BYZANTIUM: CIVILIZATION AND CULTURAL INFLUENCE

The course "Byzantium: Civilization and Cultural Influence" is a teaching of "Letters - Sciences of Antiquity" and also a teaching of "History".
The course "Byzantium: Civilization and Cultural Influence" offers students the indispensable knowledge to learn to recognize and understand the key ideas of Byzantine civilization during the millenary history of its Empire and its irradiation during these centuries in the Islamic East, in the Caucasus, between the Slavs and in the Latin West. The course also deals with the survival and continuity of the Byzantine categories up to the modern and contemporary era, outlining some characteristics of the identity of a conspicuous part of Eastern and Southern Europe.

The students will have acquired:
- basic knowledge of the key notions of Byzantine civilization;
- knowledge of the irradiation of Byzantine civilization in the East and West during the Empire;
- knowledge of the continuity of "Byzantium after Byzantium" in the Greek and Slav world and in Russia.

No prerequisites required for the course.

The course, based on the reading of commented texts and various historiographic contributions, is divided into three sections:
1. Key ideas and realities of Byzantine civilization.
2. Irradiation of Byzantium beyond the borders of the Empire, the Byzantine Commonwealth.
3. Continuity and diffusion of Byzantine categories in modern and contemporary times, in the Greek world, in the Balkans and in Russia.

C. Mango, La civiltà Bizantina, Roma - Bari, 2013.
P. Stephenson, The Byzantine World, London - New York, 2010, p. 435-509.
C. Mango, Byzantinism and Romantic Hellenism, "Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes" 28 (1965), p. 29-43.
We recommend reading:
D. Ricks & P. Magdalino (ed.), Byzantium and the Modern Greek Identity, Aldershot, 1998.
The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe, ed. N. Aschenbrenner & J. Ransohoff, Washington D. C., 2021.
A.-M. Cheny, Le cercle des byzantinistes. Comment bibliothécaires, savants et voyageurs inventèrent Byzance (XVIe-XIXe sècle), Paris, 2024.
Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Toward a Critical Historiography, ed. B. Anderson & M. Ivanova, University Park, Pennsylvania, 2023.
FOR OTHER MATERIALS SUBSCRIBE TO THE MOODLE PAGE:
https://moodle.unive.it/https://moodle.unive.it/

Oral examination (first date: written examination: two/three questions) on the main topics of the course

oral

28-30L: mastery of the topics covered;
exploitation of appropriate technical terminology;
26-27: good knowledge of the topics covered; familiarity with technical terminology;
24-25: knowledge of the topics covered is not always in-depth; oral presentation with incorrect use of technical terminology;
22-23: often superficial knowledge of the topics covered; oral presentation unclear
and lacking;
18-21: at times incomplete knowledge of the topics covered; confused oral presentation.

Lessons and any short presentations on specific topics that relate to the course.

Italian