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Roman Constantinople in Byzantine Perspective
The Memorial and Aesthetic Rediscovery of Constantineâs Beautiful City, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
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This book studies the research perspective in which the literary inhabitants of Late Antique and medieval Constantinople remembered its past and conceptualised its existence as a Greek city that was the political capital of a Christian Roman state. Initial reactions to Constantineâs foundation noted its novel Christian orientation, but the memorial mode of writing about the city that developed from the sixth century recollected the traditional civic cultural heritage that Constantinople claimed both as the New Rome, and as the continuation of ancient Byzantion. This research culture increasingly became the preserve of the imperial bureaucracy, and focused on the cityâs sculptured monuments as bearers of eschatological meaning. Yet from the tenth century, writers progressively preferred to define the wonder and spectacle of Constantinople in the aesthetic mode of urban praise inherited from late antiquity, developing the notion of the city as a cosmic theatre of excellence.
Paul Magdalino, D.Phil. (1976), Oxford, is Emeritus Professor of Byzantine History at the University of St Andrews, and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has published extensively on many aspects and all periods of the history and culture of Byzantium.
Contents
Abstract
Keywords
âIntroduction
â1âHistorical Research on Constantinople, 330â600
â2âMemorial Literature and Research Culture, 6thâ10th Centuries
â3âCultural Heritage and Tourist Disinformation 1000â1453. From Bureaucratic to Scientific Antiquarianism
â4âThe Rhetorical Rediscovery of Constantinople, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries
â5âThe Byzantios of Theodore Metochites and Its Legacy
âConclusion
âBibliography
âIndex
Abstract
Keywords
âIntroduction
â1âHistorical Research on Constantinople, 330â600
â2âMemorial Literature and Research Culture, 6thâ10th Centuries
â3âCultural Heritage and Tourist Disinformation 1000â1453. From Bureaucratic to Scientific Antiquarianism
â4âThe Rhetorical Rediscovery of Constantinople, Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries
â5âThe Byzantios of Theodore Metochites and Its Legacy
âConclusion
âBibliography
âIndex
All interested in urban identity, memory and aesthetics, antiquarianism, the classical tradition, and the history of Hellenism.