Teaching Virtues: The Didactic Project of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15210%2F19%3A73598250" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15210/19:73598250 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://obd.upol.cz/id_publ/333178136" target="_blank" >https://obd.upol.cz/id_publ/333178136</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Teaching Virtues: The Didactic Project of Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos

Original language description

In contrast to the western intellectual tradition where the systematization of virtues in moral treatises often triggered political and constitutional debates, the Byzantines approached virtues mainly from a didactic perspective which involved the imitation of exemplary models. By and large, it appears that in Byzantium, authors were more preoccupied about how virtues could be instilled into others rather than about how virtues underpinned broader political or philosophical refl ection. This article looks at three diff erent texts written in the early fi fteenth century by the emperor and rhetorician Manuel II Palaiologos: Foundations of an Imperial Education (c. 1406), Seven Ethico-Political Orations (c. 1410), and the still unedited Confession to his Spiritual Fathers, David and Damian (c. 1416). I explore the development of Manuel’s approach to the topic of rulers’ virtues. From the Foundations to the Confession his idea of ethical behavior underwent several changes as he constantly added new elements and shifted his perspectives or frameworks of reference. The study attempts to answer several questions: What categories of virtues did the emperor approach? How did the emphasis on certain virtues change and what caused this shift? And how did the emperor achieve his didactic intention? In answering these questions I look at the theoretical grounding of virtues on the one hand, and at the strategies of achieving didactic authority through the modulations of the authorial voice, on the other hand. I argue that the three texts under investigation constitute interrelated sections in a broad didactic project which the emperor prepared for his son and future emperor, John VIII.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60204 - General literature studies

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Byzantinoslavica-Revue Internationale des Etudes Byzantines

ISSN

0007-7712

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

2019

Issue of the periodical within the volume

76

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

21

Pages from-to

24-44

UT code for WoS article

000470666600002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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