A Nostalgic Gaze Towards Antiquity: The So-Called ‘Palaiologan Renaissance’

Francesco Monticini
Università degli Studi Roma Tre
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0157-851X

Volume 3, October 2022

Abstract
This article offers a historical and cultural analysis of the so-called ‘Palaiologan Renaissance.’ In the
author’s view, the Byzantines found themselves dealing with a profound identity crisis after the
Fourth Crusade. Now that the Polis was occupied by foreign invaders for the first time in history, it
became urgent for Byzantine people to re-read and reinterpret – at least in part – the tradition that
derived from the Holy Scriptures, according to which the Roman Empire’s fall was the first sign of
the end of the world. The author argues that the fièvre de classicisme of those scholars calling
themselves ‘Hellenes’ in the early Palaiologan era was one of the reactions that the Byzantine ruling
class developed to cope with this unprecedented historical turn of events. The Hellenes believed
that ancient Graeco-Roman wisdom would allow them to find the correct interpretative key to
reality and help them to deal with the issues of the moment more effectively. Finally, the author
maintains that the Hellenes used cultural memory in a very different way from the Western
humanists: firstly, the Hellenes’ classicism was based on a linear rather than cyclical concept of
history; secondly, it did not imply any conflict between different social classes, as was the case in the
West.

Keywords
Palaiologan Era; Cultural Memory; Humanism; Renaissance; Crisis

[pdf]

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Aristote, De la génération et de la corruption, ed. by Marwan Rashed (Paris: Les belles lettres, 2005).

Blemmydès, Nicéphore, Œuvres Théologiques, I, ed. by Michel Stavrou, Sources Chrétiennes 517 (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 2007).

Bryennios, Iosef, Ta eurethenta, ed. by Eugenios Boulgaris (Leipzig: 1768 [repr. Thessaloniki: Ekdotikos oikos Bas. Regopoulou, 1991]).

Dukas, Chronographia, ed. by Dieter Roderich Reinsch (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2020).

Lactance, Institutions divines, VI, ed. by Christiane Ingremeau, Sources chrétiennes 509 (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 2007).

Nicephori Gregorae Historiae Byzantinae, II, ed. by Immanuel Bekker and Ludwig Schopen, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae 19 (Bonn: impensis Ed. Weberi, 1830).

Novum Testamentum graece et latine, ed. by Gianfranco Nolli (Vatican City: Libreria editrice vaticana, 2001²).

Pachymérès, Georges, Relations historiques, I, ed. by Albert Failler and Vitalien Laurent, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 24, 5 (Paris: Les belles lettres, 1984).

Petrarca, Francesco, My Secret Book, ed. by Nicholas Mann, The I Tatti Renaissance Library (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 2016).

Septuaginta, XVI.2 (Susanna, Daniel, Bel et Draco), ed. by Joseph Ziegler (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1999).

Theodore Metochites on Ancient Authors and Philosophy. Semeioseis Gnomikai 1-26 &71, ed. by Karin Hult (Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 2002).

Theodori Metochitae Miscellanea philosophica et historica, ed. by Christian Gottfried Müller and Gottlieb Kiessling (Leipzig: sumptibus F. C. G. Vogelii, 1821 [repr. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1966]).

Secondary Literature

A Greek-English Lexicon, ed. by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996).

Angelov, Dimiter, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium, 1204–1330 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Angold, Michael, ʻByzantine “Nationalism” and the Nicaean Empireʼ, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1 (1975), 49–70.

–, The Fourth Crusade: Event and Context (Harlow: Longman, 2003).

Bianconi, Daniele, ʻErudizione e didattica nella tarda Bisanzioʼ, in Libri di scuola e pratiche didattiche dall’Antichità al Rinascimento, II, ed. by Lucio Del Corso and Oronzo Pecere (Cassino: Università di Cassino, 2010), pp. 475–512.

Bowersock, Glen Warren, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990).

Byzance et l’hellénisme. L’identité grecque au Moyen-Âge, ed. by Paolo Odorico (Paris: De Boccard, 1999).

Cappelli, Guido, ʻUna modernità (im)possibile. L’umanesimo italiano come fenomeno storicoʼ, in Quaderns d’Italià, 22 (2017), 57–74.

Cavallo, Guglielmo, ʻ“Foglie che fremono sui rami”. Bisanzio e i testi classiciʼ, in I Greci. Storia, cultura, arte, società, III (I Greci oltre la Grecia), ed. by Salvatore Settis (Turin: Einaudi, 2001), pp. 593–628.

–, ʻOralità, scrittura, libro, lettura. Appunti su usi e contesti didattici tra antichità e Bisanzioʼ, in Libri di scuola e pratiche didattiche dall’Antichità al Rinascimento, I, ed. by Lucio Del Corso and Oronzo Pecere (Cassino: Università di Cassino, 2010), pp. 11–36.

–, ʻSodalizi eruditi e pratiche di scrittura a Bisanzioʼ, in Bilan et perspectives des études médiévales (1993–1998), ed. by Jacqueline Hamesse (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 645–665.

Congourdeau, Marie-Hélène, ʻByzance et la fin du monde. Courants de pensée apocalyptiques sous les Paléologuesʼ, in Les traditions apocalyptiques au tournant de la chute de Constantinople, ed. by Benjamin Lellouch and Stéphane Yerasimos (Paris: Harmattan, 1999), pp. 55–73.

Di Branco, Marco, Breve storia di Bisanzio (Rome: Carocci, 2016).

Dossier grec de l’Union de Lyon (1273-1277), ed. by Vitalien Laurent and Jean Darrouzès (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1976).

