Cultures in Motion: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods (Byzantia et Slavica Cracoviensia)

This volume offers a collection of thirteen studies on the subject of intercultural contact and exchange in the medieval and early modern periods. The aim of the authors was to approach this phenomenon as broadly as possible, and the resulting volume is, therefore, a fusion of different approaches to a variety of historical sources and texts. Geographical areas that are often studied separately - including the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Latin West and Central Europe (especially Poland, Germany and Hungary) - are here presented together in order to allow for cross-period and cross-regional comparisons. The chronological scope is also unusually broad, beginning with Late Antiquity and encompassing both the Renaissance and its immediate aftermath. Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 Introduction 10 Section I: NEW CONTEXTS FOR CLASSICAL PAGAN CULTURE 24 Anna Izdebska (Warsaw), The Attitudes of Medieval Arabic Intellectuals towards Pythagorean Philosophy: different approaches and ways of influence 26 Klementyna Aura Glińska (Paris), Transcribing ‘Elegiac Comedies’: transformation of Greek and Latin theatrical traditions in twelfth- and thirteenth-century poetry 46 Elżbieta Chrulska (Toruń), Between Distance and Identifi cation: reception of the ancient tradition in the Protestant religious poetry, the case of Wrocław, Gdańsk and Toruń in the context of Northern Humanism 72 Section II: NEW CONTEXTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN PAST 88 Christian Sahner (Princeton), Old Martyrs, New Martyrs and the Coming of Islam: writing hagiography after the conquests 90 Olga Grinchenko (Oxford), Slavonic Kontakaria and Their Byzantine Counterparts: adapting a liturgical tradition 114 Lilly Stammler (Oxford-Sofi a), Old Traditions and New Models: travelling monks in the late Byzantine hagiography from the Balkans 132 Barbara Grondkowska (Lublin), The Authority of the Church Fathers in Sixteenth-Century Polish Sermons: Jakub Wujek, Grzegorz of Żarnowiec and their postils 156 Section III: INTELLECTUAL INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN CULTURES 184 Adam Izdebski (Cracow), Cultural Contacts between the Superpowers of Late Antiquity: the Syriac School of Nisibis and the transmission of Greek educational experience to the Persian Empire 186 Anna Horeczy (Warsaw), An Italian Intermediary in the Transmission of the Ancient Classical Traditions to Renaissance Poland: Leonardo Bruni and the Humanism in Cracow 206 Mykhaylo Yakubovych (Ostroh), Jan Latosz (1539–1608) and His Natural Philosophy: reception of Arabic science in early modern Poland 236 Piotr Chmiel (Warsaw), You Are Christians without a light from Heaven. A Pluriconfessional Encounter: an image of Georgians according to the seventeenth-century Theatine missionaries’ writings 256 Section IV: INTERCULTURAL CONTACTS AND DOMESTIC AGENDAS 274 Damian Jasiński (Toruń), Stories from Afar and a Local Star: the Eastern imagery in the Dialogues by Sulpicius Severus and his view on the Church in Gaul 276 Karolina Mroziewicz (Warsaw), ‛When the Turk Roamed around Belgrade’: the Ottomans’ advent to the Hungarian borderlands in the pre-Mohács Flugschriften 290