Iconophilia in Italy, c. 680-880 – A European Project and Its Method

This paper presents a recently finished project entitled ‘Iconophilia’, which engaged with the echoes that the Byzantine debate on sacred images had in Rome and in central-southern Italy. This project was funded by the European Commission at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman, and Modern Greek Studies, and based at the University of Birmingham (2015-2017). Maintaining a firm Chalcedonian Christology, which acknowledged the perfect dual nature of Christ, the popes supported sacred images because they visualised the Incarnate God and were useful in liturgy, instruction, and private prayer. The unremitting iconophile position of the papacy defined Christian religious mentality and art for centuries. In this article, I trace the methodology followed in this project, to unveil cross-disciplinary, overlooked or unexplored aspects of the papal and monastic response to Byzantine Iconoclasm, as a contribution to a cultural history of that period.