Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Glitter of Byzantine
In 330, Emperor Constantine, a convert to Christianity, made the ancient city of Byzanti-
um his capital and renamed it Constantinople. The city became the great cultural and
artistic centre of Christianity and it remained so up to the time of the Renaissance, though
its influence on the art of that period was never as fundamental as the art of ancient Rome.
Artistically, the Byzantine period was notable for its extraordinary mosaic work and -
to a lesser extent - its painting. Its art was influenced by the decoration of the Roman
catacombs and the early Christian churches, as well as by the Oriental Greek style, with
its love of rich decoration and luminous colour.
As a major transit point on the route between Constantinople and Rome, Puglia and Ba-
silicata were heavily exposed to Byzantine's Eastern aesthetics. Indeed, the art that most
encapsulates these regions are the 10th- and 11th-century Byzantine frescoes, hidden
away in locked chapels dotted across the territory. There is an incredible concentration in
Matera, Basilicata, the most fantastic of which is the monastic complex of Chiesa di
Madonna delle Virtù & Chiesa di San Nicola del Greci. In Puglia, the town of Mottola is
home to the Cripta di San Nicola (known as the Sistine Chapel of the south), while in
Brindisi, the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Casale serves up a dazzling array of exotic tiling.
In Sicily, Byzantine, Norman and Saracen influences fused to create a distinct regional
style showcased in the mosaic-encrusted splendour of Palermo's Cappella Palatina inside
the Palazzo dei Normanni, not to mention the cathedrals of Monreale and Cefalù.
EH Gombrich's seminal work
The Story of Art,
first published in 1950, gives a wonderful overview of the
history of Italian art.
Giotto & the 'Rebirth' of Italian Art
Italy's Byzantine painters were apt with light and shade, but it would take Florentine
painter Giotto di Bondone (c 1266-1337) to break the spell of conservatism and venture
into a new world of naturalism. Best known for his frescoes in Padua and Assisi, faded
fragments of his work also survive in Naples' Castel Nuovo and Basilica di Santa Chiara.
Giotto and the painters of the Sienese School introduced many innovations in art: the
exploration of perspective and proportion, a new interest in realistic portraiture, and the
beginnings of a new tradition of landscape painting. The influx of eastern scholars fleeing
Constantinople in the wake of its fall to the Ottoman Turkish Muslims in 1453 prompted a
