Biography

Florin Leonte (PhD, Central European University, 2012) taught Byzantine literature and language as a College Fellow in the Department of the Classics, Harvard University.  He has received several grants and fellowships in Vienna, Oxford, Athens, and Dumbarton Oaks. He is interested in the connections between medieval rhetoric, ideologies, and society; his focus is on the interactions between scholars, ecclesiastics, and high ranking state officials in fourteenth and fifteenth century Byzantium. The author of several studies on Byzantine letters and letter collections, his next book addresses the construction of a particular idea of imperial authority in the rhetorical texts of a late Byzantine emperor.

Project

The project concerns friendship within the scholarly networks of Byzantine and Italian literati (14^th-15^th centuries). The idea(s) of friendship that underpinned the exchanges of texts and ideas lead to a repositioning of Byzantium in the wider area of the Mediterranean and produce a better understanding of its long-lasting legacy.