Förstel, Christian, ʻUntersuchungen zur Rezeption Plotins in der Palaiologenzeit: die Handschriften A und E (Laurentianus 87.3, Parisinus gr. 1976)ʼ, in Griechisch-byzantinische Handschriftenforschung. Traditionen, Entwicklungen, neue Wege, II, ed. by Christian Brockmann, Daniel Deckers, Dieter Harlfinger and Stefano Valente (Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2020), pp. 419–426.

Fryde, Edmund Boleslaw, The Early Palaeologan Renaissance, 1261 – c. 1360 (Leiden; Boston; Cologne: Brill, 2000).

Fyrigos, Antonis, ʻBarlaam Calabro tra l’aristotelismo scolastico e il neoplatonismo bizantinoʼ, Il Veltro, 27 (1983), 185–194.

Gallina, Mario, Bisanzio. Storia di un impero (secoli IV-XIII) (Rome: Carocci, 2008).

–, Incoronati da Dio. Per una storia del pensiero politico bizantino (Rome: Viella, 2016).

Geanakoplos, Deno John, Byzantium. Church, Society and Civilisation Seen through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

–, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, 1258-1282: A Study in Byzantine-Latin Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959).

Hunger, Herbert, Schreiben und Lesen in Byzanz. Die byzantinische Buchkultur (Munich: Beck, 1989).

Johnson, Aaron, Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre. The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Kaldellis, Anthony, Hellenism in Byzantium (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Kyriakidis, Savvas, Warfare in Late Byzantium, 1204-1453 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011).

Le monde byzantin, II (L’empire byzantin, 641-1204), ed. by Jean-Claude Cheynet (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2006).

Le monde byzantin, III (Byzance et ses voisins, 1204–1453), ed. by Angeliki Laiou and Cécile Morrisson (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2011).

Lieu, Judith Margaret, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Löwith, Karl, Meaning in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949).

Magdalino, Paul, ʻHellenism and Nationalism in Byzantiumʼ, in Id., Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Byzantium (Aldershot: Variorum, 1991), no. 14, pp. 1–29.

Mergiali, Sophia, L’enseignement et les lettrés pendant l’époque des Paléologues, 1261–1453 (Athens: Société des amis du peuple, centre d’études byzantines, 1996).

Monticini, Francesco, Caduta e recupero. La crisi di età paleologa tra umanesimo e mistica, Dossiers byzantins 19 (Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS, 2021).

–, ʻFra Bisanzio e l’Islam. Lo studio degli astri lungo la Via del Desertoʼ, in Bisanzio nello spazio e nel tempo. Costantinopoli, la Siria, ed. by Silvia Ronchey and Francesco Monticini, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 307 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2019), pp. 149–167.

–, ʻLe rêve et l’énigme. L’oniromancie dans les commentaires byzantins du traité Sur les songes de Synésiosʼ, in Savoirs prédictifs et techniques divinatoires de l’Antiquité tardive à Byzance, ed. by Paul Magdalino and Andrei Timotin (Seyssel: La pomme d’or, 2019), pp. 435–446.

Nicol, Donald, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453 (London: Hart-Davis, 1972).

Odorico, Paolo, ʻCadre d’exposition / cadre de pensée : la culture du recueilʼ, in Encyclopedic Trends in Byzantium?, ed. by Peter van Deun and Caroline Macé, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 212 (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), pp. 89–107.

–, ʻDifférence non diversité: Les Grecs du Moyen Âge face aux autres Européensʼ, <https://www.academia.edu/34896457/Diff%C3%A9rence_%20non_diversit%C3%A9_Les_Grecs_du_Moyen_%C3%82ge_face_aux_autres_Europ%C3%A9ens> [accessed 1 August 2022].

–, ʻLa cultura della συλλογή 1) Il cosiddetto enciclopedismo bizantino. 2) Tavole del sapere di Giovanni Damascenoʼ, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 83.1 (1990), 1–21.

–, ʻLa translatio imperii nella letteratura imperiale di età giustinianea. Un caso di dibattito identitarioʼ, in De Imperiis: l’idea di impero universale e la successione degli imperi nell’antichità, ed. by Lia Raffaella Cresci and Francesca Gazzano (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2018), pp. 291–312.

Page, Gill, Being Byzantine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Philippides, Marios, and Hanak, Walter, The Siege and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 (Farnham; Burlington: Ashgate, 2011).

Phillips, Jonathan, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (New York: Penguin Books, 2005).

Rapp, Claudia, ʻHellenic Identity, Romanitas, and Christianity in Byzantiumʼ, in Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. by Katerina Zacharia (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 127–147.

Ronchey, Silvia, Hypatia. The True Story (Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2021).

–, Lo stato bizantino (Turin: Einaudi, 2002).

Ševčenko, Ihor, ʻNicéphore Blemmydès. Autobiographies (1264 et 1265)ʼ, in La civiltà bizantina dal XII al XV secolo, ed. by André Guillou (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1982), pp. 111–137.

–, ʻThe Decline of Byzantium Seen through the Eyes of Its Intellectualsʼ, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 15 (1961), 169–186.

–, ʻThe Palaeologan Renaissanceʼ, in Renaissances before the Renaissance. Cultural Revival of Late Antiquity and Middle Ages, ed. by Warren Treadgold (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), pp. 144–171.

Stouraitis, Ioannis, ʻRoman Identity in Byzantium. A Critical Approachʼ, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 107.1 (2014), 175–220.

Urbs Capta. The Fourth Crusade and Its Consequences, ed. by Angeliki Laiou (Paris: Lethielleux, 2005).

Wilson, Nigel Guy, Scholars of Byzantium (London: G. Duckworth; Cambridge, Mass.: The Medieval Academy of America, 1996²).