1.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
2.
Barberini ivory
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The Barberini ivory is a Byzantine ivory leaf from an imperial diptych dating from Late Antiquity, now in the Louvre in Paris. It represents the emperor as triumphant victor and it is a notable historical document because it is linked to queen Brunhilda of Austrasia. On the back there is a list of names of Frankish kings, all relatives of Brunhilda, Brunhilda ordered the list to be inscribed and offered it to the church as a votive image. Although it is not a consular diptych, it shares features of their decorative schemes. Although the barbarian is partly hidden by the emperors huge spear, this does not pierce him, and he seems more astonished and over-awed than combative. Above, Christ, with a fashionable curled hair-style, is flanked by two angels in the style of pagan victory figures, he reigns above, while the emperor represents him below on earth. In the bottom panel barbarians from West and East bring tribute, the figure in the left panel, representing a soldier, carries a statuette of Victory, his counterpart on the right is lost. It was originally made up of five rectangular plaques, although that on the right has been replaced by a board bearing the inscription CONSTANT, the plaques are fitted together by tongue and groove joints, around a larger central plaque. Overall, the piece is the only such object to survive in such good condition. Often grouped under the title of imperial diptychs and it measures 34.2 cm high by 26.8 cm wide overall, with the central panel 19 cm high by 12.5 cm wide by 2.5 cm deep. It is made from elephant ivory, sculpted and mounted with precious stones and it carries no traces of polychromy, contrary to what certain historians have supposed. The reverse of the object is flat and smooth, without the depression for wax which would be found on a consular diptych, which would be used as a writing tablet. Nevertheless, it is streaked with lines engraved later over older ink inscriptions – it includes a list of names, among whom can be seen the kings of Austrasia and other names, mostly Latin ones. Onomastics shows that the list comes from Auvergne and not from Provence as has been thought from the location of the object in the modern era, the inscriptions also date to the 7th century and show that the work was brought to Gaul early in its life. Peiresc mentions it specifically in a letter to his friend Palamède de Vallavez, I gave it to him as he left he had several similar pieces in the same manner in ivory, with which would go well. It was acquired by the Louvre in 1899 and has then been in the département des objets dart. It introduces a new cosmic hierarchy into the representation of the triumph of the Roman Empire and is thus a political work designed to serve as imperial propaganda. The quality of the workmanship allows it to be attributed to a workshop in Constantinople
3.
Hinge
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A hinge is a mechanical bearing that connects two solid objects, typically allowing only a limited angle of rotation between them. Two objects connected by an ideal hinge rotate relative to each other about an axis of rotation. Hinges may be made of material or of moving components. In biology, many joints function as hinges like the elbow joint, there are many types of door hinges. The main types include, Spring hinge which is a hinge made to provide assistance in the closing or the opening of the hinge leaves. A spring is a component of a hinge, that force to secure a hinge closed or keep a hinge opened. Barrel hinge which is a sectional barrel secured by a pivot, pivot hinges which pivot in openings in the floor and the top of the door frame. Also referred to as a double-acting floor hinge and this type is found in ancient dry stone buildings and rarely in old wooden buildings. These are also called haar-hung doors and they are a low cost alternative for use light weight doors. Butt/Mortise hinges usually in threes or fours, which are inset into the door, most residential hinges found in the U. S. are made of steel, although mortise hinges for exterior doors are often made of brass or stainless steel to prevent corrosion. Case hinges Case hinges are similar to a butt hinge however usually more of a nature most commonly used in suitcases, briefcases. Continuous hinges, or piano hinges This type of hinge is also known as a piano hinge and it runs the entire length of the door, panel, or box. Continuous hinges are manufactured with or without holes and these hinges also come in various thicknesses, pin diameters, and knuckle lengths. Concealed hinges Used for furniture doors and they are made of two parts, One part is the hinge cup and the arm, the other part is the mounting plate. Also called cup hinge, or Euro hinge, as they were developed in Europe, most such concealed hinges offer the advantage of full in situ adjustability for standoff distance from the cabinet face as well as pitch and roll by means of two screws on each hinge. Butterfly hinges, or Parliament Hinges These were known as dovetail hinges from the 17th century onwards and can be found on old desks and cabinets from about 1670 until the 18th century. The form of these hinges varied slightly between manufacturers, and their size ranged from the large for heavy doors to the tiniest decorative hinge for use on jewellery boxes. Many hinges of this type were exported to America to support the home trades limited supply and they are still found to be both fairly cheap and decorative, especially on small items
4.
