revealed sumptuous examples of the jewellery, weapons, and ornaments essential to the life-style of a warrior aristocracy. In southern Europe stylized human and animal representations derived from the classical repertory figure more prominently than the abstract and geometric designs characteristic of the barbarian north, and many lavish objects were the work of Roman craftsmen.
The relatively prosperous and secure east saw a profusion of styles in the fifth and sixth centuries. In the most common 'provincial' form degraded classicism went hand in hand with an emphasis on ornamentation and ostentation. More distinctive and original was the metropolitan art of Justinian's time, reflected for example in the elaborate capitals of St Polyeuctus and the domed prestige buildings of St Sophia and Sts Sergius and Bacchus. At the same time naturalistic traditions of a high standard persisted as exemplified by the pavement mosaics of the imperial palace of Constantinople and the classicizing scenes of the David plates.
In the west artistic production was plunged into crisis by the economic and political dislocation of the sixth century. In a great centre such as Ravenna the building of lavish and cosmopolitan churches ceases after Justinian's reign and the jewellery and sculpture production which continued became poor and provincial. The churches that were built were mostly small and crude. Even in Rome, where creative influences from the east were strongest and the popes strove to maintain a programme of patronage befitting a centre of pilgrimage and ecclesiastical administration, most churches of the period were converted secular buildings such as Sant' Adriano (the old senate chamber), Santa Maria Antiqua (formerly a guard house), and Santa Maria Rotonda (the pagan temple of the Pantheon).
In the east the disruption came later but was even more severe, since the devastating effects of invasions were followed by the hostility of the iconoclasts to depictions of Christ and the saints. The effects of iconoclast persecution were felt much more strongly in Constantinople and Anatolia than in the western provinces of the empire, and even in the capital some
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