Byzantium at the Royal Academy

Above: Taking refuge from the bad weather I went into the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly.



Above: the steps leading up to the exhibition (then I had to put my camera away as photography is not allowed).



Considering that Constantinople fell to the invading Turks in 1453, it is amazing that anything remains of Byzantine civilisation. The few fragments that do survive indicate the treasures that have been lost. If the European Union should last a thousand years it might possibly develop a continental culture comparable with Byzantium.

Entering the first room you walk under an enormous Byzantine chandalier. In the next room you come face to face with a life-size marble head of Constantine, positioned on a level so that you can look into his eyes. In the next room is the Antioch Chalice, supposedly a candidate for the Holy Grail itself ("recent scholarship" says it is a standing lamp, but we know all about recent scholars and their attempts to out-banal each other in dead-pan interpretations).

It was the books that I found most exciting. The Sacra Parallela of St John of Damascus; the Khludov Psalter; the Menologian (a calendar of saints' days). A copy (obviously much-kissed) of the theological writings of the Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos.

A room filled with icons, including the familiar icon of the Archangel Michael (familiar from illustrations - the actual object impressed me with its three-dimensional depth). A micromosaic of the Man of Sorrows in a later reliquary case which had tiny stuffed compartments in the doors so that I wanted to take it apart. A wonderful icon of St George from St Catherine's monastery in Sinai (after the books this was for me the star of the show).

Other objects that caught my eye included some big silver spoons; the sapphires set in the Berlin collar; the angels holding fans on the Epitaphios of Nicholas Eudaimonoianoannes.