Kurt Weitzmann on Athos. Aspects of a Scholarly Microhistoriography

Kurt Weitzmann (1904–1993) emigrated from Germany to Princeton in 1935, where he served as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (1935–1972) and as a professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology (1945–1972). He left behind an enormous legacy in the field of art history, pioneering research into medieval ivories, Byzantine manuscript miniatures, and the icons of the Monastery of Sinai. The paper focuses on a previously overlooked area of Weitzmann’s scholarship, namely his expeditions to the monasteries of Mount Athos; during five research missions (1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, and 1951), Weitzmann compiled an extensive visual record, photographing hundreds of manuscript miniatures, and documenting his observations in numerous notebooks. My research at Princeton spanned the Visual Resources of the Department of Art and Archaeology, the Mudd Library, and the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, where I examined microfilms, notebooks, and administrative records concerning the funding of his expeditions. By contextualizing Kurt Weitzmann’s contributions within contemporary Athonite historiography, I will try to shed light on his Athonite studies in two ways: first, through a purely historiographical lens concerning the research desiderata of a leading Byzantinist; and second, through an “Athonite Anthropology” perspective, investigating the motivations, interpersonal dynamics, and practical difficulties of approaching the Orthodox monastic world.