Bisanzio reimmaginata: la percezione dell’Impero Bizantino nei fumetti

This paper examines the ways in which the Byzantine Empire is represented and reinterpreted in comics, considering the medium as a space of cultural mediation rather than a vehicle of popularization. Through a series of case studies – from Disney comics and the Franco-Belgian magazine Pilote to Greek, German, and Japanese productions – it explores how Byzantium is translated into visual-narrative language and adapted to ideological, pedagogical, and cultural contexts. The analysis shows that comics rarely aim at strict reconstruction; instead they employ selected images – such as mosaics, Hagia Sophia, or the urban walls of Constantinople – as semasiological markers capable of evoking a collective Byzantine imaginary. These visual elements function as narrative shortcuts that condense historical realities into accessible symbolic forms. Contemporary works reveal diverse narrative strategies ranging from didactic popularization to critical reinterpretation, in which Byzantium becomes a laboratory where memory, identity, ideology, and cultural imagination are constantly negotiated and reconfigured.