About the book: 1886 / N.P. Kondakov’s monumental book about the Byzantine monuments of Constantinople remains one of his highest achievements. Written in the genre of a scientific journey, it was the first and only work in Russian pre-revolutionary science that raised questions of a comprehensive study of the influence of Byzantine art (with its center in Constantinople) on the formation of both Slavic and Western European cultures. Contrary to the title, the book is least of all a study of architecture. Having visited Constantinople at a time when Byzantine antiquities still remained on the surface among a large number of urban wastelands and vegetable gardens, N.P. Kondakov had rich opportunities for research that are inaccessible to a modern scientist. Possessing a wealth of information gleaned from Byzantine sources, he created a scientific canvas in which hundreds of individual facts ultimately form something like an encyclopedia of Byzantine culture. The book was first published by the Odessa printing house Schulze in 1886. An electronic version of the text is presented on the website azbyka.ru.