Intercultural Encounters in Medieval Greece After 1204: The Evidence of Art and Material Culture

Based on the evidence of artistic production and material culture this collective volume aims at exploring cross-cultural relations and interaction between Greeks and Latins in late medieval Greece in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. Fourteen essays discuss mostly new and unpublished archaeological and artistic material, including architecture, sculpture, wall-paintings and icons, pottery and other small finds, but also the evidence of music and poetry. Through the surviving material of these artistic activities this volume explores the way Byzantines and Latins lived side by side on the Greek mainland and the Aegean islands from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries and traces the mechanisms that led to the emergence of the new, composite world of the Latin East. Issues of identity, patronage, papal policy, the missionary activities of the Latin religious orders and the reactions and responses of the Byzantines are also re-considered, offering fresh insights into and a better understanding of the various manifestations of the interrelationship between the two ethnicities, confessions and cultures.