Beatrice is an expert in the history and culture of Byzantium, exploring the complex dynamics of word and image. After earning a PhD in Byzantine Studies at the University of Milan, she has pursued her research at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington DC), at LMU (Munich), at Princeton University and at Ca’ Foscari University (Venice).
The collection of essays presented by Beatrice Daskas and Giovanna Targia in this issue of Word &... more The collection of essays presented by Beatrice Daskas and Giovanna Targia in this issue of Word & Image stems from an international colloquium held at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice (Italy), 16 May 2019, and addresses the semantics, syntax, and pragmatics of a spectrum of hybrid ‘word–image’ systems across the medieval world. The concept of Iconographiae underpins our investigation of this series of prototypical ‘word–image’ complexes. These include graphic signs such as the monogram of Christ (Maguire), chrysography (Ganz), instances of collision and contiguity between word and image (Debiais, Guidetti), modes of artistic creation prompted by authoritative texts (Iafrate) and textual composition of images (Daskas), the mixed synesthetic experiences of Christian amulets (Dell’Acqua), and the interpretive qualities and cultural bias of art-historical writing (Targia, Foletti).
Besides their undoubted aesthetic value, monuments possess an ideological function. They are mean... more Besides their undoubted aesthetic value, monuments possess an ideological function. They are meaningful forms built to commemorate significant deeds or events or to celebrate individuals who are prominent within a community. Monuments become essential for the articulation of cultural identity and memory, through which political powers and intellectual elites seek legitimation and support. As historical objects operating in fluid and transformative cultural environments, their significance is constantly renegotiated to suit new ideological agendas. Rhetoric, and in particular rhetorical descriptions or ekphraseis, may offer insights into the way in which monuments have been seen and communicated over the course of time. While representing selective verbal–visual narratives, these texts can convey specific conceptions of the monuments and encourage interpretations that are distant from the original intentions of those who had them installed. On this premise, this paper proposes a more comprehensive interpretive framework for the analysis of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a Byzantine monument recently brought to international attention by the Turkish government’s decision to change back its status from museum to mosque. This framework resorts to rhetoric and its unique capacity to unveil, across time and space, how the monument has been perceived, expressed, appropriated, reframed, and negotiated by people as an indivisible component of their culture.
πτeρόν, πτέρυξ and πτeρύγιον all stem from the same root, and their primary meaning is connected ... more πτeρόν, πτέρυξ and πτeρύγιον all stem from the same root, and their primary meaning is connected to birds: “feather”,“wing”, “shoulder blade”. The history of these words is worthy of note for they came into use in the description of Graeco-Egyptian temple complexes and in the nomenclature of Classical architecture. In order to observe the semantic import of theseand related words and expressions across various cultural contexts (Graeco-Egyptian, Classical and Byzantine) this articlepresents and discusses a range of ancient, late antique and Byzantine literary, erudite, archaeological and iconographic sources.This study aims at giving the reader a glimpse into the Greek lexical domain of architecture, by providing insights into some ofthe general mechanisms of its construction, and specifically to illuminate, by way of a cultural-historical investigation of theseterms, ideas of appearance and significance inherent in the Graeco-Egyptian and Classical and Byzantine worlds. This survey...
Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 69, 2020
Content of JOEB 69 / 2019
Artikel
Fabio Acerbi, Byzantine Rechenbücher: An Overview with an Edit... more Content of JOEB 69 / 2019 Artikel
Fabio Acerbi, Byzantine Rechenbücher: An Overview with an Edition of Anonymi J and L Benedetta Contin, The Problem of Evil and the Theory of Contraries from Alexandria and Athens to Armenia in Late Antiquity
Barbara Crostini, Another True Cross: Psellos, Heraklios, and the Cross of the Archangel Michael at Sykeon
Beatrice Daskas, The Church of All-the-Saints (olim St Theophanô) at the Holy Apostles: a Reappraisal of the Dossier of Sources
Tomasz Derda, Adam Łajtar, Organization of the Church in Medieval Nubia in the Light of a Newly Discovered Wall Inscription in Dongola
Nikolas Hächler, Der Exarchat von Ravenna unter Kaiser Herakleios. Transformation und Kontinuität staatlicher Herrschafts- und Verwaltungsstrukturen in den Peripherien des byzantinischen Reiches in der ersten Hälfte des 7. Jahrhunderts
Constanze Höpken, Sattel und Hufeisen – Pferd, Muli oder Esel im Mar Salomon-Kloster in Doliche
Dirk Krausmüller, Attitudes towards Fasting in Constantinopolitan Monasticism (Fifth to Eleventh Centuries)
Dirk Krausmüller, The Encomium of the Apostle Philip by Michael the Monk (BHG 1530a). Edition and English Translation
Marion Kruse, The Epitomator Ioannes Xiphilinos and the Eleventh-Century Xiphilinoi Paolo Odorico, La sténographie de Michel Psellos
