"Cyprus has always demonstrated a fascinating openness to divergent cultures - at no time more than in the Middle Ages, when successive Byzantine and Latin conquerors settled on the island and dominated its art. The two societies profoundly influenced each other, and their interchange resulted in art of great richness and diversity. The fourteen studies in this volume provide sharply focused views of the island's artistic evolution in this period, beginning with an archaeological report on Early Christian graves built into abandoned pagan tombs in the fifth century and ending with an essay on the extravagant Venetian-style Cypriot frescoes of the sixteenth century. In between are a wide range of studies of Byzantine Cypriot architecture, stone carving, frescoes, icons, illuminated manuscripts, and ceramics."--BOOK JACKET.