UNIVERSITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE

On February 27, 425 AD, the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II, at the urging of his wife, Aelia Eudocia, founded the University of Constantinople under the name of Pandidakterion. The school welcomed 31 teachers for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, and rhetoric, and most classes were taught both in Greek and Latin. In 849, Bardas, Michael III's regent, reorganized the school and officially recognized the institution with the title of "University". Some scholars thus consider the Pandidakterion to be the first university in the world; this idea, however, is often disputed due to the original use of the term "universitas" itself, which was first used by western universities - thus creating its definition in the corporative structure of students and masters that characterized them. Due to its different structure, therefore, the University of Constantinople wouldn't number among European universities. The University stood until the fall of Constantinople in 1454.

Illumination from the manuscript "Madrid Skylitzes", ms. Graecus Vitr. 26-2, f. 134r, 12th century, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid.

The Synopsis of Histories (Σύνοψις Ἱστοριῶν) by John Skylitzes, commonly known as "Madrid Skylitzes" from its current location, is the only surviving illustrated manuscript of a Greek chronicle. Starting from the reign of the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I in 811, the manuscript narrates up until the deposition of Michael IV in 1057.

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