Peter Schreiner, Neues zu Leben und Werk des Isidor von Kiev. Kritische Bemerkungen zu zwei Biographien
Juan Signes Codoñer, A Note on the Dossier of Geographical Glosses Used by the Compilers of the So-called Version B of the Logothete Chronicle under the Macedonian Emperors Staffan Wahlgren, Symeon the Logothete and Theophanes continuatus
Besprechungen
Eustathii Thessalonicensis exegesis in canonem iambicum pentecostalem, recensuerunt indicibusque instruxerunt P. Cesaretti – S. Ronchey (Péter Bara)
Helga Gickler, Kaiser Michael IX. Palaiologos: sein Leben und Wirken (1278 bis 1320). Eine biographische Annäherung (Martin Marko Vučetić)
Mediterranean Holocene Climate, Environment and Human Societies (Quaternary Science Reviews 136, Special Issue), ed. A. Gogou – A. Izdebski – K. Holmgren (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller)
Kostas N. Konstantinides, Ἠπειρωτικὰ Μελετήματα. Ζητήματα ἀπὸ τὴν πνευματικὴ ζωὴ στὴ μεσαιωνικὴ Ἤπειρο / Epirotan Studies. Aspects of Intellectual Life in Medieval Epiros (Andreas Rhoby)
Storytelling in Byzantium. Narratological approaches to Byzantine texts and images, ed. Ch. Messis – M. Mullett – I. Nilsson (Carolina Cupane)
Alexios G. C. Savvides, The Beginnings and Foundation of Byzantine Studies. A Survey with a Bibliographical Appendix (Andreas Rhoby)
Michele Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio di Nicea (George Karamanolis) Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae
After the Text Byzantine Enquiries in Honour of Margaret Mullett ed. by Liz James, Oliver Nicholson, Roger Scott. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies 32, Abingdon-on-Thames and New York, Routledge, 2021, 2022
The present contribution engages with two representative examples of
middle-Byzantine ekphraseis,... more The present contribution engages with two representative examples of middle-Byzantine ekphraseis, Photios’ description of the Virgin of the Pharos and Leo VI’s account of the church founded by Stylianos Zautzes. It aims at showing how these texts suggest modes of viewing the sacred space and decoration that pose, more than settle, questions about images and pictures, their intended function, significance and impact within their specific cultural frames of reference. Far from being neutral and disengaged, these verbal representations have a specific agenda, which inflects the audience’s perception and interpretation of the decorated church space. Comparisons with coeval monumental evidence are also offered, in order to analyze textual and visual developments in parallel.
The focus of the article is the casket with martyrs of Trebizond in Saint Mark’s Treasury (Inv. n... more The focus of the article is the casket with martyrs of Trebizond in Saint Mark’s Treasury (Inv. no. 33). Thanks to the preserved inventories of the possessions of the basilica, the article reconstructs the history of the object and identifies a possible commissioner of it – the imperial nomophylax and participant to the council of Ferrara/Florence (1438- 1439) John Eugenicos – by suggesting him as the author of the epigram carved onto its sides.
F. Conca, C. Castelli (ed.), Bisanzio fra tradizione e modernità Ricordando Gianfranco Fiaccadori, XII Giornata di Studi dell'AISB Bisanzio fra tradizione e modernità, Milano, 2017
This contribution is based on a new interpretation of the well-known passage found in
the Descrip... more This contribution is based on a new interpretation of the well-known passage found in the Description of the lost church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople by Nikolaos Mesarites (XXVIII, 63.18–64.3 Heisenberg = 910b.[23] Downey), normally dated to the late twelfth century. It provides a reappraisal of the question regarding the Byzantine painter Eulalios and his alleged self-portrait in one of the scenes of the monument's decorative cycle.
P. Odorico, C. Messis (éd.), Villes de toute beauté. L’ekphrasis des cités dans les littératures byzantine et byzantino-slaves, [Dossiers Byzantins 12], 2012
After the Text: Byzantine Enquiries in Honour of Margaret Mullett, 2022
Title page of a chapter in a volume in honour of Margaret Mullett, OBE
https://www.routledge.c... more Title page of a chapter in a volume in honour of Margaret Mullett, OBE
In this study I will comment on an account of a miracle performed by the Virgin Mary through which Abbot Ambrose Autpert (d. 784) acquired a fluency of speech. Retrospectively, his twelfth-century biographer hints at the fact that this fluency was put to good use. The account also implicitly suggests that thanks to Mary’s direct intervention, Autpert became a promoter of her cult and at the same time developed an organic vision of her role in the economy of salvation which he expounded in his writings. Through theological commentaries and homilies on the Virgin, Autpert influenced the way she came to be perceived in the West. In fact, whilst in Byzantium Mariology was established earlier, in the West – after the celebration of Mary’s virginity by Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) and the promotion of Marian devotion by Bishop Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) – a specific theological reasoning about the Mother of God only took shape with Autpert, hence he is widely acknowledged as the first early medieval Mariologist. I will remark his dependence on the Byzantine tradition, which has been previously suggested but never demonstrated. As a consequence of this dependence, the early medieval reasoning on Mary came to share many fundamental traits with Byzantine Mariology.
