ABSTRACT
My aim in this essay is to explore representations of nudity or semi-nudity in Byzantine art In what follows I wish to make some tentative suggestions about ways in which Byzantine depictions of nudity or semi-nudity can be approached. For this purpose, occasional comparisons with material from western Europe will highlight similarities and differences between two separate, yet related, cultures. These remarks may be seen as prolegomena to the history of the body in Byzantium, an area which, in contrast to the western Middle Ages, is only beginning to be investigated.1
