I have long been fascinated by Castelseprio’s Santa Maria foris portas frescoes, their rare early medieval Byzantine-Hellenistic style, especially the Nativity, which evokes profound awe and a lasting sense of wonder.
Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket
Late Antique textiles from Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, like the Met’s Hanging Fragment with Bird and Basket, reveal how luxury fabrics expressed abundance, status, and the cultural ideal of the “good life.”
The Byzantine Church of Hagia Eirene
Hagia Eirene’s rare Iconoclastic apse mosaic — a golden cross on gold, outlined in black tesserae — creates a sublime, almost divine luminosity through its masterful, light-reflecting technique.
Portrait Medallion of Gennadios
Gennadios — a gold-on-sapphire-glass portrait medallion from Alexandria — is an exquisitely engraved masterpiece celebrating a musically accomplished youth, and one of the most captivating Late Antique treasures at the Metropolitan Museum.
The Byzantine Icon of Panagia Nicopoiou
Venice’s treasured Panagia Nikopoiou — a Byzantine Komnenian icon seized during the Fourth Crusade — became La Serenissima’s sacred Palladium, carried in procession during war and plague for divine protection and victory.
Mosaics from the Ilissos Basilica in Athens
The Ilissos Basilica, a 5th-century Early Christian monument in Athens, once richly adorned, now lies largely forgotten; its exquisite mosaics survive in the Byzantine and Christian Museum.
Unidentified Byzantine Church in Constantinople known today as Gül Camii
Inspired by Symeon the New Theologian, the enigmatic Gül Camii reflects a Byzantine church of uncertain identity, transformed yet enduring as a place of worship for all.
Ring of Michael Stryphnos
The Ring of Michael Stryphnos from the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection encapsulates Byzantine power and decline, symbolizing the troubled reign of Alexios III Angelos and the empire’s approaching catastrophe.
Gold Coin Pendant of Constantine the Great
The gold coin pendant of Constantine the Great in the British Museum celebrates his 321 consulship, combining imperial portraiture, dynastic imagery, and intricate opus interrasile goldwork.
Anastasis at the Monastery of Hosios Loukas
The Anastasis mosaic at the Monastery of Hosios Loukas presents the Resurrection as Christ descends into Hades, a masterpiece of 11th-century Byzantine mosaic art radiating spiritual intensity and imperial grandeur.