Nicholas Melvani's book is a significant contribution to Byzantine Studies that evaluates material not systematically considered since Grabar's and Fıratlı’s volumes on Byzantine sculpture.Footnote ¹ Melvani also usefully locates Late Byzantine sculpture within a historical framework and considers it from different perspectives.

As the author clearly states in the Introduction, his methodology consists of analysing Late Byzantine sculpture by studying the original context, considering the relation of sculpture to the rest of the building and its decoration, and then looking at the evidence from the written sources (both internal inscriptions and texts) (pp. 5–6). This ‘composite’ methodology has already produced valuable results in recent art-historical and archaeological studies, and Melvani's book provides additional support for the use of this approach.Footnote ²

The first chapter explores the evidence from the written sources, which shows a renewed interest in sculpture on the part of members of the upper levels of society. According to Melvani, this interest was connected to a new antiquarian taste inaugurated by the emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, who was ‘rebuilding’ the Empire after the recapture of Constantinople (1261), and referred directly to the glorious Early Christian past. Moreover, the frequent presence of inscriptions and monograms on works of sculpture indicates that Palaiologan patrons understood sculpture as an appropriate medium for conveying expressions of their own identities, thus confirming their important role in Late Byzantine society.

Issues of technique, materials, tools, and workshops are analysed in the second chapter. Melvani's discussion of the exploitation of quarries provides a fascinating insight into economic history, showing that in the Late Byzantine period local materials were preferred to imported ones, and that only foreign merchants (especially Italians) were used to import specific marbles and stones by sea. This leads Melvani to conclude that hinterland transport routes were not easily viable.

Chapter 3 illustrates the most frequent typologies of sculptural works as well as their role within building decoration. The use of spolia, and in particular materials removed from Early Christian monuments, in Late Byzantine buildings, is a key point of this chapter because this was a consequence of economic, political, and aesthetic choices. The author rightly stresses that the use of spolia implies a careful organisation of building decoration and considerable technical skills. In Late Byzantine buildings, sculpture specially commissioned for the monument was placed in dialogue with spolia from previous periods. This does not, however, mean that Late Byzantine sculptors lacked creativity; in many ways, in fact, as Melvani argues, it demonstrates remarkable synthetic flexibility. My only small quibble with this section of the book concerns Melvani's discussion of sculptures on façades, where he follows Safram's thesis that the sculpted arches in the Parigoritissa of Arta come from a previous portal. In fact, the debate about the provenance of these carvings from a portal is still ongoing.Footnote ³

Through a detailed analysis of iconographies in both representational and decorative carvings (chapter 4), Melvani shows how sculpture and painting were deeply interwoven and complemented each other in the decorative programmes of churches. Figurative sculpture was more widespread in the Late Byzantine period than in previous periods; however, although figural sculpture represents the acme in terms of quality and technique, most sculpture of the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries was ornamental and used the Middle Byzantine decorative repertoire, arranged in asymmetrical compositions with tendencies towards horror vacui. This is explored in the fifth chapter, which provides an overview of the composite panorama of Late Byzantine sculpture, showing the evolution of carving in Constantinople, Makedonia, Epiros, Thessaly, Morea, Trabzon, and Anatolia; Melvani also discusses the impact of Byzantine sculpture in Serbia, Bulgaria and the Latin East. One of the most useful sections is dedicated to the interactions with the Latin East, where Late Byzantine sculpture is rightly placed within a Mediterranean context and the author clearly shows how the diffusion of influences changed: Constantinople lost its absolute centrality, and the carving production of the provinces was also influenced by local traditions and neighbouring visual cultures.

The closing chapter evaluates sculpture in the artistic and social climate of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, exploring patrons’ motivations in commissioning carvings, the audiences for the sculpture, and the political ideology they embody. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the impact of sculpture in a building, and explores what the dimensions and distance from the viewer tell us about the kind of audience to which the messages of sculpture were directed.

The final chapter is followed by an appendix containing a catalogue of monuments where Late Byzantine sculptures are found. This updates Grabar (1976), and provides essential information and bibliography.

The volume suffers from some deficiencies in editing, in particular the poor quality of the pictures (especially in chapter 2, where these are not suitable for illustrating technique), and the lack of footnotes at the beginning of the opening chapters (e.g. p. 5: Melvani refers to ‘scholars’ who considered Palaiologan art to be deeply influenced by humanism without providing references). The amount of material that Melvani discusses and puts into a historical context is impressive but he fails to take account of wood carvings. Plaster sculpture is mentioned, with reference to the specific production of templa in Epiros, but other stuccoworks, such as proskynetaria cornices (e.g. the Perivleptos of Mistra) are not mentioned.

Although there is some repetition (such as the focus on patrons in both the first and the sixth chapters), which could have been omitted to allow additional space for Melvani's analysis of themes of the fifth chapter, the issues on which he focuses are thorough and well conceived: Melvani lays solid foundations for the discussion of the relationship between Late Byzantine sculpture and the Middle Byzantine past, which also involves the changing role of Constantinople (no longer the centre of the art of the entire Late Byzantine world), and relations with the Latin East.

The volume is a milestone not only for the study of Byzantine sculpture but also for Medieval Studies, finally providing a valuable overview that will allow future research comparing Western and Byzantine sculpture to proceed on a solid basis.