Spectacularly varied scenes of war, intrigue, theological debates, martial conflicts, sacrifices, revenges, fiery ambitions and crowned heads full of vanity, notes loaded with grace and delicious digressions, human warmth and desperate faith, unbridled passions and boundless cruelties, eleven centuries of grandiose brilliance and depraved decadence...
Centuries of turmoil and fierce disputes about the nature of Christ and His Church. Centuries of knowledge, in which copyists and scholars preserved and passed on the heritage of the ancient world. Centuries of emperors like Justinian the Great, Theodosius, and Basil the Bulgarian, pious, heroic, or monstrous men, but never, never boring. And, above all, centuries of creativity, in which art and architecture reached almost unparalleled spiritual depths.
Author
John Julius Cooper, Viscount Norwich (1929–2018), is a famous British author of works in the field of history.
After studying in Canada, France and Great Britain (New College, Oxford) during and immediately after the end of World War II, he worked in diplomacy, and then dedicated himself to radio and television programs, documentary filmmaking, travel, charity work (for example, to save Venice), but above all to writing. He distinguished himself through a large number of publications, in an encyclopedic range, being primarily concerned with the Byzantine space and the Mediterranean world, but also with the past of France and England.
His interest in history is constantly combined with his love of art, architecture, literature, and cultural and intellectual wealth in general.