The present study synthesiszes archaeological and historical evidence concerning Attica (Greece), the hinterland of Athens, in the Early and Middle Byzantine periods (4th-12th c.). Although the Byzantine monuments of Attica have been thoroughly studied, no coherent picture of how these relate to broader patterns of occupation and land usage has thus far been presented. In the main, the period under discussion is generally interpreted in three ways: Regarding Late Antiquity, research has often focused on the transition from paganism to Christianity, and to the characterisation of Attica as a ‘stronghold of paganism’. During the so-called ‘Dark-Ages’, Attica is most often presented as being ‘desolate’. Regarding the Middle Byzantine period, archaeological research is dominated by architectural and art-historical study of churches. The present study presents Attica within wider trends which took place in the Byzantine Empire, and which caused its transformation in terms of demography, settlement pattern, administration, road networks, economy, defense and ecclesiastical institutions. After a detailed catalogue and interpretation of all available archaeological material, Attica appears less ‘exceptional’ in Late Antiquity, less ‘desolate’ in the ‘Dark-Ages’, while in the Middle Byzantine period, emergence of a strong local elite matches the erection of monuments of high artistic quality.

This thesis investigates how we can better appreciate the Roman concept of culpa without incurring in a contemporary falsification of its original rationale. Using a revisited version of Quentin Skinner’s contextualism in light of Gadamer’s hermeneutics, it proposes a deep immersion into the uses of culpa by authors representing different forms of literary expression: Plautus (comedy), Catullus (neoteric poetry), Lucretius (philosophy), Cicero (rhetoric) and Ulpian (jurisprudence). This selection is justified not only by their diverse literary achievements, but also by the satisfactory state of preservation of their writtings. The aim of the thesis is neither to blend these disciplines into a unified narrative, nor to perform an evolutionary inquiry of the legal notion of culpa, an approach exhaustively pursued by great Romanists albeit based on limited data and much speculation. Instead, this thesis looks at specific authorial interventions to understand the concept as close to the original authors use as possible. This approach flows from the understanding that culpa was not used in Latin literature as an abstract notion, but was in fact explored in various contexts involving conflict and judgment.

This study considers the development and evolution of Byzantine diplomacy through a crucial and previously overlooked period of the empire’s history. Current scholarship has neglected the analysis of Byzantine diplomacy from 1204, when the capital of Constantinople was seized by the Fourth Crusade, to 1261, when the city was returned to Byzantine control. During these years the institutions of the Byzantine state were preserved at Nicaea, which continued the complex relationship between Greeks and Latins and adapted the tested methods of diplomacy to meet new challenges. Of central concern is the frequency of church-union negotiation, or disputatio, during the period in question. Attempts to heal the schism of the Eastern and Western Churches were a frequently used tool of Byzantine diplomacy even before 1204, but the sources, problems and implications surrounding this aspect of foreign relations, although taken up by those pursuing theological analysis, have been neglected by historians. The emperors in Nicaea repeatedly opened talks with the papacy to end the schism before 1261, most notably in 1234, a meeting which carried profound implications for Byzantine foreign policy. By placing the disputatio in the context of Byzantine-Latin relations after 1204, we gain a more complete understanding of Byzantine diplomacy.

This dissertation demonstrates that the presence of Latin basilissai, Catholic wives of the Byzantine despots of Morea, in Mystras between 1349, when the city became the seat of the Despotate, and 1460, when it was surrendered to the Turks, had an impact on the artistic and cultural production at court. These foreign women were agents of the ruling political and economic elites of Italian and Frankish courts, and expressed their agency by mediating their specific cultural and artistic traditions into the production of their adopted city. Art and cultural historical approaches, in which attention is focused on painted and sculpted details, inscriptions, archaeological remains, architectural design, and urban planning, are used to show that the Latin women were historical agents, whose presence can be detected in Mystras. A multidisciplinary analysis of case studies reveals cross-cultural motifs in the artistic production, demonstrating the relationship between pieces of evidence. The production of the workshops of Mystras expressed features that were, in some cases, responses to Constantinopolitan and Byzantine models, while, in others, autonomous and innovative, revealing complex cross-cultural references. Ultimately, this study shows that the particular cultural and artistic landscape of Mystras is indebted to exogenous cultures linked to these women.

