Michalis Olympios

STUDIES
-2005-10: PhD in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London).
-2004-05: MA in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London).
-1999-2003: BA in History and Archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
TEACHING
-2020- : Associate Professor in the History of Western Art at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Cyprus.
-2015-20: Assistant Professor in the History of Western Art at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Cyprus.
-2011-15: Lecturer in the History of Western Art at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Cyprus.
-2007/08: Special Scientist at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Cyprus.
In his teaching career at UCY, he has thus far offered the following courses:
Undergraduate modules
-ΑRC 150: Introduction to the History of Western Art (4th-18th C.)
-ΑRC 151: The Great Renaissance Masters
-ΑRC 200: Art in Renaissance Italy
-ΑRC 233: Art, Politics and Courtly Culture in Renaissance Italy
-ΑRC 235: Early Netherlandish Painting (15th-16th C.)
-ΑRC 237: Gothic Sculpture (12th-13th C.)
-ΑRC 238: Gothic Architecture (c. 1130-1380)
-ΑRC 275: Romanesque Art (11th-12th C.)
-ARC 332: El Greco: The Man and His Times
-ΑRC 362: Architecture and Identity in the Latin East (12th-17th C.)
-ARC 363: Art in Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus (1192-1571)
-ΑRC 151: The Great Renaissance Masters
-ΑRC 200: Art in Renaissance Italy
-ΑRC 233: Art, Politics and Courtly Culture in Renaissance Italy
-ΑRC 235: Early Netherlandish Painting (15th-16th C.)
-ΑRC 237: Gothic Sculpture (12th-13th C.)
-ΑRC 238: Gothic Architecture (c. 1130-1380)
-ΑRC 275: Romanesque Art (11th-12th C.)
-ARC 332: El Greco: The Man and His Times
-ΑRC 362: Architecture and Identity in the Latin East (12th-17th C.)
-ARC 363: Art in Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus (1192-1571)
Postgraduate modules
-ARC 549: Art and Identity at the Time of the Crusades
-ΑRC 584: Art in Medieval Cyprus during the Period of Latin Rule
-ΑRC 584: Art in Medieval Cyprus during the Period of Latin Rule
-ARC 652: Introduction to Building Archaeology
-ΑRC 658: Urban Archaeology
-ΑRC 658: Urban Archaeology
Medieval art and architecture in Europe. His current research focuses on Gothic architecture and sculpture in France and the Latin East. More specific interests include the history of Gothic church building, the uses of space in medieval ecclesiastical edifices, as well as the interplay of ritual, architectural form and 'sacred topography'.
Funded Research Projects
-2017-19: ‘Articulating Greek Visual Identity in the “Long” Middle Ages: An Ecclesiastical, Social and Architectural History of the Bedestan in Nicosia’, funded by the A. G. Leventis Foundation, for which I served as Principal Investigator.
-2011-16: ‘The Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame at Saint-Omer: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Its History, Architecture and Art’, partly funded by the University of Cyprus and co-directed with Dr Delphine Hanquiez (Université d’Artois).
-2005- : ‘A Cistercian Nunnery in the Latin East: The History and Archaeology of St Theodore Abbey, Nicosia, Cyprus’, intermittently funded by both the University of Cyprus and the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. Co-directed with Eftychia Zachariou (Department of Antiquities) and Prof. Christopher Schabel (University of Cyprus). My involvement began in 2011.
Research Fellowships and Other Honours
-2023-26: Associate of the International Center of Medieval Art.
-2018, September-December: Guest Scholar at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
-2015-17: Member of the international research seminar Art of the Crusades: A Re-Evaluation, organised by SOAS (University of London) and funded by the Getty Foundation as part of its ‘Connecting Art Histories’ scheme.
-2012-14: Visiting Research Associate at the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London.
BOOKS
Monograph
Building the Sacred in a Crusader Kingdom: Gothic Church Architecture in Lusignan Cyprus, c. 1209-c. 1373, Architectura Medii Aevi 11 (Turnhout, 2018).
Edited Volumes
The Art and Archaeology of Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus (1192-1571): Recent Research and New Discoveries, co-edited with M. Parani, Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages 12 (Turnhout, 2019).
