Monumentality and the Byzantine City (original) (raw)
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The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City
The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City From Justinian to Mehmet II (ca. 500 - ca.1500), 2024
The Byzantine world contained many important cities throughout its empire. Although it was not 'urban' in the sense of the word today, its cities played a far more fundamental role than those of its European neighbors. This book, through a collection of twenty-four chapters, discusses aspects of, and different approaches to, Byzantine urbanism from the early to late Byzantine periods. It provides both a chronological and thematic perspective to the study of Byzantine cities, bringing together literary, documentary, and archival sources with archaeological results, material culture, art, and architecture, resulting in a rich synthesis of the variety of regional and sub-regional transformations of Byzantine urban landscapes. Organised into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture. It includes more specialised accounts that address the centripetal role of Constantinople and its broader influence across the empire. Such new perspectives help to challenge the historiographical balance between 'margins and metropolis,' and also to include geographical areas often regarded as peripheral, like the coastal urban centers of the Byzantine Mediterranean as well as cities on islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily which have more recently yielded well-excavated and stratigraphically sound urban sites. The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City provides both an overview and detailed study of the Byzantine city to specialist scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike and, therefore, will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine urbanism and society, as well as those studying medieval society in general.
Rock-cut façades: Conveyors of ‘false’ monumentality in Byzantine Cappadocia.
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 46(2) , 2022
The monumental rock-cut façades of the tenth to eleventh century-mansionsso-called courtyard complexesin Cappadocia, central Turkey, are rare examples of secular Byzantine architecture. While these symmetrically designed façades adorned with superimposed arches differ from the simpler ones (both carved and built) in the region, they bear striking similarities to others from the broader Mediterranean basin. This article offers new insights into the discussion on the uniqueness of the rock-cut façades of courtyard complexes and reconsiders the raison d'être of this 'false' monumentality in the rural setting of Byzantine Cappadocia.
Sixty Years of Research on the Byzantine City
The Byzantine city became identified as a discrete historical entity, worthy of dedicated research, in the 1950s. Since then it has generated a large and growing volume of scholarship. My task in this paper is to give a brief review of the material, pointing out its main landmarks and directions. The period under review will not correspond exactly to the chronological limits of this volume. It ends in the fifteenth century, with the fall of Constantinople, since I consider the Ottoman town to be a different phenomenon from its Byzantine predecessor, and there are virtually no studies seriously linking the two. On the other hand, I begin in the fourth century, with the foundation of Constantinople. Despite the deep discontinuities between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the problems of periodizing Byzantium, few Byzantinists would wish to exclude the age of Justinian from their domain, and between the empire of Justinian and the empire of Constantine no clean division can be drawn. Two of the most important monographs in the field are titled "The Byzantine City in the Sixth Century" 1. The geographical limits of my survey are similarly defined by the existence of the Roman Empire of Constantinople: I consider mainly those towns and cities that came within the political orbit of the Byzantine imperial court and its splinter states. Research on the Byzantine city has sought to answer basically the same questions that have driven the study of urbanism in the medieval West: Was it a continuation of the ancient city? What was its relationship to political and religious authority? Did the town and is inhabitants have a distinct status with regard to the rest of society, and particularly the population of its surrounding countryside? How was urban society divided, both vertically and horizontally, and what was the relationship between private, public and sacred space? What administrative, social, cultural and economic functions did it fulfil, and which of all these was its raison d'être? In particular, was the economic function paramount, and within the urban economy, did consumption take precedence over production and exchange? How did towns relate to each other, both spatially and in terms of size and importance, and what differentiated towns, within the hierarchy of settlements, from other settlement units? In short, what defined a city, what characterised the quality of urban life, and what made some towns more urban than others? The range of answers to these questions is necessarily limited and predictable for any pre-industrial society. In a comparison between Byzantium and the West, however, the
BYZANTINE MONUMENTS AND ARCHITECTURAL ‘CLEANSING’ IN NINETEENTH CENTURY ATHENS
Héritages de Byzance en Europe du Sud-Est à l'époque moderne et contemporaine, 2013
This paper examines the architectural ‘cleansing’ of Athens in the decades following the establishment of the Modern Greek state. The primary concern during this period was to connect Modern Greece with its glorious ancient past. Thus, the ancient monuments of the city, and especially the Acropolis and its surroundings became a source of inspiration and legitimation for the newly established state. The goal was to enhance the ancient monuments by freeing them from post-classical additions and alterations. In this process most of the post-classical history of the ancient structures was lost; within a few decades they were transformed from living monuments into museum pieces. The same principle guided the planning of the new capital. The classical emphasis led to a disregard for the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine architectural heritage and, in turn, to the destruction of a large number of churches in the course of the XIXe century. This history can only be recovered through the study of early maps and plans, visitors’ accounts, textual sources, and the material remains recovered by excavations. Here, I will provide an overview of the development of Athens in the Byzantine and later periods. Most of the surviving churches date to the Middle-Byzantine period, a time when Athens grew as a provincial town. Athens experienced a second period of growth under Ottoman rule, in the XVIe and XVIIe centuries, when many churches and chapels were built. In the last part of this paper, I will examine the architectural ‘cleansing’ of the XIXe century by documenting specific examples of demolished churches.
Byzantine monuments and topography 1985
Çorum , Amasya , Tokat , SAmsun , Girasun gümüşhane ve Trabzondaki evliya çelebi alıntılarına göre eski köy ve yerleşke adları , eski roma hristiyan tarihi eserleri . kelkit nehri kıyısı olan tarihi belgeler
The Byzantine world contained many important cities throughout its empire. Although it was not 'urban' in the sense of the word today, its cities played a far more fundamental role than those of its European neighbors. This book, through a collection of twenty-four chapters, discusses aspects of, and different approaches to, Byzantine urbanism from the early to late Byzantine periods. It provides both a chronological and thematic perspective to the study of Byzantine cities, bringing together literary, documentary, and archival sources with archaeological results, material culture, art, and architecture, resulting in a rich synthesis of the variety of regional and sub-regional transformations of Byzantine urban landscapes. Organised into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture. It includes more specialised accounts that address the centripetal role of Constantinople and its broader influence across the empire. Such new perspectives help to challenge the historiographical balance between 'margins and metropolis,' and also to include geographical areas often regarded as peripheral, like the coastal urban centers of the Byzantine Mediterranean as well as cities on islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily which have more recently yielded well-excavated and stratigraphically sound urban sites. The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City provides both an overview and detailed study of the Byzantine city to specialist scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike and, therefore, will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine urbanism and society, as well as those studying medieval society in general.
European Journal of Post-Classical Archaeologies, 2020
Focusing on the use and abuse in the study of Byzantine archaeology and Urbanism of the idea of the “Invisible Cities” as introduced in literature by Italo Calvino, this article attempts to set a framework for understanding Byzantine cities within clear and scientifically defined analytical categories as part of a modernist agenda. At the same time the article examines the distorting influence of Constantinople, as the capital city, on any and all our efforts to understand Byzantine urbanism as a social phenomenon in its true scale. Italian: L’articolo vuole definire una cornice per la comprensione delle città bizantine attraverso categorie analitiche chiare e scientificamente definite come parte di un’agenda modernista, focalizzandosi sull’uso e abuso dell’archeologia bizantina e dell’urbanesimo e utilizzando il concetto calviniano di “Città Invisibili”. Allo stesso tempo l’articolo esamina l’influenza distorta di Costantinopoli, come città capitale, su tutti gli sforzi per capire l’urbanesimo bizantino come fenomeno sociale alla sua scala reale.