Marco Aimone – författare

The definitive catalogue of one of the most important and spectacular collections of Late Antique and medieval decorative art in the world. Late Antiquity and the early medieval period witnessed enormous cultural transformation throughout Europe and the Mediterranean: the decline of the Roman Empire in western Europe, the rise of Byzantium in the East and mass migration of peoples from Asia and northern Europe into areas formerly under Roman control. Between the fourth and tenth centuries CE, in a period of great upheaval, the nation states of modern Europe emerged. At the centre was Byzantium, where many of the finest objects were made and then given to or traded with so-called 'barbarian' tribes. It was also the period when Christianity took root in material culture, at times in conjunction with pagan images. The many spectacular artefacts from this period in the Wyvern Collection include several substantial and previously unpublished collections of Late Roman and Byzantine jewelry. This was a time when wealth needed to be portable: the collection includes magnificent, jeweled buckles, brooches and diadems; and ornate weapons and horse-trappings, some with intricate garnet cloisonné decoration. Other extraordinary objects — parade swords, coin hoards, fibulae and torcs — complete this multifaceted portrait of a rapidly shifting Europe. Written by renowned Byzantine scholar Marco Aimone, the fifth catalogue of the Wyvern Collection is supplemented with three specialist essays: Jack Ogden on early manufacturing techniques, Noël Adams on garnet jewelry, and Leslie Webster on early medieval animal style. Jane Kershaw also writes on Viking metalwork and Toby Martin on Anglo-Saxon artefacts.

Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages are now understood as times of extraordinary skill and creativity in the decorative arts. In the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) artists and craftsmen transitioned from ‘Roman’ to ‘Byzantine’ art and inspired a move from naturalism to a more hieratic and symbolic style, drawing on the deep artistic links connecting the Mediterranean world and the East. The many spectacular artefacts from this period in the Wyvern Collection are luxury objects, most commissioned by wealthy patrons or the Church, ranging in date from the fourth century to around 1300. Masterpieces of great significance for art history, including a 5th-century Artemis missorium, previously unpublished, and an 11th-century enamelled enkolpion from Constantinople are among the highlights of the collection. Other extraordinary objects – Late Roman chariot decorations, a stone funerary door from Syria and brooches brought across Europe by the families of Roman soldiers – complete this artistic panorama of the great Mediterranean and Persian civilizations, whose creative influence extended to the far west of the Islamic world. The catalogue, by Byzantine metalwork expert Marco Aimone, is augmented by three essays from technical specialists: Jack Ogden (enamelling), Peter Northover (metallurgy) and Erica Cruikshank Dodd (hallmarks). Rika Gyselen also contributes readings of Persian inscriptions.