Estudios bizantinos, number 4 (2016).
CONTENTS INCLUDE
La transformación administrativa de Bizancio en Constantinopla
Esteban Moreno Resano
Our aim in this paper is to study the institutional transformation of Byzantium into Constantinople according to the analysis of the subscriptions of imperial laws preserved in the Theodosian Code. Cons- tantinople, before becoming a new imperial capital, was conceived as a foundation to settle Italic veterans from the Sarmatic war (322) in the Roman province of Europa and to commemorate the victory over Licinius in 324. Only later, emperor Constantine considered the old Byzantium to be a suitable location to create an administrative centre for ruling the Eastern provinces of the Empire with loyal officials.
La Vida de Juan el Limosnero de Leoncio de Neápolis (s. VII). Sus recensiones breve, media y larga
Pablo A. Cavallero and Tomás Fernández
This paper studies the relationship between the long, middle, and short recension of the Life of John the Almsgiver. It aims to establish the existence of separative mistakes in the long recension (mss. OV) and in the middle-short one. It also advocates the possibility that the middle recension was contaminated with V. In that case, the coincidence between O and the short recension would prove that the variant they share was in the archetype.
Diplomacia en la Ruta de la seda: las embajadas bizantinas a China en los siglos VII-VIII
David Sevillano-López
Although the Byzantine sources don’t mention diplomatic contacts with the Far East, the Chinese chronicles narrate the arrival of different embassies to the Chinese Empire from Byzantium between 643 and 719, during the reigns of the Byzantine emperors Constans ii, Tiberio iii, and Leo iii. These embassies showed to the Chinese the image of a rich and prosperous empire that, threatened by the newly created Caliphate, seemed to seek some sort of alliance with China, but did not get more than moral support.
Las Orationes pro sacris imaginibus de Juan Damasceno: un nuevo enfoque cronológico desde la perspectiva teológica
Juan Manuel Pinazo Pinazo
The Orationes pro sacris imaginibus, the work in defense of the sacred images by John Damascene, has been debated in terms of its location, both chronologically and in the proper context of the Iconoclastic controversy, by recent studies that have led to a review of the sources and theories with which the period of Iconoclasm was approached. Through the theological analysis of the homilies we propose to shed light on the chronological issues, placing the three Discourses during the reign of Constantine v and not in the beginning of the controversy, a contextualization of the work more in line with the theological debates on the images of the moment.
Interacción entre latinos y bizantinos en vísperas de la Cuarta Cruzada (1204): el testimonio de Teodoro Balsamón
Alex Rodriguez Suarez
Theodore Balsamon, nominal patriarch of Antioch, is a well known figure from the second half of the twelfth century. His anti-Latin stance has been associated with the fact that Balsamon was not allowed to take over his appointed see. The Syrian city was under Crusader rule and thus its patriarch was of Roman rite. Nevertheless, two references analysed in this paper demonstrate that his resentment towards the Latins was not only the result of his personal circumstances. The study of a brief treatise and a commentary shows that Balsamon witnessed the impact that the interaction between Byzantines and Latins had on the society of his period. As a consequence, Balsamon became an advocate of the Byzantine church and its traditions.
El typikón de San Nicolás de Casole: un monasterio, un scriptorium y una biblioteca
Mattia C. Chiriatti
A typikon, stored in the National Library of the University of Turin under the signature C iii 17 (gr. 216), portrays the industrious cultural activity of the monastery of St. Nicholas of Casole (gr. ton Kasoulon), founded in 1098/99 by the monk Joseph, thanks to the patronage of Bohemund, prince of Taranto and Antioch, about a few miles south of Otranto (Lecce), in the south-eastern tip of Italy. According to the testimony of the manuscript, it can be given a broad outline of the scriptorium’s daily activity as a crucial centre of culture and knowledge’s transmission through the manuscripts’ copying. This factor allowed a substantial diffusion of texts both in the religious either in the secular milieu, by making the Hydruntine coenobium to become one of the Byzantine culture’s most outstanding centres in Southern Italy.
Un viajero en la Constantinopla del siglo XV poco conocido: el borgoñón Bertrandon de la Broquière
Giorgio Vespignani
Le voyage d’Outremer (composed in 1455 and published in 1457), the account of the travel made by Bertrandon de la Broquière, counsellor of Philip iii the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and ambassador to the Middle East and Constantinople in 1432-1433, is not a well-known text except for some sections regarding the most famous landmarks in the Polis (ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris 1892). The account is interesting in many ways, apart from descriptions of churches and landmarks: there is a remarkable interest in his personal impressions about the atmosphere at the imperial court as well as on the many people he met. Besides, Le voyage is one of the latest accounts reflecting the approach of two different mindsets, the eastern-roman and the western, shortly before the arrival in Italy of the Byzantine delegation to the Council of the Church Union in 1428-1439 (led by the basileus John viii Palaiologos in person), twenty years before the fall of the Polis.
Byzantine Recensions of Greek Mathematical and Astronomical Texts: A Survey
Fabio Acerbi
This article contains a fairly complete survey of Byzantine recensions of Greek mathematical and astronomical texts, along with an outline of their main stylistic features. Lists of such recensions are provided and discussed, keyed on two different parameters: the manuscript containing the revision and the revised work. Byzantine scholars likely or certainly to be associated with any of the recensions are briefly introduced. A final appendix offers a full analysis of the way a specific theorem was modified by a number of revisers. The article also includes extensive discussions of the two main mathematical encyclopaedias assembled during the Palaiologan period.