EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE

longest lasting empire of mosaics, icons and togas

Eastern Roman Empire was a unique state shrouded in mysteries often masked as lavish and complicated ceremonies for no good reason than to make an impression of what 'civilised' meant. Trouser wearing Western Europeans, or Latins, as the Byzantines called them, were considered barbarians.... they were proved right when the Crusaders passed through and refused to leave without first sacking Constantinople, including the Church where the Emperors had been buried for 1000 years. The wounded city, the marvel of the world until then, never fully recovered. 

At the University of Constantinople, they never stopped reading Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, etc... they were not 'redescovered' in Florence during the Renaissance... they simply moved west as Ottomans put kilims over them. 

The Ottomans replaced the Old New Rome with an equally complicated Empire that adopted many Byzantine methods and institutions, never quite managing to be fully Ottoman but a Coctail of Ottomazantium ;))) 

If it still existed, I would probably be a Byzantine spy in the English court 😂. Sending weekly reports to the Emperor in Albanian just to annoy the Greeks, in a nice way, of course. Then i’d go to the pub with the Emperor’s spy liaison stratiotis; most probably, we’d try to outsmart each other to pay an extra round of drinks while discussing the merits v shame of Theodora and Justinian or try to claim lineage to General Belisarios… or we would just laugh about the English Barbarians, who can’t bake good bread or make good wine. ;)

 


byzantine art

byzantine art is beautiful. It isn't east or west. it didn't need to be because it WAS the world... byzantine art speaks to you in a unique language, transcending a sense of mystery you’re not meant to understand, as a mere mortal, but you are invited to emmerse in it, though you don’t know quite how….

albanian byzantine art as inspiration