Speaker
Description
Niketas Choniates’ De Signis is an account of the acts of vandalism performed by Western armies in Constantinople in 1204, during the 4th Crusade. The De Signis is a precious and captivating text that depicts a tremendous political, economic and cultural crisis from the peculiar point of view of a sophisticated intellectual directly involved in the events described. By employing a hybrid methodology (semiotic, literary and philological means of inquiry will all be necessary), I intend to analyze the De Signis focusing on textual and linguistic markers of identity.
Confronted with a radical loss of meaning, Niketas is forced to cope with the indiscriminate destruction of the material symbols of his own culture, namely the rich statues, icons and relics that adorned Constantinople. For Niketas, writing this text is not simply a way to remember what was lost. It is a way to reassert his values as an intellectual, as a Roman and as a Greek. It is also a way to try and elaborate conceptually the behavior of the invaders – the “Franks” and the Venetians – which appeared basically unintelligible to a Byzantine scholar like Niketas. Through its complex, somewhat opaque symbology, the De Signis is an ornate yet personal attempt to make sense of a crisis through a rhetorical tool rarely used for this purpose: the ekphrasis. Indeed, Niketas descriptions are not mere pictures from the antique world; they are evocative literary artifacts imbued with ideological connotations.
I will put the De Signis under the microscope, using it as a sort of laboratory specimen. By observing it closely, I will outline general considerations about cognitive and emotional reactions to historical upheavals, while contributing to the rediscovering of a true gem of the literature of crisis.
| Keywords | crises, Constantinople, Niketas Choniates, Byzantine history, semiotics, De Signis, literature |
|---|---|
| lorenzo.incardona@gmail.com |