The work collected together here examines the distinctive conceptual approaches taken by Renaissance architects, during the period c. 1480-1550, towards the designing of their buildings. It analyses the designs of a wide range of buildings from the period by architects including Raphael, Michelangelo and numerous others. The conclusion reached is that many of these architects adopted approaches based, ultimately, on ways of thinking (about art as well as architecture) that had surfaced in late fifteenth-century Florence; and that their approaches were not just similar in many key regards but also corresponded closely with theories of language and literary imitation being aired at around the same time. The essays also explore how certain differences in approach, especially between Raphael and Michelangelo, were directly paralleled by differences in literary theory. Also proposed is that the design methods formulated specifically by Raphael in the years before his death (1520) became the template for those followed by many subsequent ‘High Renaissance’ architects; and that the architectural term ‘order’, which was coined by Raphael before becoming commonplace in architectural theory, had its origins in literary theory. As for the design methods taken up by Michelangelo, it is argued that these were initially comparable to those followed by Raphael, but that they gradually diverged in a way that was very much in line with his conceptual thinking about sculpture and painting, until they became, at a fundamental theoretical level, incompatible with those of his later contemporaries.

L’étude du cycle de l’eau est d’une importance cruciale pour toutes les sociétés et plus particulièrement pour celles du pourtour méditerranéen qui souffrent à la fois de sécheresses en été et d’inondations dues à des événements de précipitations extrêmes survenant en automne et en hiver. La température est l’un des principaux facteurs qui gouvernent l’intensité maximale des précipitations via la relation de Clausius-Clapeyron (CC). Cette loi exprime la quantité maximale de vapeur d’eau que peut contenir l’atmosphère à une température donnée. À l’aide de simulations climatiques régionales et d’observations, nous avons montré que les relations température-précipitations extrêmes du bassin méditerranéen présentent une forme en crochet avec une augmentation des précipitations extrêmes proche de CC aux basses températures puis une augmentation moins forte (voire une diminution) aux hautes températures. Présents en grande quantité sur le pourtour méditerranéen, les aérosols absorbent et réfléchissent une partie du rayonnement, ce qui contribue à refroidir les basses couches de l’atmosphère. Par leur action sur la température de surface, les aérosols réduisent les précipitations. L’étude de simulations numériques montre également une modification de la relation température-précipitations par les aérosols (leur effet sur les nuages) dans la région euro-méditerranéenne. En plus de faire baisser le contenu en vapeur d'eau disponible, les aérosols stabilisent l’atmosphère en refroidissant davantage les basses couches de l’atmosphère par rapport aux couches supérieures. On étudie souvent la relation température-précipitations d’un climat donné dans le but de prédire l’évolution des précipitations dans un climat futur plus chaud. Cependant cette extrapolation suppose que la relation entre la température et les précipitations ne change pas entre le climat présent et le climat futur, une hypothèse qui s’avère fragile au vu de la sensibilité de cette relation au contenu en aérosols de l’atmosphère, mais aussi au vu du changement de la disponibilité en vapeur d’eau dans un climat futur. Au cours de cette thèse, nous avons ainsi montré que pour plusieurs stations côtières les projections dans le futur de plusieurs modèles de climat régionaux suggèrent que les précipitations extrêmes devraient augmenter proportionnellement à l’augmentation des températures selon la loi de CC. Un phénomène que nous n’avons pas pu observer pour des régions plus isolées de la mer et où l’afflux de vapeur d’eau serait moindre. / The study of the water cycle is of crucial importance for all societies and more particularly for those around the Mediterranean which suffer both from droughts in summer and floods due to extreme precipitation events occurring in the autumn and in winter. Temperature is one of the main factors that govern the maximum intensity of precipitation through the Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) relationship. This law expresses the maximum amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can contain at a given temperature. Using regional climate simulations and observations, we have shown that the temperature-precipitation extremes relationships of the Mediterranean basin have a hooked shape with an increase in extreme precipitation near CC at low temperatures and then a smaller increase (or even a decrease) at higher temperatures. Aerosols, which are present in large quantities around the Mediterranean, absorb and reflect part of the radiation, helping to cool the lower layers of the atmosphere. By their action on the surface temperature, aerosols reduce precipitation. The study of numerical simulations also shows a modification of the temperature-precipitation relationship by aerosols (their effect on clouds) in the Euro-Mediterranean region. In addition to the lowering the available water vapor content, aerosols stabilize the atmosphere by further cooling the lower layers of the atmosphere relatively to the upper layers. The temperature-precipitation relationship of a given climate is often studied in order to predict precipitation trends in a warmer future climate. However, this extrapolation assumes that the relationship between temperature and precipitation does not change between the present climate and the future climate, a hypothesis which proves to be fragile when looking at the sensitivity of this relationship to the aerosol content of the atmosphere, but also in view of the change in the availability of water vapor in a future climate. In this thesis, we have shown that for several coastal stations, projections in the future of several regional climate models suggest that extreme precipitation should increase in proportion to the temperature increases according to CC law. A phenomenon that we have not been able to observe for more isolated areas from the sea and where the influx of water vapor would be reduced.

