The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City by Bakirtzis, Nikolas; Zavagno, Luca;

Short description:

Organized into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture.

Long description:

The Byzantine world contained many important cities throughout its empire. Although it was not ‘urban’ in the sense of the word today, its cities played a far more fundamental role than those of its European neighbors. This book, through a collection of twenty-four chapters, discusses aspects of, and different approaches to, Byzantine urbanism from the early to late Byzantine periods. It provides both a chronological and thematic perspective to the study of Byzantine cities, bringing together literary, documentary, and archival sources with archaeological results, material culture, art, and architecture, resulting in a rich synthesis of the variety of regional and sub-regional transformations of Byzantine urban landscapes.

Organized into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture. It includes more specialized accounts that address the centripetal role of Constantinople and its broader influence across the empire. Such new perspectives help to challenge the historiographical balance between ‘margins and metropolis,’ and also to include geographical areas often regarded as peripheral, like the coastal urban centers of the Byzantine Mediterranean as well as cities on islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily which have more recently yielded well-excavated and stratigraphically sound urban sites.

The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City provides both an overview and detailed study of the Byzantine city to specialist scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike and, therefore, will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine urbanism and society, as well as those studying medieval society in general.

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations

List of Contributors

Introduction

1 The Byzantine City and its Historiography

2 Theorizing Byzantine Urbanity: The City Constituting Memory, Memory Constituting the City

3 The Byzantine City in the Literary Sources

4 Methodologies for Byzantine Urban Studies

5 Spatial Organization in Late Byzantine Cities (13th・14th Centuries)

6 Cities on the Black Sea Coast and the Circumpontic Exchange Network (c. 500・700)

7 The Byzantine ‘City’ in Asia Minor

8 Insular Urbanism in Byzantium

9 The City in the Byzantine ‘Italies’

10 Urbanism in Syria and Palestine Between the 7th and 9th Centuries

11 Domes in the Urban Skyline: The Case of Sts. Sergius and Bacchus and its Transformations through Time

12 Fortifications and the Making of the Byzantine City

13 Monumentality and the Byzantine City

14 Maintained, Stored and Protected: Water and the Byzantine City

15 Islamic City, Ottoman City: Byzantine Prousa to Ottoman Bursa

16 Two Views of Ports and Maritime Communities in the Byzantine Mediterranean: Constantinople and Amalfi

17 Alexandria after Antiquity: A City in Transition

18 “The Arts and the Byzantine City”

19 On Early Byzantine Images of Poleis: Meanings and Messages

20 The Consumptive Capital: Commercial Activities and Ceramic Finds at Constantinople (ca. 500・1000)

21 Pera Ianuensium Pulcherrima Civitas Est: Creating a Genoese Identity on the Golden Horn (1261・1453)