A Byzantine theme on Baroque stage. An episode of the Russian period of Guiseppe Valeriani’s activity

The article is dedicated to the staging of ‘Eudoxia crowned, or Theodosius II' and its scenery designed by an Italian stage artist Giuseppe Valeriani in 1751. Constantinople as a Baroque stage image is considered with account of the knowledge of Byzantine cultural history available in the 18th-century Europe. An unusual Byzantine theme reveals how a ‘Baroque' master could treat it, as he used to refer to the Roman and Renaissance architecture and as he reduced Oriental art to Gothic Revival and ‘Turquerie' conventions.