What Is The Byzantine And Christian Museum?
The Byzantine and Christian Museum (BCM) in Athens is one of Greece’s national museums. It was founded in 1914, and houses more than 25,000 exhibits with rare collections of pictures, scriptures, frescoes, pottery, fabrics, manuscripts, and copies of artifacts dating from the 3rd century AD to the Late Middle Ages.
The artefacts and their background include the entire Greek world, as well as regions in which Hellenism prospered. The size and range of the collections and value of the exhibits makes the Museum one of the most important museums in the world on Byzantine and post-Byzantine art and culture.
In June 2004, in time for its 90th anniversary and the 2004 Athens Olympics, the museum reopened to the public after an extensive renovation and the addition of another wing.
History
The history of the BCM begins before the law that brought it into existence in 1914 and is linked to the history of the Christian Archaeological Society, which was founded in 1884. George Lambakis, a founding member of the society was the prime driver in founding it and assembling its collection.
From the very start, the founders investigated the possibility of establishing a museum, and the first home was founded in 1890 at the Holy Synod in Athens. In 1893, the museum moved to a room in the National Archaeological Museum, where it remained until 1923.
Professor Adamantios Adamantiou was the first director of the museum. By 1923, the core of its collections was in place and George Sotiriou took over a director. The sculpture collection comprised out of works collected from monuments around Attica. Many artefacts, artwork, manuscripts, and textiles collections were added through purchases and donations.
One of Sotiriou’s first actions was to include the Christian Archaeological Society collection into the Museum. The collections were exhibited to the public for the first time in 1924 in five rooms at the Athens Academy.
In 1930, the Museum moved into the Villa Ilissia, a complex close to the banks of the Ilissos built by Stamatios Kleanthes for Sophie de Marbois-Lebrun, Duchess of Plaisance, in 1848.
Sophie bought large areas of land in Athens and Mt Penteli from 1831 and permanently settled in Athens in 1837. The Villa Ilissia was one of six buildings she commissioned Kleanthes to build. Construction started in 1840 and was completed in 1848. She lived there until her death, in 1854.
In 1926 the Villa Ilissia was approved as the premises of the Byzantine and Christian Museum. The exterior of the building was kept as Kleanthis had designed it, while the interior was modified to meet the needs of the museum by architect Aristotelis Zachos in agreement with Sotiriou.
The Museum’s official opening in September 1930 was timed to coincide with the 3rd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, which was held in Athens. After WWII, a new exhibition space was built in 1946, and the conservation workshop reorganized.
The most significant change since the Sotiriou period began in the late 1980s when work commenced on extending the Museum to re-exhibiting its collections. This was completed in 2004, and its post-Byzantine collections were completed in 2010.
The new museum is underground and developed on multiple levels below the building complex of the Duchess of Plaisance. Today, after further renovations the museum forms the hub of a culture park in the very centre of the city.
Interest For Today
The first conservation workshop at the museum started in 1930. Athanasios Vianginis and Fotis Kontoglou were charged with repairing the exhibits for the first exhibition in the newly renovated Villa Ilissia.
The Museum continued to conserve its artefacts after 1930, commissioning well known conservators. Greece’s first certified conservator, Tasos Margaritof, returned from Italy in 1958, followed by Stavros Baltogiannis in 1963 and Giannis Kolefas in 1965. They presided over the changing perception of conservation to a more scientific approach.
The setting up of the Central Conservation and Restoration Workshop in 1965 was another milestone in the history of conservation at the museum. It led to the opening of the Museum’s Antiquities Conservators’ Training School between 1969 and 1971.
There were three conservation workshops during the 1980s and 90s, but the pressing need to systemically conserve the remaining collections saw these later expanded to five and it included the minor arts, textiles, wall paintings and canvases workshops in 1999 and the mosaic workshop in 2003.
The Byzantine and Christian Museum library specializes in Byzantine archaeology and art. Its collection comprises some 15,000 books and 280 volumes of journals. It is open to external users Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 14:30.
The Archive of Historical Documents and the Historical Photographic Archives are also part of the Museum’s collections. One of the most important historical and photographic archives in the Museum is XAE’s Photographic Archive which was incorporated into the Byzantine Museum in 1923.
The Royal Research Foundation, today known as the National Research Foundation, is another important archive. It is a systematic photographic index of Byzantine monuments and wall-paintings in Attica, Euboia, the Cyclades, the Peloponnese and Thessaly.
Around 1963, part of a collection of photographic negatives belonging to the photographer Perikles Papachatzedakis (1909-1990), mostly made up of pictures of the Meteora Monasteries, was also bought.
The archive of the Central Conservation Laboratory, which has been housed in the Museum for several years, contains photographic material from conservation projects on Byzantine and later monuments in Greece, revealing them as works of exceptional importance after their conservation.
As part of its commitment to playing an ever more significant educational role, the Byzantine and Christian Museum began to design and implement educational programmes in 1989. It set up its Educational Programmes Office (EPO) in 2000 with a view to engaging in more, and more systematic, educational activities.
Hours of Business hours
- Monday – 09:00-16:00
- Tuesday – Closed
- Wednesday – Sunday: 09:00-16:00
Visitors are required to leave Museum galleries 20 minutes before closing time for security reasons.
Closed
- 1 January
- 25 March,
- Good Friday (open: 12.00-17.00)
- Easter
- 1 May
- 25 – 26 December
Tickets
- General admission: 4 €
- Free admission: under 25 years old
Contact information
- Address: 22 Vas. Sofias Ave., 106 75 Athens
- Call centre telephone: (+30) 213 213 9517
- Communication Office: (+30) 213 213 9572,
- Email: info.bma@culture.gr
Entrance to the museum is free for people with disabilities and for those accompanying blind visitors or with mobility disabilities.
How To Get There
The museum is situated on Vassilissis Sofias Avenue, down the street from the Hilton Athens. It is a few metres from the Evangelismos Metro station and a 15-minute walk from Syntagma Square.
Visitors can reach it by bus, trolley bus, metro, or private vehicle. There is parking available at the museum. The museum has one parking space reserved for people with disabilities.
