Bedazzled By Byzantium: Scott

Today we went to the Royal Academy of Arts, primarily to see the Treasures of Byzantium exhibition. The curators have assembled an incredible array of artifacts from museums around the world to display the power, wealth and culture possessed by the Rome of the east from 330 to 1453. Although both Laura and Scott have read about Byzantium before, one doesn't really get a feel for how cultured, intellectual and really, really rich the place was until one sees the cultural detritus. The museum provided a "family audio" which did a very good job of telling the story to all of us at the same time. The girls learned how this culture was incredibly caught up in debating fine points of theology, we all learned together about the history of religious icons and the orthodox church's on-again, off-again relationship with them, we saw cool relics and reliquaries and we learned about the cross pollenization of artistic ideas between Constantinople in the east and Rome in the west. Mostly, we saw gold, gold, and more gold. The curators say that the exhibit contains so many fragile items of incalculable value that such a display will probably never be mounted again. That would be a shame, but we're glad we saw it this time.