Byzantine
The Most Depraved of Courtesans (?)
Bedecked in pearls, jewels, gold and purple cloth, and with those remarkable eyes (beneath an imposing unibrow and above a decidedly humorless face), this is the empress Theodora: formidable and radiant at the church of San Vitale in Ravenna in the 6th century AD. It’s a powerful depiction and a masterful mosaic. But it is