Browse Books

While the role of the city in Late Antiquity has often been discussed by archaeologists and historians alike it is only in recent years that scholarship has begun to offer a more nuanced approach in our understanding to how such cities functioned stepping away from the traditional paradigm of their decline and fall with the collapse of the Roman Empire. In line with this approach this deliberately interdisciplinary volume seeks to provide a more multifaceted understanding of urban history by drawing together scholars of literary and material culture to discuss the concepts of imagery and aesthetics of late antique cities.

Gathering together contributions by historians philologists archaeologists literature specialists and art historians the volume aims to explore the imagery and aesthetics of cities in Late Antiquity within a strong theoretical framework. The different chapters explore the aesthetics of cityscape representations in literature and art asking in particular whether literary representations of late antique urban landscapes mirror the urban reality of eclectic ensembles of pre-existing architecture and new buildings as well as questioning both how the ideal of the city evolved in the imagination of the period and if imperial ideology was reflected in literary depictions of cities.

Incubation (temple sleep) was a well-known ritual in the Near East and became increasingly popular in Classical and Hellenistic Greece becoming attached to Asclepius and other divinities. It flourished in the Eastern Mediterranean where it was encountered by the emergent Christianity. Temple sleep was so widespread that it was impossible to ban. The Christianization of the incubation ritual was thus a detailed and lengthy (but successful) process that encompassed several aspects of the Church’s self-definition including important social and theological issues of the era. The list of relevant issues is extensive: the fate of Greek temples and the reinterpretation of sacred space confronting Hippocratic medicine and the learned Greek intelligentsia. Since disease and a search for cure is a ubiquitous human need the early Church embraced a healing ministry in secular terms as well as in ritual healing. Incubation records show how the Church viewed dreams conversion or the notions of magic and divination. All these come within the framework of writing miracles: the transformation of the cult was thus incorporated into standard Church discourse from ritual practice to proper literary genres.

This first comprehensive monograph on Christian incubation examines the rich material of all the relevant Greek miracle collections: those of Saint Thecla Cyrus and John the different versions of Saint Cosmas and Damian and saint Artemios as well as the minor incubation saints As a result it unfolds the transformation of healing sites and practices related to dreams as they spread across Byzantium from rural Asia Minor to Constantinople and Alexandria.

How did societies change between the Early Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age? And what was the impetus that led to these changes — social contacts and innovation intergenerational contacts or perhaps simply adaptation? Taking these questions as its starting point this richly detailed volume explores four different regions of southern Poland to compare and contrast the mechanisms that drove socio-cultural change in the region between the second and the first half of the first millennium BC. Drawing on standardized sets of archaeological data the chapters gathered here examine the interplay of different factors influencing cultural change across five key parameters: environment; settlement patterns; settlement organization; economy; and material culture. The result is a beautifully illustrated volume that offers important insights into Central and Eastern European prehistory made accessible for an English-speaking audience.

The present volume develops a new conceptual perspective on late-medieval meditation particularly in Hugh of Saint-Victor Guigo II and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. For the most part modern commentaries on the subject have relegated rhetoric to the margins of attention if not to complete silence. In contrast this book contends that these writers arrived at their distinctive conceptions of meditation by drawing from the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition. They did so by deepening earlier rhetorical treatments of inventio while adapting them to the Christian life. The examination of this topic is divided into three principal and related aspects. First meditation is studied as a rhetorical notion for a specific kind of mnemonic rational and affective exercise. Second that notion is used to shed light on meditation as a compositional textual practice whose outcomes bear striking analogy to what Umberto Eco called the ‘open works’ of the Western avant-garde. Finally meditation emerges as a form of literary reception required for approaching and construing certain works. In exploring each of these aspects the study shows that rhetoric radically informs not only Hugh’s Guigo’s and Bonaventure’s engagement with meditation but also their views on salvation history monastic life divine revelation scientific learning and biblical hermeneutics. Thus despite the omission or relative insignificance of the ars bene dicendi in most modern investigations it is argued that rhetoric lies at the core of these authors’ entire religious outlook. In this way the present volume aims to contribute to a better understanding of these medieval figures by filling an important gap in the scholarly literature.

During the Middle Ages new past narratives emerged but several of these narratives are not based on the archaeological rediscovery of a lost history. On the contrary in many cases that impression of a unique grandiose and ancient past is partly the result of accurate dissimulation. Yet it would not be exact to consider the myth of Venice as a fiction or somehow as a fabricated invention – an apocryphal creation that does not include any historical component. Instead the myth of Venice has been generated through an intricate operation of composing unconnected pieces through a process of attributing new meanings to previously unconnected pieces of different histories or objects from other pasts. The result is a patchwork that through the longue durée has been articulated around both new and ancient stories local and foreign myths reconstructed or rediscovered objects and narratives. By the late Middle Ages Venice becomes the main stage of a national and international myth: while enhancing its historical role in the past the city demonstrates the legitimacy of its role in the present. In light of such phenomenon this volume will try to demonstrate that Venetian past narratives bring together heterogeneous materials to achieve a common result: that of celebrating Venice’s triumph and erasing its weaknesses and defeats.