The collection of essays presented by Beatrice Daskas and Giovanna Targia in this issue of Word &... more The collection of essays presented by Beatrice Daskas and Giovanna Targia in this issue of Word & Image stems from an international colloquium held at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice (Italy), 16 May 2019, and addresses the semantics, syntax, and pragmatics of a spectrum of hybrid ‘word–image’ systems across the medieval world. The concept of Iconographiae underpins our investigation of this series of prototypical ‘word–image’ complexes. These include graphic signs such as the monogram of Christ (Maguire), chrysography (Ganz), instances of collision and contiguity between word and image (Debiais, Guidetti), modes of artistic creation prompted by authoritative texts (Iafrate) and textual composition of images (Daskas), the mixed synesthetic experiences of Christian amulets (Dell’Acqua), and the interpretive qualities and cultural bias of art-historical writing (Targia, Foletti).
Besides their undoubted aesthetic value, monuments possess an ideological function. They are mean... more Besides their undoubted aesthetic value, monuments possess an ideological function. They are meaningful forms built to commemorate significant deeds or events or to celebrate individuals who are prominent within a community. Monuments become essential for the articulation of cultural identity and memory, through which political powers and intellectual elites seek legitimation and support. As historical objects operating in fluid and transformative cultural environments, their significance is constantly renegotiated to suit new ideological agendas. Rhetoric, and in particular rhetorical descriptions or ekphraseis, may offer insights into the way in which monuments have been seen and communicated over the course of time. While representing selective verbal–visual narratives, these texts can convey specific conceptions of the monuments and encourage interpretations that are distant from the original intentions of those who had them installed. On this premise, this paper proposes a more comprehensive interpretive framework for the analysis of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a Byzantine monument recently brought to international attention by the Turkish government’s decision to change back its status from museum to mosque. This framework resorts to rhetoric and its unique capacity to unveil, across time and space, how the monument has been perceived, expressed, appropriated, reframed, and negotiated by people as an indivisible component of their culture.
πτeρόν, πτέρυξ and πτeρύγιον all stem from the same root, and their primary meaning is connected ... more πτeρόν, πτέρυξ and πτeρύγιον all stem from the same root, and their primary meaning is connected to birds: “feather”,“wing”, “shoulder blade”. The history of these words is worthy of note for they came into use in the description of Graeco-Egyptian temple complexes and in the nomenclature of Classical architecture. In order to observe the semantic import of theseand related words and expressions across various cultural contexts (Graeco-Egyptian, Classical and Byzantine) this articlepresents and discusses a range of ancient, late antique and Byzantine literary, erudite, archaeological and iconographic sources.This study aims at giving the reader a glimpse into the Greek lexical domain of architecture, by providing insights into some ofthe general mechanisms of its construction, and specifically to illuminate, by way of a cultural-historical investigation of theseterms, ideas of appearance and significance inherent in the Graeco-Egyptian and Classical and Byzantine worlds. This survey...
Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 69, 2020
Content of JOEB 69 / 2019
Artikel
Fabio Acerbi, Byzantine Rechenbücher: An Overview with an Edit... more Content of JOEB 69 / 2019 Artikel
Fabio Acerbi, Byzantine Rechenbücher: An Overview with an Edition of Anonymi J and L Benedetta Contin, The Problem of Evil and the Theory of Contraries from Alexandria and Athens to Armenia in Late Antiquity
Barbara Crostini, Another True Cross: Psellos, Heraklios, and the Cross of the Archangel Michael at Sykeon
Beatrice Daskas, The Church of All-the-Saints (olim St Theophanô) at the Holy Apostles: a Reappraisal of the Dossier of Sources
Tomasz Derda, Adam Łajtar, Organization of the Church in Medieval Nubia in the Light of a Newly Discovered Wall Inscription in Dongola
Nikolas Hächler, Der Exarchat von Ravenna unter Kaiser Herakleios. Transformation und Kontinuität staatlicher Herrschafts- und Verwaltungsstrukturen in den Peripherien des byzantinischen Reiches in der ersten Hälfte des 7. Jahrhunderts
Constanze Höpken, Sattel und Hufeisen – Pferd, Muli oder Esel im Mar Salomon-Kloster in Doliche
Dirk Krausmüller, Attitudes towards Fasting in Constantinopolitan Monasticism (Fifth to Eleventh Centuries)
Dirk Krausmüller, The Encomium of the Apostle Philip by Michael the Monk (BHG 1530a). Edition and English Translation
Marion Kruse, The Epitomator Ioannes Xiphilinos and the Eleventh-Century Xiphilinoi Paolo Odorico, La sténographie de Michel Psellos
Peter Schreiner, Neues zu Leben und Werk des Isidor von Kiev. Kritische Bemerkungen zu zwei Biographien
Juan Signes Codoñer, A Note on the Dossier of Geographical Glosses Used by the Compilers of the So-called Version B of the Logothete Chronicle under the Macedonian Emperors Staffan Wahlgren, Symeon the Logothete and Theophanes continuatus
Besprechungen
Eustathii Thessalonicensis exegesis in canonem iambicum pentecostalem, recensuerunt indicibusque instruxerunt P. Cesaretti – S. Ronchey (Péter Bara)
Helga Gickler, Kaiser Michael IX. Palaiologos: sein Leben und Wirken (1278 bis 1320). Eine biographische Annäherung (Martin Marko Vučetić)
Mediterranean Holocene Climate, Environment and Human Societies (Quaternary Science Reviews 136, Special Issue), ed. A. Gogou – A. Izdebski – K. Holmgren (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller)
Kostas N. Konstantinides, Ἠπειρωτικὰ Μελετήματα. Ζητήματα ἀπὸ τὴν πνευματικὴ ζωὴ στὴ μεσαιωνικὴ Ἤπειρο / Epirotan Studies. Aspects of Intellectual Life in Medieval Epiros (Andreas Rhoby)
Storytelling in Byzantium. Narratological approaches to Byzantine texts and images, ed. Ch. Messis – M. Mullett – I. Nilsson (Carolina Cupane)
Alexios G. C. Savvides, The Beginnings and Foundation of Byzantine Studies. A Survey with a Bibliographical Appendix (Andreas Rhoby)
Michele Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio di Nicea (George Karamanolis) Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae
After the Text Byzantine Enquiries in Honour of Margaret Mullett ed. by Liz James, Oliver Nicholson, Roger Scott. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies 32, Abingdon-on-Thames and New York, Routledge, 2021, 2022
The present contribution engages with two representative examples of
middle-Byzantine ekphraseis,... more The present contribution engages with two representative examples of middle-Byzantine ekphraseis, Photios’ description of the Virgin of the Pharos and Leo VI’s account of the church founded by Stylianos Zautzes. It aims at showing how these texts suggest modes of viewing the sacred space and decoration that pose, more than settle, questions about images and pictures, their intended function, significance and impact within their specific cultural frames of reference. Far from being neutral and disengaged, these verbal representations have a specific agenda, which inflects the audience’s perception and interpretation of the decorated church space. Comparisons with coeval monumental evidence are also offered, in order to analyze textual and visual developments in parallel.
The focus of the article is the casket with martyrs of Trebizond in Saint Mark’s Treasury (Inv. n... more The focus of the article is the casket with martyrs of Trebizond in Saint Mark’s Treasury (Inv. no. 33). Thanks to the preserved inventories of the possessions of the basilica, the article reconstructs the history of the object and identifies a possible commissioner of it – the imperial nomophylax and participant to the council of Ferrara/Florence (1438- 1439) John Eugenicos – by suggesting him as the author of the epigram carved onto its sides.
F. Conca, C. Castelli (ed.), Bisanzio fra tradizione e modernità Ricordando Gianfranco Fiaccadori, XII Giornata di Studi dell'AISB Bisanzio fra tradizione e modernità, Milano, 2017
This contribution is based on a new interpretation of the well-known passage found in
the Descrip... more This contribution is based on a new interpretation of the well-known passage found in the Description of the lost church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople by Nikolaos Mesarites (XXVIII, 63.18–64.3 Heisenberg = 910b.[23] Downey), normally dated to the late twelfth century. It provides a reappraisal of the question regarding the Byzantine painter Eulalios and his alleged self-portrait in one of the scenes of the monument's decorative cycle.
