Byzantine Studies Research Centre

I. NAVAL ACTIVITY
1. Tilemachos Loungis - The Byzantine War Navy and the West, 5th-12th centuries
2. Lilia Campana, The Defence of the Venetian dominio da mar in the Sixteenth Century: Ship Design, Naval Architecture, and the Naval Career of Vettor Fausto's Quinquereme
3. Elina Gugliuzzo - Sea Power in the early age Mediterranean
4. Wayne H. Bowen - Conflict and Collaboration: The Spanish and Ottoman Empires in the Mediterranean, 1453-1923

II. WEAPONS & ARMOUR
5. Raffaele D’Amato – A sixth or early seventh century AD iconography of Roman military equipment in Egypt: the Deir Abou Hennis frescoes
6. Georgios Theotokis - Σώκος, an unusual Byzantine weapon
7. Iason Tzouriades - Post-Byzantine Art and Western Influences in Military Iconography: The Case of Staff Weapons in the Work of Mihail Damaskinos

III. STRATEGY & COMMAND
8. Alan V. Murray - The Middle Ground: The Passage of Crusade Armies to the Holy Land by Land and Sea (1096-1204)
9. Cornel Bontea - The theory of the passagium particulare: a commercial blockade of the Mediterranean Sea in the early 14th century?
10. Stephen Bennett - Faith and Authority: Guy of Lusignan at the Battle of Acre
11. Ian Wilson - By the Sword or By an Oath: Siege Warfare in the Latin East 1097-1131
IV. MILITARY LITERATURE
12. Philip Rance - Late Byzantine Elites and Military Literature: Authors, Readers and Manuscripts (11th-15th Centuries)
13. Nikolaos Kanellopoulos - The byzantine influence on the military writings of Theodore I Palaiologos, marquis of Montferrat
14. Savvas Kyriakides - Warfare in the Histories of John Kantakouzenos

V. MILITARY ROLES WITHIN SOCIETY
15. Stathis Birtachas - Stradioti, cappelletti, compagnie or milizie greche: “Greek” mounted and foot mercenary companies in the Venetian State (15th-18th c.)
16. Chrysovalantis Papadamou - A Secret War: Espionage in Venetian Corfu during the construction of the San Marco fortress (1576-88)
17. Jacopo Pessina - The Social Make-up of the Republic of Lucca's Ordinanze della Montagna Officers, c. 1550-1600
18. Aysel Yildiz – Commanders of the Janissary army: the Janissary Agas, their Career and Promotion Patterns

The research topic is the collecting of any evidence related to the material culture of the Eastern Roman Empire on the military field, and the creation of a database for the Turkish government and for the scholars useful from a worldwide point of view. It will be the first attempt to analyze it from the perspective of the reconstruction of the military costume of Byzantium from the 4th century until the fall of the City of Constantinople and the fall of Trebisonda. Purpose of the project is to give the correct value to the Turkish material also in this particular field of history and archaeology.
There will be analyzed the frescoes representing military elements (Military Saints, Scenes of the Passion of Jesus, Life of Saints) still surviving in the Churches (even if now transformed in Mosques) of Istanbul, Anatolia, Cappadocia, Pontus. It will be analyzed also the fragments of the frescoes present in the museums, and all the artefacts related to the military culture of East Rome. At end it will be elaborated a sort of catalogue database for all the images and archaeological artifacts present on the Turkish territory.