Download PDF | Robert Ousterhout - Eastern Medieval Architecture_ The Building Traditions of Byzantium and Neighboring Lands-Oxford University Press, USA (2019).
811 Pages
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
I n many ways, this book began in 1978, with my lecture notes from Slobodan Ćurčić’s course “Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture” at the University of Illinois. It was the rst time he’d taught the course, and I was in my rst year as his rst PhD student. Following the approach of his mentor, Richard Krautheimer, my mentor provided order, structure, and clarity to a eld of study I found fascinating, although I still hadn’t made sense of it.
Under Ćurčić’s guidance, I shifted my dissertation topic from my rst interest, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to the Kariye Camii in Istanbul, in e€ect leaping from the fourth to the fourteenth century—that is, almost the entire period covered in this book. For much of my career, I’ve been lling in the millennial gap between the two monuments. In 1983, shortly after I’d nished my dissertation, I succeeded my mentor at the University of Illinois when he accepted a professorship at Princeton, and for the next decades, I had the privilege and challenge of teaching “Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture” to generations of architecture students. Making the distant past accessible to aspiring practitioners inspired my 1999 book, Master Builders of Byzantium, an attempt to approach Byzantine architecture from the perspective of its builders, with a focus on the workshops of Constantinople. When the book appeared, many of my colleagues mistook it for a textbook, as some of the reviews suggest.
It wasn’t— in fact, a suitable textbook on the subject did not appear during the thirty-six years of my professional career. I’ve continued to use Krautheimer’s Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, with occasional nods to Cyril Mango’s Byzantine Architecture. Both have appeared in print long after their expiration date. More critically, neither author appears to have liked his subject very much, and their prejudices have trickled down into a variety of other scholarly assessments. In the early 1980s, Ćurčić joined forces with Krautheimer to update Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. is resulted in the fourth revised edition, which appeared in 1986, and Ćurčić, whose interests were clearly chronologically later than Krautheimer’s, was able to defuse some of Krautheimer’s negative opinions. is was, however, still in the pre-computer era, and to facilitate typesetting, the publisher specied that any alterations to the text had to conform to the original line length and page length. Accordingly, the two eminent scholars made adjustments in pencil on graph paper, counting the letters as they went.
Not surprisingly, beyond an enhanced and updated bibliography, modications were limited. I mention this to emphasize that the textbooks or handbooks we have been using were written in a di€erent era—before computers, before the internet, before Google, before JSTOR, before ARTSTOR, before any number of new research tools were at our disposal. e world has changed, and so has the way we study it. is fact has both invigorated and intimidated me. Ten years ago, I organized a methods course for graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania (where I taught from 2007 to 2017) called “How to Write a Textbook.” We read and critiqued a variety of books; we dissected our favorites; we wrote mock tables of contents and introductions; we even designed book covers. In the end, we came up with all sorts of ways not to write a textbook, but not a good single way to do it. Ultimately, it took the persuasive powers of Stefan Vranka at OUP, backed by the kind folks at the Onassis Foundation, a book contract, and a few publication subventions, to force my hand.
My decision was that if I were to undertake this book project, it had to be engaging, evocative, and well illustrated, with a narrative that showcases both the monuments and the intellectual currents behind them in a positive way. I thus alternate chapters that are thematic with those that are period or region focused. ey are arranged more or less chronologically, but because of the changes in focus, some of the monuments will crop up in several di€erent chapters. e twentyseven chapters (plus introduction and epilogue) were written following my lesson plan for a semester’s worth of lectures, but I suspect few will use the book in the same way. It could also be used as a handbook, from which the reader (or the instructor assigning readings) can pick and choose, as the chapters are written to be self-contained narratives. And although I am an information junkie (as Master Builders surely indicates), I’ve tried not to clutter the narrative with too much data. e same goes for the footnotes.
My rst readers, Leslie Brubaker and her students, insisted they were necessary, but rather than overburden an already-long text, I’ve limited my references to a mix of useful recent scholarship and old standbys— that is, where to begin to nd more information, with some suggestions for further reading and research at the end of the volume. With the multiple languages represented by the monuments, I’ve tried to reconcile the orthography to what is most familiar, often choosing the Latinized names rather than the Greek—thus, Sts. Sergius and Bacchus and not HH. Sergios kai Bakchos; Procopius and not Prokopios. I’ve left Hagia Sophia and Hagia Eirene with their hagias intact, since they are concepts and not people, but in dedications to people I’ve opted for St., with the exception of a few familiar Italian monuments, which are better known as S. (i.e., San, Santa, or Santo).
For toponyms, I’ve usually opted for the Anglicized historical name with the current name in parentheses—thus, Constantinople rather than Istanbul of Konstantinoupolis. But it’s hard to balance common usage with consistency, and I apologize for whatever o€enses my choices might cause. As I ventured further aeld, I attempted to follow the simplied Library of Congress system, often with unfamiliar diacritical marks. I’ve also attempted to codify the architectural drawings in a consistent manner, with meter scales and north arrows. As the book gradually came together, beginning in 2014, I was aided and abetted by any number of friends, colleagues, assistants, and institutions, as well as readers and suppliers of illustrations and nancial and moral support. Several colleagues graciously agreed to read all or part of the book. Mark Johnson, Vasileios Marinis, Stefan Vranka, and Ann Marie Yasin read the whole thing and o€ered a variety of valuable comments. Leslie Brubaker and her seminar at the University of Birmingham read and commented on the rst half of the book, which helped me immensely as I tackled the second half.
Megan Boomer, Ivan Drpić, Derek Krueger, Christina Maranci, and Alice Sullivan also read and commented on pertinent sections of the text. Engin Akyürek, Demitris Athanasoulis, Charalambos and Demetra Bakirtzis, Elizabeth Bolman, Suna Çağaptay, James Crow, Soa Georgiadou, Sarah Guérin, Anne D. and John Hedeman, Ayşe Henry, Jane Hickman, Michalis Kappas, Armen Kazaryan, David Kim, Young Kim, Dale Kinney, W. Eugene Kleinbauer, Ann Kuttner, Lynne Lancaster, Henry and Eunice Maguire, Stavros Mamaloukos, Mikael Muehlbauer, Robert Nelson, Rory O’Neill, Jordan Pickett, Scott Redford, Brian Rose, Nancy Ševčenko, Kaja Silverman, Anna Sitz, Deb Stewart, Tasos Tanoulas, Tassos Tantsis, Ann Terry, Tolga Uyar, and Charles K. Williams II o€ered advice, bibliography, guidance, and reassurance. Ali Harwood assisted with the illustrations; Kaelin Jewell edited the text and prepared the bibliography and index. Financial support and the excellent libraries of the University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, and Dumbarton Oaks have facilitated my research through several decades.
I also gratefully acknowledge the publication subventions provided by the Williams Fund at Penn and the 1984 Foundation of Philadelphia, as well as the support of the Onassis Foundation. I am also indebted to the many institutions and individuals who generously assisted with illustrations, all of whom are acknowledged in the credits. Of these, let me single out Bettina Smith and her excellent sta€ at the Image Collection and Fieldwork Archives at Dumbarton Oaks; Michael Waters, Tayfun Öner, Nektarios Zarras, and Elka Bakalova, who went above and beyond the call of duty; and Danica Ćurčić, who made her late father’s photographs and drawings available to me. Professor Slobodan Ćurčić—who inspired my lifelong “church itch”—sadly passed away shortly before my manuscript was completed, but an attentive reader will nd his presence throughout its pages. I humbly dedicate this book to him— my teacher, mentor, and friend. RGO, March 2019 Philadelphia
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