The Making of Medieval Sardinia
We are pleased to announce the publication of The Making of Medieval Sardinia, edited by Alex Metcalfe, Hervin Fernández-Aceves and Marco Muresu (Leiden–Boston: Brill). 520 pages with 3 maps and 66 colour illustrations. Available in hardback and eBook. Further details are available here.
This new volume combines classic and revisionist essays to explore the historiography of Sardinia’s exceptional transition from an island of the Byzantine empire to the rise of its own autonomous rulers, the iudikes, by the 1000s. In addition to Sardinia’s contacts with the Byzantines, Muslim North Africa and Spain, Lombard Italy, Genoa, Pisa, and the papacy, recent and older evidence is analysed through Latin, Greek and Arabic sources, vernacular charters and cartularies in addition to the testimony of coinage, seals, onomastics and epigraphy. Essays are also devoted to Sardinia’s early medieval churches, its fine arts, architecture and archaeology. The result is an important new critique of state formation at the margins of Byzantium, Islam, and the Latin West with the creation of lasting cultural, political and linguistic frontiers in the western Mediterranean.
We hope that the volume will be of interests to both specialists and to a wider range of scholars alike.
The Introduction, index and bibliography are available on Google books.
These are some of the images reproduced in our book:
Seal of Salusio, archon
San Giovanni di Sinis (Cabras, Oristano)
Charter fragment written in Sardinian using Greek characters (twelfth century)
Sant’Elia de Tatinnu. Nuxis (Carbonia-Iglesias)
Peacock-shaped water-pourer.
Massacre of the Innocents and Flight into Egypt. Sant’Andrea Priu, ‘Tomba del Capo’. Bonorva (Sassari)
Coins with retrograde ‘S’: solidi, Constantine IV (668– 85)
Counter-façade, Romanesque church of San Saturnino (Cagliari)
Heartshaped, silver-gilt locket inlaid with niello from Santa Maria Navarrese
Santa Maria del Regno, façade. Ardara (Sassari)
Table of Contents:
The Making of Medieval Sardinia. A Historiographical Introduction: 1 – Alex Metcalfe, Hervin Fernández- Aceves and Marco Muresu
Discovery, Invention, and Supposition. Three Case Studies from Medieval Sardinia: 17 – Hervin Fernández- Aceves, Alex Metcalfe and Marco Muresu
Ancient Historical Contexts. Phoenicians, Carthage, Rome and the Barbaricini: 42 – Attilio Mastino
Saints, Cults, Sanctuaries, and Monasteries: 88 – Rossana Martorelli
Early Muslim Raids on Byzantine Sardinia: 126 – Alex Metcalfe
Byzantine Administrative Influence in Medieval Sardinia: 160 – Michele Orrù
The Coinage of Byzantine Sardinia: 170 – Marco Muresu
The Iudex Sardiniae and the Archon Sardanias between the Sixth and Eleventh Century: 204 – Luciano Gallinari
Muslim Contacts with Sardinia. From Fatimid Ifrīqiya to Mujāhid of Dénia: 240 – Alex Metcalfe
The Role of the Church in the Rise of the Sardinian Giudicati: 268 – Corrado Zedda
Sociolinguistic Dynamics and Dynastic Names in Byzantine and Early Medieval Sardinia: 293 – Giulio Paulis
The Earliest Charter Sources from Medieval Sardinia: 314 – Giovanni Strinna
Language and Vernacular Writing in Medieval Sardinia: 343 – Maurizio Virdis
Visual Arts in Early Medieval Sardinia Painting, Sculpture and Metalwork: 358 – Alberto Virdis
Aspects of Medieval Architecture in Sardinia in the Eleventh and Twelfth Century: 391 – Andrea Pala
Bibliography: 417
Index: 477
Happy reading!