CHAPTERS ON MEDIAEVAL AND RENAISSANCE VISITORS TO GREEK LANDS

Description

A FEW words in regard to the contents of this little book are necessary. Its author, at the time of his death on November 23, 1944, had in preparationan extensive work on the mediaeval history and monuments of Athens, in themanifold sources for which, even after the invaluable studies of Laborde andmore recent scholars, he still found a fresh harvest. His researches, carried onprincipally in the libraries and archives of Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome,were interrupted in 1939 by the European war, and their continuation at theHarvard College Library was somewhat later terminated by his gradually failinghealth. His work, in spite of its long duration, can scarcely be said to have passedbeyond the stage of collecting sources; their synthesis and discussion he had ofcourse postponed until they should have been adequately assembled. He had,however, although Athens remained the center of his interest, almost completeda few sections, forming to a certain extent byways leading from the main path,and he had also prepared the texts of various sources in a form suitable for publication.This material is collected here in the hope that, as he would have desired,it mzy prove of service to future investigators in the same field. His private noteshave supplied a basis for the main part of the slight requisite editing, which haschiefly consisted in the completion or addition of footnotes. A lecture on TurkishAthens, though somewhat elementary and delivered many years ago, has beenincluded as a compendium of its subject that may be found convenient. The accountsof Athens in Chapter I1 have been hitherto unpublished, or publishedonly in rare or not easily accessible texts, and therefore, with a few additions, arebrought together here, even if not annotated or fully collated. I t cannot be toostrongly emphasized that no one would have insisted more zealously than thewriter upon the essentially incomplete condition of the material as a whole - acondition indeed that accounts for the absence or the inequalities in presentationof some important sources among those given below.He would earnestly have desired to express his sincere gratitude to the BibliothcqueNationale in Paris, to the Archivio di Stato and the Biblioteca Marcianain Venice, the Biblioteca Laurenziana and the Archivio di Stato in Florence,the Biblioteca Vaticana, and the Harvard College Library for the many courtesiesthat he received from them in the course of his researches. That once again hiswork should have been given a place among the Gennadeion Monographs is anhonor of which he would have been deeply appreciative.