Plunder, war, and the Horses of San Marco

[@L-mo]

Oh my, these just get better and better. This is like true crime meets art history 101.

[@spicecrop]

So glad I found this channel. I wish I had friends like these two. Nobody I know ever want to talk about such things.

[@thefebi8457]

Mmmm I feel the same, and I am greatful to find at least this beautiful videos.

[@eleniasimop]

Well, obviously, there are many of us around the world. At least we can talk to each other in the comments....😊😊😊😊😊

[@prajjwalgarag8815]

I think the same way

[@stormyrocks4562]

I say this all the time

[@Pollicina_db]

Unfortunately its the same even if you study art history. The amount of people who study it and yet are not interested in it is astounding and really sad

[@randalllake2785]

Thank you for crediting the great artists who created these masterpieces.

[@edrandomed]

Eye-opening presentation in so many ways! Thank you. I will watch it again.

[@deanpapadopoulos3314]

So interesting. I love your voices…I don’t often say this about American English voices, but they’re beautiful - filled with energy, passion, and scholarship. Thank you.

[@chimpinaneckbrace]

When the horses were in Constantinople they supposedly stood atop the starting gates of the chariot racing stadium, The Hippodrome.

[@smarthistory-art-history]

There were several quadriga mentioned in Constantinople. I haven't read any convincing evidence that can tie this particular set of horses to the Hippodrome.

[@jileel]

@@smarthistory-art-history I think it likely was from Rome. No one could make bronzes of that size & quality until at least the renaissance imho.

[@werewolfhunter2011]

@@jimgordon6629 how could turks “steal” something from the west/greeks if they were the ones who stole and colonized it first? Im pretty sure the west/greeks themselves did a whole lot of prosecuting from the minute the first greek landed on Anatolia all the way to the fall of Constantinople. Im no fan of turks but its a bit hypocritical, eh?

[@eleniasimop]

@@jileel You are wrong.They were made bronze statues of that size and quality in archeant Greece and and in archeant Rome too.

[@MH-ms1dg]

@@werewolfhunter2011 sure. and humans be like that.

[@xmaniac99]

Thank you Duke of Wellington for setting a proper example.

[@ΑθανάσιοςΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ-θ7γ]

Maybe he should've said a word to lord Elgin as well... But it's easier finding fault in others 😉 😂

[@L-mo]

@@ΑθανάσιοςΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ-θ7γ Being a Londoner I've always appreciated being able to visit the Museum of London (for free!) and I still do. The Parthenon Marbles are so amazing... but I have come to realise they need to go back to Athens and be among the beauty they belong with (and this video and the quote by Quatrem'ere de Quincy helped cement that).

[@xmaniac99]

@@andyigwe7119 It is shameful. Berlusconi set a good example of goodwill leader when he returned a stolen Obelix to Ethiopia, everyone said it could not be done, but he did it. But did the British follow the lead?

[@deanpapadopoulos3314]

Yes!!!!

[@denisecarrick5220]

Fascinating topic. So well presented.

[@dionf3858]

These horses are Greek national treasures. Venice has a lot to answer for what happened in 1204

[@daveunbelievable6313]

"Venice has a lot to answer for what happened in 1204", no one alive today is responsible or should answer for the crusades, and no one alive is a victim of the crusades. Does it not matter that for nearly a millennium these horses have been treasured by venetians, and are part of their active community and a symbol of their culture, why does the wistful nostalgia of Greek nationalists trump the rights of their current owners?

[@gerodimon101]

@@daveunbelievable6313 you're not better than him. " owners"!?? What a attitude...

[@daveunbelievable6313]

@@gerodimon101 ? yes they are currently owned, i think they are owned by the catholic church, but i was more talking about the venetian people in a vaguer cultural sense

[@gerodimon101]

@@daveunbelievable6313 Catholic church is the owner of those horses. O.k. As a object I suppose....And the owners of the culture represented on them are the venetians.... What can be more absurd???! Oh I forgot the Turks. They converted the cathedral of Agia Sophia in a mosque. This is worse, o.k. At list, Pop didn't baptise the pagan horses and venetians didn't put them in a gondola. Menomale amico mio, menomale. Quel bel cavalli non sono vostri, sono anche vostri.Di possedere qualcosa vole dire che puoi distruggerlo se vuoi. Parlare di possesso a cose belle e follia. Ciao amico..

[@daveunbelievable6313]

@@gerodimon101 yes, they have been in Venice for 800 years, and are very important to the people there, things can take on new meanings after being made, i think we all comprehend that. i do hate it when people passively aggressively switch languages, because the assumption is that i cant understand, i do, and me saying some group of people can culturally own something is not to say the can destroy it, that is absurd.

[@globaloffensive-nh3cl]

Beautiful.

[@nicolasl.8927]

I'm here because of my art teacher, I hate his class but this is interesting. If this wasn't a mandatory video I would enjoy everything.

