This book, the first of this scope to have been published, traces the diplomatic, cultural and commercial links between Constantinople and Venice from the foundation of the Venetian republic to the fall of the Byzantine Empire. It aims to show how, especially after the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Venetians came to dominate first the Genoese and thereafter the whole Byzantine economy. At the same time the author points to those important cultural and, above all, political reasons why the relationship between the two states was always inherently unstable.

Byzantium and Venice: 1204-1453, a selection of articles by the late Julian Chrysostomides, focuses on Byzantium after the Fourth Crusade and its relationship with Venice, particularly in the late Palaeologan period. Seven of the articles deal with aspects of Veneto-Byzantine interactions in the Peloponnese, while the remainder concentrate on the political and commercial ties between Byzantines and Venetians. The essays draw upon Julian Chrysostomides' unrivalled knowledge of the relevant Venetian documents.

Innovative study re-positioning the Adriatic as a liminal region between different cultures and faiths before the heyday of Venice.

For some 1,000 years, the Southeastern part of Europe was under the sway of the Eastern Roman Empire, later also known as Byzantium. A watershed in the history of Byzantium was the legislation of the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. Under his reign, a codification of Roman law was achieved, which was to remain not only the bedrock of Byzantine law, but which also, after its rediscovery in Italy in the 11th century, was to become the foundation of the continental European legal tradition. During the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries, the Byzantine emperors issued privilege acts to the Italian city-republics of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. This doctoral thesis examines these Byzantine imperial acts from a legal perspective. The book examines such questions as: What is the legal information that these acts provide? What law do they presuppose and apply? Did both parties have law in common and if so, of what does it consist? Is Roman law assumed to be binding in these acts as part of that common law, and if so, in which cases and what are the examples given? Investigating the possible genesis of a common legal understanding in Europe before the 11th century may contribute to an explanation of why Justinian's law became prominent in the West. In the last chapter, common legal issues in these acts - such as grants of immovable property, issues dealing with justice, and shipwreck and salvage provisions - have been subjected to a comparative analysis and in their turn compared with other Byzantine or Western sources. The study of legal acts of the medieval period at a European level may help in answering the question of whether, long before the formation of today's Europe, it was already bound by common legal forms. This study brings together a small piece of the puzzle of how a common European legal heritage was formed. Dissertation.

Henry Maguire, emeritus professor of art history at Johns Hopkins University, works on Byzantine and related cultures. He has written extensively on Venetian art and the church of San Marco.

Byzantium and Venice: 1204-1453, a selection of articles by the late Julian Chrysostomides, focuses on Byzantium after the Fourth Crusade and its relationship with Venice, particularly in the late Palaeologan period. Seven of the articles deal with aspects of Veneto-Byzantine interactions in the Peloponnese, while the remainder concentrate on the political and commercial ties between Byzantines and Venetians. The essays draw upon Julian Chrysostomides' unrivalled knowledge of the relevant Venetian documents.

The richest and most politically complex regions in Italy in the earliest middle ages were the Byzantine sections of the peninsula, thanks to their links with the most coherent early medieval state, the Byzantine empire. This comparative study of the histories of Rome, Ravenna, and Venice examines their common Byzantine past, since all three escaped incorporation into the Lombard kingdom in the late 7th and early 8th centuries. By 750, however, Rome and Ravenna's political links with the Byzantine Empire had been irrevocably severed. Thus, did these cities remain socially and culturally heirs of Byzantium? How did their political structures, social organisation, material culture, and identities change? Did they become part of the Western political and ideological framework of Italy? This stusy identifies and analyses the ways in which each of these cities preserved the structures of the Late Antique social and cultural world; or in which they adapted each and every element available to them to their own needs, at various times and in various ways, to create a new identity based partly on their Roman heritage and partly on their growing integration with the rest of medieval Italy. It tells a story which encompasses the main contemporary narratives, documentary evidence, recent archaeological discoveries, and discussions on art history; it follows the markers of status and identity through titles, names, ethnic groups, liturgy and ritual, foundation myths, representations, symbols, and topographies of power to shed light on a relatively little known area of early medieval Italian history.