The Bridge Empire

When Rome fell in 476 CE, the Eastern Roman Empire — Byzantium — continued for nearly a thousand more years. Based in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), it preserved Greek and Roman artistic techniques, classical texts, and sophisticated craftsmanship that Western Europe had largely lost during the early medieval period.

Byzantine artists maintained skills in mosaic, fresco, enamel, and ivory carving at a level Western Europeans couldn't match for centuries. When Italian painters began developing the Renaissance in the 1300s, they were partly recovering techniques that Byzantium had never lost.