Ten volumes in Brepols’ ‘Mediterranean Nexus 1100-1700: Conflict, Influence and Inspiration in the Mediterranean Area’ series (as member of the editorial board): Crusading, Society, and Politics in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of King Peter I of Cyprus, eds A. D. Beihammer and A. Nicolaou-Konnari (Turnhout, 2022); L. Voisin, Les monastères grecs sous domination latine (XIIIe-XVIe siècles): Comme un loup poursuivant un mouton (Turnhout, 2021); Famagusta, Volume II: History and Society, eds G. Grivaud, A. Nicolaou-Konnari and C. Schabel (Turnhout, 2020); Comparing Two Italies: Civic Tradition, Trade Networks, Family Relationships between the Italy of Communes and the Kingdom of Sicily, eds P. Mainoni and N.L. Barile (Turnhout, 2020); A. Bikard, La Renaissance italienne dans les rues du Ghetto: L'oeuvre poétique yiddish d'Elia Lévita (1469-1549) (Turnhout, 2020); Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 1000-1500 CE), eds R. Amitai and Ch. Cluse (Turnhout, 2017); Trent and Beyond: The Council, Other Powers, Other Cultures, eds M. Catto and A. Prosperi (Turnhout, 2017); Bullarium Hellenicum: Pope Honorius III’s Letters to Frankish Greece and Constantinople, eds W. O. Duba and Ch. Schabel (Turnhout, 2015); Famagusta: Art and Architecture, ed. A. Weyl Carr (Turnhout, 2014); Cyprus and the Renaissance (1450-1650), eds B. Arbel, E. Chayes and H. Hendrix (Turnhout, 2012).
ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS IN PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS AND VOLUMES OF COLLECTED ESSAYS
'Rereading Authorship at Saint-Urbain, Troyes', Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 86/4 (2023), 433-76.
'The Wise and Foolish Virgins of Nicosia Cathedral', Source: Notes in the History of Art 42/3 (2023), 159-69.
'When Venus Met Godfrey: The Evocation of Gothic Antiquity in the Architecture of Venetian Cyprus', in Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture, eds A. I. Sullivan and K. G. Sweeney, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art 16 (Leiden and Boston, 2023), 314-45.
'Angevin and Lusignan Visual Claims to the Crown of Jerusalem: Parallel Lives?', in Crusading, Society, and Politics in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of King Peter I of Cyprus, eds A. D. Beihammer and A. Nicolaou-Konnari, Mediterranean Nexus 1100-1700 10 (Turnhout, 2022), 157-73.
'Architecture, Use of Space, and Ornament in the Mendicant Churches of Latin Greece: An Overview', in Intercultural Encounters in Medieval Greece after 1204: The Evidence of Art and Material Culture, eds V. Foskolou and S. Kalopissi-Verti, Byzantioς 19 (Turnhout, 2022), 45-76.
'Architecture, Sculpture, and Apostolate at the Dominican Church of Negroponte', Frankokratia 3/1 (2022), 67-120.
'Towards a History of Thirteenth-Century Gothic in the Latin East', in Settlement and Crusade in the Thirteenth Century: Multidisciplinary Studies of the Latin East, eds G. Fishhof, J. Bronstein and V. R. Shotten-Hallel, Crusades - Subsidia 15 (Abingdon and New York, 2021), 141-55.
‘Architecture and Liturgy in the East End of Saint-Urbain, Troyes’, The Burlington Magazine 163 (2021), 332-43.
‘Gothic for All: From Macro- to Microarchitecture across Religious Boundaries in Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus’, in Crusading and Archaeology: Some Archaeological Approaches to the Crusades, eds V. R. Shotten-Hallel and R. Weetch, Crusades - Subsidia 14 (London and New York, 2020), 153-82.
(Co-authored with Chris Schabel) ‘The Cistercian Abbeys of Zaraka and Isova in the Principality of Achaia’, Frankokratia 1/1-2 (2020), 165-79.
‘“Fino al tempo delli Re di Cipro”: Retro-Gothic and Nostalgic Identities in Venetian Cyprus’, in Ἐν Σοφίᾳ μαθητεύσαντες: Essays in Byzantine Material Culture and Society in Honour of Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, eds C. Diamanti and A. Vassiliou in collaboration with S. Arvaniti (Oxford, 2019), 48-63.
‘A Tomb for All Seasons: The Cenotaph of Saint Audomarus at Saint-Omer and the Performative Mutability of Art in the Late Middle Ages’, Viator 49/1 (2018), 199-240.
‘The Romanesque as Relic: Architecture and Institutional Memory at the Collegiate Church of Saint-Omer’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 77 (2018), 10-28.
‘Courtly Splendours: Hugh IV’s Bellapais Abbey and the English Decorated Style’, in Decorated Revisited: English Architectural Style in Context, 1250-1400, ed. J. Munns, Architectura Medii Aevi 9 (Turnhout, 2017), 173-96.
‘Treacherous Taxonomy: Art in Venetian Crete around 1500 and the “Cretan Renaissance”’, Art Bulletin 98 (2016), 415-35.
‘The Shifting Mantle of Jerusalem: Ecclesiastical Architecture in Lusignan Famagusta’, in Famagusta: Art and Architecture, ed. A. Weyl Carr, Mediterranean Nexus 1100-1700 2 (Turnhout, 2014), 75-142.
‘Saint George of the Greeks and Its Legacy: A Facet of Urban Greek Church Architecture in Lusignan Cyprus’, in Famagusta: Art and Architecture, ed. A. Weyl Carr, Mediterranean Nexus 1100-1700 2 (Turnhout, 2014), 143-202.
