Konstantinos Staikos
Konstantinos Staikos (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Στάικος; 1943 – 3 April 2023) was a Greek architect and book historian.[1][2][3][4][5] He was born in Athens. He studied interior architecture and design in Paris, and practiced in that field since the 1960s.
In the early 1970s Staikos took a serious interest in the history of Greek books during the period of the Greek diaspora (from the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 to about 1830). In his professional capacity he was commissioned to redesign and reorganize two historic libraries of the Christian world: those of the Monastery of St John on Patmos (founded in 1089), completed in 1989, and of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Phanar, Constantinople (dating from 353, soon after the city's official inauguration as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire), completed in 1993.
Towards the end of the 1980s Staikos embarked on a systematic study of the history of libraries in the countries of the Mediterranean Basin and the Near East, from earliest antiquity to the Renaissance (about 3000 BC to AD 1600). This took him to the most important monastic and secular libraries in Europe, to gather material about their founders and their history, to discover what could be learnt from ancient Greek and Latin and other early sources about the methods of book distribution, the book trade and book-collecting – from the papyrus roll to the codex and the printed book –, as well as the evolution of library architecture over those four and a half millennia.
Among his publications are The Great Libraries (2000), the five volume History of the Library in Western Civilization, Oak Knoll Press (2001-2013) and the Books and Ideas. The Library of Plato and of the Academy, Oak Knoll Press (2013). McNally has noted that "The Byzantine Empire role in book and library history deserves study for two reasons: first, it is of great importance to the Western cultural tradition, and second it serves as an important case study in its own right."[6] "Libraries were, Staikos reminds us, enmeshed in and thoroughly integrated into Roman life—at least at the top—in ways impossible in later ages. [7]
The Konstantinos Staikos' book collection was acquired by the Onassis Foundation in 2010 as perpetual property of the Greek Nation. The Konstantinos Staikos' book collection was renamed "Hellenic Library of the Onassis Foundation" and is housed in the neoclassical building at 56 Amalias Avenue Plaka, Athens, Greece.
Staikos died in Athens on 3 April 2023, at the age of 80.[8]
Works
- The Great Libraries: From the Antiquities to the Renaissance, New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2000.
- The History of the Library in Western Civilization, translated by Timothy Cullen, New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2004-2013 (six volumes: 1. From Minos to Cleopatra; 2. From Cicero to Hadrian; 3. From Constantine the Great to cardinal Bessarion; 4. From Cassiodorus to Furnival: classical and Christian letters, schools and libraries in the monasteries and universities, Western book centres; 5. From Petrarch to Michelangelo: the revival of the study of the classics and the first humanistic libraries printing in the service of the world of books and monumental libraries; 6. Epilogue and General Index).
- Books and Ideas: The Library of Plato and the Academy, New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2013.
- Testimonies of Platonic Tradition. From the 4th BCE to the 16th Century, New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2015.
- Mouseion and the Library of the Ptolemies in Alexandria: Alexander the Great's Vision of a Universal Intellectual Centre, New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2021.
References
- ^ "Αω | Ενημερωτικο Δελτιο | Συνδεσμοσ Υποτροφων Κοινωφελουσ Ιδρυματοσ Αλεξανδροσ Σ. Ωνασησ". Onassis.gr. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ^ Αργυρω Μποζωνη. "Ο Κωνσταντίνος Στάικος μας παρουσιάζει το Travelogues gr. | SHOWTIME | ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΣ | Θέματα | LiFO". Lifo.gr. Archived from the original on 23 September 2014. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ^ Κουζέλη Λαμπρινή (18 January 2011). "Η ιστορία του ελληνικού βιβλίου στο Ιnternet - πολιτισμός - Το Βήμα Online". Tovima.gr. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ^ "Ὁ ἱστορικὸς βιβλίου Κωνσταντῖνος Στάικος". YouTube.com. 2 June 2012. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ^ "Αω | Ενημερωτικο Δελτιο | Συνδεσμοσ Υποτροφων Κοινωφελουσ Ιδρυματοσ Αλεξανδροσ Σ. Ωνασησ". Onassis.gr. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ^ McNally, Peter F. “The History of the Library in Western Civilization. Vol. 3, From Constantine the Great to Cardinal Bessarion, by Konstantinos Sp. Staikos.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 46.1 (2008)
- ^ Ryan, Michael. “Staikos, Konstantinos. The History of the Library in Western Civilization—Volume II: From Cicero to Hadrian." College & Research Libraries 68.2 (2007): 203–205.
- ^ Newsroom. "Έφυγε από τη ζωή ο αρχιτέκτονας και ιστορικός του βιβλίου, Κωνσταντίνος Σπ. Στάικος". www.kathimerini.gr. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
- Articles with short description
- Short description is different from Wikidata
- Use dmy dates from April 2023
- Articles containing Greek-language text
- Articles with ISNI identifiers
- Articles with VIAF identifiers
- Articles with WorldCat Entities identifiers
- Articles with BIBSYS identifiers
- Articles with BNE identifiers
- Articles with BNF identifiers
- Articles with BNFdata identifiers
- Articles with GND identifiers
- Articles with ICCU identifiers
- Articles with J9U identifiers
- Articles with KBR identifiers
- Articles with LCCN identifiers
- Articles with Libris identifiers
- Articles with LNB identifiers
- Articles with NKC identifiers
- Articles with NLA identifiers
- Articles with NLG identifiers
- Articles with NSK identifiers
- Articles with NTA identifiers
- Articles with PLWABN identifiers
- Articles with PortugalA identifiers
- Articles with VcBA identifiers
- Articles with CINII identifiers
- Articles with SUDOC identifiers
- 1943 births
- 2023 deaths
- Architects from Athens
- 20th-century Greek historians
- 21st-century Greek historians
- Historians of libraries