75994 - Cultural History of Byzantium

Learning outcomes

The course aims at conveying to the student the political and religious conceptions, values and modes of social behaviour, as well as the organisation of material life in the Eastern Roman Empire. By the end of the course the student is able to know the historical constituent features of Byzantine civilisation and its close relationship with the societies of the medieval West, Orthodox Slavia and the Sasanian and Muslim Near East. The student is also able to assess the role played by Byzantium in the process of transmitting the traditions of classical and Hellenistic antiquity, as well as Slavonic and Ottoman traditions, into the cultural heritage of modern Europe.

Course contents

The course is divided into two parts: 1) general part; 2) monographic part

 

1) General part part (12 hrs.): Introduction to Byzantine history.

This part of the course consists of an introduction to the Byzantine world, in which the key aspects of politics, society, religion, administration, the army, and the economy will be analyzed.

 

2) Monographic part (18 hrs): The Barbarians and Paganism between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

 The advent of Christianity in the 4th century is usually perceived as an 'overwhelming' phenomenon that quickly swept away the cults of the ancient gods. While historiography has long highlighted the enduring life of late Greco-Roman paganism (at least until the 6th century), the traditional forms of barbarian religion have been poorly investigated in the context of late antiquity. This course aims to shed light on this topic, which is better documented in the West than in the East. To do so, after a preliminary examination of historiographic positions on barbarian identity, the course will focus on the analysis of some particularly interesting testimonies related to barbarian paganism (such as Procopius of Caesarea, the hagiography of St. Barbatus, Paul the Deacon, and chapters of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus' De Cerimoniis).

 

Readings/Bibliography

1) General part

Reading is required of:

― Georg Ostrogorsky, Storia dell'impero bizantino, trad. it. Torino 1968 (or English edition).

 

P.S. Non-attending students are also required to read:

― L’uomo bizantino, a cura di Guglielmo Cavallo, Roma -Bari 1992.

 

2) Monographic part:

― Salvatore Cosentino, 'Guardando i barbari dalle rive del Bosforo', in I. Baldini, S. Cosentino (a cura), Potere e politica nell'età della famiglia teodosiana (395-445). I linguaggi dell'impero, le identità dei barbari, Bari 2013, pp. 125-139.

― Giovanni Alberto Cecconi, Barbari e Pagani, Roma-Bari 2022.

 

Teaching methods

The first part of the course is designed as a series of traditional lectures in which the lecturer will present, with the aid of PowerPoint images, the salient developments of the Byzantine Empire from the foundation of Constantinople to its conquest by the Ottomans. The second part, on the other hand, is organised in seminar mode; in it the lecturer will read and translate documents in the original language, trying to stimulate students towards an understanding (and discussion) of the methodological and terminological aspects of historical research.

 

P.S. Foreign students wishing to follow the course are required to have a knowledge of Italian of at least level B 2.

Assessment methods

An oral test is required to pass the examination.


This consists of an assessment of the knowledge of part A of the course (general) and a discussion of the content of part B (monographic).


The final mark of the exam is determined by the following scores: max. 12/30 for part A) general of the course; max. 18/30 for part B) monographic of the course.

Teaching tools

— Translation of sources

— distribution of photocopies

— power-point presentations.

Office hours

See the website of Salvatore Cosentino