Ronchey, S. “La Realpolitik bizantina rispetto all'Occidente dall'XI al XV secolo.” Purificazione della memoria. Convegno storico (Arezzo, 4-11-18 March 2000). Arezzo: Diocesi di Arezzo-Cortona-Sansepolcro /Istituto di Scienze Religiose, 2000. 173-86.

Inspired by a debate between Fernand Braudel and Hélène Ahrweiler, this contribution analyses various elements of the Byzantine “Realpolitik” tradition to highlight its influence on the symbolic union between the Churches sealed at the Council of Florence in 1439.  The concession of commercial privileges to Venice in the famous golden bull issued by Alexius I was the first example of pro-Western Realpolitik inaugurated by the Comneni emperors. All the more audacious if one considers the Byzantine cultural resistance to trade, this act could not foresee, however, the brutality of mercantile proto-capitalism and ended up creating the premise for the Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204.  Likewise, it could be considered the basis for the Ottoman conquest in 1453, the second example of Byzantine Realpolitik, which saw Bessarion’s move to the unionist faction.  His strategic “about-face” (Kehre) and his Oratio dogmatica sive de unione (subject of a brief analysis of its doctrinal and theoretical connections to John Bekkos’ Epigraphai) led to the triumph of unionism. But, in the years that followed, the audacious and shrewd sacrifice of theological cause to political realism could do nothing to stop the destructive commercial war between Genoa and Venice that delivered Byzantium to the Ottomans.