Бевилаква Ливия
Римский университет Ла Сапиенца, Италия; Стамбульский университет; Научно-технологический исследовательский совет Турции, Турция
The Byzantines considered themselves as the descendants and heirs of the Romans, and took up their legacy, in terms of ideals as well as of material culture, and in different fields of the artistic production. The intentionality of this operation is attested by constant reference in the literary sources. One aspect of this phenomenon is the reuse of ancient figural art works (or parts of them) within new works, thus giving the antiquities an “afterlife” in new contexts, often with a strong emotional impact, especially when these works were displayed in public areas, such as fora, squares, streets, buildings’ façades. In this paper I will focus on the arrangement of city walls. Particular attention will be given to city gates, both in Constantinople and in Asia Minor, where either traces or memories of decoration including reused ancient figural sculpture are attested. A few examples will be considered, where such spolia receive additional aesthetical and, perhaps, ideological value in their secondary setting, a circumstance which is as important as the fact that such reuse has facilitated – in a number of cases – the preservation of antiquities up to the present.