Alexander Nagel
Much of the art produced during the period we call the Renaissance points in one way or another eastward, to Jerusalem, to relay points such as Constantinople, and to points beyond the Holy Land, even as far as China. Conversely, objects and images issuing from eastern lands, primarily Byzantine and Islamic materials but also imports from further East, were zealously collected in the West, and coordinated in various ways with biblical history and Christian prophecy. Several artifacts discovered or put into new circulation in the year 1492 reveal the preoccupation of European antiquarians and artists with the eastern origins of their civilization. In the following decades, however, the prevailing orientation of Italian art fell away, as the centrality of Rome was newly asserted
