Spanning much of the third quarter of the century, the pontificates of Benedict III (855–858), Nicholas I (858–867) and Hadrian II (867–872) reveal a declining papal involvement in the patronage of architecture, though also considerable engagement with ecclesiastical issues of the day, including dramatically renewed contacts with Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean in the aftermath of the definitive end of Byzantine Iconoclasm and the ‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’. In addition to the growing importance of the Roman secular aristocracy, whose domestic housing has been rediscovered in recent archaeology, evidence is surveyed for the continuing presence of a substantial Greek community in Rome, and for interest in the translation of Greek texts in the circle of the papal librarian, Anastasius. Among the most prominent survivals from these years is the tomb of St Cyril, the Byzantine missionary to the Slavs, in the lower church of San Clemente.

The final stage in the life of the bronze horseman unfolded in early modern Russia, a self-styled refuge of Orthodoxy. Our rider presides over an ambitious sixteenth-century Russian icon that visualizes the totality of triumphant Orthodoxy. The icon is nothing less than a visualization of the Eternal Tsar’grad. No icons from the Byzantine period attempt such an ambitious representation of terrestrial and celestial Orthodoxy. The icon epitomizes decades of Russian thought about a world without Byzantium. The icon advances a claim for perpetual holiness that was first made manifest in Constantinople, was transmitted to the lands of Rus’, and is eternally perpetuated in liturgical commemoration. The Eternal Tsar’grad icon plays upon a number of tensions. It is both a representation of the feast of the intercession and more than an icon of that feast. It is both a representation of a vision of Andrew the Holy Fool and more than that vision. It is both a representation of Constantinople and a vision of more than that city. It both represents Byzantine history and comes to terms with the end of Byzantium. All of these innovative aspects make it the first truly post-Byzantine icon in terms of intellectual vision and content.

The aristocratic milieu: Hagiography and aristocracy in the early ninth century: Philaretos and Eudokimos. Aristocratic models of feminine holiness (ninth-tenth centuries). The political meaning of the new aristocratic saint: imperial ideology. The military milieu. The court milieu: the family and collaborators of Theophilos in post-iconoclast hagiography. The court of Theophilos and its post-iconoclast reinvention. The family of Theophilos and Theodora. The imperial couple in post-iconoclast hagiography: Theophilos and Theodora