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Hellenism during the Early Period of the Tourkokratia (1453-1600) : A Historical Survey with Particular References to the Development of Post-Byzantine Art

Articles

• Πατρινέλης, Χρίστος Γ.
• ΠΑΤΡΙΝΕΛΗΣ, Xρίστος Γ.

The Turkish conquest of the Greek lands in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, though detrimental in allother respects, had at least one beneficial effect: it reunited the Greek world, which since 1204 had been dismembered into about a dozen minor Frankish andGreek states. Thus the imminent danger of a definitesplit or even dissolution of medieval Hellenism wasaverted. Besides, the Orthodox Church, the Greek language, and the common cultural tradition counterbalanced centrifugal tendencies. The Venetian held Greekterritories (Crete, Ionian Islands etc.) as well as theGreek community in Venice served as channels transmitting cultural influences from Renaissance Italy to theGreek East. Thus the process of further "orientalization" of the Greek world was retarded and finally reversed.As to the post-Byzantine art, two events, overlooked sofar, affected its development: 1) The confiscation ofthe ecclesiastical and monastic property by the Turkishauthorities in 1568, and its redemption by the churchesand monasteries; 2) the rapid devaluation of the Turkishcurrency after 1586. The economic crisis caused by theseevents put an end to great programs of building, restoring, and decorating churches and monastic buildings,and to the surprising artistic activity which had beenmanifest on Mt. Athos, Meteora, and in other parts ofcontinental Greece in the preceding sixty years.

• History and Archaeology
• Arts

• Ιστορία

• http://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/deltion/article/view/4679
• http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/dchae.1055