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| • Press
Releases • Photos of the Hall • Logos of the Hall • Admission Form |
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| PRESS RELEASES | |
| Byzantium Splendour and Everyday Life 26 February – 13 June 2010 Press conference: 25 February 2010, 11 a.m. A wide-ranging selection of magnificent and historically important works of art brings to life the fascinating history and art of the Byzantine empire. The exhibition provides a comprehensive survey of the ‘Byzantine millennium’ which began with the foundation of Constantinople by Constantine the Great in 324 AD and ended with the conquest of the city by the Ottomans in 1453. The exhibition focuses on the period of Byzantium’s greatest glory from the time of Justinian I (527–565) to the sacking of Constantinople by Christian crusaders in 1204. Gold, silver, silk, ivory, relics – those were the riches of Byzantium and its capital Constantinople that were the envy of the West. But the significance of the Christian Eastern Roman empire went far beyond its stupendous wealth. It was here that antiquity lived on until the late Middle Ages. Here were preserved the traditions and scholarship of antiquity, and here lie the roots of our modern legal system. Byzantium was the bridge from antiquity to modern Europe and connected East and West. European Byzantium had ties that extended to the Middle East and, via the Silk Road, all the way to China. Ancient Byzantine rituals live on in today’s Orthodox Church. But what was everyday life in the Byzantine empire like? Computer animations and short films take visitors to the most important sites of the empire, among them Constantinople, Ephesus, Thessaloniki, Pergamon, the mount of Saint Simeon Stylites near Aleppo and Saint Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai. Presented in context, the approximately 600 items from collections all over the world take on a significance that goes beyond their great aesthetic and artistic value as they cast an entirely new light on the Byzantine empire and its legacy. An exhibition of the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, in cooperation with the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum / Forschungsinstitut für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Mainz. |
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