Profile

PD Dr. Armin Bergmeier

PD Dr. Armin Bergmeier

Research Fellow

Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte
Wünschmanns Hof
Dittrichring 18-20, Room 5/13
04109 Leipzig

Phone: +49 341 97 - 35557
Fax: +49 341 97 - 35559

Send email
Website

PD Dr. Armin Bergmeier

PD Dr. Armin Bergmeier

Stand-In Professor

Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte
Wünschmanns Hof
Dittrichring 18-20
04109 Leipzig

PD Dr. Armin Bergmeier

PD Dr. Armin Bergmeier

Institute Head

Institute of Art History
Wünschmanns Hof
Dittrichring 18-20
04109 Leipzig

Abstract

I study the material culture of the medieval Mediterranean and the Middle East with a focus on late antique, Byzantine, and Islamic art and architecture.

My dissertation examined representations of the divine during the transition from the Greco-Roman to the Christian world, focusing on visionary experiences in textual and visual sources.

My current research studies the Roman heritage in the Byzantine Empire, in Venice, and in Seljuk Anatolia through the lens of spolia (twelfth - thirteenth centuries). The project critically questions academia’s investment in strict categories of periods and cultures by focusing on the juncture of classical and late antique Roman artifacts and their post-classical reception in Islamic, Byzantine, and Western medieval contexts. I link the fragments from the past (spolia) to issues of identity formation across cultures we today often describe as discrete, thereby reshaping our understanding of the ownership of cultural heritage and of history.

Professional career

  • since 04/2024
  • since 04/2023
  • 10/2022 - 03/2023
  • since 04/2016
  • 10/2021 - 02/2022
  • 10/2019 - 03/2020
  • 01/2019 - 09/2019
  • 12/2015 - 03/2016
  • 10/2013 - 08/2014
  • 04/2013 - 09/2015
  • 04/2013
  • 04/2012 - 03/2016
  • 01/2012 - 02/2012

Education

  • 04/2023
  • 04/2011 - 07/2015
  • 09/2006 - 06/2007
  • 10/2003 - 04/2010
  • 06/2002

Panel Memberships

  • since 02/2024
  • since 04/2018
  • since 10/0216
  • since 09/2017
  • since 01/2022

  • Late Antiquity, Byzantium, Islam, and medieval Europe
  • Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean, Venice and Anatolia


  • Transcultural and global studies
  • Relationship between visual and textual sources
  • Time and history
  • Spolia, cultural heritage, and museum history


  • Seljuk and Ottoman architecture
  • Late antique and Byzantine hagiography
  • Medieval historiography
  • History of Byzantine studies

  • Museum Survey, Archaeological Museum Akşehir, Turkey
    Bergmeier, Armin
    Duration: 08/2023 – ongoing
    Involved organisational units of Leipzig University: Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte
    show details

more projects

  • Bergmeier, A.
    The Production of ex novo Spolia, and the Creation of History in Thirteenth-Century Venice
    Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz . 2020. 62 (2). pp. 126–157.
    show details
  • Griebeler, A. P.; Bergmeier, A. (Eds.)
    Moments of Encounter: Time and Presence in Art (ca. 200-1600 CE)
    Berlin: De Gruyter. 2022.
    ISBN: 9783110720693
    show details
  • Bergmeier, A.
    Antiquarian Displays of Spolia and Roman Identity: San Marco, Merbaka, and the Seljuk Caravanserais
    In: Jevtić, I.; Nilsson, I. (Eds.)
    Spoliation as Translation. Medieval Worlds in the Eastern Mediterranean. 2021. pp. 76–96.
    show details
  • Bergmeier, A.
    The Traditio Legis in Late Antiquity and its Afterlives in the Middle Ages
    Gesta. 2017. 56 (1). pp. 27–52.
    show details
  • Bergmeier, A. (Ed.)
    The Spoliated Past. Heritage, Antiquarianism, and Byzantine Material Culture Across Time and Space
    Mitteilungen zur Spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte. 2024. 9.
    show details

more publications

  • Andere herausragende Auszeichnungen: Hans-Janssen-Preis 2018
    Bergmeier, Armin (Institut für Kunstgeschichte)
    awarded in 2018 by Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.
    show details

more awards

  • Vortragsreihe
    Byzanz und der Westen: Kolloquium zur materiellen Kultur im Mittelalter
    Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte; Bibliotheca Albertina; Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas (GWZO)
    Event Organiser: Bergmeier, Armin; Tripps, Johannes; Heinrich-Tamáska, Orsolya
    13/12/2016 – 29/02/2020
    show details
  • Tagungssektion
    Natural Disasters, Sacred Time, and Eschatology in the Eastern Mediterranean, College Art Association Annual Conference (CAA), New York
    Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte
    Event Organiser: Bergmeier, Armin; Mostafa, Heba
    15/02/2017 – 18/02/2017
    show details
  • Tagunssektion
    Beyond Transfer and Revival: Narrative Creativity in Medieval Italian Mural Decoration (1000–1250), College Art Association Annual Conference (CAA), New York
    Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte
    Event Organiser: Bergmeier, Armin; Locke Perchuk, Alison
    03/03/2022
    show details
  • Roundtable
    Boundless Byzantium: Post-conquest Material Culture After the End of Byzantine Rule (25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies)
    Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte
    Event Organiser: Bergmeier, Armin
    14/08/2026
    show details
  • Sommerschule
    Internationale StiL-Sommerschule „Living in a Material World“: Understanding Artifacts Through Their Materiality
    Mittlere und Neuere Kunstgeschichte; Institut für Klassische Archäologie
    Event Organiser: Bergmeier, Armin; Lang, Jörn
    04/10/2020 – 10/10/2020
    show details

more events

  • A cultural history of breaks, transformations, and changes in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and Islam

  • Object-centered art history: 3D-models and material heritage

  • Sacred Spaces in Byzantium: Architecture and Topography