#ottoman-history

#ottoman-history

Few figures in Byzantine military history have been so harshly condemned in the aftermath of a single defeat as Josef Trachaneiotes, Roussel of Bailleul, and Andronikos Doukas. According to the dominant narrative, the first two disobeyed their emperor by failing to return and support him at a critical moment, while the third allegedly abandoned Romanos on the battlefield, ordering a withdrawal precisely when his intervention was needed to prevent the encirclement and collapse of the imperial line.

An intact mosaic from Late Antiquity discovered during restoration of a historic municipal building in Istanbul is now a floor again, covered in plexiglass and welcoming visitors to the new Zeytinburnu Mosaic Museum. Visitors of Turkey's newest museum move across elevated glass walkways, suspended right above the original floors themselves. The mosaics are not relocated fragments mounted on walls, but surfaces that remain exactly where they were first laid, preserving their context for all to see.

The Nizaris had survived in part because of their position on a warring frontier. They had been irritating but, as a buffer state against the Franks, they fulfilled a useful function for their much bigger Sunni neighbours. Now even that usefulness was gone. As the Franks were forced back to their last enclaves on the coast, the Assassins looked increasingly anomalous - a Shi'ite nuisance in the midst of victorious Sunni orthodoxy.

This project will focus on the Camaldolese hermits' proposal for achieving what they considered to be the most crucial task in the repair of the church, eliminating Islam and all Muslims. Our study will begin with an examination of the recipient of the Libellus, Giovanni de' Medici, who would become Pope Leo X. Next will be an exploration into the backgrounds of Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Querini,