ABSTRACT
Abstract This chapter examines aspects of the complex relationship between the image and the senses in Byzantium. The issue is addressed through examination of the role of the image in the burial chapel of the Byzantine saint, during the performance of healing miracles. It focuses on images dating from the fifth to twelfth centuries which appear in hagiographical sources to be “animated,” engaging the beholder in a holistic, multi-sensory experience of the divine. It is through these images, which are elevated to the status of performative installations, that the body, the centre of sensory experience par excellence, challenges the standard methods of sensory perception.
