Epirus Revisited. New Perceptions of Its History and Material Culture
Epirus Revisited. New Perceptions of Its History and Material Culture

Author: Chrēstos Staurakos

Publisher:

Published: 2020-11-15

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9782503592619

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A presentation of the new results in the research about Epirus.00The opening of the borders of Albania in the 1990s stimulated an increased interest in its cultural heritage and led to extensive research, as well as archaeological investigations. These, however, have mainly concentrated within Albania's present-day borders and have lacked broader contextualization. Very recent excavations in Greece, which resulted from the construction of the new Ionia Odos highway, have, however brought to light unexpected and interesting material that changes our image of the monumental topography and the settlements in Epirus. New studies concerning Epirus and its broader connections during the early and later Ottoman periods provide a broader impression of the region and its relationships with the large economic centres of the West, as well as with the spiritual-religious and political centres of the Balkans.

Art, Power, and Patronage in the Principality of Epirus, 1204–1318
Art, Power, and Patronage in the Principality of Epirus, 1204–1318

Author: Leonela Fundić

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-06-01

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1000590356

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The Principality of Epirus was a medieval Greek state established in the western part of the Balkans after the fall of Constantinople to the forces of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Epirote rulers from the Komnenos Doukas family claimed to be legitimate successors to the Byzantine imperial throne and, with the support of the high clergy and the aristocracy within their domain, carefully maintained their Byzantine identity under the conditions of exile. This book explores a corpus of Epirote architecture, frescoes, sculpture, and inscriptions from the early thirteenth to the early fourteenth century within a comparative and interdisciplinary framework, focusing on the nexus of art, patronage, and political ideology. Through an examination of a vast array of visual and textual sources, many of them understudied or hitherto unpublished, the book uncovers how the Epirote elite mobilised art and material culture to address the issues of succession and legitimacy, construct memory, reclaim Constantinople, and mediate encounters and exchanges with the Latin West. In doing so, this study offers a new perspective on Byzantine political and cultural history in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade.

Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions
Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions

Author: Maria Alessia Rossi

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-11-22

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 3110695618

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This volume builds upon the new worldwide interest in the global Middle Ages. It investigates the prismatic heritage and eclectic artistic production of Eastern Europe between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, while challenging the temporal and geographical parameters of the study of medieval, Byzantine, post-Byzantine, and early-modern art. Contact and interchange between primarily the Latin, Greek, and Slavic cultural spheres resulted in local assimilations of select elements that reshaped the artistic landscapes of regions of the Balkan Peninsula, the Carpathian Mountains, and further north. The specificities of each region, and, in modern times, politics and nationalistic approaches, have reinforced the tendency to treat them separately, preventing scholars from questioning whether the visual output could be considered as an expression of a shared history. The comparative and interdisciplinary framework of this volume provides a holistic view of the visual culture of these regions by addressing issues of transmission and appropriation, as well as notions of cross-cultural contact, while putting on the global map of art history the eclectic artistic production of Eastern Europe.

Poetry in Late Byzantium
Poetry in Late Byzantium

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-07-04

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 9004699686

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The late Byzantine period (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries) was marked by both cultural fecundity and political fragmentation, resulting in an astonishingly multifaceted literary output. This book addresses the poetry of the empire’s final quarter-millennium from a broad perspective, bringing together studies on texts originating in places from Crete to Constantinople and from court to school, treating topics from humanist antiquarianism to pious self-help, and written in styles from the vernacular to Homeric language. It thus offers a reference work to a much-neglected but rich textual material that is as varied as it was potent in the sociocultural contexts of its times. Contributors are Theodora Antonopoulou, Marina Bazzani, Julián Bértola, Martin Hinterberger, Krystina Kubina, Marc D. Lauxtermann, Florin Leonte, Ugo Mondini, Brendan Osswald, Giulia M. Paoletti, Cosimo Paravano, Daniil Pleshak, Alberto Ravani, and Federica Scognamiglio.

