Ravenna and the Traditions of Late Antique and Early Byzantine Craftsmanship : Labour, Culture, and the Economy

Millennium transcends boundaries – between epochs and regions, and between disciplines. Like the journal Millennium-Jahrbuch, the Millennium-Studien pursues an international, interdisciplinary approach that cuts across historical eras. The editorial and the advisory board represent a broad spectrum of disciplines.

In the last twenty years scholarship on late antique and early medieval Ravenna has resulted in a certain number of publications mainly focused on the fields of architecture, mosaics and archaeology. On the contrary, much less attention has been paid on labour – both manual and intellectual – as well as the structure of production and objects derived from manufacturing activities, despite the fact that Ravenna is the place which preserves the highest number of historical evidence among all centres of the late Roman Mediterranean. Its cultural heritage is vast and composite, ranging from papyri to inscriptions, from ivories to marbles, as well as luxury objects, pottery, and coins. Starting from concrete typologies of hand-manufactured goods existing in the Ravennate milieu, the book aims at exploring the multifaceted traditions of late antique and early Byzantine handicraft from the fourth to the eighth century AD. Its perspective is to pay attention more on patronage, social taste, acculturation, workers and the economic industry of production which supported the demand, circulation and distribution of artefacts, than on the artistic evaluation of the objects themselves.

"The individual contributions [...] represent, in my view, the start of a new
era in Ravenna studies. [...] It is my wish that future conferences and
publications will continue to go in the same direction as Cosentino’s ‘Ravenna and
the Traditions of Late Antique and Early Byzantine Craftsmanship’." Zuzana Frantová in: Gnomon, 2022/4