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.
Vasiliki Tsamakda, Ph.D. (2001), University of Heidelberg, is Professor of Christian Archaeology and Byzantine Art History at the University of Mainz. Her research focuses on the study of Byzantine manuscript illumination, wall paintings and the relationship between East and West.
"L’ouvrage sera une référence utile à tous ceux qui s’intéressent aux manuscrits byzantins tant par la documentation réunie que par leur interprétation". Revue des Études Byzantines 77, 2019, p. 313-421.
Scholars and students interested in book illumination, Byzantine art history, palaeography, text and image transmission and cross-cultural relationships.