‘Reminiscing about the Crusader Levant: Royal Architecture and Memory in Lusignan Cyprus’, in Representations of Power at the Mediterranean Borders of Europe (12th-14th C.), eds I. Baumgärtner, M. Vagnoni and M. Welton, MediEvi Series 6 (Florence, 2014), 127-46.
‘Institutional Identities in Late Medieval Cyprus: The Case of Nicosia Cathedral’, in Identity / Identities in Late Medieval Cyprus, eds T. Papacostas and G. Saint-Guillain, (Nicosia, 2014), 195-240.
‘Stripped from the Altar, Recycled, Forgotten: The Altarpiece in Lusignan Cyprus’, Gesta 53/1 (2014), 47-72.
‘Shared Devotions: Non-Latin Responses to Latin Sainthood in Late Medieval Cyprus’, Journal of Medieval History 39/3 (2013), 321-41.
‘Between St Bernard and St Francis: A Reassessment of the Excavated Church of Beaulieu Abbey, Nicosia’, Architectural History 55 (2012), 25-55.
‘Networks of Contact in the Architecture of the Latin East: The Carmelite Church in Famagusta, Cyprus and the Cathedral of Rhodes’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 162 (2009), 29-66.
‘Foliate Encounters of the Jerusalem Kind: Form and Meaning in the Architecture of the North Chapel of Nicosia Cathedral’, in Art & Nature: Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture, eds L. Cleaver, K. Gerry and J. Harris, immediations Conference Papers I (London, 2009), 52-67.
ARTICLES, CHAPTERS AND CATALOGUE ENTRIES IN NON-PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS AND BOOKS
‘Γοτθική τέχνη στη Λευκωσία των Λουζινιανών‘ [Gothic Art in Lusignan Nicosia], in Μεσαιωνική Λευκωσία: Πρωτεύουσα ώσμωσης Ανατολής και Δύσης, ed. D. Papanikola-Bakirtzi (Nicosia, 2020), 120-35 (English summary on p. 274).
‘Building Techniques in Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus (1192-1571 CE)’, in The History of Construction in Cyprus from Prehistory to the 21st Century, ed. Euphrosyne Rizopoulou-Egoumenidou and Petroula Hadjittofi (Athens, 2019), 162-85.
‘Gothic in the Latin East’, in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, Second Edition, ed. C. Rudolph, Wiley Blackwell Companions to Art History 14 (Hoboken, NJ and Chichester, 2019), 729-58.
(Co-authored with Delphine Hanquiez) ‘Le déroulement du chantier de construction du chœur et du transept sud de la collégiale Notre-Dame de Saint-Omer’, in Sculpture gothique aux confins septentrionaux du royaume de France, eds L. Nys and B. Van den Bossche, Revue du Nord, Hors série – Collection Art et Archéologie 25 (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2017), 77-89.
‘Rummaging through Ruins: Architecture in Limassol in the Lusignan and Venetian Periods’, in Lemesos: A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest, eds A. Nicolaou-Konnari and Ch. Schabel (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2015), 362-500.
‘Resting in Pieces: Gothic Architecture in Cyprus in the Long Fifteenth Century’, in Medieval Cyprus: A Place of Cultural Encounter, eds S. Rogge and M. Grünbart, Schriften des Instituts für Interdisziplinäre Zypern-Studien 11 (Münster, 2015), 309-53.
‘Amanieu Son of Bernard, Count of Astarac, croisé manqué? Deconstructing the Myth of an Eighteenth-Century Crusader’, in Deeds Done Beyond the Sea: Essays on William of Tyre, Cyprus and the Military Orders presented to Peter Edbury, eds S. B. Edgington and H. J. Nicholson, Crusades – Subsidia 6 (Farnham and Burlington, VT, 2014), 145-53.
‘Looking Anew at the Curvilinear Tracery of the Bellapais Abbey Cloister’, in France de Chypre, ed. G. Grivaud, publ. in Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 43 (2013), 405-22.
Entries in the catalogue of the exhibition Chypre entre Byzance et l’Occident IVe-XVIe siècle, eds J. Durand and D. Giovannoni (Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2012), 230-31 (‘No. 103. Chapiteau de portail’), 239 (‘No. 112. Fragment de colonne à chapiteau’).
‘Δυο Ούγγροι επίσκοποι στη μεσαιωνική Πάφο’ [‘Two Hungarian Bishops in Medieval Paphos’], in Ουγγαρία – Κύπρος: από τις Σταυροφορίες στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση [Hungary – Cyprus: From the Crusades to the European Union], eds G. Georgis and G. Kazamias (Nicosia, 2011), 32-43.
‘The Franciscan Convent of Famagusta and Its Place within the Context of Cypriot Gothic Architecture’, Κυπριακαί Σπουδαί 73 (2009), 103-22.
EDITORSHIP OF INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARLY JOURNAL
Co-editor (with Chris Schabel) of Frankokratia: A Journal for the Study of Greek Lands under Latin Rule (published with Brill from 2020).