Sylvester Syropoulos on Politics and Culture in the Fifteenth-Century Mediterranean: Themes and Problems in the Memoirs, Section IV: 16 (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies)

263 Pages·2014·9.125 MB·English

by  Fotini Kondyli (editor), Vera Andriopoulou (editor), Eirini Panou (editor), Mary B. Cunningham (editor)

Birmingham Byzantine and
Ottoman Studies
About the series
Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies is devoted to the history, culture and
archaeology of the Byzantine and Ottoman worlds of the East Mediterranean region
from the fifth to the twentieth century. It provides a forum for the publication of research
completed by scholars from the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek
Studies at the University of Birmingham, and those with similar research interests.
About the volume
The contributors of this volume take the Memoirs of Sylvester Syropoulos, written
by a Byzantine ecclesiastical official in the fifteenth century, as their starting point in
reconstructing Mediterranean living conditions and artistic and commercial exchange
in the late Middle Ages. Syropoulos’s text, a rare eyewitness account of the Council
of Ferrara-Florence for the union of the Greek and Latin Churches (1438–1439), is
discussed as an invaluable source for political affairs at that time, as a travel account,
and as a literary work. An annotated translation of the text is included.
About the editors
Fotini Kondyli is a post-doctoral researcher in Byzantine Archaeology at the
Joukowsky Insitute of Archaeology at Brown University, USA.
Vera Andriopoulou currently works at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in
Piraeus, Greece.
Eirini Panou is at the Institute of Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at the
University of Birmingham, UK.
Mary B. Cunningham is Lecturer in Historical Theology in the Department
of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham and an
Honorary Fellow in the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of
Birmingham, UK.
Birmingham Byzantine and
Ottoman Studies
Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire
The Politics of Bektashi Shrines in the Classical Age
Zeynep Yürekli
The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium
Texts and Images
Edited by Leslie Brubaker and Mary B. Cunningham
Art and Identity in Thirteenth-Century Byzantium
Hagia Sophia and the Empire of Trebizond
Antony Eastmond
Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire
A Systematic Survey of Subsistence Crises and Epidemics
Dionysios Ch. Stathakopoulos
Church Law and Church Order in Rome and Byzantium
A Comparative Study
Clarence Gallagher
Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca 680–850): The Sources
An Annotated Survey
Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon
SYLVESTEr SYrOPOULOS On POLITICS
AnD CULTUrE In THE FIFTEEnTH-CEnTUrY
MEDITErrAnEAn
BIrMInGHAM BYZAnTInE AnD
OTTOMAn STUDIES
Volume 16
General Editors
Leslie Brubaker
A.A.M. Bryer
rhoads Murphey
John Haldon
Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies
University of Birmingham
Sylvester Syropoulos on
Politics and Culture in the
Fifteenth-Century Mediterranean
Themes and Problems in the Memoirs, Section IV
FOTInI KOnDYLI
Brown University, USA
VErA AnDrIOPOULOU
Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Greece
EIrInI PAnOU
University of Birmingham, UK
MArY B. CUnnInGHAM
University of Nottingham, UK
First Published 2014 by Ashgate Publisher
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © Fotini Kondyli, Vera Andriopoulou, Eirini Panou and Mary B.
Cunningham 2014
Fotini Kondyli, Vera Andriopoulou, Eirini Panou and Mary B. Cunningham have asserted
their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the
editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Sylvester Syropoulos on Politics and Culture in the Fifteenth-Century Mediterranean:
Themes and Problems in the Memoirs, Section iv / edited by Fotini Kondyli,
Vera Andriopoulou, Eirini Panou and Mary B. Cunningham.
pages cm. – (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies)
Includes index.
1. Syropoulos, Silvestros, active 15th century. Vera historia unionis non verae inter
