1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Byzantine Visual Culture in the Danube Regions, 1300-1600
This volume aims to broaden and nuance knowledge about the history, art, culture, and heritage of Eastern Europe relative to Byzantium. From the thirteenth century to the decades after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the regions of the Danube River stood at the intersection of different traditions, and the river itself has served as a marker of connection and division, as well as a site of cultural contact and negotiation.
The Routledge Handbook of Byzantine Visual Culture in the Danube Regions, 1300–1600 brings to light the interconnectedness of this broad geographical area too often either studied in parts or neglected altogether, emphasizing its shared history and heritage of the regions of modern Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia. The aim is to challenge established perceptions of what constitutes ideological and historical facets of the past, as well as Byzantine and post-Byzantine cultural and artistic production in a region of the world that has yet to establish a firm footing on the map of art history.
The 24 chapters offer a fresh and original approach to the history, literature, and art history of the Danube regions, thus being accessible to students thematically, chronologically, or by case study; each part can be read independently or explored as part of a whole.
Introduction
Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan
Chapter 1: Byzance après Byzance: The Paradigm
Ovidiu Cristea and Ovidiu Olar
Part I: Art Historical Overviews
Chapter 2: The Afterlives of Byzantine Art in the Wider Adriatic
Margarita Voulgaropoulou
Chapter 3: Art and Architecture in the Balkans and the Lower Danube Regions
Jelena Bogdanović, Ljubomir Milanović, and Marina Mihaljević
Chapter 4: The Visual Culture of Wallachia before and after 1453
Elisabeta Negrău
Chapter 5: Moldavian Visual Culture before and after 1453
Vlad Bedros
Chapter 6: Byzantine Elements in Wall Painting in the Kingdom of Hungary
Zsombor Jékely
Chapter 7: Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art in Modern Slovakia
Vladislav Grešlík
Part II: Contacts and Patronage Beyond Borders
Chapter 8: Framing Silk Patronage in the Late Medieval Eastern Adriatic
Iva Jazbec Tomaić and Danijel Ciković
Chapter 9: A Ruler and a Churchman: Collaborative Patronage of Monasteries in Medieval Serbia
Anna Adashinskaya
Chapter 10: The Danubian Lands, Mount Athos, and Mount Sinai: Meaningful Connections
Alice Isabella Sullivan
Chapter 11: Greek Merchants and the Genoese Lower Danube in the Late Fourteenth Century
Marco Cassioli
Chapter 12: Medieval Wall Paintings in Transylvanian Orthodox Churches: Signs of Cross-Cultural Interactions
Elena-Dana Prioteasa
Chapter 13: Charles IV and Byzantium: Icon Painting and Stone Incrustation in Fourteenth Century Prague
Jana Gajdošová
Part III: Ideals and Ideologies in Images and Texts
Chapter 14: The Bowing Prince: Post-Byzantine Representations of Christian Rulership in Moldavian Wall Painting
Andrei Dumitrescu
Chapter 15: Ethics, Piety, and Politics in The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to His Son Theodosie
Ioana Manea
Chapter 16: Sophia: The Personification of Divine Wisdom in the Lower Danube Region
Zofia A. Brzozowska
Chapter 17: Shaping Images of Sanctity and Kingship between Byzantium and Serbia during the Nemanjići Dynasty
Irene Caracciolo
Chapter 18: Eastern Roman and Bulgarian Perceptions of Each Other in the Thirteenth Century
Grant Schrama
Part IV: Adaptations and Transmissions across Media and Geographies
Chapter 19: Silversmiths in Southeastern Europe: Visual Culture between Islam, Byzantium, and the Latin West
Anita Paolicchi
Chapter 20: Late Medieval Balkan Dress beyond Byzantium
Nikolaos Vryzidis
Chapter 21: Overhanging Rooms in Dwellings of the Danubian Regions
Serena Acciai
Chapter 22: The Byzantine Alexander Romance in Slavonic
Antoaneta Granberg
Chapter 23: Genres and Translations: The South Slavonic Versions of the Palaea Historica
Małgorzata Skowronek
Chapter 24: Communication and Memory in Medieval Church Slavonic Paratexts in the Balkans
Izabela Lis-Wielgosz and Ivan N. Petrov
Biography
Maria Alessia Rossi, PhD, is an Art History Specialist at the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University. She is the author of Visualizing Christ’s Miracles in Late Byzantium: Art, Theology, and Court Culture (2024). She also co-edited Late Byzantium Reconsidered: The Arts of the Palaiologan Era in the Mediterranean (2019), Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (2020), and Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Cultural Spheres (2021). Rossi is the co-founder of the initiative North of Byzantium and the digital platform Mapping Eastern Europe.
Alice Isabella Sullivan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture and the Director of Graduate Studies at Tufts University, specializing in the artistic production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres. She is the author of The Eclectic Visual Culture of Medieval Moldavia (2023) and co-editor of several volumes. In addition, she is co-director of the Sinai Digital Archive and co-founder of North of Byzantium and Mapping Eastern Europe—two initiatives that explore the history, art, and culture of the northern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe during the medieval and early modern periods.