P. Odorico, C. Messis (éd.), Villes de toute beauté. L’ekphrasis des cités dans les littératures byzantine et byzantino-slaves, [Dossiers Byzantins 12], 2012
After the Text: Byzantine Enquiries in Honour of Margaret Mullett, 2022
Title page of a chapter in a volume in honour of Margaret Mullett, OBE
https://www.routledge.c... more Title page of a chapter in a volume in honour of Margaret Mullett, OBE
In this study I will comment on an account of a miracle performed by the Virgin Mary through which Abbot Ambrose Autpert (d. 784) acquired a fluency of speech. Retrospectively, his twelfth-century biographer hints at the fact that this fluency was put to good use. The account also implicitly suggests that thanks to Mary’s direct intervention, Autpert became a promoter of her cult and at the same time developed an organic vision of her role in the economy of salvation which he expounded in his writings. Through theological commentaries and homilies on the Virgin, Autpert influenced the way she came to be perceived in the West. In fact, whilst in Byzantium Mariology was established earlier, in the West – after the celebration of Mary’s virginity by Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) and the promotion of Marian devotion by Bishop Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) – a specific theological reasoning about the Mother of God only took shape with Autpert, hence he is widely acknowledged as the first early medieval Mariologist. I will remark his dependence on the Byzantine tradition, which has been previously suggested but never demonstrated. As a consequence of this dependence, the early medieval reasoning on Mary came to share many fundamental traits with Byzantine Mariology.
The Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) presents The Holy Apostles: Visualizing a Los... more The Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) presents The Holy Apostles: Visualizing a Lost Monument, curated by Fani Gargova (ICFA's Byzantine Research Associate) and Beatrice Daskas (Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellow, 2012-2013, and currently a Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow).
In conjunction with the 2015 Byzantine Studies Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, this exhibition highlights drawings by Paul Underwood, which resulted from a project to reconstruct the lost church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
SESSION OF FREE COMMUNICATIONS
New Feasts, New Sermons:
The Cult of Mary on the Eve of Iconocla... more SESSION OF FREE COMMUNICATIONS
New Feasts, New Sermons: The Cult of Mary on the Eve of Iconoclasm, in Byzantium and Beyond
This proposed session aims to explore theological connections between Rome and Byzantium on the eve of Iconoclasm by highlighting both the textual tradition (especially homilies) and the accompanying iconographical developments. By the end of the 6th century, the two major feasts of the Hypapantē (i.e. the ‘meeting’, the Presentation of Christ to Symeon) and of the Koimēsis (or Dormitio) of the Virgin were already a part of the liturgical calendar of Constantinople. The Hypapantē was introduced under Justinian in 542, while the Koimēsis began to be celebrated a few decades later, during the reign of Maurice (582–602). Additionally, this is the time when, according to archaeology, the church at the Virgin’s burial site in Jerusalem (i.e. in Gethsemane) was rebuilt. In Rome, it was under the Greek-Palestinian pope Theodore I (642–49) that the celebration of the Hypapantē was established, with the Latin name of the Natalis Sancti Symeonis, and the Assumption. The Natalis Sancti Symeonis soon metamorphosed into the Purificatio Sanctae Mariae, apparently to add emphasis to the role of the Mother of God in the feast (i.e., her offering a sacrifice of purification for having been a woman in child-bed, as prescribed by the Mosaic Law). By the end of the 7th century in Rome, four Marian feasts are attested: the Purificatio Sanctae Mariae (February 2), the Annunciation (March 25), the Assumption (August 15), and the Nativity of the Virgin (September 8). To complement the new calendars in both Constantinople and Rome, there appeared an increasing number of homilies commemorating these recently formalized feasts. However, it is only from the 8th century onwards that systematic collections of Marian sermons began to be produced in the West. The earliest extant Latin homilies on the Hypapantē are those by Bede (†735) and by Ambrosius Autpertus (†784), while on the Koimēsis there is one by Autpertus. The latter author appears to draw inspiration directly from the Byzantine tradition, so much so, in fact, that numerous parallels of exegesis and imagery surrounding these same feasts can be found among the works of Andrew of Crete, Germanos of Constantinople, and John of Damascus. The Byzantine homilies, in turn, rely upon long-standing eastern hymnographic and homiletic traditions about the Virgin (e.g., in Sophronius of Jerusalem and Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century, but extending back to Romanos the Melode in the sixth, and Ephrem the Syrian in the fourth).
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legitimation and support. As historical objects operating in fluid and transformative cultural environments, their significance is constantly
renegotiated to suit new ideological agendas. Rhetoric, and in particular rhetorical descriptions or ekphraseis, may offer insights into the way in which monuments have been seen and communicated over the course of time. While representing selective verbal–visual narratives, these texts can convey specific conceptions of the monuments and encourage interpretations that are distant from the original intentions of those who had them installed. On this premise, this paper proposes a more comprehensive interpretive framework for the analysis of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a Byzantine monument recently brought to international attention by the Turkish government’s decision to change back its status from museum to mosque. This framework resorts to rhetoric and its unique capacity to unveil, across time and space, how the monument has been perceived, expressed, appropriated, reframed, and negotiated by people as an indivisible component of their culture.
