Constantinople

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CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE LATINS The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II, 1282-1328

1972Remainder mark to bottom of textblock. Minor shelfwear. DJ has creasing along top edge now in plastic sleeve. ; Harvard Historical Studies, V. 88; 390 pages; At the age of twenty-two, Andronicus II became sole ruler of Byzantium. His father, Michael VIII, had been a dashing figure--a good soldier, brilliant diplomat, and the liberator of Constantinople from its fifty-seven-year Latin occupation. By contrast Andronicus seemed colorless and ineffectual. His problems were immense--partly as a result of his father's policies--and his reign proved to be a series of frustrations and disasters. For forty-six years he fought to preserve the empire against constant encroachments. When he was finally deposed in 1328 by his grandson and co-emperor, Andronicus III, almost all of Asia Minor had been lost to the Turks, Westerners had taken over the defense of the Aegean, and the Catalan army he had invited to help him fight the Turks remained to fight the emperor. In this penetrating account of Andronicus' foreign policy, Angeliki E. Laiou focuses on Byzantium's relations with the Latin West, the far-reaching domestic implications of the hostility of western Europe, and the critical decision that faced Andronicus: whether to follow his father's lead and allow Byzantium to become a European state or to keep it an Eastern, orthodox power. The author, who argues that foreign policy cannot be understood without examining the domestic factors that influence, indeed create, it, devotes a large part of her study to domestic developments in Byzantium during Andronicus' reign-the decline of the power of the central government; the spread of semi-independent regional authorities; the state of finances, of the army, of the church. She concludes that, contrary to common opinion, Andronicus II sincerely desired the union of the Greek and Latin churches, when, in the last years of his reign, he realized that the political situation made such a union necessary. Maintaining also that the conquest of Asia Minor by the Turks was not a foregone conclusion when Andronicus II came to the throne, she discusses at length the errors of policy and the manifold circumstances which combined to precipitate that loss.

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CONSTANTINOPLEABAA

Constantinople

1890rif. 1031341890. PHOTOCHROM ZURICH. Constantinople. Zrich: Photochrom Zrich circa 1890. Oblong folio 16 by 12 inches 30 photochrom images each measuring approximately 9 by 6-1/2 inches and mounted on heavy cardstock; original red velvet blue silk gilt-lettered title centerpiece on front cover brass cornerpieces. $4500.Rare photographic album of Constantinople circa 1890 by the renowned studio of Photochrom Zrich with 30 beautiful mounted vintage photochrom color prints offering exceptional views of majestic mosques palaces and plazas as well as the people of this great city in magnificent velvet binding with brass furniture.This splendid souvenir album of Constantinople contains exquisite color photographic prints of images taken at the turn of the 20th century produced by the revolutionary photochrom process. Photochrom also called the Ac process is ""a very successful form of color photolithography developed in the late 19th century by the Swiss firm of Orell Fssli and used mainly for topographical views; photochroms have almost the appearance of color photographs but through a glass will show a delicate ink pattern which was achieved by a combination of photographic and manual work on grained i.e. lithographic stones being a forerunner therefore of modern screenless offset lithography"" Gascoigne 206. In this process black and white photographic negatives were directly transferred onto lithographic printing plates to produce color prints. These photographs are a high point in late 19th-century photography when albums such as these captivated a world newly spellbound ""by photography's capacity to 'take them there' and bring them directly in contact with the long ago and far away"" Parr & Badger I:18. Each image captioned with a four-digit number followed by ""P.Z."" for Photochrom Zrich and then the title of the scene in French. A few instances of marginal spotting to mounts; photochrom prints clean and fine with vivid colors. Binding splendid. An about-fine copy of this lovely album. unknown books