International Workshop on Late Byzantine Cities

At this international workshop, to be held with the financial support of TÜBİTAK and Bahçeşehir University and coordinated by Dr. Suna Çağaptay (Architecture) and Dr. Aslıhan Akışık (General Education), many competent national and international researchers in the field will present their research on late Byzantine cities.

20-23 August 2019

D-Conference Hall, Bahçeşehir University, Beşiktaş Campus

International Workshop on Late Byzantine Cities (1204-1461)

Unlike earlier periods, the late Byzantine world (1204-1461) emerges as a period in which politically independent yet interconnected and competing central administrations, not focused on Constantinople, gained importance. Rather than being perceived as places distant from and excluded by Constantinople, each of the cities of this period can be portrayed as a focal point. Although this period witnessed a gradual decline in the political and military spheres, the cities that emerged became part of the commercial networks of the Mediterranean and took on important roles. While the written sources narrating political history are full of anecdotes from the battlefield, diplomacy, itinerant stonemasons and artists, religions, ethnic identities, dynastic marriages, intellectual networks and trade, on the other hand, created a striking environment of cultural overlap reflected in the fabric of these cities. The workshop will look at the urban fabric rebuilt through regional and semi-independent political administrations amid the central political disintegration in the late Byzantine geography. These important centers, including Trabzon, Constantinople, İznik, Nif, Thessaloniki, Arta and Mistra, will be discussed in the light of archival, literary, economic, visual, architectural, artistic and archaeological evidence in order to gain a broader perspective on the development and transformation of the urban fabric of the late Byzantine period.

To access the program schedule, please click here.

For the program and more information: https://latebyzantinecities.com/