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Hazard, H. W. (ed.) / The art and architecture of the crusader states
(1977)
V: The Arts in Cyprus, pp. 165-207
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Page 165
V THE ARTS IN CYPRUS A. Ecclesiastical Art As with Syria, so with Cyprus the basis for the history of its arts in the period of Frankish domination is the work of Camille Enlart. His L ' Art gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre was published in 1899, some twenty-five years before his account of the Latin kingdom in Syria, but the exhaustive care and the informed insight with which he studied the monuments have left little need for revision. Syria enjoyed the first convinced enthusiasm of the crusades, and its twelfth-century pilgrimages included able masons in their ranks. The thirteenth century saw the seacoast towns on the defensive, still hectically prosperous, extravagant in festivity, occasionally prodigal in church building of resources that necessity more usually diverted to military defense work, while the west became more critical and less generous. The Latin empire of Constantinople was a fleeting episode which left little trace on the monuments of the capital city. In Greece, a penurious baronage found no continuing tradition of building among its scattered subject population, while the trading ports were from the first in Venetian hands. Rhodes remained Greek until after 1 300. It is in Cyprus alone that the art history of the crusades works itself out over some three centuries. Concentrated within the protection of its island boundaries; well supplied with good building stone and local laborers who, though unskilled, proved apt pupils; rich, at least for a time, through tile diversion of Levantine trade to its harbors, Cyprus under Lusignan rule, however turbulent in its brawls, experienced a rounded period of artistic opportunity. The foundations for the study of Cypriote medieval archaeology were laid by L. de Mas Latrie in his Histoire de l'ile de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan (3 vols., Paris, 1852-186 1) and L 'Ile de Chypre, sa situation présente et ses souvenirs du 165
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