The Memoirs of Sylvester Syropoulos is a text written by a I'yzantine ecclesiastical official in the 15th century. Syropoulos participated in the Council for the union of the Greek and Latin Churches held in Ferrara and Florence, Italy, in 1438-1439. As a high-ranking official and an eye-witness of the union, he offers a unique perspective on this important political and religious event that would so decisively contribute to the political, military and religious development of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. Experts in different fields - historians, philologists, art historians and archaeologists - have come together in this volume to explore the actions and motives of the various political and religious groups that participated in the council. With Syropoulos as their starting point, the contributors of this volume reconstruct the living conditions, cross-cultural interaction, artistic and commercial exchange in the 15th-century Mediterranean. At the same time, they discuss the text as an invaluable source for political and diplomatic affairs at that time, as a travel account, an eye-witness narrative and as a literary work. Emphasis is placed on Syropoulos's Section IV where he describes the journey of the Byzantine delegation from Constantinople to Italy, their stay in Venice and in Ferrara, the diplomatic contacts with the doge and the pope, and finally the beginning of the council's proceedings. An annotated English translation of the text is included as an appendix to the book. The papers bring out the richness of the information in Syropoulos's writings about the people involved in the Council of Ferrara-Florence and especially the interaction among different social, religious and political groups throughout that event. His work is unique because it is a rare eye-witness account, deriving from personal experience, rather than an objective historical narrative.

About the Author
Fotini Kondyli is a post-doctoral researcher in Byzantine Archaeology at the Joukowsky Insitute of Archaeology at Brown University, USA; Vera Andriopoulou currently works at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in Piraeus, Greece; Eirini Panou is at the Institute of Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at the University of Birmingham, UK; Mary B. Cunningham is Lecturer in Historical Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham and an Honorary Fellow in the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Reviews

"All in all, we could safely deduce that the present volume...sums up our knowledge on Sylvester Syropoulo's life and times, with insights regarding his personality, offering at the same time reflections and portrayals of his era in a vivid description of 15th-century Mediterranean politics and art, while another crucial denominator of the volume deals with the background contrast between Greeks and Latins in view of the Ottoman threat." - Photeine V. Perra, Johannesburg

"...scholars will benefit from the book's demonstration that polemical works, such as Sylvester's memoires, can provide details and information not found in less biased sources." - Hortulus

Book Information
ISBN 9780367600679
Author Fotini Kondyli
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g