Alterum Byzantium



Alterum Byzantium

open access | peer reviewed

Aims & Scope

The series hosts monographs and collections devoted to the history and literature in Byzantine world as well as to its surviving forms and expressions in Modern Times through a traditional, close analysis of primary sources (in Greek and other languages of the Christian East), but sensitive to current research issues and open to innovative methodological approaches.

Each volume of the series focuses on a specific Byzantine or post-Byzantine literary work or a coherent corpus of texts, which are deemed to significantly contribute to our knowledge of Byzantine world, and in particular (but not only) religiosity and spirituality. The range of the examined sources includes, but is not limited to, writings belonging to ascetic and monastic literature, homiletics, hagiography and hymnography, polemics and controversial literature, theology, dogmatics, and so on.

Primary sources are explored through different kinds of contributions. Priority is given to critical editions and/or translations of edited works into modern languages, which are still too scanty in Byzantine studies. Scholars are especially encouraged to submit translations of significant works, whose content remains hardly accessible. Other appreciated contributions are: in-depth and extensive analysis of manuscript traditions of the chosen works, held up the necessary côté of palaeographical and codicological assessment of the examined witnesses, not excluding iconographic and historical-artistic testimonies, when applicable; systematic commentaries on already edited sources, whose text should be also included; comparative study of social, institutional, cultural, intellectual, and political contexts and implications of the sources.

Alterum Byzantium aims at filling a gap in the international editorial panorama by providing a specialized series dedicated (though not exclusively) to Byzantine religious culture, which finds some similar parallels in series on (Western) Middle Ages. Its specificity, however, lies on the centrality given to primary sources and on its ambition to promote solid research tools for a better understanding of a specific but preponderant part of Byzantine literary production.

The series is open to contributions in the following languages: French, English, Italian, German. 


e-ISSN 9191-0005 | Language en, fr, gr, it |

Copyright This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Latest published volume

Latest journal publication cover
  • Byzantium and its Neighbours
  • Religious Self and Otherness in Dialogue
  • Luisa Andriollo, Luigi D'Amelia
  • Forthcoming

  • The volume is partly inspired by the papers presented during the thematic session Byzantium and its Neighbours: Religious Self and Otherness in Dialogue at the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies held in Venice/Padua in August 2022. Its primary focus lies in Byzantine polemics against religious others, especially Muslims, Jews, Armenians and Latins. The contributions cover a wide range of themes, including the repertoire of topoi and arguments developed by Byzantine polemicists against various opponents, the linguistic and rhetorical strategies employed in the works analysed, and questions of authorship and audience. The volume helps to elucidate aspects of the political and socio-cultural context in which this significant body of Byzantine literature was produced or received, while at the same time opening up new ways of approaching this typology of sources.





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