A journey of men and names : Constantinople's Kosmidion and its Italian replicas

Abstract

This paper illustrates what can be termed the "journey of a name," one of the many kinds of cultural and material transmission that occurred between early Byzantine Constantinople and the major centers of the province of Italy, which had been taken back from their captors by Justinian's armies in the fourth and fifth decades of the sixth century. In fact, the monastery of Cosmas and Damian in Constantinople offers a particularly apt case study, as its name was given to three newly founded ecclesiastical establishments in Italy. The latter seem to have had no specific connection with what was claimed as their motherhouse. The name could simply be among the most distinct reflections of a sort of traveling memory.