Dans le domaine marin, des protocoles d’observation développés dans de nombreux cadres produisent un grand volume de données hétérogènes, difficiles à agréger et à utiliser. Ce travail propose i) des méthodes, protocoles et recommandations pour construire et/ou soutenir la mise en place de réseaux de suivis multi-usagers,) des utilisations novatrices des données.Deux cas d’étude ont été choisis : les habitats coralligènes à l’échelle de la Méditerranée et la colonisation de récifs artificiels dans différentes mers régionales.L’expérimentation à large échelle se base sur des méthodes de mesures les plus simples possibles, décrites très explicitement dans des termes standardisés, sur des opérateurs intercalibrés et une méthode de traitement des données. Un mécanisme de couplage de données de différentes origines reposant sur la requalification des facteurs descriptifs hétérogènes et une méthode d’analyse et de fouille de données basé sur la théorie des graphes sont proposées. / In the marine domain, observation protocols developed in many settings produce a large volume of heterogeneous data that are difficult to aggregate and use. This work proposes to develop i) methods, protocols and recommendations to build and / or support the establishment of multi-user monitoring networks, ii) innovative uses of data.Two case studies were chosen: coralligenous habitats at the Mediterranean scale and the colonisation of artificial reefs in different regional seas.Large-scale experimentation is based on the simplest possible measurement methods, described very explicitly in standardised terms, on intercalibrated operators and a method of data processing. A mechanism for coupling data from different origins based on the requalification of heterogeneous descriptive factors and a method for analysis and data mining based on graph theory is also proposed.

Comment et pourquoi étudie-t-on les Turcs dans l’Italie libérale ? Le travail porte sur la construction et les usages des savoirs sur le turc, les Turcs et l’Empire ottoman de l’Unité à la guerre italo-turque de 1911. Cette production est liée à trois phénomènes : l’édification de l’État italien, les transformations de l’Empire ottoman et le développement d’une turcologie savante en Europe et dans l’Empire. À rebours des approches internaliste et saidienne, il s’agit de « désorientaliser » ce savoir en examinant les dynamiques politiques, sociales, économiques et culturelles ayant contribué à son émergence, en partant des acteurs et des pratiques, dans une perspective transnationale. Il s’agit notamment de réintroduire les acteurs ottomans, dont le rôle est crucial. Quatre objets sont privilégiés : la langue, la culture, l’histoire et le territoire. La connaissance de la langue a d’abord une vocation pratique : former du personnel compétent et favoriser les échanges italo-ottomans. Elle présente aussi des enjeux scientifiques, patrimoniaux et politiques. On assiste ainsi à l’émergence d’une turcologie au sein de l’orientalisme savant, lui-même en cours de nationalisation. L’histoire ottomane sert à comprendre le passé italien, au moment où s’élaborent des histoires locales et une histoire nationale. La thèse s’interroge enfin sur l’expérience du terrain. La guerre coloniale de 1911 entraîne un réinvestissement de tous ces savoirs, organisés depuis le tournant du siècle en vue de l’expansion italienne. La turcologie ne contribue donc pas tant à forger une identité turque qu’à comprendre le voisin ottoman pour rendre à l’Italie sa place en Méditerranée. / How and why do we study the Turks in liberal Italy? This dissertation deals with the construction and uses of knowledge about the Turkish language, the Turks and the Ottoman Empire from the Italian Unification to the Italo-Turkish war of 19 11. This production is related to three phenomena: the edification of the Italian State, the transformations of the Ottoman Empire and the development of Turkology both in Europe and in the Empire. In opposition to the internalist and Saidian approaches, this study “de-orientalizes” this knowledge, by examining the political, social, economic and cultural dynamics, and starting from the actors and practices, in a transnational perspective. It aims in particular at reintroducing Ottoman actors, whose role is critical. We focus on four main topics: language, culture, history and territory. The knowledge of Turkish has practical purposes: training skilled staff and promoting Italo-Ottoman relationships; but it also has scientific, patrimonial and political goals. Turkology emerges from scholarly Orientalism, which is undergoing a process of nationalization. Ottomanist historiography has among its goals a better understanding of the Italian past, at a time of elaboration of national and local histories. Lastly, this work investigates fieldwork. The 1911 colonial war leads to a reinvestment of this knowledge, organized from the turn of the century in preparation for Italian expansion. Thus, Turkology contributes less to shape a Turkish identity than to understand the Ottoman neighbor in order to return Italy to its place in the Mediterranean.