[@camaramarcelo]

wow, extraordinary video

[@smarthistory-art-history]

Thank you. We were happy with the way this one turned out.

[@oldsailor83]

Is it true the heads were separated for transportation from Constantinople and later reattached in Venice?

[@Detelinka68]

Great story, thank you! :)

[@tsinoy]

So the horses where returned to Venice and now the Venice/Italian government decided against returning them to Turkey? Or has Turkey not filed an equivalent repatriation request? Is that why they're still in San Marco? I guess this part was left out in this video as well, much like some museums choose what to put in the art pieces' labels. 6:54

[@korben825]

They were never Turkish to begin with. They were Roman

[@antiyobaz1695]

@@korben825 since 1453 İstanbul is Turkish and we are gonna get those horses back to İstanbul ,cuz these are belong to us !

[@antiyobaz1695]

recent government of Türkiye has no power to repatration request for those historical piece..but the new government will be demand the original horses from Italy cuz this is stealing

[@timducote5713]

@@antiyobaz1695 They were taken in 1204 The City was still Constantinople. How can the Turks claim them when they didn't show up until 250 years later?

[@HuseyinYildirimturk]

Horses need to be returned to its original place to Istanbul

[@Pepijnisdebom]

amazing

[@frankalba]

There is two copies of the horses in Stockholm, Sweden, aswell.

[@Sasha0927]

This may be the first time I've seen Napoleon fully frontal and... he doesn't look as I expected. As for returning art to its original country, these are new considerations for me. I can appreciate why it should be done, but I'm mostly grateful I'm not the one who needs to make these decisions. 😅

[@icegiant1000]

Even 2000 years ago, people liked horsepower ;)

[@vlad280599]

Great video! PS I can hear bondings of background audio. That is little disturbing

[@smarthistory-art-history]

There is no background track but loads of edits. We record with a little handheld zoom. As we mentioned in the video, the audio was recorded both at the Basilica of San Marco in Venice and then in the Louvre. Both were crowded and loud. Nevertheless, we feel there is real value in being in front of the objects we are discussing.

[@alphonsobutlakiv789]

I don't like how the horses don't get to go outside. They were outside for centuries and on glorious monuments. They deserve the sun, and a pedestal

[@smarthistory-art-history]

Yes, but in addition to the sun, they would now be exposed to industrial pollutants that corrode bronze. The atmosphere since the 19th century has ruined many exterior surfaces made of marble, bronze, etc.

[@alphonsobutlakiv789]

@smarthistory-art-history a nice glass dome, or a glass pyramid like that in Paris for them. With plants from Constantinople.

[@ALEJANDROARANDARICKERT]

THANKS FOR SUCH A GREAT A VIDEO. IT WOULD BE AMAZING IF YOU CAN ALSO MAKE ONE ABOUT MARC AURELIUS¨ONE

[@somerandomname3124]

The art of the conquered being praised by the conquerors is a honor, just my two cents.

[@ObiWanKeighobi]

My question is when does it stop being an honour and start being the conquerors being effectively in awe, as in Greece and Rome.

[@edthoreum7625]

3:48♤♡♢♧

[@gerasimosnanos8174]

Let‘s call them „The Horses of Lysippos“ then. They have nothing to do with San Marco. They were originally in Olympia. They are heritage of the Olympic Games. Let‘s honor this tradition. A tradition that promotes peace and brotherhood in mankind and return them to the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

[@dayros2023]

They have been for a very long time in Costantinople, should they be given to the turks? Considering that later they have been for more than 800 years in Venice, were they were preserved, they are now Venetian and should stay were they are.

[@antoniofarinaccio541]

Napoleon was imitating the Bourbons of Naples. The only difference the Bourbon did not steal, they collected by removing them in a more dignified and protected place. The "Bourbon Museum in Naples" National Museum today, was the first museum donated to the city of Naples by the rulers also, and the work of art excavated Pompeii wear paraded for the publics in pomp to see . Napoleon just looted and copied the Bourbons. The Louvre was a royal palace, the works wear a private collection.

[@supremereader7614]

Wonderful video as usual. It’s a wonder that they could have actually been made by Lysippos. It is possible. As a novice I’d say it probably didn’t come from Rome. Did the Romans ever have Bronze art of that quality?

[@dayros2023]

Absolutely, look at the bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, or the incredible bronze statue of a pugilist that is housed in Museo Massimo in Rome. The Romans reached incredible artistic levels.

[@varana]

Because we don't really know where and when the horses were made, it may well be (or is quite likely) that Constantinople was not their original place, either, so the story of removing objects from one place to adorn the residence of a new ruler, goes even one step further back.

[@L-mo]

Thanks, but this is stated and addressed quite clearly in the video: likely they either came from Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome, but not Constantinople.