Wax tablet
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A wax tablet is a tablet made of wood and covered with a layer of wax, often linked loosely to a cover tablet, as a double-leaved diptych. It was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in Antiquity, ciceros letters make passing reference to the use of cerae, and some examples of wax-tablets have been preserved in waterlogged deposits in the Roman fort at Vindolanda on Hadrians Wall. Medieval wax tablet books are on display in several European museums, writing on the wax surface was performed with a pointed instrument, a stylus. Therefore, the stylus could not be applied with the degree of dexterity as a pen. A straight-edged, spatula-like implement would be used in a fashion to serve as an eraser. The entire tablet could be erased for reuse by warming it to about 50 °C, the modern expression of a clean slate equates to the Latin expression tabula rasa. Wax tablets were used for a variety of purposes, from taking down students or secretaries notes to recording business accounts, early forms of shorthand were used too. The earliest surviving exemplar of a writing tablet with an ivory hinge was among the finds recovered from the 14th-century BCE Uluburun Shipwreck near Kaş in modern Turkey in 1986. This find further confirmed that the reference to writing tablets in Homer was far from anachronistic, an archaeological discovery in 1979 in Durrës, Albania found two wax tablets made of ivory in a grave believed to belong to a money lender from the 2nd century CE. The Greeks probably started using the pair of wax tablets. An alternative theory holds that it has retained its Semitic designation, daltu, in Hebrew the term evolved into daleth. In the first millennium BCE writing tablets were in use in Mesopotamia as well as Syria, writing tablets of ivory were found in the ruins of Sargons palace in Nimrud. Hériman of Tournai, a monk at the abbey of St Martin of Tournai, a remarkable example of a wax tablet book are the servitude records which the hospital of Austrias oldest city, Enns, established in 1500. Ten wooden plates, sized 375 x 207 mm and arranged in a 90 mm stack, are divided into two halves along their long axis. The annual payables due are written on parchment or paper glued to the left sides, payables received were recorded for deduction on the respective right sides, which are covered with brownish-black writing wax. The material is based on beeswax, and contains 5-10% plant oils and this volume is the continuation of an earlier one, which was begun in 1447. Wax tablets were used for high-volume business records of transient importance until the 19th century, for instance, the salt mining authority at Schwäbisch Hall employed wax records until 1812. The fish market in Rouen used them even until the 1860s, tafel, Buch und Blatt in Near Eastern Studies in Honour of W. F
5.
Consular diptych
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In Late Antiquity, a consular diptych was a type of diptych intended as a de-luxe commemorative object. The diptychs were generally in ivory, wood or metal and decorated with relief sculpture. Later, the letter might be written on papyrus and presented within the covers and these diptychs were made of ivory, with relief carvings on the outside chosen by the donor, looking superficially similar to codicils but containing no writing and with no official status. The routine distribution of such diptychs in the East is marked by a decision by Theodosius I in 384 to limit expenditure on the games of Constantinople by reserving ivory diptychs to consuls alone. In the western empire, they became a part of the public displays given by great aristocrats. Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, for example, distributed some to commemorate his sons quaestorian games in 393, almost all depict the games, and on three separate occasions Symmachus links the presentation of these diptychs with the completion of the games. Their end is marked by the consulships disappearance under the reign of Justinian in 541, the simpler examples were probably produced as a series from models prepared in advance, with the more sophisticated diptychs reserved for the inner circle of the Roman aristocracy. The most common motif on 6th century consular diptychs from Constantinople shows the consul, by their very nature, consular diptychs are a valuable tool for the prosopography of the late Roman Empire as well as for the study of the art of this period. Large numbers of them have survived to the present day, in many due to their re-use as book covers for medieval ecclesiastical manuscripts. Some were also used in churches as grand bindings for lists of bishops, the Barberini Ivory is a much rarer Imperial diptych, probably of Justinian. In chronological order of production, Alexander Kazhdan, The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium,3 vols, Oxford University Press,1991, s. v. Diptych, vol. Bente Kiilerich, Late Fourth Century Classicism in the plastic Arts, studies in the so-called Theodosian Renaissance, Odense University Classical Studies 18, Odense University Press,1993. Danièle Gaborit-Chopin, Les ivoires du Ve au VIIIe siècle in J. Durant, Byzance, lart byzantin dans les collections publiques françaises, Paris,1993, richard Delbrück, Die Consulardiptychen, und verwandte Denkmäler, Berlin,1929
6.
