Luca Zavagno

Visiting Fellow, Fall 2024

Affiliation
Bilkent University
Research Project:
The Major Islands of the Byzantine Mediterranean in the Transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ca. 550-ca. 900 C.E.)

Contact Info

Luca Zavagno graduated from the University of Venice (2002); he obtained his Ph.D. (2007) at the University of Birmingham with a dissertation on the society, economics and politics of Byzantine cities in the Early Middle Ages. He is an Associate Professor of Byzantine Studies in the Department of History and Department of Archaeology at Bilkent University. He has just published the Routledge Companion to the Byzantine City (a volume co-edited with Nikolas Bakirtzis), and he is currently working on his fourth monograph entitled The Byzantine Insular Worlds between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (c.a. 600–c.a. 900) (to be published in 2025 with ARC Medieval Press).

About the Research Project

The Major Islands of the Byzantine Mediterranean in the Transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ca. 550-ca. 900 C.E.)

Should we rely on Byzantine chronicles and literary sources, we would dismiss the role of major islands of the Byzantine Mediterranean in the historic transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ca.550-ca.900 C.E.) as marginal. These insular spaces appear to have never to have impinged upon the administrative and military power structures of the Byzantine heartland which were centered around the imperial court of Constantinople. In tune with this viewpoint, recent syntheses on the geographical, political, and economic history of the Byzantine Empire have also regarded major Mediterranean islands as peripheral, liminal, and fragmented spaces from the seventh century until they were recaptured by the gravity of an expanding Empire in the tenth century (Crete and Cyprus) or were lost forever (Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, and the Balearics).

Indeed, my project (entitled “The Insular Worlds of Byzantium between Lage Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages”) centers on this specific period. During this time, the Mediterranean turned into a more fragmented playing field (although not necessarily always a leveled one) between competing powers. This clearly contrasted with the exceptionally unified political and economic Roman Imperial configuration. Shifting focus from the overemphasized prominence of literary and documentary sources, my book highlights archaeological evidence to support the notion of a more peaceful and less tumultuous period in the islands' history as they transitioned from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. In fact, I would rather focus on single islands as explored through a metaphorical dialogue between different methodologies in a comparative perspective; by dealing with transversal themes revolving around the peculiar political, religious, and economic structures of insular societies; and, finally, by exploring the role of islands as hubs of connectivity where the Islamic and the Byzantine cultures encountered and heavily influenced the local “insular” political, economic and social structures across the centuries.