La British School at Rome offre un ciclo di seminari di ricerca dedicati alle testimonianze culturali e storico-artistiche dell’eredità bizantina in Italia. Le conferenze sono rivolte a un pubblico con competenze anche non specialistiche. L’iniziativa è coordinata da Daniele Bianconi (Sapienza Università di Roma), Edoardo Crisci (Università degli studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale), Paola Degni (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia), Marilena Maniaci (Università degli studi di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale), Raphaële Mouren (The British School at Rome).

During the fifth century, Rome’s political influence at times overshadowed Ravenna’s role as the ‘capital’ of the West. Nevertheless, the question arises of whether, and to what extent, the establishment of an administrative apparatus serving the court in the Adriatic city—beginning in the age of Honorius—shaped its urban history in the fifth and sixth centuries. The lecture will therefore explore the presence of the imperial bureaucracy in Ravenna and its role in shaping both its socio-economic structure and its image as an imperial city between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

Salvatore Cosentino is a professor of Byzantine Civilization at the University of Bologna. His main research interests focus on the social and economic history of Byzantine Italy, as well as the Mediterranean island world from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. His publications include Prosopografia dell’Italia bizantina (2 voll., 1996-2000; 3 vol., 2024, with Elena Gritti); Storia dell’Italia bizantina da Giustiniano ai Normanni (2008); Ravenna and the Traditions of Late Antique and Early Byzantine Craftsmanship: Labour, Culture, and the Economy (ed., Berlin 2020); A Companion to Byzantine Italy (ed., Leiden 2021). He is currently preparing a monograph on the history of Byzantine Sardinia.

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