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Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, March 2, 1939 [1]

2.III.39

Just a line, dearest Mildred, to tell you that I’m more and more hopeful, as far as a crash this coming season is concerned. I rather think the moment of greatest danger has passed, that the technical position in both the burglar countriesGermany and Italy. is too hazardous to encourage initiatives. News of the depletion of stocks of oil in Italy, for example, and of the difficulties experienced in replenishing them, are encouraging—at least to me, who as you know have never been a believer in the ineluctability of war. I shouldn’t be surprised if AdolfAdolf Hitler (1889–1945), a German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party. He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. now tried to settle, peaceably, and if he left MussoBenito Mussolini (1883–1945), an Italian politician, leader of the National Fascist Party, and ruler of Italy from 1922 until 1943. In 1926, Mussolini seized total power as dictator and ruled Italy as Il Duce (“the leader”) between 1930 and 1943. holding the bag.

Hayford sent me a letter the other day from Goldschmidt,Adolph Goldschmidt (1863–1944), a Jewish German art historian. who, having been shaken by Morey,American art historian Charles Rufus Morey (1877–1955) was a professor and chairman of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University between 1924 and 1945. He was best known for his expertise in medieval art and his Index of Christian Art. has been in correspondence with DölgerFranz Dölger (1891–1968), a German Byzantinist. (Munich), the illustrious compiler of the Regesten der Kaiserlichen Urkunden des Oströmischen Reichs,Franz Dölger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des oströmischen Reiches von 565–1453, 3 vols. (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1924–1932). about the identity of the Romanus of the CDM ivory.Christ Crowning Romanos and Eudoxia, ca. 945–949, ivory, Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The dating of this ivory was debated in Royall Tyler’s time as well as in more recent times. Ioli Kalavrezou-Maxeiner questioned the dating to the reign of Romanos II (938–963) and his wife Eudokia (d. 949) and reattributed it to the reign of Romanos IV (1068–1071). Ioli Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, “Eudokia Makrembolitssa and the Romanos Ivory,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31 (1977): 305–25. Anthony Cutler and others have questioned this dating and identified the emperor as Romanos II. Anthony Cutler, “The Date and Significance of the Romanos Ivory,” in Byzantine East, Latin West: Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, ed. Doula Mouriki et al. (Princeton: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 1995), 605–10. Dölger says it must be Romanus II, because the title βασιλεύς (Basileus), which is given to Romanus in the inscription on the ivory, was at the time not given to the Emperor-in-Chief who was called Αuγουστος (Augustus), but to associate Emperors, raised to the imperial dignity during the life-time of their father, or senior. This would fit Romanus II, but not Romanus IV, to whom the CDM ivory was formerly attributed, and is still attributed by Morey, and who was Emperor-in-Chief from the moment of his elevation.

We pointed this out at the Byz. Congress at Belgrade, in 1927.In a review of Goldschmidt and Weitzmann’s Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen (published in The Art Bulletin 17, no. 3 [September 1935]: 398–400), Morey and A. S. Keck refute the tenth-century dating of the Romanos ivory in the Cabinet des Médailles, Paris, and date the ivory to ca. 1070 in the time of Romanos IV. Royall Tyler and Hayford Peirce delivered the talk “Two Landmarks in Tenth-Century Byzantine Art” at the Deuxième Congès International des Études Byzantines in Belgrade on April 14, 1927. The talk was published as “Deux monuments dans l’art byzantin du Xe siècle,” Aréthuse 16 (July 1927): 1–8. La véritè fait son chemin.“The truth makes its way.”

Fondest love

Yrs

R. T.

 
Associated People: Hayford Peirce
Associated Places: Germany; Italy