Florin Leonte is Assistant Professor at Palacký University of Olomouc, Czech Republic, teaching in the Departments of Classics and History since 2017. Previously, he taught at Harvard University (2013–2015) and the Central European University (2009). He has held several research positions at Dumbarton Oaks Research Center, Washington DC; Villa I Tatti, Research Center, Florence; and the New Europe College in Bucharest. His first monograph titled Imperial Visions of Late Byzantium Manuel II Palaiologos and Rhetoric in Purple was published in 2020. Leonte’s research primarily focuses on Byzantine rhetoric and society in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.

• Introduction / 1. Chapter One. Late Byzantine Court Ethos: Contemplation and Action / 2. Chapter Two. Epideictic Logos: Between Idealism and Pragmatism / 3. Chapter Three. Encomiastic Perspectives at Work: Space and Territory in Isidore’s Encomium for John VIII Palaiologos / 4 Chapter Four. Beyond Praise: Didacticism and Epideictic Discourse in Joseph Bryennios’ Forty-Nine Chapters (c. 1402) / Conclusion / Appendix / Bibliography

Florin Leonte is Assistant Professor at Palacký University of Olomouc, Czech Republic, teaching in the Departments of Classics and History since 2017. Previously, he taught at Harvard University (2013–2015) and the Central European University (2009). He has held several research positions at Dumbarton Oaks Research Center, Washington DC; Villa I Tatti, Research Center, Florence; and the New Europe College in Bucharest. His first monograph titled Imperial Visions of Late Byzantium Manuel II Palaiologos and Rhetoric in Purple was published in 2020. Leonte’s research primarily focuses on Byzantine rhetoric and society in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.

• Introduction / 1. Chapter One. Late Byzantine Court Ethos: Contemplation and Action / 2. Chapter Two. Epideictic Logos: Between Idealism and Pragmatism / 3. Chapter Three. Encomiastic Perspectives at Work: Space and Territory in Isidore’s Encomium for John VIII Palaiologos / 4 Chapter Four. Beyond Praise: Didacticism and Epideictic Discourse in Joseph Bryennios’ Forty-Nine Chapters (c. 1402) / Conclusion / Appendix / Bibliography

Florin Leonte is Assistant Professor at Palacký University of Olomouc, Czech Republic, teaching in the Departments of Classics and History since 2017. Previously, he taught at Harvard University (2013–2015) and the Central European University (2009). He has held several research positions at Dumbarton Oaks Research Center, Washington DC; Villa I Tatti, Research Center, Florence; and the New Europe College in Bucharest. His first monograph titled Imperial Visions of Late Byzantium Manuel II Palaiologos and Rhetoric in Purple was published in 2020. Leonte’s research primarily focuses on Byzantine rhetoric and society in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.

• Introduction / 1. Chapter One. Late Byzantine Court Ethos: Contemplation and Action / 2. Chapter Two. Epideictic Logos: Between Idealism and Pragmatism / 3. Chapter Three. Encomiastic Perspectives at Work: Space and Territory in Isidore’s Encomium for John VIII Palaiologos / 4 Chapter Four. Beyond Praise: Didacticism and Epideictic Discourse in Joseph Bryennios’ Forty-Nine Chapters (c. 1402) / Conclusion / Appendix / Bibliography