiple ways in which works of architecture and their settings were active agents in the ritual process. Architecture did not merely host events; rather, it magnified and elevated them, interacting with rituals facilitating the construction of ceremony. This book examines comparatively the ways in which ideas and situations generated by the interaction of place, built environment, ritual action, and memory contributed to the cultural formulation of the sacred experience in different religious faiths.


Theology in Stone

Theology in Stone

Author: Richard Kieckhefer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-07-24

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0195340566

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Thinking about church architecture has come to an impasse. Reformers and traditionalists are talking past each other. Statements from both sides are often strident and dogmatic. In Theology in Stone, Richard Kieckhefer seeks to help both sides move beyond the standoff toward a fruitful conversation about houses of worship. Drawing on a wide range of historical examples with an eye to their contemporary relevance, he offers new ideas about the meanings and uses of church architecture.


The Sacred Architecture & Art of Four Byzantine Capitals

The Sacred Architecture & Art of Four Byzantine Capitals

Author: Nicholas N. Patricios

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 9781666239423

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Byzantine churches are special. They are special as their architecture, art, and liturgy are integrated and imbued with symbolism, and they do so in so many different ways. The best have impressive architectural exteriors and striking iconographic interiors. This book is a photographic record o specially selected churches of four Byzantine capitals which an interested reader can likewise visit. The capitals of the Byzantine Empire were Constantinople (today Istanbul) on the Bosporus the major capital city; Thessaloniki located in northern Greece the co-capital; Mystras in the central Peloponnese a medieval capital; and Mount Athos on a peninsula in northeast Greece still today the spiritual capital of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The aim of this book is to illustrate visually in color, with mostly one-page readable written descriptions, the architecture and iconography of the important churches, sixty-nine in all, of the four capitals of the Byzantine Empire. Of these churches the author has visited all except five. Each church is depicted with a floor plan and color photographs, a total of 391 in color out of the 476 illustrations in the book. These churches of the Empire's heartland are most significant as they acted as models or prototypes for those built elsewhere in the Byzantine world. It is remarkable that the Byzantine-style church has continued to be built even after the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist in Greek and Eastern Orthodox communities throughout the world to the present day.


The Sacred Architecture of Byzantium

The Sacred Architecture of Byzantium

Author: Nicholas N. Patricios

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 506

ISBN-13: 075569399X

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The churches of the Byzantine era were built to represent heaven on earth. Architecture, art and liturgy were intertwined in them to a degree that has never been replicated elsewhere, and the symbolism of this relationship had deep and profound meanings. Sacred buildings and their spiritual art underpinned the Eastern liturgical rites, which in turn influenced architectural design and the decoration which accompanied it. Nicholas N Patricios here offers a comprehensive survey, from the age of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople, of the nexus between buildings, worship and art. His identification of seven distinct Byzantine church types, based on a close analysis of 370 church building plans, will have considerable appeal to Byzantinists, lay and scholarly. Beyond categorizing and describing the churches themselves, which are richly illustrated with photographs, plans and diagrams, the author interprets the sacred liturgy that took place within these holy buildings, tracing the development of the worship in conjunction with architectural advances made up to the 15th century. Focusing on buildings located in twenty-two different locations, this sumptuous book is an essential guide to individual features such as the synthronon, templon and ambo and also to the wider significance of Byzantine art and architecture.


