Andras Nemeth interview

An interview with András Németh, author of The Excerpta Constantiniana and the Byzantine Appropriation of the Past

Andras, thank you for taking the time to talk to us about your book. Can you tell us a little about your work with Greek manuscripts, and what led you to take an interest in the Excerpta Constantiniana? Your line of academic work is very specialised, as is the Byzantine book that you are writing about. Could you set the scene for the general reader, and tell us what your book is about?

When I was a student of Latin, Greek and history in Budapest, I was always fascinated by manuscripts. I very soon discovered that I can spot details in manuscripts, handwritten books, which others had failed to notice.

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An excerpt from Veronica della Dora’s entry, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred in Byzantium

The reassuring enclosure of a garden and the overwhelming vastness of a desert swept by the wind; the majestic charisma of a mountain looming on the horizon and the impenetrable darkness of a cave; the flamboyant glistening of a torrent and the touch of the waves caressing the seashore as the sun is about to … Read more

An interview with Veronica della Dora, author of Landscape, Nature and the Sacred in Byzantium

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Veronica. Your book is full of descriptions of special places: gardens, mountains, caves, rivers. Do you have any particular favourites among the places that you have visited? I would say each of these places has its own special charm, and when it came to find the … Read more

Ivan Drpić

An excerpt from Ivan Drpić’s entry, Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Later Byzantium

A reader familiar with the traditional periodization of Byzantine history may find it surprising that in this study the momentous events of 1204 – the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade and the subsequent disintegration of the Byzantine Empire – hardly figure as a meaningful chronological break.

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