1400 · Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens

In the years that preceded the Turkish conquest of Constantinople and the ultimate fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine state had been restricted to the areas around Thrace and the Morea. The difficult circumstances and the insecurity that reigned led the artists of the Capital to seek safer places and new markets. Crete, an island which had been under Venetian domination since 1210, and which was flourishing economically, was one such place.Show more