A taste for all things Byzantine: Byzantium in the collections of Antonis Benakis

‘His pockets were always full of treasures. What marvellous things you could find in them! Nails, marbles, pebbles, sponges, twine, maybe a chewed piece gum, and that crystal triangle from the church chandelier would shine brilliantly when held up to sun.’ With these words, Penelope Delta, famous children's writer sister Antonis Benakis, painted portrait her brother as child much-loved book Trelantonis ( Crazy ). In this book, dedicated childhood adventures Benaki family siblings, set cosmopolitan yet conservative colonial environment upper middle-class Greeks late nineteenth-century Alexandria, was protagonist. (Fig. 1)