Through selected examinations of the art produced under the Angevin, Orsini, and Tocco families,

Case Studies on Agency and Identity in the Art and Architecture of the Late Medieval Morea, Epirus, and Kingdom of Naples addresses how the political connections and geographic proximity of those regions shaped the art and material culture of Late Byzantine Greece and Gothic southern Italy. The impact of the Angevins and their subjects from the Regno on the art, architecture, and material culture of Late Byzantine and Frankish Greece are addressed within this discussion. This study will also illuminate how Byzantine culture continued to influence late medieval and early Renaissance Italy, as well as indicating how the Angevin trade routes and political ties facilitated the movement of artistic ideas between Byzantium and the Italian peninsula. The inclusion of the Angevins into the discussion of Byzantine-Italian artistic connections further explains some gaps in the study of Tuscan and Byzantine artistic exchanges, since the Regno had strong ties with several Tuscan city states. These cultural interchanges also hold broader implications for the understanding of artistic developments within the Mediterranean after the fall of Byzantium in 1453, as well as encouraging additional research on how individual city states and kingdoms influenced Byzantium during its final centuries.

This thesis examines the destroyed thirteenth-century monastery of Lykousada, located at Loxada, in Thessaly and founded by the nun Hypomone. A surviving chrysobull issued by Andronikos II in 1289 mentions Hypomone exclusively in terms of her monastic foundation. An analysis of the lands belonging to the monastery place Lykousada within thirteenth- and fourteenth-century religious, cultural, and ethnic networks of the region. Lykousada presents the only example of a Byzantine monastery founded by a Vlach. By focusing on the architectural commissions and properties of this elite nun, my study investigates the material culture left by the transhumant group. I examine the repetition of thirteenth-century architectural models from Epiros to Thessaly to uncover features of Hypomone’s monastery. A study of Vlachs— encapsulated in the story of this elite nun—demonstrates their indispensable role in Thessaly. The medieval roads that connect Hypomone’s estates indicate the boundaries of her influence and power, and subsequently that of her Vlach ancestors.

The Mesa or Inner Mani lies at the southernmost point of the Mani peninsula of Greece. In this region, stone structures, medieval and modern, domestic and ecclesiastical, are barely distinguishable from their rocky surroundings. Stone, quarried in this region from antiquity through the Byzantine period, was used both as building material and as carved ornamentation for churches and homes. When carved for use in a church, stone held particular importance for the families and communities that banded together to support the construction. This symbolic value can be seen in its reuse, over generations, in local churches. While many buildings incorporate the remains of decorative sculpture to enliven wall surfaces, one church in the region, St. John in Keria, which incorporates an unusually large number of ancient and medieval dressed stone and carved reliefs, forms the basis of this thesis.

The thirteenth-century church of St. John is one of four churches in the modern village of Keria. Sculpted reliefs from earlier buildings, both ancient and medieval, are immured on the west, south and north walls of the church. Columns, capitals and carved relief sculpture are also in second use inside the church. Like the stonework, the monumental decoration also belongs to several phases of the building’s history. In this thesis, I examine the immured sculpture and the monumental decoration of St. John in Keria as well as the alterations to the fabric of the church in the centuries since it was built. In exploring not only the life of the building itself, but also the lives of the individual stone carvings before their incorporation onto the walls of St. John, I consider the community’s sustained relationship with their past, from the thirteenth century to present day.

The year 1204 witnessed the cataclysmic fall of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, to western crusaders. Following the exodus of many from the city, the Laskarid dynasty rose to power, established their capital at Nicaea (modern Iznik), and ruled until 1258. Their realm straddled Thrace and the eastern Aegean Sea to the western Anatolian coast and its river valleys. The dynasty consisted of four emperors: Theodore I Laskaris (r. 1204-1222); his son-in-law, John III Doukas Vatatzes (r. 1222-1254); John III's son, Theodore II Doukas Laskaris (r. 1254-1258); and Theodore II's son, John IV Laskaris (r. 1258-1261). In 1261, Michael VIII Palaiologos, co-emperor and regent for John IV, usurped the throne, recaptured Constantinople, and inaugurated the last great Byzantine dynasty, the Palaiologoi. Laskarid art, architecture and material culture reflect the adaptations and transformations resulting from traumatic urban displacement, diaspora and a period of exile. A thematic, comparative study focusing on urban environments, key monuments, and material culture through the lens of exile positions my dissertation to fully illuminate the Laskarid realm's singular transition from Constantinople's hinterland to Byzantium's heartland. Laskarid architecture and material culture act as the fulcrum between loss and reclamation, between a connection to a common Constantinopolitan past and an exiled present. The Laskarids also provide the logical cultural and artistic link between the Komnenian dynasty that ruled preceding the fall of Constantinople (1081-1185) and the Palaiologan dynasty that flowered after its recovery (1261-1453). The extent to which the art, architecture and material culture of the Laskarids is self-conscious of its Byzantine past, subject to contemporary circumstances, and the extent to which the Laskarid dynasty fostered the efflorescence of Palaiologan art in Constantinople after 1261 are questions this dissertation aims to answer.