Byzantine Heritage of Southern Italy, Museo Castromediano, Lecce, September 20–22, 2024

This conference has the specific objective of presenting the results of our project on “The Byzantine Heritage of Southern Italy. Settlement, economy and resilience in changing territorial landscape contexts” financed by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. The project was born out of the idea that some 500 years or so of the history of Southern Italy have been largely forgotten by academics and the public alike, for reasons that will be explained. Despite not having received the attention it deserves, such a long period of Byzantine rule has had a lasting effect on the social and cultural make-up of the people and the land. This may help to explain the traditional division between the north and the south of the country. The project’s aims were, thus, to catalogue and analyse both material and immaterial remains of Byzantine date, explore forms and degrees of continuity, and disseminate the results both academically and to the general public. A series of conference papers by invited academics will help to put the results of the project into context.