The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City

From Justinian to Mehmet II (ca. 500 - ca.1500)

Nikolas Bakirtzis, Luca Zavagno (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

508 Seiten

2024
Routledge (Verlag)
978-0-367-19679-0 (ISBN)

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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.

Organized 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 specialized 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.

Nikolas Bakirtzis is an Associate Professor at The Cyprus Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus. His research focuses on Byzantine monasticism, medieval cities and fortifications, and the island landscapes of the Byzantine, medieval, and early modern Mediterranean. As the Director of the Andreas Pittas Art Characterization Labs, he leads research on the materiality of medieval and early modern art enhanced through the use of advanced digital and analytical methods. His work has received support from the European Commission, the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation, the Princeton Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, the A.G. Leventis Foundation, and the Getty Research Institute. Luca Zavagno is an Associate Professor of Byzantine Studies at Bilkent University, Turkey. He is the author of many articles and books on the early medieval and Byzantine Mediterranean. His research focuses on Byzantine urbanism and medieval Mediterranean insularity. He has been awarded the Dumbarton Oaks Summer Fellowship twice (in 2011 and 2016) as well as the prestigious Stanley Seeger Fellowship of the Hellenic Studies Center at Princeton University (2012), the Newton Mobility Grant (2018), and he has been twice a fellowship at Center for Advanced Studies ‘Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’ at the University of Tubingen, Germany (2022 and 2023).

List of Illustrations

List of Contributors

Introduction

Nikolas Bakirtzis and Luca Zavagno

PART I - Theory and Historiography

1 The Byzantine City and its Historiography

Luca Zavagno

2 Theorizing Byzantine Urbanity: The City Constituting Memory, Memory Constituting the City

Myrto Veikou

3 The Byzantine City in the Literary Sources

Helen Saradi

4 Methodologies for Byzantine Urban Studies

Michael J. Decker

5 Spatial Organization in Late Byzantine Cities (13th・14th Centuries)

Tonia Kiousopoulou

PART II - Geographies of the Byzantine City

6 Cities on the Black Sea Coast and the Circumpontic Exchange Network (c. 500・700)

Andrei Gandila

7 The Byzantine ‘City’ in Asia Minor

Ufuk Serin

8 Insular Urbanism in Byzantium

Luca Zavagno

9 The City in the Byzantine ‘Italies’

Enrico Cirelli

10 Urbanism in Syria and Palestine Between the 7th and 9th Centuries

Ian Randall

PART III - Architecture and the Built Environment

11 Domes in the Urban Skyline: The Case of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus and its Transformations through Time

Nikolaos Karydis

12 Fortifications and the Making of the Byzantine City

Nikolas Bakirtzis

13 Monumentality and the Byzantine City

Maria Cristina Carile

14 Maintained, Stored and Protected: Water and the Byzantine City

E. Giorgi

15 Islamic City, Ottoman City: Byzantine Prousa to Ottoman Bursa

Suna Cağaptay

16 Two Views of Ports and Maritime Communities in the Byzantine Mediterranean: Constantinople and Amalfi

Michael Jones and Matthew Harpster

17 Alexandria after Antiquity: A City in Transition

Athanasios Koutoupas

PART IV - Daily Life, Visual and Material Culture

18 “The Arts and the Byzantine City”

Ioli Kalavrezou

19 On Early Byzantine Images of Poleis: Meanings and Messages

Jenny P. Albani

20 The Consumptive Capital: Commercial Activities and Ceramic Finds at Constantinople (ca. 500・1000)

Joanita Vroom

21 Pera Ianuensium Pulcherrima Civitas Est: Creating a Genoese Identity on the Golden Horn (1261・1453)

Mabi Angar

Erscheinungsdatum	02.02.2024
Reihe/Serie	Routledge History Handbooks
Zusatzinfo	11 Tables, black and white; 115 Halftones, black and white; 115 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	174 x 246 mm
Gewicht	1097 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Mittelalter
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
	Technik ► Architektur
ISBN-10	0-367-19679-4 / 0367196794
ISBN-13	978-0-367-19679-0 / 9780367196790
Zustand	Neuware