The library of Professor Paris Gounaridis

The library is estimated at approximately 1,500 items and was transferred to the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in 2019. It consists mainly of Byzantine history books. Topics of wider historical interest and a literature section are also included.

Paris Gounaridis (1947-2017) was a Byzantinist, Professor Emeritus of the University of Thessaly. He was born in Athens. He studied sociology and history in Paris. His teachers were N. Svoronos, E. Glykatzi-Ahrweiler, E. Antoniadis-Bibikou, J. Devisse, A Guillou, G. Balandier, P. Mercier. In 1984 he defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbone with honors under the professor E. Glykatzis-Ahrweiler. For his studies he received a grant from the Délegation Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique of the French state. From 1981 to 1999 he worked as a scientific associate at the National Research Foundation. He taught Byzantine History at the University of Crete and Cyprus, while in 1999 and 2007 he taught at the Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales. From 1999 he was a professor of Byzantine History at the University of Thessaly until 2014 where he retired. He was concerned with the research and interpretation of Byzantine texts and with the publication of archival material. He authored works concerning the Byzantine region and the economic and ideological history of Byzantium.