The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople

This book reconstructs Constantinople's collection of antiquities from its foundation to its fall.

Sarah Bassett (Author)

9780521030847, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 January 2007

316 pages, 43 b/w illus. 7 maps
24.4 x 17 x 1.7 cm, 0.5 kg

'… this volume is a valuable contribution to the field of late antique studies, tackling important but neglected historical questions, demonstrating a mastery of difficult sources, and offering an imaginative and thought-provoking thesis. It is certain to become the starting-point for all future studies of Constantinople's early urban development.' Journal of Hellenic Studies

From its foundation in the fourth century to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth, the city of Constantinople boasted a collection of antiquities unrivalled by any city of the medieval world. The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople reconstructs the collection from the time that the city was founded by Constantine the Great through the sixth-century reign of the emperor Justinian. Drawing on medieval literary sources and, to a lesser extent, graphic and archaeological material, it identifies and describes the antiquities that were known to have stood in the city's public spaces. Individual displays of statues are analysed as well as examined in conjunction with one another against the city's topographical setting, in an effort to understand how ancient sculpture was used to create a distinct historical identity for Constantinople.

List of illustrations
Periodicals: abbreviations
Primary sources
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
1. The shape of the city
2. Creating the collection
3. The Constantinian collections
4. Theodosian Constantinople
5. The Lausos collection
6. Justinian and antiquity
The catalogue
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]