The complexity of the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society of the
Eastern Mediterranean world asks for research on a wide variety of topics.
Three unique documents, preserved or produced in the West, reflect an
interest in this world: a Latin-Armenian list of words (Jos Weitenberg), a
Middle Dutch Song (Lied) of Antioch, possibly a daughter of
the French Chanson d'Antioch (Geert Claassens) and a late
sixteenth-century Ortelian map with a panorama of Antioch (Marita
Wijntjes). Laments on Antioch and Tripoli are discussed by Tamar Boyadjian
and Floris Sepmeijer, who made a new translation of the Arabic text of
Solomon of Ashluh. Numerous prophesies on the Fall of Tripoli were brought
together (Krijnie Ciggaar). Latins and Eastern Christians, occasionally
Mongols, met in the East (Felicitas Schmieder and Alan Murray). Western
and Eastern sponsors had their portraits painted in sanctuaries (Mat
Immerzeel). In his study, which reads as a detective, Yuri Pyatnicky
traces the fate of the two missing cloisonne enamels that once adorned the
book cover and the manuscript of the famous Vardzia Gospel.