Portraits and Icons
Portraits and Icons

Author: Katherine Leigh Marsengill

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9782503544045

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This title examines the parallel phenomena of portraits and icons, and spans from late antiquity through the end of the Byzantine period. Engaging a wide range of material, it addresses prevalent and persistent themes in the creation of a distinctly Christianized portraiture while analyzing the cultural and theological perceptions in place that guided its reception. Christian Rome inherited its traditions and beliefs regarding portraiture from antiquity, especially in terms of its ritual and religious functions. Though certainly altered for its new Christian context, these perceptions did not disappear altogether. Various texts and images survive that allow us to imagine a world where sacred and secular art intermingled, and portraits of Christ and the saints, emperors, bishops, and holy men existed side by side in visual messages of power and hierarchal authority

The Byzantine Church of Panagia Krena in Chios
The Byzantine Church of Panagia Krena in Chios

Author: Charalampos Pennas

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9789490387082

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The author gives an exhaustive presentation of this church, which is a key monument for our knowledge of the architecture and painting of the late twelfth century. The main architectural type of the church has its roots in an earlier architectural form, that of the octagon type, imitating the katholikon of the nearby Nea Moni, dated in the mid-eleventh century. However, the monument employs new features, which stress the plasticity of the exterior, making it a forerunner of the Laskarid and consequently the Palaiologan era. Quite characteristic are the concealed-brick technique and the rich ornamental brickwork. The wall painting of the interior are dated to 1197, on the basis of epigraphic testimonies and the donor portraits of Eustathios Kodratos and his wife Pagomene in the narthex, as well as of Metropolitan Stephanos Pepagomenos, the founder's uncle, in the sanctuary. The iconographic programme in the sanctuary, naos and narthex is preserved in full and includes iconographic particularities, which in many cases have been established in Byzantine painting after the twelfth century. The completeness of the painted decoration and the exact dating of Panagia Krena to 1197 are two basic factors, which a priori allow a comprehensive artistic assessment of the Chian monument's frescoes in the broader context of Late Komnenian art. In addition, these factors make Krena a reference point for the study of mural painting in the eastern Aegean and, by extension, the Asia Minor coast, including understanding of the social background of this activity in the region and determining its formative influences.

Cities and the Meanings of Late Antiquity
Cities and the Meanings of Late Antiquity

Author: Mark Humphries

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-11-04

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 9004422617

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The last half century has seen an explosion in the study of late antiquity, which has characterised the period between the third and seventh centuries not as one of catastrophic collapse and ‘decline and fall’, but rather as one of dynamic and positive transformation. Yet research on cities in this period has provoked challenges to this positive picture of late antiquity. This study surveys the nature of this debate, examining problems associated with the sources historians use to examine late antique urbanism, and the discourses and methodological approaches they have constructed from them. It aims to set out the difficulties and opportunities presented by the study of cities in late antiquity in terms of transformations of politics, the economy, and religion, and to show that this period witnessed very real upheaval and dislocation alongside continuity and innovation in cities around the Mediterranean.

Societies in Transition in Early Greece
Societies in Transition in Early Greece

Author: Alex R. Knodell

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 0520380533

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Situated at the disciplinary boundary between prehistory and history, this book presents a new synthesis of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greece, from the rise and fall of Mycenaean civilization to the emergence of city-states in the Archaic period. These centuries saw the growth and decline of varied political systems and the development of networks across local, regional, and Mediterranean scales. As a groundbreaking study of landscape, interaction, and sociopolitical change, Societies in Transition in Early Greece systematically bridges the divide between the Mycenaean period and the Archaic Greek world to shed new light on an often-overlooked period of world history. “This book reconfigures our understanding of early Greece on a regional level, beyond Mycenaean 'palaces' and across temporal boundaries. Alex Knodell's sophisticated arguments enable a fresh reading of the emergence of early Greek polities, revealing the microregions that put to the test overarching 'Mediterranean' models. His detailed study makes a convincing return to a comparative framework, integrating a 'small world' network and its trajectory with the larger picture of ancient complex societies.” SARAH MORRIS, Steinmetz Professor of Classical Archaeology and Material Culture, University of California, Los Angeles “A comprehensive, thoughtful treatment of the time period before the crystallization of the ancient Greek city states.” WILLIAM A. PARKINSON, Curator and Professor, The Field Museum and University of Illinois at Chicago “An important and must-read account. The strength of this book lies in its close analysis of the important different regional characteristics and evolutionary trajectories of Greece as it transforms into the Archaic and, later, the Classical world.” DAVID B. SMALL, author Ancient Greece: Social Structure and Evolution.