[@armansanti9168]

✌✌✌👍👍👍

[@supremereader7614]

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Greeks tried to get them back...

[@dayros2023]

LoL they are 800 years late. It will be like the egyptians asking for the many obelisks that have been in Rome for 2000 years to be returned :-)

[@enessahin4775]

to Athens?

[@antiyobaz1695]

Greeks could not to ask cuz İstanbul is Turkish city since 1453 and we will ask to give them back to İstanbul...this is stealing !

[@daveunbelievable6313]

i see a few comments by nationalists, i find it funny that the property rights of the Byzantines somehow are conferred on modern day greek speakers, i wonder when i as a catholic can expect to attend the next papal mass in Westminster abbey

[@alexandrostheodorou8387]

If the Greeks had, won the Greco-Turkish War of 1922, they would have recreated the Greek Byzantine State of at least 1203, with similar borders and territory holdings, including Instanbul. But they lost. Doesn’t mean the lineage is extinguished however.

[@daveunbelievable6313]

@@alexandrostheodorou8387 I don't think we should hope for future wars to divest people of their current property

[@ericagos1601]

Ideally, works of art should remain in their land of origin and under the control of the modern descendants of the culture who created them. If I went to Athens, I would rather see the Parthenon sculptures on the Parthenon or in a nearby museum. Instead they are in London. In certain cases, such as the horses of San Marco, I don't see any point in removing them. Constantinople is no longer a Greek Christian city, and the horses have been in Venice for 800 years now. On the other hand, the famous bust of Nefertiti was smuggled out of Egypt in the late 19th century and has been in Berlin ever since. Egypt has requested for its return many times. This is not German, it belongs in the Cairo Museum with the rest of Egyptian antiquities. The sack of Constantinople, and even more so, the Ottoman conquest 250 years later, are the most depressing events in history for me. I love Byzantine culture, and so much art and architecture was destroyed and lost forever during those two awful events. I was saddened and angry last year when Turkey turned the Hagia Sophia into a mosque for the second time. More than anything else, the Hagia Sophia is the heart and soul of Orthodox Christianity and Greek Byzantine culture. In this case, the church remains in its physical location, and the Ecumenical Patriarch, leader of Orthodox Christians, still resides in Istanbul, where his predecessors ministered from the Hagia Sophia for over a millennium, from 360-1453. This was only the latest church appropriated or demolished out of literally thousands in past years by the Turkish government. So I understand and empathize with Greek/Orthodox Christians who have had so much of their heritage, culture and holy places taken from them. In comparison to your comment about being Catholic and unable to attend mass in Westminster abbey: Catholics still have their mother city Rome, their Papal Cathedrals of St Peter and St John Lateran, in addition to hundreds of beautiful cathedrals and works of art all over Europe and beyond. Orthodox Christians, including the Greeks, do not have this. Their cultural and religious capital was taken from them through bloodshed, their premier cathedral of Hagia Sophia was desecrated. During the centuries of Ottoman occupation, thousands of Greek Orthodox churches throughout Greece, the Balkans, Anatolia and elsewhere were destroyed or turned into mosques. This has continued to the present under modern Turkey.

[@ericagos1601]

@@alexandrostheodorou8387 I hope there will be justice on day for Greeks and other Orthodox Christians. What has happened in Turkey, the destruction and appropriation of thousands of historic churches including the Hagia Sophia last year, makes me sick. They still deny the genocides and other past atrocities.

[@alexandrostheodorou8387]

@@daveunbelievable6313 All property is stolen property. Do you know why? Might Makes Right, and everyones time in the sun has a limit. Im not wishing for future wars. Only pointing out, that it wasn’t that long ago that reclamation efforts were put forward by the Greeks. They had every right to try to reclaim those lands since huge greek minority-majority populations existed in those lands. But guess what? They lost. Might Makes Right, including the Genocides that came later.

[@stathiperdikaris7293]

The four horses should be returned to the island of Chios!!! That's where they were sculpted. That's where they were before being transferred to Constantinople. That's where they should be returned, period!!!

[@smarthistory-art-history]

What is the basis for your certainty that the horses were in Chios? There were so many ancient bronze quadriga.

[@stathiperdikaris7293]

@smarthistoryvideos They were attributed to the ancient Greek sculptor Lysippos from Chios. If not, then of classical Greek origin, therefore they belong to the Greeks!!!

[@smarthistory-art-history]

They are indeed likely from somewhere in the Hellenized world though some think they might be Roman. We just don't know.

[@stathiperdikaris7293]

@smarthistoryvideos They were stolen from Constantinople/Byzantium, where they were kept for at 6 centuries prior. Thus, they should go back to the Greek speaking lands

[@antiyobaz1695]

those horses were stolen by crusaders in 1204 from İstanbul by latins ! 😡 🇹🇷 🤔