e._ 564 to 726. (Leo reigned from 717 to 741.)
During this period vast numbers of illuminated liturgical books were
destroyed for religious or fanatical reasons, just as in our own
Cromwellian times numbers of _Hor?_, Missals, etc., were destroyed as
papistical and superstitious.
This Edict of 726 did not absolutely put an end to all art in MSS. It
only had the effect of excluding images of God, Christ, and the saints,
as in Arabian and Persian MSS., leaving the artist the free use of
flowers, plants, and line ornament, after the manner of the Mohammedan
arabesques.
3. From Leo III. to the Empress Irene, who restored the worship of
images in part, _i.e._ from 741 to 785. (Irene ruled from 780 to 801.)
This was a period of stagnation, though by no means of extinction of
art.
4. From Irene to Basil I. the Macedonian, _i.e._ from 801 to 867.
A half-century and more of rapid renaissance to the most brilliant epoch
of Byzantine art since the time of Justinian, if not the zenith of the
school.
Basil I. was a great builder--building, in fact, was his ruling
passion--so that it may be said that he took Justinian for his model
both as a ruler and as a patron of the arts. (He reigned from 867 to
886.)
5. From Basil the Macedonian to the Fall of Constantinople, _i.
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