This book covers a subject that has never previously been
addressed, and yet it is both a fascinating and a provocative one:
the representation of children in Byzantium. The visual material is
extensive, intriguing and striking, and the historical context is
crucially important to our understanding of Byzantine culture,
social history and artistic output. The imagery explored is drawn
from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries and encompasses media
from manuscripts to mosaics and enamel. Part of the allure of this
subject is that people do not associate childhood with Byzantium.
Ernst Gombrich commented, 'who could find it easy, after a visit to
Ravenna and its solemn mosaics, to think of noisy children in
Byzantium?'. However, in Byzantium, patrons of art were often
young, such as emperors who acceded to the throne as teenagers, and
makers of art, sculptors, mosaicists, painters often began their
training at an early age. How did this affect the creation,
promotion and production of art? The study questions the
definitions and perceptions of childhood, focusing on topics such
as the family, saintly children and those associated with imperial
power. Cecily Hennessy demonstrates that children are featured
often in visual imagery and in key locations, indicating that they
played a central role in Byzantine life, something which has
previously been overlooked or ignored. In tackling this new subject
she reveals important aspects of childhood, youth, and by extension
adulthood in Byzantine society and raises issues that are also
applicable to the present and to other historical contexts.
General
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