MetaFilter posts tagged with ByzantineEmpire

The Immaculate Tirant

Iridic — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:18:12 -0800

"God save me!" quoth the priest, with a loud voice, "is Tirante the White there? Give me him here, neighbour; for I make account I have found in him a treasure of delight, and a mine of entertainment. Here we have Don Kyrieleison of Montalvan, a valorous knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and the knight Fonseca, and the combat in which the valiant Tirante fought with the mastiff, and the smart conceits of the damsel Plazerdemivida, with the amours and artifices of the widow Reposada; and madam the empress in love with her squire Hypolito. Verily, gossip, in its way, it is the best book in the world..."

-Don Quixote de la Mancha, Part I, Chapter 6 Tirant Lo Blanc, written in the late fifteenth century by the Valencians Martorell and Joan de Galba, combines a fictionalized history of the two-fisted mercenary general Roger de Flor with elements of The Decameron, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, and Ramon Llull's Book of the Order of Chivalry. A sense of life lifts the work above both its influences and the third-hand tropes of its contemporaries; as Cervantes writes, "here the knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills before their deaths; with several things which are wanting in other books of this kind." This realism was a revelation to Cervantes, whose own exploration of the border between high duty and base necessity inaugurated the Western novel. As such, Tirant the White is perhaps the most quietly influential book in all of literature. Bonus Cervantes Inspiration: Amadis of Gaul - in blog form!

The Vinkhuijzen Collection of Military Costume Illustration

Kattullus — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:05:04 -0800

The Vinkhuijzen Collection of Military Costume Illustration has drawings of uniforms and regimental regalia from all over the world. Assembled by one of these great, eccentric collectors of the late 19th Century, Dr. H. J. Vinkhuijzen, a Dutch medical doctor who started out as an army physician and eventually rose to the position of official court physician to Prince Alexander of Netherlands. He pulled plates out of books, colored in black and white drawings and painted his own watercolor illustrations. His collection includes pictures of the soldiers of many different nations and eras, from military superpowers like the Roman Empire, France and Great Britain, to lesser known, but no less formidable forces, like Byzantium and Persia and even taking in such minnows as Luxembourg, Monaco and Montenegro. Due to Vinkhuijzen's unusual classification system it can be hard to find some of the more interesting images, such as pictures of Etruscan cavalry, Spanish military musicians and 1830's Belgian ambulance.

Encyclopedia of Greece, from ancient times to the modern day, focusing on science and technology

Kattullus — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:21:23 -0800

Hellenica is an encyclopedia of Greek culture, from classical Hellas, through the Byzantine Empire until the modern day, though its focus is on antiquity and especially the science and technology of Ancient Greece. Featuring technical diagrams and explications, there's no better site if you seek information on gigantic galleys, now obscure great Greek mathematicians, the last still working Ancient lighthouse and gears and how they were used by Archimedes and other ancients. This is not to denigrate other sections of the site, such as the page on the Olympics (including a Google Map of the site of the games), biographies of ancient, Byzantine and modern Greeks, the warring and healing of the Byzantines or the overview of Greek literature, taking in antiquity, the medieval era and modern times. That said, Hellenica is at its finest when treating science and technology.

Inflicting a historical atlas on the world

Kattullus — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:14:40 -0800

Physicist Howard Wiseman has a hobby, history. On his website he has three history subsites, filled with lots of information: 1) Ruin and Conquest of Britain 2) 18 Centuries of Roman Empire 3) Twenty Centuries of "British" "Empires". Especially informative are his many maps. As he says himself: "Drawing historical maps of all sorts has been a hobby of mine since my mid teens. Now I can do it digitally, and inflict it upon the world!"

People with a History

Kattullus — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:20:31 -0800

People with a History is "an online guide to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans history." Ranging from the first stirrings of civilization to the modern day, People with a History gathers together original sources and academic articles dealing with queerness throughout history. To give you a feel for the wealth of material on the site, here are a few pages that caught my interest: The Vikings and Homosexuality, Coptic Spell: Spell for a Man to Obtain a Male Lover, an acount of a gay marriage ceremony described by Michel de Montaigne, But Among Our Own Selves (an 18th Century gay ballad), a chapter from The Life of St. Theodore of Sykeon, a 7th Century Byzantine monk and bishop, which mentions adelphopoiesis, or the rite of brothermaking, Wu Tsao, 19th Century Chinese lesbian poet, and finally Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men.

Elpenor - Home of the Greek Word

Kattullus — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:40:04 -0800

Elpenor - Home of the Greek Word is a site built around a bilingual anthology of all periods of Greek literature, but there's more, including ancient greek lessons, a collection of texts by non-Greeks about Greece, a gallery of Orthodox Christ icons and an online resource-guide on Byzantium. The site focuses mostly on the texts of antiquity but along with Archilochus, Orphica, Romanos Melodos and Sappho there are some modern writers, like the poets Cavafy and Papatsonis. There's a Greek nationalistic slant to the site but it seems fairly benign and easy to ignore.

12 Byzantine Rulers, a podcast history of The Byzantine Empire

Kattullus — Fri, 11 May 2007 19:52:22 -0800

12 Byzantine Rulers is a podcast lecture series about The Byzantine Empire by Lars Brownworth, a history teacher at The Stony Brook School on Long Island, New York. 1123 years of awesomeness ready to go onto your iPod! [iTunes link]

Auggie?! Auggiero??!! Tonypis???!!!

Kattullus — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 18:15:25 -0800

Roman Emperors , there sure were a lot of them. This online encyclopedia is the most comprehensive resource on the autocratic rulers of Rome I have come across. It ranges from Augustus to Constantine Dragases, the last emperor in Constantinople. It doesn't include them all, but has most, including my two favorites, Basil II, the Bulgarslayer and Antonius Pius. You can also find the one least deserving of fame, the one with the silliest name and, of course, the completely batshit ones. Also on the site, maps, battles, coins and everybody's favorite subject, genealogy.

that's nobody's business but the Turks

leotrotsky — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 06:32:01 -0800

29 May 1453, Constantinople fell to Mehmet II, sultan of the Ottoman Turks. With it fell the last stronghold of Christendom in the East. Founded by Constantine the Great, the Byzantine empire had lasted 1129 years.

During which time it created the Cyrillic alphabet, was sacked by the 4th crusade, precipitated the great schism, and created some of the most beautiful religious art of the ancient world. Sailing to Byzantium?