Byzantine Art Vocabulary

a church with a long nave whose focus is the apse, so-called because it is designed along an axis

the principal church of a diocese, where a bishop sits

a church having a circular plan with the altar in the middle

a cup containing wine, used during a Christian service

a manuscript book

a work of art that contains several scenes of the same story painted or sculpted in a continuous succession

a projecting ledge over a wall

a type of painting in which colours are added to hot wax to affix to a surface

the bread sanctified by the priest at the Christian ceremony commemorating the Last Supper

first book of the Bible that details Creation, the Flood, Rebecca at the Well, and Jacob Wrestling the Angel, among other episodes

a devotional panel depicting a sacred image

the destruction of religious images in the Byzantine Empire during the eighth and ninth centuries

a screen decorated with icons, which seperates the apse from the transept of a church

a manuscript that is hand decorated with painted initials, marginal illustrations, and larger images that add a pictorial element to the written text

a shrine built over a place of martyrdom or a grave of a martyred Christian saint

a decoration using pieces of stone, marble, or coloured glass, called tesserae, that are cemented to a wall or a floor

a plate, dish, or bowl used to hold the Eucharist at a Christian ceremony

a construction shaped like a triangle that transitions the space between flat walls and the base of a round dome

the polygonal base of a dome that makes a transition from the round dome to a flat wall

the Virgin Mary in her role as the Mother of God

the Christian monogram made up of the Greek letters khi and rho, the first two letters of Khristos, the Greek from of Christ’s name