The DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft)-funded project Approaching Byzantium in Ottoman Istanbul – The Reception of the Byzantine Heritage of Constantinople by Scholars from the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century, led by Nicholas Melvani, is carried out at the Leibniz ScienceCampus – Byzantium between Orient and Occident at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

“The study of Byzantium was inaugurated within the context of humanism, after the end of the Byzantine Empire. However, it is unclear what the concept of Byzantium meant during the 16th century, since research in Byzantine history and culture was usually a subsidiary means to investigate other fields of knowledge, such as classical antiquity, Orthodox Christianity, and the geographical space of the Ottoman Empire. The main goal of the proposed project is to study the direct encounter of humanists from the Holy Roman Empire with the capital of the Byzantine Empire itself as an effective way to understand how the idea of Byzantium developed and affected humanist thought; this will reveal crucial links in the relations between East and West. In order to analyze how visiting the city of Constantinople affected the reception of Byzantium by humanists from the Holy Roman Empire, diverse types of evidence, which reflect the ways visitors experienced the city, will be examined.” (Source)

The ACDH acts as a cooperation partner via OpenAtlas, a database software that enables the collection, processing, and management of research data and serves as the basis for the project’s web application.