The Byzantine Great Palace, located adjacent to the Hagia Sophia, is arguably the most important Western complex to have disappeared from the architectural archive. Despite this absence, it may be argued that the representational halls of the palace - crown halls, basilicas, and reception halls or triclinia - served as models for the ascription of imperial symbolism, and for emulation by rival political centres. In a later phase of its existence, Byzantine emperors, in turn, looked to the example of Islamic palaces in constructing settings for diplomatic exchange. While the Great Palace has been studied through the archaeological record and Byzantine texts, its form remains a matter of conjecture, however in this study, a novel focus upon the operation of ascription of meaning applied to architectural forms, and their emulation in later architecture will enable a sense of how the forms of the palace were understood by their inhabitants and their clients and visiting emissaries. Through comparative analysis of both emulative models and copies, this study proposes a hypothesis of the layout of the complex both in its physical and social contexts.

Evolving from a patrician domus, the emperor's residence on the Palatine became the centre of the state administration. Elaborate ceremonial regulated access to the imperial family, creating a system of privilege which strengthened the centralised power. Constantine followed the same model in his new capital, under a Christian veneer. The divine attributes of the imperial office were refashioned, with the emperor as God's representative. The palace was an imitation of heaven. Following the loss of the empire in the West and the Near East, the Palace in Constantinople was preserved – subject to the transition from Late Antique to Mediaeval conditions – until the Fourth Crusade, attracting the attention of Visgothic, Lombard, Merovingian, Carolingian, Norman and Muslim rulers. Renaissance princes later drew inspiration for their residences directly from ancient ruins and Roman literature, but there was also contact with the Late Byzantine court. Finally, in the age of Absolutism the palace became again an instrument of power in vast centralised states, with renewed interest in Roman and Byzantine ceremonial. Spanning the broadest chronological and geographical limits of the Roman imperial tradition, from the Principate to the Ottoman empire, the papers in the volume treat various aspects of palace architecture, art and ceremonial.

Offers a new perspective on Byzantine imperial imagery, demonstrating the role foreign styles and iconography played in the visual articulation of imperial power.

Constantinople, 1057. Anna Dalassena's family sits at the summit of the empire, only to lose it all. Instead, Anna's closest friend, Eudokia, becomes empress as wife to the power-hungry Constantine Ducas. After his death, Eudokia marries Anna's cousin, the handsome and brilliant general, Romanus Diogenes, who struggles to push back the Turkish invaders threatening to overcome the Roman Empire. Anna, Eudokia and Romanus and their children fight life and death battles against the enemies that invade their empire, as well as those who would destroy it from within.

This collection of papers on the city of Constantinople by a distinguished group of Byzantine historians, art historians, and archaeologists provides new perspectives as well as new evidence on the monuments, topography, social and economic life of the Byzantine imperial capital.