A Companion to Byzantine Illustrated Manuscripts

A Companion to Byzantine Illustrated Manuscripts

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 9004346236

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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.


The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture

Author: Ellen C. Schwartz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 665

ISBN-13: 0190277351

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"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"--


The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint

The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint

Author: Alison G. Salvesen

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 817

ISBN-13: 0199665710

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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.


The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature

Author: Stratis Papaioannou

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-05-18

Total Pages: 816

ISBN-13: 0199351775

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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.


A Companion to Byzantine Science

A Companion to Byzantine Science

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-01-13

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 9004414614

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Science in Byzantium has rarely been systematically explored. A first of its kind, this collection of essays highlights the disciplines, achievements, and contexts of Byzantine science across the eleven centuries of the Byzantine empire. After an introduction on science in Byzantium and the 21st century, and a study of Christianization and the teaching of science in Byzantium, it offers a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the scientific disciplines cultivated in Byzantium, from the exact to the natural sciences, medicine, polemology, and the occult sciences. The volume showcases the diversity and vivacity of the varied scientific endeavours in the Byzantine world across its long history, and aims to bring the field into broader conversations within Byzantine studies, medieval studies, and history of science. Contributors are Fabio Acerbi, Anne-Laurence Caudano, Gonzalo Andreotti Cruz, Katerina Ierodiakonou, Herve Inglebert, Stavros Lazaris, Divna Manolova, Maria K. Papathanassiou, Inmaculada Pérez Martín, Thomas Salmon, Ioannis Telelis, Anne Tihon, Alain Touwaide, Arnaud Zucker.


The Octateuchs

The Octateuchs

Author: John Lowden

Publisher: Penn State University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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Scholars have until now lacked a detailed study of the Octateuchs, a group of five illustrated Byzantine manuscripts that accompany the text of the first eight books of the Bible. Since the first historical studies of Early Christian and Byzantine art in the late nineteenth century, the Octateuchs have been considered important to hypotheses about the development of biblical illustration as well as to more detailed iconographic studies. John Lowden's study makes available much new information about the Octateuchs that includes a number of previously unpublished manuscript images and pages. Lowden examines the Octateuchs both individually and as a group, determining the relationships among them and offering many suggestions concerning the process of their creation. The author also covers topics ranging from antiquity to the Renaissance and takes up issues as diverse as the invention of illustration, the transmission of iconography, the role of archetypes and lost models, and the artist as copyist or inventor. His broader discussion includes individual works ranging from Dura Europos to the Sistine Chapel and art-historical constructs such as the Macedonian Renaissance. In addition, Lowden critically examines approaches to studies of such illustrations, specifically those of Kurt Weitzmann.


A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography

A Companion to Byzantine Epistolography

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-06-22

Total Pages: 543

ISBN-13: 900442461X

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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.


Isaac Komnenos Porphyrogennetos

Isaac Komnenos Porphyrogennetos

Author: Valeria Flavia Lovato

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-01

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1040121292

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Twelfth-century Byzantium is characterized by a striking artistic vitality and profound socio-political changes. The Constantinopolitan elites, led by the Komnenian dynasty initiated by Alexios I, were the driving force behind the renewed intellectual landscape and power dynamics of the century. Despite the wealth of studies devoted to the Komnenians, the sebastokrator Isaac (1093–after 1152) has received limited attention in modern scholarship. Yet, Isaac is a fascinating figure at the crossroads of different worlds. He was an intellectual, the author of the first running commentary on the Iliad ever written in Byzantium. He was a patron, sponsoring magnificent buildings and supporting artists in and outside the capital. He was a would-be usurper, attempting to seize the throne several times. He was a shrewd diplomat, forging alliances with Armenian, Turkish, and Latin rulers. Modern scholars have so far failed to see the interplay between Isaac’s multiple personae. Isaac the scholar is rarely brought into conversation with Isaac the usurper, Isaac the patron, or Isaac the world traveller. Bringing together experts from a range of disciplines, this book fills a significant gap in the literature. As the first comprehensive study of one of the protagonists of the Komnenian era, it is essential reading for students of the Byzantine Empire. In addition, the portrait of Isaac presented here provides scholars of pre-modern civilizations with a relevant case study. By exposing the permeability of the theoretical and geographical ‘borders’ we use to conceptualize the past, Isaac epitomizes the interconnectedness at the heart of the so-called Global Middle Ages.


The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Relations in the Byzantine World

The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Relations in the Byzantine World

Author: Przemysław Marciniak

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-12-03

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 1040157564

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Animals have recently become recognized as significant agents of history as part of the ‘animal turn’ in historical studies. Animals in Byzantium were human companions, a source of entertainment and food – it is small wonder that they made their way into literature and the visual arts. Moreover, humans defined themselves and their activities by referring to non-human animals, either by anthropomorphizing animals (as in the case of the Cat-Mice War) or by animalizing humans and their (un)wanted behaviours. The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Relations in the Byzantine World offers an in-depth survey of the relationships between humans and non-human animals in the Byzantine Empire. The contributions included in the volume address both material (zooarchaeology, animals as food, visual representations of animals) and immaterial (semiotics, philosophy) aspects of human-animal coexistence in chapters written by leading experts in their field. This book will appeal to students and scholars alike researching Byzantine social and cultural history, as well as those interested in the history of animals. This book marks an important step in the development of animal studies in Byzantium, filling a gap in the wider research on the history of human-animal relations in the Middle Ages.


Byzantine Religious Law in Medieval Italy

Byzantine Religious Law in Medieval Italy

Author: James Morton

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2021-03-04

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0198861141

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Byzantine Religious Law in Medieval Italy is a historical study of manuscripts containing Byzantine canon law produced after the Norman conquest of southern Italy, exploring how and why the Greek Christians of the region persisted in using them so long after the end of Byzantine rule.