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Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture. Edited by Sarah T. Brooks. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2006, Pp. 680, $75.00.)
This volume collects essays presented at a symposium held in conjunction with the 2004 exhibition "Byzantium: Faith and Power," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the Foreword, Helen Evans and Peter Barnet, curators of the exhibition, state that the essays, like the exhibition, seek to further understand the last centuries of Byzantium and the empire's influence on non-Byzantine cultures. There are twelve essays by a range of scholars, including historians, paleographers, and, of course, art historians. The volume is well illustrated with black and white images; only one color image is included. As the volume is intended to complement the massive and colorful catalog of the exhibition, the extensive use of black and white should not deter the reader, particularly one who has a copy of the catalog at hand.
Only a brief overview of the individual articles is possible here. The first essay "Icons and the Religious Experience," by Thomas F. Mathews, argues that Late Byzantine icon theology should not be defined in reference to iconoclasm, but should be reconsidered as an elaborate system of belief made manifest in display and veneration. David Jacoby, in "Late Byzantium between the Mediterranean and Asia: Trade and Material Culture," focuses on the silk trade. He cites the establishment of Mongol long-distance trade...