Artikel
Fabio Acerbi, Byzantine Rechenbücher: An Overview with an Edition of Anonymi J and L Benedetta Contin, The Problem of Evil and the Theory of Contraries from Alexandria and Athens to Armenia in Late Antiquity
Barbara Crostini, Another True Cross: Psellos, Heraklios, and the Cross of the Archangel Michael at Sykeon
Beatrice Daskas, The Church of All-the-Saints (olim St Theophanô) at the Holy Apostles: a Reappraisal of the Dossier of Sources
Tomasz Derda, Adam Łajtar, Organization of the Church in Medieval Nubia in the Light of a Newly Discovered Wall Inscription in Dongola
Nikolas Hächler, Der Exarchat von Ravenna unter Kaiser Herakleios. Transformation und Kontinuität staatlicher Herrschafts- und Verwaltungsstrukturen in den Peripherien des byzantinischen Reiches in der ersten Hälfte des 7. Jahrhunderts
Constanze Höpken, Sattel und Hufeisen – Pferd, Muli oder Esel im Mar Salomon-Kloster in Doliche
Dirk Krausmüller, Attitudes towards Fasting in Constantinopolitan Monasticism (Fifth to Eleventh Centuries)
Dirk Krausmüller, The Encomium of the Apostle Philip by Michael the Monk (BHG 1530a). Edition and English Translation
Marion Kruse, The Epitomator Ioannes Xiphilinos and the Eleventh-Century Xiphilinoi Paolo Odorico, La sténographie de Michel Psellos
Peter Schreiner, Neues zu Leben und Werk des Isidor von Kiev. Kritische Bemerkungen zu zwei Biographien
Juan Signes Codoñer, A Note on the Dossier of Geographical Glosses Used by the Compilers of the So-called Version B of the Logothete Chronicle under the Macedonian Emperors Staffan Wahlgren, Symeon the Logothete and Theophanes continuatus
Besprechungen
Eustathii Thessalonicensis exegesis in canonem iambicum pentecostalem, recensuerunt indicibusque instruxerunt P. Cesaretti – S. Ronchey (Péter Bara)
Helga Gickler, Kaiser Michael IX. Palaiologos: sein Leben und Wirken (1278 bis 1320). Eine biographische Annäherung (Martin Marko Vučetić)
Mediterranean Holocene Climate, Environment and Human Societies (Quaternary Science Reviews 136, Special Issue), ed. A. Gogou – A. Izdebski – K. Holmgren (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller)
Kostas N. Konstantinides, Ἠπειρωτικὰ Μελετήματα. Ζητήματα ἀπὸ τὴν πνευματικὴ ζωὴ στὴ μεσαιωνικὴ Ἤπειρο / Epirotan Studies. Aspects of Intellectual Life in Medieval Epiros (Andreas Rhoby)
Storytelling in Byzantium. Narratological approaches to Byzantine texts and images, ed. Ch. Messis – M. Mullett – I. Nilsson (Carolina Cupane)
Alexios G. C. Savvides, The Beginnings and Foundation of Byzantine Studies. A Survey with a Bibliographical Appendix (Andreas Rhoby)
Michele Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio di Nicea (George Karamanolis) Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae
middle-Byzantine ekphraseis, Photios’ description of the Virgin of the Pharos and Leo VI’s account of the church founded by Stylianos Zautzes. It aims at showing how these texts suggest modes of viewing the sacred space and decoration that pose, more than settle, questions about images and pictures, their intended function, significance and impact within their specific cultural frames of reference. Far from being neutral and disengaged, these verbal representations have a specific agenda, which inflects the audience’s perception and interpretation of the decorated church space. Comparisons with coeval monumental evidence are
also offered, in order to analyze textual and visual developments in parallel.
possessions of the basilica, the article reconstructs the history of the object and identifies a possible commissioner of it – the imperial nomophylax and participant to the council of Ferrara/Florence (1438- 1439) John Eugenicos – by suggesting him as the author of the epigram carved onto its sides.
the Description of the lost church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople by Nikolaos
Mesarites (XXVIII, 63.18–64.3 Heisenberg = 910b.[23] Downey), normally dated to
the late twelfth century. It provides a reappraisal of the question regarding the Byzantine painter Eulalios and his alleged self-portrait in one of the scenes of the monument's decorative cycle.
