[1] The fall of the Empire
Zweig's When the Stars Shine has a section devoted to the last years of the Byzantine Empire. In 1453, the ancient empire that had spanned three continents in Asia, Africa and Europe was left with only the capital Constantinople and a small circle of land around it, which could be called a city country.
It was only a matter of time before the Sultan's army captured the city that was crumbling in the storm of history. Still, the warriors of Constantinople believed that god's glory still sheltered the millennial city—even if it was only for one more day.
However, the Holy Light finally dimmed on May 29, 1453, and a group of Turks found the unguarded "Kelcal gate", took advantage of the situation, the defenders were attacked by the enemy, their confidence was greatly reduced, the negativity began to spread among the army, and the city was finally breached.
The last emperor, Constantine XI, did not flee, but chose to coexist with the empire. That night was the carnival of the Turkish army, countless soldiers and civilians in Constantinople died in this burning and looting, and countless torches ignited the gorgeous architecture or art treasures that architects and artists had spent years or even decades to complete.
The Byzantine Empire on the material level withered away, but the Byzantine Empire at the conscious level was immortalized—because the culture of the Empire penetrated into the spiritual core of three worlds, namely Western Europe, the Islamic world, and the Slavic world, with the history that followed.
[2] How to make the Empire immortal?
The so-called "immortality" is "eternal continuation".
It was the Muscovite Principality that (thought itself) (in its entirety) inherited the spirit of the Byzantine Empire. To be precise, it was Ivan III Vasilievich, the "Grand Chief" of the Muscovite Principality, who married Sophia Paleorog (formerly known as Zoë Paleologne), the last princess of the Byzantine Empire, the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI.
The scheming Ivan III married this 10-year-old princess, of course, not "a tree of pear blossoms pressing begonias" - of course, how many men do not like young and tender girls?
On the table, Ivan III's move was motivated by political considerations, because Yaroslav of Kievan Rus' had broken up the vast empire that had been hard to unify, so the parks lined up with each other for a long time, until Ivan III returned to a unified state.
Coat of arms of the Principality of Moscow
Similar to other emperors, Ivan III felt that a faith was needed to unite a nation, and since Vladimir I borrowed the orthodox church to unify the spiritual beliefs of Kievan Rus' and herzegovina, could I "inherit" the entire Orthodox Church?
After marrying this Princess Sophia, ivan III's Grand Duchy of Moscow began to proclaim itself "the heir of Rome", and the phrase "third Rome" appeared. The coat of arms of the Muscovite Principality is actually the emblem of the double-headed eagle that was once Byzantium.
Not only that, but the last Byzantine culture was also brought by Princess Sophia into the vast territory of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
At that time, the Economy and Culture of the Muscovite Principality were extremely backward, and the natural living environment was far inferior to that of southern Europe and western Asia at that time, and most of the citizens were semi-civilized barbarians.
Princess Sophia's "next marriage" is considered to be "precision poverty alleviation" in today's terms.
In terms of the court system, Princess Sophia reformed the court system of the Grand Duchy of Moscow by the standards of the Byzantine Empire, perfecting the rules and etiquette to make it more solemn and solemn; in terms of people's livelihood, it is probably more influential than a part of Princess Sophia's dowry, the large number of books smuggled from Constantinople on the eve of the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
These books were the essence of the world's most advanced technology, culture, and knowledge at that time. To exaggerate, it was deeply branded by the Byzantine Empire by the Muscovite Principality.
Ibn Sina, The Medical Code
Of course, the advanced Culture of Byzantium did not spread in all directions only after the collapse of the Empire.
Much of the frontier knowledge of the Islamic world, such as medicine, was actually passed down through trade between the Islamic world and the Byzantine Empire. For example, much of the great work of the Arab philosopher, physician, natural scientist, and writer ibn-Sīnā (980-1037), the Medical Code, was an absorption and renewal of by-Zantian technology in the east.
It is worth mentioning that this Ibn Sina also had a Latin named Avicenna. This should correspond to the fact that he will also be exposed to a lot of content in the Latin world.
In the time of Ibn Sina's life, the Eastern Church of Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church had not yet broken up, and it was not until 1054 that the two schools were officially divided, that is, the Orthodox Church in the east and the Catholic Church in the west-the Eastern Roman Church was based on the writings of the Greek Church, and the Western Roman Church was based on the latin Church.
Due to ideological "differences", the western European world's acceptance and absorption of Byzantine culture is not as "radical" as in the Islamic and Slavic worlds.
