Byzantine Architecture: Fourth-Fifteenth Centuries

This course will be recorded and available to attendees for two weeks after each session. In addition, members who are unable to attend in person can access the course recordings to watch at home during the same period for the online course fee.  Your option can be selected on the booking page.

The Byzantine empire produced some of the most famed buildings of the medieval period including the great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, modern Istanbul. This course takes a chronological view of Byzantine architectural developments from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. We focus on the religious and secular buildings created throughout the empire including monuments in Jerusalem, San Simeon, Sinai, Cappadocia, Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Ravenna and Rome. We discuss the harnessing of Roman architectural forms for the service of Christianity and how these changed over time. Buildings include baptistries, mausolea and churches. We look at their locations and designs as well as how they functioned as places of worship. We also explore secular architecture, including urban planning and palaces. Integral to the appearance and use of all these buildings was their decoration, including mosaics and monumental paintings.

Week 1
Rome, Jerusalem and beyond, Christian architecture in the service of the emperor
Two new capitals: the architecture of Constantinople and Ravenna

Week 2
Architecture of urban churches and desert monasteries
Architectural transformation and the building of Hagia Sophia

Week 3
Building and decorating techniques; spolia
Architectural transformations after Iconoclasm

Week 4
Byzantine architectural influence in the west: Torcello, Venice, and Sicily
Architecture on the periphery

Week 5
Buildings of the later Byzantine period
Byzantine architectural influence beyond the empire