https://www.routledge.com/After-the-Text-Byzantine-Enquiries-in-Honour-of-Margaret-Mullett/James-Nicholson-Scott/p/book/9780367898861#
In this study I will comment on an account of a miracle performed by the Virgin Mary through which Abbot Ambrose Autpert (d. 784) acquired a fluency of speech. Retrospectively, his twelfth-century biographer hints at the fact that this fluency was put to good use. The account also implicitly suggests that thanks to Mary’s direct intervention, Autpert became a promoter of her cult and at the same time developed an organic vision of her role in the economy of salvation which he expounded in his writings. Through theological commentaries and homilies on the Virgin, Autpert influenced the way she came to be perceived in the West. In fact, whilst in Byzantium Mariology was established earlier, in the West – after the celebration of Mary’s virginity by Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) and the promotion of Marian devotion by Bishop Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) – a specific theological reasoning about the Mother of God only took shape with Autpert, hence he is widely acknowledged as the first early medieval Mariologist. I will remark his dependence on the Byzantine tradition, which has been previously suggested but never demonstrated. As a consequence of this dependence, the early medieval reasoning on Mary came to share many fundamental traits with Byzantine Mariology.
legitimation and support. As historical objects operating in fluid and transformative cultural environments, their significance is constantly
renegotiated to suit new ideological agendas. Rhetoric, and in particular rhetorical descriptions or ekphraseis, may offer insights into the way in which monuments have been seen and communicated over the course of time. While representing selective verbal–visual narratives, these texts can convey specific conceptions of the monuments and encourage interpretations that are distant from the original intentions of those who had them installed. On this premise, this paper proposes a more comprehensive interpretive framework for the analysis of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a Byzantine monument recently brought to international attention by the Turkish government’s decision to change back its status from museum to mosque. This framework resorts to rhetoric and its unique capacity to unveil, across time and space, how the monument has been perceived, expressed, appropriated, reframed, and negotiated by people as an indivisible component of their culture.
Artikel
Fabio Acerbi, Byzantine Rechenbücher: An Overview with an Edition of Anonymi J and L Benedetta Contin, The Problem of Evil and the Theory of Contraries from Alexandria and Athens to Armenia in Late Antiquity
Barbara Crostini, Another True Cross: Psellos, Heraklios, and the Cross of the Archangel Michael at Sykeon
Beatrice Daskas, The Church of All-the-Saints (olim St Theophanô) at the Holy Apostles: a Reappraisal of the Dossier of Sources
Tomasz Derda, Adam Łajtar, Organization of the Church in Medieval Nubia in the Light of a Newly Discovered Wall Inscription in Dongola
Nikolas Hächler, Der Exarchat von Ravenna unter Kaiser Herakleios. Transformation und Kontinuität staatlicher Herrschafts- und Verwaltungsstrukturen in den Peripherien des byzantinischen Reiches in der ersten Hälfte des 7. Jahrhunderts
Constanze Höpken, Sattel und Hufeisen – Pferd, Muli oder Esel im Mar Salomon-Kloster in Doliche
Dirk Krausmüller, Attitudes towards Fasting in Constantinopolitan Monasticism (Fifth to Eleventh Centuries)
Dirk Krausmüller, The Encomium of the Apostle Philip by Michael the Monk (BHG 1530a). Edition and English Translation
Marion Kruse, The Epitomator Ioannes Xiphilinos and the Eleventh-Century Xiphilinoi Paolo Odorico, La sténographie de Michel Psellos
Peter Schreiner, Neues zu Leben und Werk des Isidor von Kiev. Kritische Bemerkungen zu zwei Biographien
Juan Signes Codoñer, A Note on the Dossier of Geographical Glosses Used by the Compilers of the So-called Version B of the Logothete Chronicle under the Macedonian Emperors Staffan Wahlgren, Symeon the Logothete and Theophanes continuatus
Besprechungen
Eustathii Thessalonicensis exegesis in canonem iambicum pentecostalem, recensuerunt indicibusque instruxerunt P. Cesaretti – S. Ronchey (Péter Bara)
Helga Gickler, Kaiser Michael IX. Palaiologos: sein Leben und Wirken (1278 bis 1320). Eine biographische Annäherung (Martin Marko Vučetić)
Mediterranean Holocene Climate, Environment and Human Societies (Quaternary Science Reviews 136, Special Issue), ed. A. Gogou – A. Izdebski – K. Holmgren (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller)
Kostas N. Konstantinides, Ἠπειρωτικὰ Μελετήματα. Ζητήματα ἀπὸ τὴν πνευματικὴ ζωὴ στὴ μεσαιωνικὴ Ἤπειρο / Epirotan Studies. Aspects of Intellectual Life in Medieval Epiros (Andreas Rhoby)
Storytelling in Byzantium. Narratological approaches to Byzantine texts and images, ed. Ch. Messis – M. Mullett – I. Nilsson (Carolina Cupane)
Alexios G. C. Savvides, The Beginnings and Foundation of Byzantine Studies. A Survey with a Bibliographical Appendix (Andreas Rhoby)
Michele Trizio, Il neoplatonismo di Eustrazio di Nicea (George Karamanolis) Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae
middle-Byzantine ekphraseis, Photios’ description of the Virgin of the Pharos and Leo VI’s account of the church founded by Stylianos Zautzes. It aims at showing how these texts suggest modes of viewing the sacred space and decoration that pose, more than settle, questions about images and pictures, their intended function, significance and impact within their specific cultural frames of reference. Far from being neutral and disengaged, these verbal representations have a specific agenda, which inflects the audience’s perception and interpretation of the decorated church space. Comparisons with coeval monumental evidence are
also offered, in order to analyze textual and visual developments in parallel.
