This first volume of Halicarnassian Studies contains the acts of a symposium held in Odense University 28th – 29th November 1991, to which scholars from Turkey, England, Sweden and Denmark contributed. The common theme was Ionian Renaissance, its different aspects in art and architecture, its place in art history and its relation to the ideology of the Hekatomnid dynasty.
The “Ionic Renaissance” is a well-known designation for the revival of Ionic architecture in Western Asia Minor in the fourth century B.C. In this book the subject is extended to include other fields of Hekatomnid culture as well, and the art, architecture and culture of this epoch is looked upon as a single entity. We have therefore preferred the designation the “Ionian Renaissance”.
Although the art and cultura of the Hakatomnids does form an integral part of the international cultural sphere of the Late Classical period, in which artists and cultural trends travelled freely, it nevertheless has its specific characteristics. The characteristics of the Ionian Renaissance were to a large extent determined by the personal ambitions and financial possibilities of the Hekatomnid family, but finally by its geographical location between East and West and its chronological place between the Classical world of the Greek citystates and the Hellenistic-Roman empires of kings and emperors.
The influence of this epoch on posterity has been considerable and very far-reaching. Through one of the admires of the Ionian Renaissance, the Roman architect Vitruvius, it has influenced architects of the later European Renaissance and Classicism.
