Henry Hopwood-Phillips2 hours ago7 minByzantine Rome Part IV: The Fall of Byzantine RomeChurch of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura Imperial confirmation of papal elections was formally requested until AD 731. At the Emperor’s behest the pope had to dro...
Henry Hopwood-Phillips2 days ago6 minByzantine Rome Part III: Rome's Byzantine Adolescence View of the Ponte Nomentano by Pierre Nicolas Brisset Gregory the Great was born c. AD 540 into the Anicii family. A great-grandson of Pope Felix III, he grew...
Henry Hopwood-Phillips4 days ago6 minByzantine Rome Part II: Rome Under the LabarumSt. Maria Maggiore In the late fourth and early fifth century, inconspicuous house churches began to morph into large basilicas. Towards AD 410, for example,...
Henry Hopwood-Phillips6 days ago5 minByzantine Rome Part 1: Rome Under ConstantineArch of Constantine A cavalry battle that started at a defile on the Cassian Road at saxa rubra and continued downhill to the Tiber and across the Milvian Br...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMay 216 minRenaissance Rumble: Giorgio Vasari vs Byzantine ArtVirgin & Child, Chora Monastery Istanbul I daydream about a future civilisation condemning the artistic fruits of its Latin precursor by a literary genre the...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMay 144 minYou Can’t Just Make Sh** Up: How Venice Lied to The World About its Byzantine IconI recently did a Zoom chat in which I was asked which Byzantine item I’d rescue in a nuclear holocaust. I started by answering that it definitely wouldn’t be...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMay 104 minKeeping It Roman: How Roman Architecture Survived Its Medieval CompetitorsThe Great Palace of Constantinople is usually advertised as the last great hurrah of late antique architecture. Indeed, its style – which celebrated peristyl...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMay 16 minZoe Porphyrogenita: Theurgical Nightmare or Orthodox BaeThere’s an oft cited passage of Psellos that describes Zoe’s love of perfumes as well as her devotion to the icon of Christ Antiphonetes.[1] This has been ha...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsApr 236 minPost-Byzantine Constantinople: The Orthodox in an Ottoman MegalopolisWhen Mehmed II entered Constantinople in 1453 he was surrounded by ruins and ghosts of the Roman Empire. A sacred landscape, the city was also a shell of its...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsApr 167 minCover Yo Woman: The Byzantine Stance on Veiling WomenNowhere has the link between dress and identity received more scrutiny than in recent scholarship dealing with veiling trends among women in Islamic societie...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsApr 97 minOrbis Britanniae: A Dark Age AlphabetAgilbert (d. 675) was bishop successively of Dorchester-on-Thames and Paris. A Frank who’d studied in Ireland, he left the West Saxon bishopric when the King...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsApr 47 minThe St Mark Ivories: The Grado Chair That Never WasFig.1 - The Annunciation, Museo del Castello Sforzesco, Milan. In 1899 a group of ivory carvings (figs. 1-5 provide a sample) was connected with the Grado ch...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMar 287 minVortigern: The British ScapegoatVortigern was the most dominant figure in what remained of the Roman administration after the departure of the Roman legions. His invitation to the Saxons wo...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMar 264 minThe Battle for the Venetian Soul: Byzantium vs. FranciaFrom the appearance of the Lombards in Venetia[1] in AD 568/9, Venice had to play a clever game to enforce any sort of autonomy in the face of Lombard, Frank...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMar 214 minWhence St Demetrios?: The Spanish Patron Saint of ThessalonikiThere is a disturbing lack of early evidence for the cult of St Demetrios at Thessalonica. In light of this the majority of modern scholars don’t accept the ...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMar 197 minBalkan Christianity: The Early YearsHouse of Dionysios, Archaeological Museum of Delos Whenever the clash of paganism and Christianity is discussed, minds jump to the easy flash-points. Constan...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMar 125 minDid Byzantine Heraldry Exist?Was there an equivalent use of distinctive motifs employed as ornament by the Byzantine nobility (to convey the same messages of authority and individuality)...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMar 74 minChristian Worship: The Early YearsAt the beginning of the second century, Christian ritual was loosely organised. The congregation would assemble at sunrise on Sunday for prayer and towards e...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsMar 55 minThe Development of Christian JerusalemIf Rome evolved a stational liturgy in order to connect scattered cemeteries and tituli (which were by the third century accorded specific roles such as bapt...
Henry Hopwood-PhillipsFeb 2713 minNeoplatonic Christianity: An Alternative Theological Model or Dead-End?“Only a few things in the Platonic books need to be altered to make their authors Christian.”[1] St Augustine “Oneself is not the subject isolating itself fr...