Graecos et Latinos. 2. Council of Florence (1438-1445 : Florence, Italy) 3. Councils
and synods, Ecumenical – Early works to 1800. I. Kondyli, Fotini.
BX8301438 .S86 2014
262’.5–dc23 2013039369
ISBn 9781409439660 (hbk)
Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies
Volume 16
Contents
List of Contributors vii
List of Figures xi
Introduction 1
1 Sylvester Syropoulos: The Author and His Outlook 9
Mary B. Cunningham
2 The Ottomans, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Perils of the
Papacy 23
Elizabeth A. Zachariadou
3 Precedence and Papal Primacy 33
Richard Price
4 The Logistics of a Union: Diplomatic Communication through
the Eyes of Sylvester Syropoulos 49
Vera Andriopoulou
5 City, Marquis, Pope, Doge: Ferrara in 1438 69
Trevor Dean
6 Labelling Images, Venerating Icons in Sylvester Syropoulos’s
World 79
Annemarie Weyl Carr
7 What Did Syropoulos Miss? Appreciating the Art of the
Lippomano Chapel in Venetian negroponte 107
Nikos D. Kontogiannis
8 The Logistics of a Union: The Travelling Arrangements and
the Journey to Venice 135
Fotini Kondyli
9 On Syropoulos’s Dalmatian and Istrian route 155
Neven Budak
vi Sylvester Syropoulos on Politics and Culture
10 The Colours Sylvester Syropoulos Saw: The Ideological
Function of Colour in Byzantine Historiography and Chronicles
(Thirteenth–Fifteenth Centuries) 175
Eirini Panou
Appendix: English Translation of The Memoirs of Sylvester Syropoulos,
Section IV V. Laurent, Les ‘Mémoires’ de Sylvestre Syropoulos sur
le concile de Florence (1438–1439) (Paris: CnrS, 1971), 196, ff. 185
Index 239
List of Contributors
Vera Andriopoulou completed her PhD in Byzantine History at the Centre for
Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham. Her
research interests include Byzantine diplomacy and foreign affairs in the Late
Byzantine period (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries), travel and communications in
the late medieval Mediterranean world, late medieval identities and prosopography.
She currently works as a member of the educational staff at the Aikaterini
Laskaridis Foundation in Piraeus, Greece.
Neven Budak, PhD, is Professor of Medieval Croatian History in the Faculty of
Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb. His research interests
include early medieval identities, urban history, slavery, early medieval Croatian
history and early modern Croatian history. recent publications include Hrvatska
i Slavonija u ranome novom vijeku [Croatia and Slavonia in the Early Modern
Period], (Zagreb, 2007); ‘Identities in Early Medieval Dalmatia (7th–11th c.)’,
in Franks, Northmen and Slavs: Gentes and State Formation in Early Medieval
Europe, eds Ildar Garipzanov, Patrick Geary and Przemyslaw Urbanzcyk, Cursor
mundi vol. 5, (Brepols, 2008), 223–41; ‘Using the Middle Ages in Modern-day
Croatia’, in János M. Bak, Jörg Jarnut, Pierre Monnet and Bernd Schneidmüller
(eds), Gebrauch und Missbrauch des Mittelalters, 19.–21. Jahrhundert [Uses
and Abuses of the Middle Ages: 19th–21st Century], (München, 2009), 241–62;
‘Communication in Towns’ in Towns and Communication vol. 1, (Zagreb, 2010);
‘Croatia between the Myths of the nation State and of the Common European
Past’ in Claudia-Florentina Dobre, Ionuţ Epurescu-Pascovici and Cristian Emilian
Ghiţă (eds), Myth-Making and Myth-Breaking in History and the Humanities:
Proceedings of the Conference Held at the University of Bucharest, 6–8
October 2011, http://www.unibuc.ro/n/resurse/myth-maki-and-myth-brea-in-hist-
and-the-huma/, 51–72.
Mary B. Cunningham is Lecturer in Historical Theology in the Department of
Theology and religious Studies at the University of nottingham. She is also an
Honorary Fellow in the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University
of Birmingham. Her main research interests include early and middle Byzantine
homiletics, the cult of the Virgin Mary in Byzantium, and the spiritual tradition of
Eastern Christianity. She hopes (with a team including Drs Vera Andriopoulou and
Fotini Kondyli) to produce a complete English translation of Sylvester Syropoulos’s
Memoirs, along with a new commentary on the text. recent publications include
(ed. with Leslie Brubaker) The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and