Tuesday, September 15th 2020
Tuesday, September 15th gave us a fascinating interdisciplinary sojourn into Byzantine and post-Byzantine culture, through the richness and variety of the numerous scheduled presentations. The tone was set by the opening lecture of Dr Mihai-D. Grigore (University of Mainz), who spoke about Doxology and Rule. Neagoe Basarab in Dialogue with Erasmus, Luther and Machiavelli (1513-1523), contextualising the Romanian ruler Neagoe Basarab within the broader European literary perspective of the period. Through a comparative analysis with several illustrious thinkers of the period, each coming from different confessional viewpoints and each writing parenetic treatises around the same time, Dr Grigore traced the dynamics of religious discourse and the authors’ divergent interpretations of history, of Divinity and of the role of rulership and man himself in the world.
During a section dedicated to young researchers, PhD c. Ionuț Badea (University of Bucharest) illustrated the major influence played by numismatics in deciphering historical events, highlighting the evolution of iconographic themes and motifs in contrast with the political and religious ideology of Byzantine emperors in a presentation titled Monetary Iconography Talks about the Byzantine Empire History (5th–12th Centuries).
In a presentation brimming with erudition and philological accuracy, Dr Andra Jugănaru (“Aristotle” University of Thessaloniki) highlighted the methodological basis underpinning the “network theory” developed by recent scholarly thought, and its importance for an interdisciplinary analysis of the letter collections of the Cappadocian Fathers: A Network Analysis of the Cappadocian Fathers’ Letter Collections.
Dr Andrei Prohin (Institute of History, Kishinev, Republic of Moldova) presented the Signs of the End of the World through History. A Reading of the Chronicle of Symeon the Logothete in a Slavic Manuscript from Moldavia (1637), a unique and little-known manuscript that records the chronicle of a 10th-century Byzantine writer, Symeon the Logothete, whose thoughts offer an eschatological perspective on the world.
The day’s proceedings were concluded with the intervention of Dr Antonio Pio di Cosmo (Oriental Pontifical Institute in Rome), who presented The Funeral of the Basileus in the 10th Century. The Theology of Power and Material Culture of Royalty, a textual and visual investigation of the role of clothing and decorative items in the spectacle of power offered by the Basileus on his final journey.
PhD c. Ionuț Badea (University of Bucharest), Monetary Iconography Talks about the Byzantine Empire History (5th-12th centuries) (in English)
Dr Andra Jugănaru (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), A Network Analysis of the Cappadocian Fathers’ Letter Collections (in English)
Dr Andrei Prohin (Institute of History, Chișinău, Republic of Moldavia), Signs of the End of the World through History. A Reading of the Chronicle of Symeon the Logothete in a Slavic Manuscript from Moldavia (1637) (in English)
Antonio Pio Di Cosmo (Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome), The funeral of Basileus in the tenth century. The theology of power and material culture of royalty (in English)
