A brief 1st look at Italo-Byzantine
East and West blended
I’m in Norcia for a few days, visiting friends and taking long walks. So, today’s post will be for paid subscribers: a a single-shot, brief introduction to the visual ideas - and political origins - of Italo-Byzantine art. Until the opening of the 13th century, all the Christian art of Italy was Byzantine in form, and because much of the Italian peninsula was - at least nominally - for a significant time under the suzerainty of the Byzantine Empire, that art form developed its own unique national character here.
We’ll definitely be talking more about the Italo-Byzantine as we progress through our examination of early medieval, pre-Schism Christian art. As the basic form was spread throughout the many nationalities of the empire, before the fall of the Western Empire, it was modified and nationalised, so we have Byzantine-Egyptian, Greek Byzantine, Ethiopian Byzantine
Visiting St. Isaac of Spoleto on Monday
I’ll be heading home on Monday, when I’ll be making a little side trip to Spoleto to visit the incredible crypt church there of St. Isaac the Syrian (not to be confused with St. Isaac OF Syria, who was someone else). Isaac was the first Christian bishop of Spoleto, a town of great importance for the Roman Empire. He came as part of a kind of delegation of monks, originally from Syria, sent by the pope to try to tame the wild men of deepest Umbria, and he set up a monastery that became a kind of monastic staging ground for missionary monastics.
Isaac was one of the group of Syrian monastics who settled in this area and brought Christianity to the pagan locals by being miraculous wonderworkers - always works a treat. St. Isaac established a Syrian style monastic foundation high up on the mountain - in a series of caves - behind the town of Spoleto, and that monastery grew and survived until the 18th century, adopting the Benedictine Rule along the way. A descendant of his original monastery is still there, now occupied by Franciscan friars. It’s a long and amazing story that we’ll get into with our paid subscribers next week.
Anyway, phone/internet reception up here on the mountain, in the remote wilds of the Apennines, isn’t great, so though I’m able to set up shop in the guesthouse meeting room, I fear it’s going to be difficult to really produce anything until I’m home. We’ll try for Tuesday.
Pax.
HJMW
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