Mosaico da villa romana do Rabaçal, Penela, Portugal : Preludio de arte bizantina ?

The mosaics in the Roman Villa of Rabaçal are of great artistic merit, especially the Seasons of the Year figures. Their incorporation in an architectural structure of outstanding quality is exemplary, and they are a fine illustration of the kind of work produced in a peripheral zone at the western edge of the Atlantic coast, in the middle of the 4th century. They reflect a style, a technical skill and an exquisite interpretation of models whose distant parallels suggest the presence of a travelling workshop with eastern affinities, which we may find in the future, in other creations, and their corresponding itinerary and influences. And so, this work, influenced by artists from the imperial court in Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman Empire, in the second third of the 4th century stands, at the present stage of our research, as a rare example of proto-Byzantine art in Portugal. (Résumé auteur)