Political Figures on the Mosaics from Constantinople to Sicily: A Comparative Study

Cultural objects are vectors of Byzantine heritage. Their mobility within and beyond the borders of the Byzantine Empire shows how Byzantium plays its important role in artistic and cultural transformations, on one hand, and how others imitate its artistic and cultural style, on the other. Indeed, this paper proposes to study the famous mosaics of Hagia Sophia of the 9th–11th century and their reception and imitation in Norman Sicily of the 12th century. In particular, we will analyse the political figures, emperors, kings and other high authorities on these mosaics. The representation of rulers in the mosaics is a very rare phenomenon in Late Antiquity, as the Ravenna mosaics in particular attest. Those of Hagia Sophia, although certainly influenced by the Ravenna tradition, establish a new artistic model for the representation of power in the middle of the medieval world throughout the Mediterranean. When the Norman King Roger II (1095–1154) and his civil servant George of Antioch (1090–1151) built and decorated their monuments in Sicily, they decided to use the Byzantine model to represent themselves, their absolute authority in their kingdom, and their connection with the Christian faith. We will analyse and compare all the details of the political figures on these mosaics and their historical background. Such a study aims to show how the model of power representation circulates beyond Byzantium and how and why it is accepted and chosen by other regimes, reflecting the key role of Byzantine culture in the Middle Ages.