Alexios G. C. Savvides, The Beginnings and Foundation of Byzantine Studies, is the first volume of a two-volume study that examines the development of Byzantine studies from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. The monograph is an expanded version of a detailed essay published in the journal Mésogeios (9–10 2000, 127–80). Due to the fact that the Anglophone representatives of Byzantine studies in recent years heavily relied on English and other Western language translations of the original Byzantine sources, Savvides states that they would greatly benefit from English translations of works in Greek (pp. 47–48). In this volume, the author organizes his subject into four large chapters, covering the evolution of Byzantine studies until the nineteenth century. These chapters are preceded by a long foreword and introductory remarks (pp. 43–60). At the end of the volume, summaries in both French and Greek are provided, as well as an extensive bibliographic appendix, which comprises more than half of the book.The first part focuses on the contribution of the Byzantine scholars who sought refuge in several countries of Western Europe shortly before and after 1453, up to Hieronymus Wolf and his successors (pp. 61–78). According to Savvides, the scholars of the diaspora after 1453 were the most “effective promoters” of the revival of Hellenic studies, and it was in fact from the Renaissance period onwards that the Western European peoples gradually began to discover the wealth and high quality of medieval Hellenism (p. 62). Savvides regards the contribution of Western scholars such as Hieronymus Wolf, Johannes Leunclavius, David Hoeschel, Wilhelm Holzmann, Denis Pétau (Dionysius Petavius), and others as equally important.In the second part, the author discusses the interest in Byzantium in seventeenth-century France. This chapter focuses on the case of Charles du Cange, who wrote the History of the Empire of Constantinople under the French emperors, and the Byzantine history is explained through double commentary. In addition, du Cange’s pioneering work distinguished medieval Latin and Greek from their earlier classical forms, marking the beginning of the study of the historical development of languages (pp. 88–92).In the third part, Savvides deals with four scholars of Byzantium in France: Bernard de Montfaucon, Anselmo Banduri, Michel Le Quien, and Giovanni Domenico Mansi (pp. 95–97). On the other hand, Savvides highlights the negative stance of certain representatives of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment towards Byzantium, such as Charles de Montesquieu, François Voltaire, and Edward Gibbon (p. 101). At the same time, he underlines the fact that during this period, we can detect the beginning of certain famous series of Byzantine historical text editions, such asCorpus Parisinum, Corpus Bonnensis, Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, Les Belles Lettres, Patrologia Graeca cursus completus,and Patrologia Latina cursus completus, which contributed considerably to the evolution of Byzantine studies (pp. 103–6).The fourth chapter focuses on a number of historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (p. 110). Notably, one such historian is Slovenian philologist and linguist at Vienna University, Franz Xaver von Miklosich, and his monumental edition of the Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana et edita. Savvides underlines the importance of this edition since it is a collection of eleventh- to fifteenth-century documents of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patmian monastery of Saint John, which provide crucial information about the economic and social structures of the period (p. 113). He also mentions the cases of George Finlay, Eduard de Muralt, Ferdinand Gregorovius, Karl Hopf, Gustav Hertzberg, Gustave Schlumberger, Karl Krumbacher, John Bagnell Bury, and Theodor Christian Matthias Mommsen, who played a significant role in the development of Byzantine studies.The largest part of this monograph is occupied by the bibliographical appendix (pp. 137–257). In it, Savvides demonstrates the most influential Byzantine studies and refers to previous bibliographical reviews such as those of Alexander Kazhdan, George Ostrogorsky, Alexander Vassiliev, Johannes Carayannopoulos, Warren Treadgold, Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Alexios Savvides–Benjamin Hendrickx, Dionysios Zakythinos, Nikolaos Tomadakes, Apostolos Vakalopoulos, and Apostolos Karpozelos(p. 142).Savvides has produced an informative study that fills a gap in the current literature. The book is addressed not only to specialists but also to the general public, offering an integrated view of various sources, along with critical comments on the bibliography. Hopefully, in a revised version, the author will add a complete numbered index of the scholars discussed in the book in order to facilitate the reader in finding the large number of names. Furthermore, he does not provide the Greek books and articles in Greek; instead, some of the studies are recorded in Latin characters and others in English translation. It would be preferable for the Greek studies to be written in the Greek language.
George Terezakis (Fri,) studied this question.