In 1974 following the Cyprus Crisis, the bilateral alliance between Greece and the United States entered a new period. The bilateral relations, traditionally close since the emergence of the Cold War, faced a set of challenges. Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus and the collapse of the Greek dictatorship, which enjoyed close ties with Washington, gave rise to anti-Americanism in Greek society. Moreover, Washington’s inability to contain Turkish aggression frustrated the Greek government. In response to the invasion of Cyprus, Athens announced Greece’s withdrawal from NATO with the hope of securing the active involvement of the US and NATO in the Greek-Turkish dispute. These developments required readjustments to Greek-US policies and strategies to overcome obstacles and secure their objectives. Greece’s withdrawal from and return to NATO after six years, in October 1980, symbolises best this distinct period of Greek-US cooperation. The traditional historical narrative states that after 1974 the priorities of successive Greek governments were increasingly directed at managing the country’s accession to European Economic Community while developing closer cooperation with the Balkan states. The United States remained another significant ally of Greece. This thesis emphasises that the Greek governments between 1974 and 1980 regarded the United States as the single most important ally for the Greek national security policy. The Greek governments realised that only Washington could assist Greece with both Soviet and Turkish threats. Washington, meanwhile, prioritised retaining close ties with both Greece and Turkey and an eventual re-build of NATO’s Southern Flank. What is significant is that President Carter put aside his idealistic declarations made on the campaign trail and adopted fully Ford/Kissinger’s approach toward Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, i.e. the Eastern Mediterranean. Hence, the thesis underlines the element of continuity between the US administrations in the second half of 1970s. The thesis makes a significant contribution to Cold War scholarship regarding bilateral relations within the West during the era of détente. Scholars has largely overlooked the US’s relationships with Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus even though the Eastern Mediterranean region dominated the foreign policy agendas of both Ford and Carter administrations. This study argues that President Ford’s handling of relations with Greece was focused on crisis management rather than crisis solving. More significantly, although unrecognised at the time, President Carter’s relations with Greece were a significant success. Ford and Carter responded to the Eastern Mediterranean questions in ways that reflect significant continuities in their approaches. Ford and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger developed the concept of a ‘balanced approach’ towards Athens and Ankara in political, economic, and military terms that aimed at ensuring close ties with both. Carter followed the same policy concept. Carter succeeded in seeing Greece’s return to full NATO membership while resisting being dragged into the centre of Greek-NATO negotiations. During these years the Greek government also scored significant successes. Greek pressure ensured that Washington devoted equal attention to Greece and Turkey, a much more powerful regional power. Similarly, Greece received significant US economic aid while Turkey faced a strict US arms embargo. By 1980, however, the implications of the Iranian Revolution and the end of détente mandated that Turkey had to take precedence over Greece in the US’s policy considerations.

Le but de mon projet de recherche est de contribuer à l'histoire des relations politiques, géopolitiques et diplomatiques entre le Royaume de Naples et l'Empire russe de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle à l'unification de l'Italie. Aujourd'hui, il est possible d'analyser ce sujet à partir des nouvelles tendances historiographiques et de l'aborder dans une vision multipolaire et dynamique de l'histoire italienne et européenne. En approfondissant les relations entre ces deux États, il est possible de se concentrer sur la recherche des rapports entre des macro-zones (par exemple entre la Méditerranée et la Mer Noire, ou entre l'Europe Méditerranéenne et l'Europe Orientale) pour les considérer comme de véritables laboratoires d'identités et de liaisons politiques, sociales, économiques et culturelles qui ont eu une influence importante sur les institutions, les religions et les cultures dans les siècles. / This research aims to understand the perception of socio-cultural diversity in the context of diplomatic relations between European and non-European powers, which unfolded in the Mediterranean from the second half of the XVIII century to the early XIV century. Examining the relations between the Kingdom of Naples and the Russian Empire will give us the chance to study the relationships between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, as well as between Mediterranean Europe and Eastern Europe. It is interesting to compare these single regions within different contexts, since they represented complex attempts to create national identities, as well as political, social, economic, and cultural ties, which involved institutions, religions, and cultures over the centuries. Moreover, this research aims to contribute to the history of political, geopolitical, and diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of Naples and the Russian Empire.