The Bronze Horseman of Justinian in Constantinople : The Cross-Cultural Biography of a Mediterranean Monument

"Justinian's triumphal column was the tallest free-standing column of the pre-modern world and was crowned with arguably the largest metal equestrian sculpture created anywhere in the world before 1699. The Byzantine empire's bronze horseman towered over the heart of Constantinople, assumed new identities, spawned conflicting narratives, and acquired widespread international acclaim. Because all traces of Justinian's column were erased from the urban fabric of Istanbul in the sixteenth century, scholars have undervalued its astonishing agency and remarkable longevity. Its impact in visual and verbal culture was arguably among the most extensive of any Mediterranean monument. This book analyzes Byzantine, Islamic, Slavic, Crusader, and Renaissance historical accounts, medieval pilgrimages, geographic, apocalyptic and apocryphal narratives, vernacular poetry, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Italian, French, Latin, and Ottoman illustrated manuscripts, Florentine wedding chests, Venetian paintings, and Russian icons to provide an engrossing and pioneering biography of a contested medieval monument during the millennium of its life"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half-title page 3 Title page 5 Copyright page 6 Contents 7 List of Figures and Maps 11 List of Tables 18 Acknowledgements 19 List of Abbreviations 22 Note on Transliteration and Naming Conventions 25 Selected Timeline of the Triumphal Column of Justinian and Its International Reverberations 26 Map of Constantinople 29 Introduction 31 I.1 The Horseman and His Global Reach 34 I.2 A Singular Biography 37 I.3 From Identity to Agency 40 1 Justinian’s Entry into Constantinople: He Came, He Saw, He Conquered 43 1.1 The Court and Its Politics 44 1.2 The Constantinople that Justinian Inherited 45 1.3 Attaining the Throne 54 1.4 Justinian’s Public Projections of Power 58 1.5 Justinian as a Highly Competitive Patron 63 1.6 Conclusion 67 2 The Making of Justinian’s Forum 68 2.1 Not Letting the Crisis of 532 Go to Waste 69 2.2 The Augoustaion Becomes Justinian’s Forum 72 2.3 Hagia Sophia 77 2.4 Construction of the Tallest Column 83 2.5 Laying Claim to a Colossal Bronze Horseman 87 2.6 Imaging Imperial Power on a Colossal Scale 93 2.7 An Equestrian Monument on the Move 95 2.8 Conclusion 100 3 Defying a Defining Witness: the Bronze Horseman and the Buildings (De Aedificiis) of Prokopios 102 3.1 Buildings and Its Academic Reception 103 3.2 Figured Speech, Art of Safe Criticism, and Buildings 105 3.3 The Bronze Horseman and the Narrative Order of Constantinople’s Monuments 109 3.4 Ekphrasis 112 3.5 Ekphrasis or Its Antithesis or Both? 114 3.6 Ordering the Triumphal Column in Relation to the Monuments of Constantinople 124 3.7 Justinian’s Demise 126 4 The Horseman of Baghdad Responds to the Horseman of Constantinople 128 4.1 Abbasid–Byzantine Encounters 129 4.2 In Pursuit of Perfection: the Creation of Baghdad 131 4.3 The Horseman of Baghdad 137 4.4 The Monument that Everyone Saw but Nobody Described 144 4.5 The End of the Abbasid Rider 150 4.6 Conclusion 151 5 Soothing Imperial Anxieties: Theophilos and the Restoration of Justinian’s Crown 152 5.1 The Logothete and a Restoration Feat 153 5.2 The Iconoclast Rumor Mill and the Restoration 155 5.3 The Urgency of Action 157 5.4 Conclusion 165 6 Debating Justinian’s Merits in the Tenth Century 167 6.1 The Greatest Wonder of Constantinople 167 6.2 A Puzzling Mosaic 173 6.3 A Lofty Tomb 177 6.4 Confronting Justinian’s Hubris: the Narrative on the Construction of Hagia Sophia 179 6.5 Conclusion 184 7 The Bronze Horseman and a Dark Hour for Humanity 185 7.1 Biblical Job and the Byzantine Job 186 7.2 The Horseman in the Vatican Manuscript 188 7.3 Decoding the Message 192 7.4 Conclusion 198 8 The Horseman Becomes Heraclius: crusading Narratives of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries 199 8.1 Molding the Memory of Heraclius in the West 199 8.2 Metamorphosis of the Bronze Horseman: from Justinian to Heraclius in Western Imagination 212 8.3 Why Did This Monument Merit Immunity? 