One of the most important thinkers of the Middle Ages the Jewish philosopher Solomon Ibn Gabirol (known in the Latin Middle Ages as ‘Avicebron’) greatly contributed to the history of metaphysics. His most famous work the Fons vitae was the source of sophisticated radical doctrines (like universal hylomorphism and the plurality of substantial forms) that were rigorously debated in the Latin world for centuries.

Breaking a long period of scholarly neglect of his thought this volume scrutinises Ibn Gabirol’s philosophical contributions by disentangling his original theories from the misconceptions originated by his medieval readers and critics like Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great. The first part of the volume expands on the Latin translation of Ibn Gabirol’s philosophical work the Fons vitae from which many of these misconceptions seems to have originated. The second part focuses on the sources used by Ibn Gabirol and reconstructs the philosophical framework of his reflections. The final two parts of the volume are dedicated to the influence on Ibn Gabirol’s thought on the Latin and Hebrew traditions respectively.

Authored by some of the most renowned worldwide experts on Hebrew and Latin philosophy the cutting-edge contributions included in the volume give a lively picture of a complex yet fascinating medieval philosopher and his unique interpretation of the universe.

Le lettere del medico fiorentino Alessandro Pini (1653-1717) e il suo trattato De moribus Turcarum fanno emergere un’immagine avvincente del popolo egiziano e della cultura ottomana. Ciò che Pini ha osservato in Egitto e nel mondo ottomano rivela una straordinaria dimensione mediterranea di commistione culturale fatta di scambi e di incontri scaturiti dalle necessità lavorative e anche dalla semplice quotidianità. Oltre alla missione scientifica ufficiale egli doveva svolgere un’intrigante attività spionistica per Cosimo III Granduca di Toscana in cui si rivelò poi fallimentare. Amareggiato e osteggiato per l’insuccesso passò poi alle dipendenze della Repubblica di Venezia e dimorò per vari anni a Istanbul e in Morea dove senza pregiudizi e con ampiezza di vedute osservò le tradizioni e i costumi dei popoli che incontrava. Decise dunque consapevolmente di scrivere l’esaltazione di un mondo che l’Occidente vedeva come il suo alter ego negativo. Sebbene fosse stato imprigionato nella sua società di adozione Pini rimase affascinato forse anche ipnotizzato da quello stesso mondo che lo aveva variamente premiato e frustrato sia nel suo lavoro ufficiale che nel suo incarico segreto.

The three-volume project Cohesion in Multi-Ethnic Societies in Europe from c.1000 to the Present explores and seeks to find solutions to a crucial problem facing contemporary Europe: in what circumstances can different ethnic groups co-operate for the common good? They apparently did so in the past combining to form political societies medieval and early modern duchies kingdoms and empires. But did they maintain their ethnic traditions in this process? Did they pass on elements of their cultural memory when they were not in a dominant position in a given polity?

The first volume of the project explored written sources about the past to show how communities shaped their collective memories in order to ensure the smooth functioning of multi-ethnic political communities. This second volume looks beyond texts and focuses on activities and events that were designed to build a sense of community within a political community made up of different ethnic groups. The coexistence of different ethnic groups is considered not through the prism of theoretical analyses by intellectual elites but by following community members’ responses to current events as recorded in the sources.

This volume offers a unique exploration into the cultural history of the Mediterranean in the Early Modern Period by examining the region through the prism of Christian-Muslim encounters and conflicts and the way in which such relationships were represented in art works from the time. Taking images from the period as its starting point this interdisciplinary work draws together contributors from fields as varied as cultural history art history archaeology and the political sciences in order to reconstruct the history of a region that was often construed in the Early Modern period as a ‘borderland’ between religions. From discussions of borders as both physical construction and mental construct in the Mediterranean to case studies exploring the Battle of Lepanto and from analyses of art work produced from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries to a consideration of the influence of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin the chapters gathered together in this insightful volume provide a new approach to our understanding of Early Modern Mediterranean history.

Across three thematically-linked sections this volume charts the development of competing geographical national and imperial identities and communities in early medieval England. Literary works in Old English and Latin are considered alongside theological and historical texts from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Accounts of travel foreign contacts conversion migration landscape nation empire and conquest are set within the continual flow of people and ideas from East to West from continent to island and back across the period. The fifteen contributors investigate how the early medieval English positioned themselves spatially and temporally in relation to their insular neighbours and other peoples and cultures. Several chapters explore the impact of Greek and Latin learning on Old English literature while others extend the discussion beyond the parameters of Europe to consider connections with Asia and the Far East. Together these essays reflect ideas of inclusivity and exclusivity connectivity and apartness multiculturalism and insularity that shaped pre-Conquest England.