Awards

• Winner of A Finalist for a 2020 PROSE Award.
• Winner of Winner of the Haskins Medal from the Medieval Academy of America A Finalist for a 2020 PROSE Award.
• Winner of Winner of the Haskins Medal from the Medieval Academy of America A Finalist for a 2020 ^IPROSE^R Award.

Overview

Aside from Hagia Sophia, the monuments of the Byzantine East are poorly understood today. This is in sharp contrast to the well-known architectural marvels of Western Europes Middle Ages. In this landmark survey, distinguished art historian Robert Ousterhout introduces readers to the rich and diverse architectural traditions of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean. The focus of the book is the Byzantine (or East Roman) Empire (324-1453 CE), with its capital in Constantinople, although the framework expands chronologically to include the foundations of Christian architecture in Late Antiquity and the legacy of Byzantine culture after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Geographically broad as well, this study includes architectural developments in areas of Italy, the Caucasus, the Near East, the Balkans, and Russia, as well as related developments in early Islamic architecture. Alternating chapters that address chronological or regionally-based developments with thematic studies that focus on the larger cultural concerns, the book presents the architectural developments in a way that makes them accessible, interesting, and intellectually stimulating. In doing so, it also explains why medieval architecture in the East followed such a different trajectory from that of the West. Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of color photographs, maps, and line drawings, Eastern Medieval Architecture will establish Byzantine traditions to be as significant and admirable as those more familiar examples in Western Europe, and serve as an invaluable resource for anyone interested in architectural history, Byzantium, and the Middle Ages.

Full Product Details

9780190272739

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Reviews

A masterful, concise, and eminently readable synthesis of the architectural - and thus also a key aspect of the cultural - history of the medieval eastern Roman world and its neighbors. Drawing on his own ground-breaking research, on the original sources (written, material-cultural, and archaeological), and informed by an intimate knowledge of the vast modern literature in the field, Robert Ousterhout has produced an invaluable survey that will undoubtedly be the basic 'go-to' reference work for the subject for many years to come. * John Haldon, Princeton University * In this much-needed book, Robert Ousterhout provides an up-to-date introduction to the architecture of Byzantium and its neighbors. Diverse and generous in its scope and approach, while at the same time presenting a coherent narrative of a fascinating and complex subject, it will long remain the pre-eminent survey of the field for specialists and non-specialists alike. * Christina Maranci, Tufts University * This is the most consequential study of its kind to appear in many years. It will change the way we study and teach Byzantine architecture. * Vasileios Marinis, Yale University * Eastern Medieval Architecture offers a fresh and inviting introduction to the vibrant architectural traditions of the Byzantine Empire and its neighbors. In this learned yet eminently readable volume, Ousterhout masterfully distills a vast amount of specialized research on more than a millennium of architectural production, both sacred and secular. His synthesis of canonical monuments and lesser-known buildings engagingly situates architecture within broader histories of empire, sacred space, craft production, and cultural interaction. * Ann Marie Yasin, University of Southern California *

Author Information

Robert G. Ousterhout is Professor Emeritus in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. His previous books include Visualizing Community: Art, Material Culture, and Settlement in Byzantine Cappadocia and Master Builders of Byzantium.

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