Monza
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Monza listen is a city and comune on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about 15 kilometres north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the Province of Monza and Brianza, Monza is best known for its Grand Prix motor racing circuit, the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, which hosts the Formula One Italian Grand Prix. On 11 June 2004 Monza was designated the capital of the new province of Monza and Brianza, the new administrative arrangement came fully into effect in summer 2009, previously, Monza was a comune within the province of Milan. Monza is the third-largest city of Lombardy and is the most important economic, industrial and administrative centre of the Brianza area, supporting a textile industry, Monza also hosts a Department of the University of Milan Bicocca, a Court of Justice and several offices of regional administration. Monza Park is one of the largest urban parks in Europe, Monza is located in the high plains of Lombardy, between Brianza and Milan, at an altitude of 162 metres above sea level. It is 15 kilometres from the centre of the capital, although when considering the cities borders. Monza is about 40 km from Lecco and Como, Monza shares its position with Milan in the same metro area, and is a big part of its new province. Monza is crossed north to south by the River Lambro. The river enters Monza from the north, between Via Aliprandi and Via Zanzi streets and this is an artificial fork of the river, created for defensive purposes in the early decades of the 14th century. The fork is known as Lambretto and it rejoins the main course of the Lambro as it exits to the south, another artificial stream is the Canale Villoresi, which was constructed in the late 19th century. Precipitation is abundant, with most occurring in the autumn and the least in winter and summer, despite this, during the Roman Empire, Monza was known as Modicia. During the 3rd century BCE, the Romans subdued the Insubres, a Gallo-Celtic tribe, perhaps the Insubres themselves, founded a village on the Lambro. The ruins of a Roman bridge named Ponte dArena can be seen near todays Ponte dei Leoni, Theodelinda, daughter of Garibald I of Bavaria and wife of the Lombard king Authari, chose Monza as her summer residence. Here in 595 she founded an oraculum dedicated to St. John the Baptist, according to this legend, the medieval name of Monza, Modoetia, is derived from these two words. She also had a palace built here, berengar I of Italy located his headquarters in Monza. A fortified castrum was constructed to resist the incursions of the Hungarians, under Berengars reign, Monza enjoyed a certain degree of independence, it had its own system of weights and measures, and could also seize property and mark the deeds with their signatures. Berengar was very evident by the donation of numerous works to the Monza Cathedral, including the famous cross. In 980 Monza hosted Emperor Otto II inside the walled city, the Glossary of Monza, one of the earliest examples of the evolution of Italian language, probably dates to the early 10th century
7.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
8.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Panel painting
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A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Panel painting is very old, it was a very prestigious medium in Greece and Rome, a series of 6th century BC painted tablets from Pitsa represent the oldest surviving Greek panel paintings. Most classical Greek paintings that were famous in their day seem to have been of a size comparable to modern works - perhaps up to a half-length portrait size. We can only attempt to imagine what these looked like from some detailed literary descriptions, the Severan Tondo, also from Egypt is one of the handful of non-funerary Graeco-Roman specimens to survive. Encaustic and tempera are the two used in antiquity. Encaustic largely ceased to be used after the early Byzantine icons, the earliest forms of panel painting were dossals, altar fronts and crucifixes. All were painted with images, commonly the Christ or the Virgin, with the saints appropriate to the dedication of the church. Donor portraits including members of the family are also often shown. Painted panels for altars are most numerous in Spain, especially Catalonia, the 13th and 14th centuries in Italy were a great period of panel painting, mostly altarpieces or other religious works. However, it is estimated that of all the paintings produced there,99.9 percent have been lost. The vast majority of Early Netherlandish paintings are on panel, and these include most of the earliest portraits, such as those by Jan van Eyck, and some other secular scenes. However, one of the earliest surviving oils on canvas is a French Madonna with angels of about 1410 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, which is very early indeed for oil painting also. By the 15th century with the wealth of Europe, and later the appearance of humanism. Secular art opened the way to the creation of chests, painted beds, birth trays, many such works are now detached and hung framed on walls in museums. Many double-sided wings of altarpieces have also been sawn into two