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Ravenna was an early & major portal for Byzantine influence in Italy.  Following the conquests of Belisarius for Justinian I (6th century), it served as capital for the Byzantine governor of Italy.  Under Byzantine rule, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Ravenna was temporarily granted autonomy from the Roman Church (666).  In 751 the Lombards conquered the city ending Byzantine rule in northern Italy. The city’s basilica of San Vitale has a number of distinctive Byzantine features: a polygonal apse, capitals, narrow bricks, early example of flying buttresses & Byzantine mosaics.

Venice was influenced by Byzantium via trade.  With a strategic position at the head of the Adriatic the city became a trade centre between Europe & the Byzantine Empire.  Constantinople twice granted trading privileges to Venice (in the Golden Bulls) in return for aid against Norman & Turkish incursions.  In 1082 Venice even did homage to the Emperor.  In the 4th Crusade the city participated in the sack of Constantinople, resulting in much Byzantine plunder ending up in Venice.

Lucca too was a major commercial player.  The city lay on major land junctions (the convergence of roads to Parma, Florence, Rome, Pisa & Luni) & was heavily involved in the silk trade; commerce brought her into contact with the East.  The fingerprints of Byzantine influence are visible in Lucca’s outstanding 13th-century painter, Berlinghiero Berlinghieri.  Open to Byzantine inspiration, his Madonna and Child is a Byzantine Hodegetria, a type in which the Madonna points to the Child as the way to salvation.  His sons (active 1228-82) also reflect Byzantine inspiration.  Indeed their vigorously linear Romanesque idiom is often described as Byzantine.  Bonaventura is known for an early panel of S. Francis and his Life (1235) whose 2-dimensional settings caricature Byzantine pictorial space (although he uses vigorous chiaroscuro). 

Granada was a focal point for Spanish Islamic Culture.  The Umayyad conquest of Hispania, starting in AD 711, brought large parts of the Iberia under Moorish control & established Al-Andalus.  In the early 11th century, after the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate, the Berber Zawi ben Ziri established an independent kingdom.  By the end of the 11th century, the prosperous city had spread across the Darro to reach the hill of the future Alhambra (a Cultural treasure trove of late Magian architecture & ornament) & included the Albaicín neighbourhood.  Under its final Islamic dynasty, the Nasrid, Grenada was a powerful & self-sufficient kingdom.  It survived until 1492 when Isabel & Ferdinand completed the Reconquista.

Palermo Sicily felt the impact of BOTH the Byzantines & Islam.  In the Gothic War (between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantine Empire) Sicily was the first area conquered by Belisarius who was commissioned by Eastern Emperor.  Justinian I solidified his rule in the following years.  Then, from 831 to 1072 the city was under Arab rule (the Emirate of Sicily) when it became a capital.  Its Cappella Palatina, reflects Byzantine, Arabic and Norman elements.

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Antinous statues:*

Hadrian turned to Greek sculptors to perpetuate the melancholy beauty, diffident manner & lithe and sensuous frame of his boyfriend.  Produced between 130-138 AD (the date of Hadrian’s death) they are the last independent creation of Greco-Roman art.  Official models were sent out to provincial workshops all over the empire to be copied, allowing local variations. Many of these sculptures share distinctive & recognizable features such as a broad, swelling chest, a head of tousled curls, a downcast gaze.ave held a cobra.