Notes on Contributors
Michele Bacci
is Professor of Medieval Art at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and a member of the Academy of Europe. He is the author of several publications on the cultural and art-historical contacts of East and West in the Middle Ages and on the history of the religious practices associated with cult-objects and holy sites. His books include Il pennello dell’Evangelista (1998), Pro remedio animae (2000), Lo spazio dell’anima (2005), San Nicola il Grande Taumaturgo (2009), The Many Faces of Christ (2014) and The Mystic Cave. A History of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem (2017).
Lucie Bonato
is an Associate Researcher at the Maison René Ginouvès d’Archéologie et d’Ethnologie (UMR 7041, Archéologies et Sciences de l’Antiquité, ArScAn). Her main area of research is in consular and private archival contributions to archaeology and history, especially in Cyprus and Lebanon in the nineteenth century. Travelogues are also of interest to her and she has given seminars and published several articles and books on French consuls and travellers in the eastern Mediterranean.
Tomasz Borowski
received his BA and MA in archaeology at Durham University (UK) and in 2015 was awarded a PhD from the University of Reading (UK). His research focuses on the material culture, interfaith relations, and links between religion and identity in the multicultural societies inhabiting medieval crusader states in the Levant and the Baltic regions. He is the author of a monograph about cities, castles and monasteries of medieval Livonia (published in Polish) as well as several articles one of which, focusing on the cult of relics and the military orders, was published in 2017 in Speculum. In 2019 he took a break from his work as the curator of the medieval gallery in the Polish History Museum in Warsaw and began post-doctoral research at the University of Haifa, studying the crusader cities on the coast of mainland Levant.
Mike Carr
is a Leverhulme Research Fellow and Lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh. His research and teaching focuses on the Mediterranean, c.1000–1500, especially the interactions between Byzantium, the Islamic world and the Latin West. These are themes that he has explored in his book Merchant Crusaders in the Aegean, 1291–1352 (Boydell & Brewer, 2015) and several articles and book chapters. He is co-editor of the volumes Contact and Conflict in Frankish Greece and the Aegean, 1204–1453 (Ashgate, 2014) and The Military Orders, Volume 6.1–2: Conflict and Culture (Routledge, 2016).
Pierre-Vincent Claverie
Former associate professor of the University of Rennes II, Pierre-Vincent is presently working for the Cyprus Research Centre. His fields of research deal with the Crusades and the trade between Catalonia and Cyprus in the Late Middle Ages.
Dragos Cosmescu
obtained his PhD from the University of Bucharest, Romania. His first book on the history of architecture in the Republic of Venice was published in 2016, entitled Venetian Renaissance Fortifications in the Mediterranean. This is part of a large research project focused on the comparative analysis of defensive solutions alla moderna deployed throughout the Republic of Venice.
Nicholas Coureas
works as a Senior Researcher at the Cyprus Research Centre in Nicosia on the history of Lusignan Cyprus (1191–1473). He has published various articles and books on this subject, including the monograph The Latin Church in Cyprus 1195–1312 (Ashgate 1997), its sequel The Latin Church of Cyprus 1313–1378 (Nicosia, 2010) and with Michael Walsh and Peter Edbury the conference proceedings Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta (Ashgate, 2012). In 2015 he published together with Professor Peter Edbury a chronicle titled The Chronicle of Amadi translated from the Italian as a book for the Cyprus Research Centre.
Marko Kiessel
studied Classical Archaeology, Art History and History at the Universities of Trier, Köln and Bologna. After receiving a PhD in Classical Archaeology from the University of Trier in 2005 he has been working as an architectural and art historian in academic institutions in North Cyprus since 2006. Publications about ancient Greek and Roman architecture, architectural decoration, ceramics, and on the vernacular, modern and contemporary architecture of Cyprus are the results of his research interests. Marko Kiessel is currently conducting a research project concerning the cultural heritage of a historic rural site in the Karpas peninsula. Since 2018 he is a member of the Faculty of Design at Arkin University of Creative Arts & Design in Kyrenia.
Antonio Musarra
is Research Fellow at the University of Florence. He deals with the history of the Mediterranean, the history of the crusades, maritime and naval history, and the political, economic and social history of Italian cities in the Middle Ages. Among his publications: In partibus Ultramaris. I Genovesi, la crociata e la Terrasanta, Roma, ISIME, 2017; Acri 1291. La caduta degli stati crociati, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2017; 1284. La battaglia della Meloria, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2018; Il crepuscolo della crociata. L’Occidente e la perdita della Terrasanta, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2018.
William Spates
received his DPhil in Renaissance literature at the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland, in 2005. He taught at Shorter University, Auburn University, Haverford College, Eastern Mediterranean University (North Cyprus), Qatar University, and Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (Goa, India) before taking on his current position at Georgia Military College. He has published essays, theatre, and book reviews in Clio, Notes and Queries, Theatre Journal, Shakespeare Bulletin, Sixteenth Century Journal, DQR Studies in Literature, and Ashgate’s Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity series.
Asu Tozan
studied Architecture at Eastern Mediterranean University and continued her graduate studies at Istanbul Technical University. Her Masters thesis (2000) focused on variations of vernacular living environments in Kaleburnu, North Cyprus, and her Ph.D. thesis (2008) presented a comprehensive analysis of the urbanization and architecture of the British Colonial Period in Cyprus (1878–1960) based on the documents of the Colonial Secretary’s Archive. Currently she is a member of the Faculty of Architecture, Department of Interior Architecture, Eastern Mediterranean University.
Ahmet Usta
is Research Assistant of History at Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakif University and also a PhD candidate of Medieval History at Istanbul University. He was a research fellow in ISAM (Centre for Islamic Studies, Turkey) between 2013 and 2017. His research focuses on diplomatic and commercial relations of the Mamluk Sultanate with the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Cilician Armenia. He also studies the social, cultural, and commercial life in medieval Cyprus, slavery, and the slave trade in the Mediterranean.
Michael J. K. Walsh
is Professor of Art History at Nanyang Technological University Singapore. He successfully nominated Famagusta twice for inclusion in the World Monuments Fund Watch List of endangered heritage sites, then went on to organise four international conferences on the history, art and architecture of the walled city. From these meetings in Paris, Budapest, Bern and Padua five edited collections on Famagusta have been published.