My first and heartfelt acknowledgement is to the A. G. Leventis Foundation and to Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, who have supported my research on Ravenna for many years. I deeply appreciate their patience and confidence. I’m especially grateful to Roberta for her enthusiastic interest and regular attention to its progress, and for putting me in touch with Kieran Dodds, whose brilliant photographs add so much to the volume.
In Ravenna, Gian Luca Bandini provided continuous practical advice and organized the crew of intrepid yachtsmen who sailed me across the Adriatic – Ing. Stefano Luciani, Dr Mauro Marabini and himself, captained by Dr. Enzo Bruni. He also introduced me to Giovanna Montevecchi, who gave me invaluable assistance in negotiating with the authorities that control the major monuments of the city. Antonio and Consuelo Bandini lent us their house; Antonio Carile and Alba Maria Orselli took me to visit the manuscripts and Dante’s bones in the Biblioteca Classense; and I was greatly helped by Andrea Augenti, Maria Cristina Carile, Salvatore Cosentino and Enrico Cirelli (whose book Ravenna: Archeologia di una città has been a constant companion and most instructive guide). In Poreč I was fortunate to discuss the mosaics of the Eufrasiana with Ivan Matejčić, and Jeremy Hardie and Kirsteen Stewart took me on an exciting visit to Aachen.
Over the period of writing, many have helped me with a great variety of advice, copies of articles, references, corrections and that critical element of moral support for which I am most grateful: Anne Alwis, Charalambos and Demetra Bakirtzis, Henrietta Batchelor, David Blackman, Petros Bouras-Valliantos, Sebastian Brock, Bruno Callegher, Averil Cameron, Nicky Coldstream, Franca Ela Consolino, Deborah Deliyannis, Kieran Dodds, Nicholas and Matti Egon, Vera von Falkenhausen, Michael Jeffrey Featherstone, Sauro Gelichi, Cathrine Gomani, Elizabeth Jeffreys, Maria Lidova, Jamie Mackay, Neil McLynn, Paul Magdalino, Yuri Marano, Marina Marks, Tom Mathews, Cécile Morrisson, Jinty Nelson, Vivian Prigent, Claudia Rapp, Charlotte Roueché, Teo Ruiz, Bennet Salway, Alex Sarantis, Ned Schoolman, Roger Scott, Roger Scruton, Julia Smith, Dennis Stathakopoulos, Gonda van Steen, Eva Synek, Rick Trainor, Miranda Tufnell, Maria Vrij, Bryan Ward-Perkins, Marina Warner, Chris Wickham, Constantin Zuckerman and my colleagues and the all-important staff at King’s College London.
I tested arguments explored in the book at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; the International Byzantine Congress held in Sofia, Bulgaria; the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA; the Byzantine Studies Conference at the Italian Academy, Columbia University, New York; the Institut für Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik, Vienna; the ‘After Rome’ seminar at the University of Oxford; the Byzantine seminar of Ioanna Rapti at the Sorbonne, Paris; the conference ‘Byzantium in the Adriatic’ at Split; the ‘Byzantine Worlds’ seminar at the University of Cambridge, and at the Leventis Municipal Museum Nicosia, in Cyprus, and I thank the organizers and audiences for their comments.
The staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Warburg Institute and Institute of Classical Studies, London, and the Vienna Institut were exceptionally helpful. I also benefitted from very kind librarians of Corpus Christi College, Brasenose College and Hertford College, who assisted me in finding books unavailable in other Oxford libraries at short notice.
It is a particular pleasure to acknowledge the immense support, critical improvements and vital input of my editor, Stuart Proffitt, at Penguin/ Random House; his colleagues Alice Skinner, Charlotte Ridings and Richard Duguid, who brought the book into publishable form; and Cecilia Mackay, who not only found many of the illustrations for the book but also persisted in obtaining the most effective layouts. At Princeton University Press, I am indebted to Brigitta van Rheinberg for her lengthy support and to Eric Crahan and Thalia Leaf for looking after the American edition. Anonymous readers’ reports commissioned by Princeton, as well as the two solicited by Penguin/Random House from Tom Brown and Caroline Goodson, were invaluable and contributed many improvements.
Families often suffer from authors’ neglectful absence, and mine was forced to share a long obsession while Ravenna came into focus. To Tamara and Portia Barnett-Herrin, Jay Basu, Seb Smith and my beloved, Anthony Barnett, who accompanied me on adventures to drive along the via Flaminia, to find the River Isonzo crossing and to sail across the Adriatic from Poreč to Ravenna, I can never thank you enough and could not have completed the book without your insistent support.