Getrennte Brüder und antike Ahnen. Repräsentationen der Griechen in der italienischen Kunst zur Zeit der Kirchenunion (1438-1472)

Characteristic for the Greeks representations in early Renaissance art is their prominent starting point by the Council of Ferrara/Florence (1438/39) and the wide dissemination of iconographies, within a relatively short period. In comparison to the centuries where the iconographies of Saracens, Ottomans, or gypsies where repeated and varied, the short boom of the Byzantine habitus appear established only to a few types and motifs that recur directly to the events of 38/39. In that representations of Greeks meet artistic and courtly ideals of invention, decorativeness and splendor in with political and humanist assumptions of continuity, translatio and claim to power. The exotic image figure is on the one Hand a placeholder for the mostly unknown antiquity, and on the other hand displayable representation of the borders of the own, which include the strangers sometimes.