Alberto Bardi（艾博）was invited to lecture at the International Summer Course on Cultural Astronomies, organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw) in association with the Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia (Lisbon) and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (Swansea), intended for graduate students, university faculty, researchers, and independent scholars. The course was sponsored by PERIPHERIES–Minority Cultures on the Periphery of Science: The Jews and the Circulation of Scientific Goods (funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No.847639).
Alberto Bardi lectured on cultural astronomy in Byzantium. Abstract:
Cultural astronomy in Byzantium and its aftermath (thirteenth-seventeenth centuries)
How did Byzantine culture perceive and approach the celestial bodies and the heavens? What role did astronomy play in Byzantine culture between the 13th and 15th centuries? To what extent was the Byzantine astronomical culture influential after the fall of the Byzantine Empire (15th to 17th century)? In the 13th century, Byzantium saw a flourishing of astronomical studies. How should we explain such a phenomenon? Astronomical knowledge was not only inherited from the Hellenistic tradition; it was also a field of confrontation with the Arabic civilization, a neighbor of Byzantium, and a source of debates among Byzantine scholars. The relevance of astronomy in Byzantine culture is also evident in the controversies in which Byzantine expats engaged while in Italy after the fall of Constantinople. A notable episode in this regard was Bessarion vs. George of Trebizond over the translation of the Almagest. So, to what extent is modern astronomy indebted to Byzantine productions? Was astronomy blocked by Byzantine Orthodoxy, or was there space for discussion? Was Byzantium just a conduit for Greek ideas, then?