Sacred Architecture and Art of Four Byzantine Capitals

Sacred Architecture and Art of Four Byzantine Capitals

Author: Nicholas Patricios

Publisher:

Published: 2020-12-16

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13:

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Byzantine churches are special. They are special as their architecture, art, and liturgy are integrated and imbued with symbolism, and they do so in so many different ways. The best have impressive architectural exteriors and striking iconographic interiors. This book is a photographic record of specially selected churches of four Byzantine capitals which an interested reader can likewise visit. The capitals of the Byzantine Empire were Constantinople (today Istanbul) on the Bosporus the major capital city; Thessaloniki located in northern Greece the co-capital; Mystras in the central Peloponnese a medieval capital; and Mount Athos on a peninsula in northeast Greece still today the spiritual capital of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The aim of this book is to illustrate visually in color, with mostly one-page readable written descriptions, the architecture and iconography of the important churches, sixty-nine in all, of the four capitals of the Byzantine Empire. Of these churches the author has visited all except five. Each church is depicted with a floor plan and color photographs, a total of 391 in color out of the 476 illustrations in the book. These churches of the Empire's heartland are most significant as they acted as models or prototypes for those built elsewhere in the Byzantine world. It is remarkable that the Byzantine-style church has continued to be built even after the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist in Greek and Eastern Orthodox communities throughout the world to the present day.


Approaches to Byzantine Architecture and its Decoration

Approaches to Byzantine Architecture and its Decoration

Author: Mark J. Johnson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1351957643

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The fourteen essays in this collection demonstrate a wide variety of approaches to the study of Byzantine architecture and its decoration, a reflection of both newer trends and traditional scholarship in the field. The variety is also a reflection of Professor Curcic’s wide interests, which he shares with his students. These include the analysis of recent archaeological discoveries; recovery of lost monuments through archival research and onsite examination of material remains; reconsidering traditional typological approaches often ignored in current scholarship; fresh interpretations of architectural features and designs; contextualization of monuments within the landscape; tracing historiographic trends; and mining neglected written sources for motives of patronage. The papers also range broadly in terms of chronology and geography, from the Early Christian through the post-Byzantine period and from Italy to Armenia. Three papers examine Early Christian monuments, and of these two expand the inquiry into their architectural afterlives. Others discuss later monuments in Byzantine territory and monuments in territories related to Byzantium such as Serbia, Armenia, and Norman Italy. No Orthodox church being complete without interior decoration, two papers discuss issues connected to frescoes in late medieval Balkan churches. Finally, one study investigates the continued influence of Byzantine palace architecture long after the fall of Constantinople.


Sacred Power, Sacred Space

Sacred Power, Sacred Space

Author: Jeanne Halgren Kilde

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-07-21

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0199718105

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Jeanne Halgren Kilde's survey of church architecture is unlike any other. Her main concern is not the buildings themselves, but rather the dynamic character of Christianity and how church buildings shape and influence the religion. Kilde argues that a primary function of church buildings is to represent and reify three different types of power: divine power, or ideas about God; personal empowerment as manifested in the individual's perceived relationship to the divine; and social power, meaning the relationships between groups such as clergy and laity. Each type intersects with notions of Christian creed, cult, and code, and is represented spatially and materially in church buildings. Kilde explores these categories chronologically, from the early church to the twentieth century. She considers the form, organization, and use of worship rooms; the location of churches; and the interaction between churches and the wider culture. Church buildings have been integral to Christianity, and Kilde's important study sheds new light on the way they impact all aspects of the religion. Neither mere witnesses to transformations of religious thought or nor simple backgrounds for religious practice, church buildings are, in Kilde's view, dynamic participants in religious change and goldmines of information on Christianity itself.


Aural Architecture in Byzantium: Music, Acoustics, and Ritual

Aural Architecture in Byzantium: Music, Acoustics, and Ritual

Author: Bissera Pentcheva

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-07-14

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 135178689X

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Aural architecture identifies those features of a building that can be perceived by the act of listening in them. Emerging from the challenge to reconstruct sonic and spatial experiences of the deep past, this book invites readers into the complex world of the Byzantine liturgy, experienced in its chanted form in interiors covered with monumental mosaics and frescoes. The multidisciplinary collection of ten essays explores the intersection of Byzantine liturgy, music, acoustics, and architecture in the Late Antique churches of Constantinople, Jerusalem and Rome, and reflects on the role digital technology can play in re-creating aspects of the sensually rich performance of the divine word.