[551] Gibbon selects some examples to show the anti-christian character of the classical enthusiasm. (1) At the Council of Florence, Gemistos Pletho said in familiar conversation to George of Trebizond that in a short time mankind would unanimously renounce the Gospel and the Koran for a religion similar to that of the Gentiles (Leo Allatius). (2) Paul II. accused the principal members of the Roman Academy of heresy, impiety, and paganism (Tiraboschi). I suspect the first charge of being grossly exaggerated or invented, but the fact that such a statement could be credited shows to what extent the classical reaction had gone.
[552] It is curious that the non-progressive party in Oxford, who violently opposed the introduction of the new studies, called themselves Trojans. Roper’s Life of Sir T. More (ed. Hearne), p. 75. The archbishops of Chios and Pusculus invariably describe the Turks as Teucri.
[553] Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae.
[554] Ducas, xliii.
[555] αἱ πλείους δὲ αὐτῶν, οὐ πρὸς ἀπόδοσιν μᾶλλον ἢ ὕβριν &c. Crit. ch. lxii.
[556] Hodius, De Graecis illustribus.
[557] Aeneas Sylvius, in 1454, before the diet of Frankfort says: ‘Quid de libris dicam, qui illic erant innumerabiles, nondum Latinis cogniti?... Nunc ergo et Homero et Pindaro et omnibus illustrioribus poetis secunda mors erit.’
[558] One such at least still remains at Zeirek Jami.
[559] Probably more manuscripts existing as rolls (the original volumen) than in book form have disappeared. The Turks, for example, when they occupied Mount Athos during the Greek revolution, found the rolls very convenient for making haversacks. The books have perished mostly from neglect. The discovery by the present bishop of Ismidt of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Διδαχὴ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων) in 1883, in the library of a monastery on the Golden Horn bound up with other manuscripts, the first of which only was indexed, gives hope that others of value may yet be found. The same remark applies to the recovery, about six years ago, of the Purple MS. of the Gospels, known technically as Codex N, and now at St. Petersburg.
[560] The influence of Byzantine art upon the West does not fall within the limits of my task. But every one interested in the subject is aware that during some centuries its influence was dominant. In the composition of pictures as well as in their drawing and treatment Western artists for a long time copied those of Constantinople. In painting, Byzantine influence prevailed throughout Italy from Justinian to the middle of the fourteenth century. Giotto, who died in 1336, was, says Kugler, the first to abandon the Byzantine style. In the intervening centuries the monasteries of Constantinople, Salonica, and Mount Athos were the central ateliers of painting, and furnished the models for artistic activity to all Europe. The mosaics in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna are magnificent illustrations of what Byzantine art was in the time of Justinian. Those in Hagia Sophia, as well as its general plan of colour-ornamentation, are still unsurpassed. Those of the Kahrié Mosque belonging to the fourteenth century are interesting and show a deep feeling for colour-combination as well as accuracy of drawing. Byzantine architecture in like manner greatly influenced the builders of churches in Western lands. The front view of St. Mark’s in Venice in the thirteenth century placed side by side with that of the Kahrié Mosque at the present day shows that the plan of the earlier one was familiar to the architect of the other, and, as has been pointed out by an architect who has made a careful study of the two buildings, when St. Mark’s differs from the Kahrié, the difference may be found in details reproduced from another church in Constantinople, that of the Pantocrator. The resemblance between St. Mark’s and the Kahrié illustrates Mr. Fergusson’s observations on the decoration of the exteriors of Byzantine churches. He points out that while the interior of Hagia Sophia is ‘the most perfect and most beautiful church which has yet been erected by any Christian people,’ the exterior was never finished (Fergusson’s History of Architecture, ii. 321). The Kahrié of to-day resembles St. Mark’s of the thirteenth century before the exterior casing was added to it.