The Annunciation

On January 3, 1117, a series of massive earthquakes ripped...

From a young age, William Sidney Mount was surrounded by music. As a boy, he lived with his uncle, a musician and composer of considerable talent and reputation, who taught him to play the violin, and the artist passionately pursued his playing throughout his life. In 1824, Mount began his artistic career as an ornament painter in his brother’s New York City sign shop. He eventually became an active member and regular exhibitor at the recently founded National Academy of Design...

In the eyes of modern historians the course of the Byzantine Empire in the eleventh century was set on swift decline. But no Byzantine bureaucrat, however wise and responsible, could have foreseen the calamities to come, and no Byzantine general would have pointed to the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, when the once glorious Byzantine army was routed without a full-scale engagement, as the beginning of the end. If a Nicephorus Phocas or a Basil II had been ruling at the time, the rout would have …