This leads to an "anecdote" that we will read about in the book, and many of the "advanced technologies" of the European Renaissance were actually brought by fleeing scholars on the eve of the fall of the Byzantine Empire.
I remember reading art history, there was such a story:
Florence's landmark, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, was built in 1296 and by 1418 had not yet been built. The reason is that apart from the "passive sabotage" of Europeans - such as the Sagrada Familia, which has not been built to this day, no one knows how to build the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore!
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore
The diameter of this dome is 50 meters! Its span is 43.3 meters larger than the Roman Pantheon.
The question is, the Pantheon of Rome was rebuilt in 120 AD, is it that time has flowed for more than 1200 years, and later people are not as good as the people in the past who will build houses?
Really, (and seems to be the same now).
Finally, the architect who completed this great project was Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446)! Moreover, the dome of the Church of Santa Maria del Fiore, which he built, is the largest brick dome ever built!
More importantly, modern experts have not understood how Brunelleschi designed and calculated under the technical conditions of the 15th century.
Thus, there is a theory that Brunelleschi came across an architecture book written by a Byzantine scholar and suddenly realized. However, for various reasons, the book was not passed on to future generations.
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore at the top
One of the reasons for not being able to pass it on to future generations may be that Brunelleski wanted to "keep a hand"; another theory is that the book (or should be a professional material) was passed on by the Arabs, and was "contraband" at that time.
But I personally feel that there are many problems with the latter version, the pagan material called "contraband" is obviously inconsistent with the social climate of the era, not so much "contraband" and not circulated, but rather because it was written in Arabic and not taken seriously by posterity and lost.
To add another detail, since the rise of the Arabs in the 7th century, the Arabs have inherited the Persian tradition of translating ancient Greek classics (which can be simply understood as the works of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire mentioned above) and have arisen the translation movement transliterated as "falsafa", which lasted for more than 200 years and ended in the first millennium.
This translation movement can be called the "Enlightenment" of the Arab world, because the ancient Greek (and Byzantine) knowledge of philosophy, literature, medicine, etc., led to the Arab era of breakthroughs in thought and technology – such as the above-mentioned "Medical Code" is one of the results. The overall strength of the Arabs is even ahead of Western Europe.
Again, as to whether Brunelleschi's greatness is because of that book, let's listen to it as a story. It has to be said that although the European Renaissance was not a direct reaction to the introduction of the Byzantine spirit or classics, the humanism of ancient Greece preserved in Byzantine culture played a catalytic role in various fields of the European Renaissance.
From this, we can exaggerate a little, because the Culture of the Byzantine Empire deeply influenced the Western European, Arab and Slavic worlds, and even shaped the spiritual outlook of the world, and as long as this spirit continued with human civilization, the Byzantine Empire was immortal.
The body can perish, but the spirit can live forever.
[3] The Byzantine Gift reads north
The above is a bit of a sigh from reading The Gift of Byzantium.
[This work is published on Penguin with the permission of LSmiler, without permission, can not be reproduced]
Compared with other Books in the Khan Qingtang series, the Byzantine Gift by the British scholar [Colin Wells] has the following advantages: First, it is short but rich in content, the whole book is only 328 pages, the folio is small, not very heavy, and it is very easy to read, whether it is from the weight of the book or the reading experience; second, the whole book does not have too much nonsense, unlike the "thick book" of some American scholars, in order to support a certain "argument" will be a variety of "quotations", adding a large number of almost nonsense "excerpts"; third, In terms of translation, the translators Zhou Chaoyu and Li Da did not show any obvious hard wounds. Of course, it is also possible that I read the book carefully, the thickness of knowledge is limited, and I have not been able to find it.
In my personal reading experience, it would be a little uncomfortable for the reader to read the Byzantine Gifts directly without knowing much about Byzantine history—but this may be something I'm worried about, because the reader who can find this book must be someone who is interested in Byzantium.
At the same time, the second part of the book, on the influence of Byzantine culture on the Islamic world, is not much to say about Colin Wells. Throughout the book, the European section is the most informative, followed by the Slavic world and the Least so in the Islamic world. In fact, I am personally more interested in the latter two parts, like the story after the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which is not mentioned at all in the Byzantine Gifts, which is a pity. If there is a supplementary version in the future, it is recommended to add these material parts.
Overall, this book has a beautiful cover, good translation, thick content, and decent size, which is worth recommending.