The Bronze Horseman of Justinian in Constantinople

The Cross-Cultural Biography of a Mediterranean Monument

Elena N. Boeck

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781107197275
• eBook ISBN: 9781108195478
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Maps
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Note on Transliteration and Naming Conventions
• Selected Timeline of the Triumphal Column of Justinian and Its International Reverberations
• Map of Constantinople
• Introduction
• 1 Justinian’s Entry into Constantinople: He Came, He Saw, He Conquered
• 2 The Making of Justinian’s Forum
• 3 Defying a Defining Witness: the Bronze Horseman and the Buildings (De Aedificiis) of Prokopios
• 4 The Horseman of Baghdad Responds to the Horseman of Constantinople
• 5 Soothing Imperial Anxieties: Theophilos and the Restoration of Justinian’s Crown
• 6 Debating Justinian’s Merits in the Tenth Century
• 7 The Bronze Horseman and a Dark Hour for Humanity
• 8 The Horseman Becomes Heraclius: crusading Narratives of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
• 9 From Exile in Nicaea to Restoration of Constantinople
• 10 A Learned Dialogue across the Ages: Pachymeres Confronts Prokopios
• 11 Orb-Session: Constantinople’s Future in the Bronze Horseman’s Hand
• 12 Justinian’s Column and the Antiquarian Gaze: a Centuries-Old “Secret” Exposed
• 13 A Timeless Ideal: Constantinople in Slavonic Imagination of the Fourteenth–Fifteenth Centuries
• 14 The Horseman Meets Its End
• 15 Horse as Historia, Byzantium as Allegory
• 16 Shadowy Past and Menacing Future
• 17 After the Fall: the Bronze Horseman and the Eternal Tsar’grad
• Postscript: the Horseman’s Debut in Print
• Select Bibliography
• Index