The Chora Church and the Byzantine Renaissance

While I noted the defacement of Hagia Sophia with Arabic religious signs in my previous post, I do also need to take note that the Turks took great care to preserve much of the most valuable Byzantine artwork in churches that they recycled into mosques.

Islam does not generally approve of images of people, which is why mosques are generally decorated with calligraphy and geometrical patterns. But rather than strip away the mosaics and frescoes left by the vanished Byzantines, the Turks tended to just plaster them over.

One of the most remarkable caches of Byzantine artwork is found in the Chora Church, near the city walls in the western part of the old city. The church itself dates from the 11oos -- new, by Byzantine standards -- and doesn't look like much from the outside:


Inside, however, the frescoes and mosaics are unbelievable, especially for what was essentially not much more than a parish church (albeit one with a wealthy patron):


This artwork mainly dates to the 1300s, a time when the Byzantine Empire was on its last legs but experienced a last flourishing of the arts that scholars have recently said prefigured and presaged the Italian Renaissance a century later.

After seeing this, I can understand the argument.