possessions of the basilica, the article reconstructs the history of the object and identifies a possible commissioner of it – the imperial nomophylax and participant to the council of Ferrara/Florence (1438- 1439) John Eugenicos – by suggesting him as the author of the epigram carved onto its sides.
the Description of the lost church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople by Nikolaos
Mesarites (XXVIII, 63.18–64.3 Heisenberg = 910b.[23] Downey), normally dated to
the late twelfth century. It provides a reappraisal of the question regarding the Byzantine painter Eulalios and his alleged self-portrait in one of the scenes of the monument's decorative cycle.
https://www.routledge.com/After-the-Text-Byzantine-Enquiries-in-Honour-of-Margaret-Mullett/James-Nicholson-Scott/p/book/9780367898861#
In this study I will comment on an account of a miracle performed by the Virgin Mary through which Abbot Ambrose Autpert (d. 784) acquired a fluency of speech. Retrospectively, his twelfth-century biographer hints at the fact that this fluency was put to good use. The account also implicitly suggests that thanks to Mary’s direct intervention, Autpert became a promoter of her cult and at the same time developed an organic vision of her role in the economy of salvation which he expounded in his writings. Through theological commentaries and homilies on the Virgin, Autpert influenced the way she came to be perceived in the West. In fact, whilst in Byzantium Mariology was established earlier, in the West – after the celebration of Mary’s virginity by Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) and the promotion of Marian devotion by Bishop Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667) – a specific theological reasoning about the Mother of God only took shape with Autpert, hence he is widely acknowledged as the first early medieval Mariologist. I will remark his dependence on the Byzantine tradition, which has been previously suggested but never demonstrated. As a consequence of this dependence, the early medieval reasoning on Mary came to share many fundamental traits with Byzantine Mariology.
In conjunction with the 2015 Byzantine Studies Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, this exhibition highlights drawings by Paul Underwood, which resulted from a project to reconstruct the lost church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
New Feasts, New Sermons:
The Cult of Mary on the Eve of Iconoclasm, in Byzantium and Beyond
This proposed session aims to explore theological connections between Rome and Byzantium on the eve of Iconoclasm by highlighting both the textual tradition (especially homilies) and the accompanying iconographical developments.
By the end of the 6th century, the two major feasts of the Hypapantē (i.e. the ‘meeting’, the Presentation of Christ to Symeon) and of the Koimēsis (or Dormitio) of the Virgin were already a part of the liturgical calendar of Constantinople. The Hypapantē was introduced under Justinian in 542, while the Koimēsis began to be celebrated a few decades later, during the reign of Maurice (582–602). Additionally, this is the time when, according to archaeology, the church at the Virgin’s burial site in Jerusalem (i.e. in Gethsemane) was rebuilt. In Rome, it was under the Greek-Palestinian pope Theodore I (642–49) that the celebration of the Hypapantē was established, with the Latin name of the Natalis Sancti Symeonis, and the Assumption. The Natalis Sancti Symeonis soon metamorphosed into the Purificatio Sanctae Mariae, apparently to add emphasis to the role of the Mother of God in the feast (i.e., her offering a sacrifice of purification for having been a woman in child-bed, as prescribed by the Mosaic Law). By the end of the 7th century in Rome, four Marian feasts are attested: the Purificatio Sanctae Mariae (February 2), the Annunciation (March 25), the Assumption (August 15), and the Nativity of the Virgin (September 8).
To complement the new calendars in both Constantinople and Rome, there appeared an increasing number of homilies commemorating these recently formalized feasts. However, it is only from the 8th century onwards that systematic collections of Marian sermons began to be produced in the West. The earliest extant Latin homilies on the Hypapantē are those by Bede (†735) and by Ambrosius Autpertus (†784), while on the Koimēsis there is one by Autpertus. The latter author appears to draw inspiration directly from the Byzantine tradition, so much so, in fact, that numerous parallels of exegesis and imagery surrounding these same feasts can be found among the works of Andrew of Crete, Germanos of Constantinople, and John of Damascus. The Byzantine homilies, in turn, rely upon long-standing eastern hymnographic and homiletic traditions about the Virgin (e.g., in Sophronius of Jerusalem and Maximus the Confessor in the seventh century, but extending back to Romanos the Melode in the sixth, and Ephrem the Syrian in the fourth).