Sacred Architecture & Art of Four Byzantine Capitals

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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.