A Companion To Byzantine Illustrated Manuscripts

This volume offers an overview of Byzantine manuscript illustration, a central branch of Byzantine art and culture. Just like written texts, illustrations bear witness to Byzantine material culture, imperial ideology and religious beliefs, as well as to the development and spread of Byzantine art. In this sense illustrated books reflect the society that produced and used them. Being portable, they could serve as diplomatic gifts or could be acquired by foreigners. In such cases they became “emissaries” of Byzantine art and culture in Western Europe and the Arabic world. The volume provides for the first time a comprehensive overview of the material, divided by text categories, including both secular and religious manuscripts, and analyses which texts were illustrated in Byzantium, and how. Contributors are Justine M. Andrews, Leslie Brubaker, Annemarie W. Carr, Elina Dobrynina, Maria Evangelatou, Maria Laura Tomea Gavazzoli, Markos Giannoulis, Cecily Hennessy, Ioli Kalavrezou, Maja Kominko, Sofia Kotzabassi, Stavros Lazaris, Kallirroe Linardou, Vasileios Marinis, Kathleen Maxwell, Georgi R. Parpulov, Nancy P. Ševčenko, Jean-Michel Spieser, Mika Takiguchi, Courtney Tomaselli, Marina Toumpouri, Nicolette S. Trahoulia, Vasiliki Tsamakda, and Elisabeth Yota.

"This handbook offers a wide-ranging introduction to the richness and diversity of the arts in the Byzantine world. It includes thirty-eight essays by international authors, from prominent researchers to emerging scholars, on various issues and media. Discussions consider art created for religious purposes, to enhance and beautify the Orthodox liturgy and worship space, as well as art made to serve in royal and domestic contexts. While Byzantium is defined as the years 330-1453 CE, some chapters treat the aftermath and influence of Byzantine art on later periods. Arts covered include buildings and objects from the Eastern Mediterranean region, including the Balkans, Russia, North Africa, and the Near East. The volume brings together object-based considerations of themes and monuments which form the backbone of art history, with considerations drawing on many different methodologies-sociology, semiotics, anthropology, archaeology, reception theory, deconstruction theory, among others-all in an up-to-date synthesis of scholarship on Byzantine art and architecture. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture is a comprehensive overview of a rich field of study, offering a window into the world of this distinct and fascinating period of art"--

Of all the Old Testament books, the Book of Job remains acutely contemporary today. Written between the 6th and 3rd c. B.C., it deals with subjects such as the presence of evil in the world, the misery, the quest for justice, the faith, and the behavior of people when they face sudden twists and turns of life. It seems that the ancient text had been illustrated since the Early Christian period because of its fascinating novel-like narrative style. In her own study on the Book of Job, Stella Papadaki-Oekland probes into all the Byzantine illuminated manuscripts of the illustrated Greek text. The number of miniature illustrations included in these fifteen manuscripts, dating from the 9th to the 16th century, comes to more than 1800 of which 2/3 of the about 380 illustrated herein are previously unpublished manuscript images.The book is an unabridged version with minor changes of Papadaki-Oekland's Inaugural Dissertation at Heidelberg University (1979) and is published posthumously by her daughters, Helen-Aina and Astrid-Zoe -in homage to Byzantine Art. The fifteen Byzantine Illuminated Manuscript Illustrations of the Book of Job studied, illustrated and discussed are: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome: cod. Vat. gr. 749; cod. Vat. gr. 751; cod. Vat. gr. 1231 and cod. Vat. Pal. gr.230 - The Monastery of St. John the Theologian, Isle of Patmos: cod. Patmos 171 - Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venezia: cod. Marc. gr. 538 - Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai, Egypt: cod. Siena 3 - Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and All Palestine, Jerusalem: MS. Taphou 5 - Monastery of Vatopedi, Mount Athos: Vatopedi 590 - Monastery Magisti (Great) Lavra, Mount Athos: Lavra B100 - Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens: MS. 62 - Bodleian Library, Oxford: MS. Barocci 201 and MS. Laud gr. 86 - Bibliothegue nationale de France, Paris: MS. gr. 134 and MS. gr. 135 - National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg: MS gr. 382 (former folio of Taphou 5) The study of the Septuagint Book of Job in Byzantine tradition include comparative analysis of the interrelationship of the individual miniature cycles, their general arrangement and artistic character, the origin and development as well as its contents and significance in the literary and popular tradition. Finally, the six Comparative Tables presented at the end of the volume provide the reader for the first time a complete cross reference interrelationship between the individual 1800 images of the 15 manuscripts and Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton's English translation of the Septuagint Book of Job passages. Further examples of images discussed herein of early Christian Job representations include: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome, MS.Reg.gr.1 - known as the Bible of Queen Christina of Sweden; Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris, MS gr. 510, MS syr. 341-the Syriac Bible and MS.gr. 923- Sacra Parallela; Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III, Naples, Coptic MS IB 18, Catacomb of the Via Latina, Rome and the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Basilica di San Pietro, Rome. Furthermore, the book is of invaluable importance due to its methodological approach. As the leading art historian Hans Belting points out, the study of Stella Papadaki-Oekland calls in question Kurt Weitzmann's rigid theory about the process of the Byzantine illuminated manuscripts production. There's no doubt that, even though it was written a lot of years ago, this remains the most complete and comprehensive study about the Book of Job in Byzantine art

A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography offers the first comprehensive introduction and scholarly guide to the cultural practice and literary genre of letter-writing in the Byzantine Empire.

The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint features contributions from leading experts in the field considering the history and manuscript transmission of the version, and the study of translation technique and textual criticism.

This volume, the first ever of its kind in English, introduces and surveys Greek literature in Byzantium (330 - 1453 CE). In twenty-five chapters composed by leading specialists, The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature surveys the immense body of Greek literature produced from the fourth to the fifteenth century CE and advances a nuanced understanding of what "literature" was in Byzantium. This volume is structured in four sections. The first, "Materials, Norms, Codes," presents basic structures for understanding the history of Byzantine literature like language, manuscript book culture, theories of literature, and systems of textual memory. The second, "Forms," deals with the how Byzantine literature works: oral discourse and "text"; storytelling; rhetoric; re-writing; verse; and song. The third section ("Agents") focuses on the creators of Byzantine literature, both its producers and its recipients. The final section, entitled "Translation, Transmission, Edition," surveys the three main ways by which we access Byzantine Greek literature today: translations into other Byzantine languages during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages; Byzantine and post-Byzantine manuscripts; and modern printed editions. The volume concludes with an essay that offers a view of the recent past--as well as the likely future--of Byzantine literary studies.

The first comparative, cross-cultural study of medieval illustrated histories that engages in a direct, confrontational dialogue with Byzantine historical memory.