one-sided panels, canvas took over from panel in Italy by the first half of the 16th century, a change led by Mantegna and the artists of Venice. His panels are of notoriously complicated construction, containing as many as seventeen pieces of wood, for smaller cabinet paintings, copper sheets were another rival support, from the end of the 16th century, used by many artists including Adam Elsheimer. Many Dutch painters of the Golden Age used panel for their small works, by the 18th century it had become unusual to paint on panel, except for small works to be inset into furniture, and the like. But, for example, The National Gallery in London has two Goya portraits on panel, many other painting traditions also painted, and still paint, on wood, but the term is usually only used to refer to the Western tradition described above
10.
Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
11.
Icon
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An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and certain Eastern Catholic churches. The most common subjects include Christ, Mary, saints and/or angels, icons may also be cast in metal, carved in stone, embroidered on cloth, painted on wood, done in mosaic or fresco work, printed on paper or metal, etc. Comparable images from Western Christianity are generally not described as icons, Eastern Orthodox tradition holds that the creation of Christian images dates back to the very early days of Christianity, and there is has been a continuous tradition since then. The icons of later centuries can be linked, often closely, to images from the 5th century onwards, there was enormous destruction of images during the Byzantine Iconoclasm of 726-842, although this did settle for good the question of the appropriateness of images. Since then icons have had a continuity of style and subject. At the same time there has been change and development, Christian tradition dating from the 8th century identifies Luke the Evangelist as the first icon painter. Aside from the legend that Pilate had made an image of Christ and he relates that King Abgar of Edessa sent a letter to Jesus at Jerusalem, asking Jesus to come and heal him of an illness. In this version there is no image, further legends relate that the cloth remained in Edessa until the 10th century, when it was taken to Constantinople. It went missing in 1204 when Crusaders sacked Constantinople, but by then numerous copies had firmly established its iconic type. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world that is to say, with the images of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honouring these images, after the manner of the Gentiles. And he called him and said, Lycomedes, what do you mean by this matter of the portrait, can it be one of thy gods that is painted here. For I see that you are living in heathen fashion. Later in the passage John says, But this that you have now done is childish and imperfect, at least some of the hierarchy of the Christian churches still strictly opposed icons in the early 4th century. At the Spanish non-ecumenical Synod of Elvira bishops concluded, Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration. to our religion. After the emperor Constantine I extended official toleration of Christianity within the Roman Empire in 313 and this period of Christianization probably saw the use of Christian images became very widespread among the faithful, though with great differences from pagan habits. Robin Lane Fox states By the early century, we know of the ownership of private icons of saints. 480-500, we can be sure that the inside of a saints shrine would be adorned with images and votive portraits, when Constantine himself apparently converted to Christianity, the majority of his subjects remained pagans
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Relief
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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise, to create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a surface of stone or wood is a lowering of the field. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the form from the field. There is also sunk relief, which was restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only used to discuss most work. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, works in the technique are described as in relief, and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is a relief. Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of settings. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with figures and very active poses, such as battles. Most ancient architectural reliefs were painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. Rock reliefs are carved into solid rock in the open air. This type is found in cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a standing stone, many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are often combined in a single work. In particular, most later high reliefs contain sections in low relief, a low relief or bas-relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. Other versions distort depth much less and it is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required
René Maere (1913). "Diptych". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
