9 - From Exile in Nicaea to Restoration of Constantinople

Summary

In the decades between 1204 and 1261 the bronze horseman would be little more than a distant memory. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1261 by Michael VIII of Nicaea, the horseman was rediscovered. It became an intensely treasured relic of a bygone imperial era. In devastated, post-Crusader Constantinople two monuments continued to serve as grand symbols of a once proud empire: Hagia Sophia and Justinian’s column. Michael VIII made the column of Justinian part of the land holdings of the Great Church. Though the horseman triumphed over Latin adversity, the column did not emerge unscathed. The shaft of the column was stripped of its Justinianic bronze panels, which had originally made the column glow like gold. Palaiologan rulers had neither the funds nor the craftsmen to restore the metallic splendor of the column’s original appearance. Until the fall of Constantinople, they continuously invested their ever-diminishing resources into maintaining these two monuments, even as others (including the Holy Apostles) gradually crumbled. The soaring horseman became central to the elevation ritual in imperial coronations. Michael VIII payed homage to and competed with the bronze horseman by erecting a new column. Even though Michael VIII attempted to rival the column of Justinian and to cement his own legacy, he failed.