The Renaissance of the Levant
The Renaissance of the Levant

Author: Michael Kreutz

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-03-18

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 3110631342

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Since the Mediterranean connects cultures, Mediterranean studies have by definition an intercultural focus. Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. However, the modern Balkans are usually studied within the context of European history, the southern Mediterranean within the context of Islam. Although it makes sense to connect both regions, this is a vast field and requires a command of different languages not necessarily related to each other. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time and how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas. Also, the discourses in Greek and Arabic reflect the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and it is instructive to see their differences and commonalities which helps explain contemporary politics.

The Republic of Letters and the Levant
The Republic of Letters and the Levant

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2005-12-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 9047416562

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This collection of articles analyses the interests and experiences in the Levant of a number of leading western scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with an emphasis on the networks of learned friends throughout Europe with whom they corresponded.

I Medici E Il Levante : Culture E Dialoghi Tra Firenze E Il Mediterraneo Orientale (1532-1743)
I Medici E Il Levante : Culture E Dialoghi Tra Firenze E Il Mediterraneo Orientale (1532-1743)

Author: Maurizio Arfaioli

Publisher: Harvey Miller

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781909400368

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This volume addresses the major themes that marked the complex relations between the Medici Grand Dukes and the Levant. For over two centuries (1532-1737), the Medici, as Dukes of Florence and Grand Dukes of Tuscany, ruled over a western Mediterranean state, which had a mainly European geopolitical sphere of influence. However, the transformation of the House of Medici, from republican "primi interpares" of Quattrocento Florence to dynastic rulers, occurred at the same moment when the Ottoman Empire rose to the rank of early modern superpower, polarizing Mediterranean politics. The Italian Peninsula became the arena where the cultural forces of the eastern and western Mediterranean converged. As a result, from the early days of their rule, the Medici Grand Dukes became enmeshed in a power dynamic which encompassed war, religion, diplomacy, and economic interests. This collection of essays addresses these very themes and sheds new light on key aspects of the complex relationships between the Medici Grand Dukes and the Levant.

Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe
Arabic Christianity between the Ottoman Levant and Eastern Europe

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-08-24

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 9004465839

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This volume focuses on the connections of Arabic-speaking Christians with Eastern-European Christians in Ottoman times, it discusses the circulation of literature, models, iconography, and knowhow between the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and presents new research devoted to them.

Renaissance Emir
Renaissance Emir

Author: T.J. Gorton

Publisher: Interlink Publishing

Published: 2014-07-30

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1623710537

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A groundbreaking biography of the mysterious Levantine prince Fakr ad-Din. The year is 1613: the Ottoman Empire is at its height, sprawling from Hungary to Iraq, Morocco to Yemen. One man dares to challenge it: the Prince of the mysterious Druze sect in Mount Lebanon, Fakhr ad-Din. Yielding before a mighty army sent to conquer him, he—astonishingly—takes refuge with the Medici in Florence at the height of the Renaissance. Fakhr ad-Din took along with him a diverse party of Moslem, Christian, and Jewish Levantines on their first visit to the “Lands of the Christians.” During his five-year stay in Italy, he fights to persuade Popes, Grand-Dukes and Viceroys to support a grand plan: a new Crusade to wrest the Holy Land from the Ottomans, giving Jerusalem back to Christendom and himself a crown. This groundbreaking biography of Fakhr ad-Din, Prince of the Druze, is based on the author’s vivid new translations of contemporary sources in Arabic and other languages. It brings to life one remarkable man’s beliefs and ambitions, uniquely illuminating the elusive interface between Eastern and Western culture.

The Renaissance of the Levant
The Renaissance of the Levant

Author: Michael Kreutz

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-03-18

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 3110634007

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Since the Mediterranean connects cultures, Mediterranean studies have by definition an intercultural focus. Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. However, the modern Balkans are usually studied within the context of European history, the southern Mediterranean within the context of Islam. Although it makes sense to connect both regions, this is a vast field and requires a command of different languages not necessarily related to each other. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time and how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas. Also, the discourses in Greek and Arabic reflect the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and it is instructive to see their differences and commonalities which helps explain contemporary politics.

Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta
Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta

Author: Michael J. K. Walsh

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1351918648

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There was a time seven centuries ago when Famagusta's wealth and renown could be compared to that of Venice or Constantinople. The Cathedral of St Nicholas in the main square of Famagusta, serving as the coronation place for the Crusader Kings of Jerusalem after the fall of Acre in 1291, symbolised both the sophistication and permanence of the French society that built it. From the port radiated impressive commercial activity with the major Mediterranean trade centres, generating legendary wealth, cosmopolitanism, and hedonism, unsurpassed in the Levant. These halcyon days were not to last, however, and a 15th century observer noted that, following the Genoese occupation of the city, 'a malignant devil has become jealous of Famagusta'. When Venice inherited the city, it reconstructed the defences and had some success in revitalising the city's economy. But the end for Venetian Famagusta came in dramatic fashion in 1571, following a year long siege by the Ottomans. Three centuries of neglect followed which, combined with earthquakes, plague and flooding, left the city in ruins. The essays collected in this book represent a major contribution to the study of Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta and its surviving art and architecture and also propose a series of strategies for preserving the city's heritage in the future. They will be of particular interest to students and scholars of Gothic, Byzantine and Renaissance art and architecture, and to those of the Crusades and the Latin East, as well as the Military Orders. After an introductory chapter surveying the history of Famagusta and its position in the cultural mosaic that is the Eastern Mediterranean, the opening section provides a series of insights into the history and historiography of the city. There follow chapters on the churches and their decoration, as well as the military architecture, while the final section looks at the history of conservation efforts and assesses the work that now needs to be done.

The Dragoman Renaissance
The Dragoman Renaissance

Author: E. Natalie Rothman

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2021-03-15

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1501758489

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In The Dragoman Renaissance, E. Natalie Rothman traces how Istanbul-based diplomatic translator-interpreters, known as the dragomans, systematically engaged Ottoman elites in the study of the Ottoman Empire—eventually coalescing in the discipline of Orientalism—throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rothman challenges Eurocentric assumptions still pervasive in Renaissance studies by showing the centrality of Ottoman imperial culture to the articulation of European knowledge about the Ottomans. To do so, she draws on a dazzling array of new material from a variety of archives. By studying the sustained interactions between dragomans and Ottoman courtiers in this period, Rothman disrupts common ideas about a singular moment of "cultural encounter," as well as about a "docile" and "static" Orient, simply acted upon by extraneous imperial powers. The Dragoman Renaissance creatively uncovers how dragomans mediated Ottoman ethno-linguistic, political, and religious categories to European diplomats and scholars. Further, it shows how dragomans did not simply circulate fixed knowledge. Rather, their engagement of Ottoman imperial modes of inquiry and social reproduction shaped the discipline of Orientalism for centuries to come. Thanks to generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through The Sustainable History Monograph Pilot, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Charles Corm
Charles Corm

Author: Franck Salameh

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2015-07-07

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0739184016

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Charles Corm: An Intellectual Biography of a Twentieth-Century Lebanese “Young Phoenician” delves into the history of the modern Middle East and an inquiry into Lebanese intellectual, cultural, and political life as incarnated in the ideas, and as illustrated by the times, works, and activities of Charles Corm (1894–1963). Charles Corm was a guiding spirit behind modern Lebanese nationalism, a leading figure in the “Young Phoenicians” movement, and an advocate for identity narratives that are often dismissed in the prevalent Arab nationalist paradigms that have come to define the canon of Middle East history, political thought, and scholarship of the past century. But Charles Corm was much more than a man of letters upholding a specific patriotic mission. As a poet and entrepreneur, socialite and orator, philanthropist and patron of the arts, and as a leading businessman, Charles Corm commanded immense influence on modern Lebanese political and social life, popular culture, and intellectual production during the interwar period and beyond. In many respects, Charles Corm has also been “the conscience” of Lebanese society at a crucial juncture in its modern history, as the autonomous sanjak/Mutasarrifiyya (or Province) of Mount-Lebanon and the Vilayet (State) of Beirut of the late nineteenth century were navigating their way out of Ottoman domination and into a French Mandatory period (ca. 1918), before culminating with the independence of the Republic of Lebanon in 1943.

The Barber of Damascus
The Barber of Damascus

Author: Dana Sajdi

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2013-10-09

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0804788286

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This book is about a barber, Shihab al-Din Ahmad Ibn Budayr, who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the 18th century. The barber may have been a "nobody," but he wrote a history book, a record of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Dana Sajdi investigates the significance of this book, and in examining the life and work of Ibn Budayr, uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors—people outside the learned establishment—and a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. The Barber of Damascus offers the first full-length microhistory of an individual commoner in Ottoman and Islamic history. Contributing to Ottoman popular history, Arabic historiography, and the little-studied cultural history of the 18th century Levant, the volume also examines the reception of the barber's book a century later to explore connections between the 18th and the late 19th centuries and illuminates new paths leading to the Nahda, the Arab Renaissance.