Dynamic Splendor introduces a cycle of sixth-century mosaics little known to scholars, though they are comparable in quality and interest to famed mosaics in Italy and elsewhere. Ann Terry and Henry Maguire provide the first comprehensive account of the history and meaning of the mosaics along with the first high-quality photographic documentation of the ensemble.

It has only recently been possible to study the mosaics at Porec closely, due to favorable conditions in Croatian Istria, where the mosaics reside, and to the discovery of the original restoration documents in Vienna and Trieste. Terry and Maguire have tracked the condition and restoration of these works, distinguishing between the original mosaics and later contributions. Beyond creating an important archival source, the authors consider the making of the mosaics, their thematic structure, their relationship to the cathedral complex, and their connection to the patron, Bishop Eufrasius, while drawing parallels with other renowned works.

About the Author

Ann Terry is an independent scholar and the author of A Century of Archaeology at Porec (1847-1947) with Ffiona Gilmore Eaves (2001).

Henry Maguire is Professor in the Johns Hopkins History of Art Department. His publications include Earth and Ocean: The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art (Penn State, 1987), the edited volume Byzantine Magic (1995), and Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (1996).

Reviews

"Long overshadowed by their more extensive neighbors at Ravenna and Venice, the glittering mosaics of Porec have rarely been subjected to detailed scrutiny. Repeatedly restored in the late nineteenth century, they have been regarded with suspicion by scholars and quickly passed over by tourists. Terry and Maguire compensate for this neglect with meticulous examination from the scaffold and judicious study of the relative merits of pre-restoration drawings, photos, and written records . . . with a battery of color photographs unparalleled in any other work on early Byzantine mosaic."

-Anthony Cutler,The Pennsylvania State University

"At a time when many academic publishers speculate about the demise of the art-history monograph, Dynamic Splendor is a welcome retort about what would be lost without the commitment of university presses to rigorous and elegant scholarship."

-Eric Banks BookForum

"The number and quality of the images as well as its high standard of scholarship make this handsomely produced boxed set, priced at only $95, surely the best buy in the book market now. The press deserves congratulations."

-A.J. Wharton Choice

"This magnificent two-volume work presents the sixth-century mosaics that survive in the three apses of the church in all their glory, but also in all their controversy. With more than two hundred colour photographs, the book provides invaluable visual documentation and it is hard to envisage it being surpassed in the future. This is an indispensable research tool for anyone interested in Early Christian art."

-Antony Eastmond Burlington Magazine

"Beautifully and extensively illustrated with color photographs of the mosaics in the basilica together with a generous number of comparanda, this book recuperates for scholars a major, long ignored monumental program."

-Elizabeth S. Bolman Journal of Early Christian Studies

"With the publication of Dynamic Splendor, Ann Terry and Henry Maguire have erected a monument of their own in honor of the Basilica Eufrasiana. . . . It will serve many uses: as an object of aesthetic appreciation, a record of valuable research, and a thoughtful model for future monographs."

-Benjamin Anderson Bryn Mawr Classical Review (BMCR)

"Dynamic Splendor, by Ann Terry and Henry Maguire, might be described as a traditional monograph on the internal decoration of a particular building, one that adopts an implicit model of Panofskian analysis by opening with questions of formal perception moving through a discussion of the iconography of the art works, and concluding with a discussion of iconology. And there is nothing wrong with that, especially when it it is as well executed as this. Indeed, it is the level of formal analysis that makes the book so distinctive and so interesting."

-Liz James Art History

"The book is a resource to all students of the sixth century, and incidentally anyone interested in nineteenth-century medievalism and restoration."

-Caroline J. Goodson Early Medieval Europe

Book Information
ISBN 9780271028736
Author Ann Terry
Page Count 416
Imprint Pennsylvania State University Press
Publisher Pennsylvania State University Press
Weight(grams) 3656g
Dimensions(mm) 305mm * 254mm * 36mm