Antiquity and Identity in the Fifteenth Century: A Cross‐Cultural Study, lecture by Ida Toth (Oxford University), University of Vienna, December 10, 2018, 6:30 pm

Antiquity remained a backdrop against which medieval and early modern societies constructed their pasts and deliberated on their presents. Fifteenth‐century authors frequently described their cities as ancient and beautiful. As well as cultivating the aesthetic appreciation of ancient architecture and decoration of buildings, this trope reflected the more general development of fostering the ancient past in the processes of renegotiating one’s own identity. This talk proposes to explore commonalities in the narratives of antiquity in Byzantine, Italian, South‐Slavonic and Ottoman cultures in the fifteenth century.

Ida Toth is Senior Instructor in Byzantine Greek and Medieval Latin and Lecturer in Byzantine Epigraphy, Faculty of History, University of Oxford and Research Fellow, Wolfson College.