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Раскинулось море широко: пути миграции художников-греков в XIII–XV вв. и их связь с развитием навигации
The present essay regards the interdependence between the migration of Greek artists to the locations on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black seas and the development of Genoese and Venetian navigation routes between the 13th and 15th centuries. It claims that relatively safe and fast sea travels facilitated the appearance of Byzantine, primarily Constantinopolitan, painters in the locations new for them and made old travel routes more accessible. The study looks at examples of Greek mural painting preserved in different locations and supplements them with the data found in written sources concerning the Byzantine immigrants. This way, it investigates the following migration destinations: Italian towns (Genova, Ferrara, Venice), Mediterranean islands (Crete, Cyprus), Italian colonies in the Black sea (Caffa), Georgian Kingdom, Rus, Dalmatian communities (Zadar, Dubrovnik, Kotor), and Balkan Slavic states (Serbia, Bulgaria, Wallachia). The increasing number of Byzantine émigré artists in these locations coincide with the development of new navigation routes by the Venetians and Genoese during the last centuries of Byzantium. However, in some cases (Dalmatia, Balkan states) the Italian sea transportation did not play an important role in the migration processes. In the rest of the cases, the Italian trade and navigation created more demand for the services of Byzantine artists. On the one hand, developed navigation made travelling cheaper and more reliable hence enabled locals to invite the Greeks more often and at fewer expenses. On the other hand, the trade of mobile objects produced by the Greek artists (icons, folds, crosses, painted fabrics) sparked interest in Byzantine art.