214 8.4 Redirecting the Horseman towards Jerusalem 214 8.5 Crusader Vision: from Justinian to Heraclius 217 8.6 Crusader Gaze: Equestrian Monument and the Fourth Crusade 221 8.7 Conclusion 225 9 From Exile in Nicaea to Restoration of Constantinople 226 9.1 Constantinople imaginaire 227 9.2 Constantinople and Michael VIII 231 9.3 A Nodal Space in Coronation 238 9.4 Of Second Constantines and Secondary Columns 242 10 A Learned Dialogue across the Ages: Pachymeres Confronts Prokopios 246 10.1 Rediscovering Prokopios 246 10.2 The Monument in Time: Pachymeres Outperforms Prokopios 248 10.3 An Exemplary Ekphrasis 260 10.4 Conclusion 262 11 Orb-Session: Constantinople’s Future in the Bronze Horseman’s Hand 263 11.1 The Falling Orb and Bronze Corrosion: a Case for Scientific Causation 264 11.2 Gregoras on the Restorations 266 11.3 Assessing the Palaiologan Emergency Restoration 270 11.4 Much Ado about the Orb: from a Middle Bulgarian Translation to a Plagiarized German Friar 275 11.5 Travelers and the Orb 284 11.6 A New Shift in the Bronze Horseman’s Identity? 290 12 Justinian’s Column and the Antiquarian Gaze: a Centuries-Old “Secret” Exposed 293 12.1 Byzantium’s Contribution to Renaissance Antiquarian Pursuits 293 12.2 Cyriac of Ancona: the Father of Archaeology Meets the Bronze Horseman 297 12.3 Geographical Knowledge and Gathering of Strategic Intelligence 304 12.4 Constantinople as Alternate Rome: the Notitia Dignitatum 311 12.5 The Budapest Drawing 316 12.6 Conclusion 321 13 A Timeless Ideal: Constantinople in Slavonic Imagination of the Fourteenth–Fifteenth Centuries 323 13.1 The Politics of Rhetorical Sacralization of Constantinople 324 13.2 Conceptualizing Empire in the Mind’s Eye: the Mid-Fourteenth-Century Bulgarian Moment 326 13.3 Constantinople in the Eyes of Northern Slavs: Sacralization of a Dream 334 13.4 More than Orb-Session: Russian Pilgrims Wander and Wonder 335 13.5 From Iconic Monuments to Icon: a Tale of Two Constantinoples 341 13.6 Word Becomes Image 344 14 The Horseman Meets Its End 347 14.1 The Bronze Horseman and the Head of the Last Emperor 347 14.2 Mehmed Remakes Constantinople 350 14.3 Cultural Appropriation: Mehmed II and Hagia Sophia 355 14.4 Stubborn Memories and Separate Afterlives 362 14.5 Conclusion 364 15 Horse as Historia, Byzantium as Allegory 365 15.1 Two Weddings in Florence 365 15.2 Andrea Mantegna and the Bronze Monument: from Jerusalem to Rome 378 15.3 Conclusion 395 16 Shadowy Past and Menacing Future 396 16.1 Al-Bistami and Apocalyptic Anxieties 398 16.2 A Display of a Complicated Past 403 16.3 The Permutations and Bifurcations 409 16.4 Conclusion 412 17 After the Fall: the Bronze Horseman and the Eternal Tsar’grad 413 17.1 Intercession of the Virgin and Spiritual Geography 413 17.2 A Russian Feast of the Intercession 417 17.3 Iconography of the Eternal Tsar’grad 422 17.4 A Multivalent Emperor and His Visionary Constantinople 428 17.5 Coping with the Byzantine Betrayal of Orthodoxy 432 17.6 Envisioning a Timeless Tsar’grad 435 17.7 Conclusion 438 Postscript: the Horseman’s Debut in Print 439 Select Bibliography 452 Index 472