Trebizond, that long-anticipated city of the Komnenians with its soft and melodious name to quote Jakob Fallmerayer, has long lured scholars, attracted by its unique combination of Byzantine familiarity and Anatolian foreignness. From 1204 to 1461 the city was at the heart of an empire that proudly proclaimed its inheritance of Byzantine power, but simultaneously stood apart from it; a Greek Emirate surrounded by Turkish and Caucasian states.
Focusing on the church of Hagia Sophia in ...