Domes of Byzantium under a Gallic Sky: Uses and Receptions of Neo-Byzantine Architecture in Nineteenth-Century France

Rather than the expected jagged silhouette of Gothic spires crowning the pinnacle of Paris, the hill of Montmartre, one instead encounters a hovering white form dominated by a large dome: the Sacré-Cœur. This basilica and several other churches built in France between 1848 and 1900 reference the architecture of an imagined Byzantium. Described as Neo- or Romano-Byzantine, these buildings are not only the result of eclectic architectural experimentation characterizing these decades, but, as this research seminar intends to show, were shaped by the intensifying clash of anticlericals and Catholics. These projects drew on claims of early Christian and “Byzantine” roots, intended to visually convey the idea of the venerability of French Catholicism.

Adrien Palladino (Ph.D. 2019) is currently assistant professor at Masaryk University. His interests include the material cultures of late antique and medieval Afroeurasia and an epistemological approach to the history of art history. Since January 2024, he directs the project “Dreaming Byzantium in Nineteenth Century France: Neo-Byzantine Architecture, Orientalism, and the Racial and National Myths of Art History (1848–1900)” funded by the Czech Science Foundation (2024-2026).

It will be possible to follow the event also ONLINE on our VIMEO CHANNEL: https://vimeo.com/event/4157657

Scientific Organization: Elisabetta Scirocco