International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Rowena Loverance
,
 
A Theoderican Capital in Wiltshire
Etele Kiss
,
 
Les débuts de la peinture monumentale en Hongrie : Constantinople – Kiev – Visegrád
Günter Paulus Schiemenz
, 
The Gothic Psalter in Munich – A Witness in the Case of the Orthodox αἶνοι Wall Paintings
Branislav Cvetković
,
 
On the Alleged Portrait of Despot Stefan Lazarević in Ptujska Gora
Piotr Kochanek
,
 
Vignetten von Konstantinopel auf mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Weltkarten
Nafsika Panselinou
, 
Influences de l’art occidental sur la représentation de l’Annonciation 
dans des icônes post-byzantines du XV
e 
au XIX
e
siècle

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Tonje Haugland Sørensen
Bergen, Norway;
[e-mail]
The Unintended Monument – Byzantium in Western European Heritage
Not quite western and not quite eastern. Placing Byzantium has proved difficult, and renowned 
historian and byzantinist Averil Cameron has recently argued that Byzantium is perhaps best read 
as a subaltern in a postcolonial perspective, with the caveat that it is a subaltern which has been 
pivotal in the formation of European identity and culture. The result is that Byzantium has acquired 
the role of the Other, though it is an Other which in topography, language and spheres of influence 
is more European than anything else. 
This presentation will consider the reception and influence of Byzantium in the formation of 
European ideas of heritage and history. Whereas the place of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as 
Western Medieval Europe has been acknowledged as well as given scholarly attention, the role of 
Byzantium has only recently been given the same consideration. Here the focus will be on the role of 
Byzantium and byzantine art and heritage in the formation of significant art historical texts such as 
John Ruskin The Stones of Venice (1851-53), and on Alois Riegl essay Der moderne Denkmalkultus 
(1903). With their origin in work on respectively Venice and Diocletian’s palace in Split, both texts 
have byzantine connections, as well as being seminal texts within the conceptualisation of heritage 
and preservation, with a recent publication highlighting Riegl’s place in developing “both theory and 
public policy in the emerging discipline of historical preservation at the beginning of the twentieth 
century.” (Cordellione, 2014: 3-4)